Tag: Bil’in

Jayyous students to Dubai: boycott settlement-builder Leviev

On May 27, 2008, representatives from Adalah-NY and Jews Against the Occupation (JATO) met with representatives from the United Arab Emirates UN Mission in Manhattan. They presented the UAE representatives with a letter from students from the West Bank village of Jayyous calling on the people of Dubai to boycott Israeli billionaire and settlement-builder Lev Leviev. In mid-April, Leviev announced that he would open two jewelry stores in Dubai. Adalah-NY then called on Dubai to boycott Leviev because of his businesses’ involvement in human right abuses and violations of international law in Palestine, Angola and New York City. Leviev’s companies have built settlement homes in Jayyous, in Bil’in, in Har Homa on Jabel abu Ghneim, and in Maale Adumim. On April 30, Ali Ebrahim, Deputy Director General for Executive Affairs in Dubai, was quoted in “Gulf News” saying that authorities had “not granted a trade license to any business of this name” and would not approve the application should one be made. Ebrahim “added that Israeli businesses would be prevented from operating in Dubai through non-Israeli partners.” In the May 27 meeting, Adalah-NY and JATO also gave the UAE representatives photos showing that Leviev’s jewelry is being advertised and sold by his Palestinian/Moroccan partner Arif Ben Khadra in his “Levant” stores in Dubai (http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/05/97529.html), and asked the UAE to heed the Jayyous students’ boycott call below and enforce their government’s boycott pledge.

We, high school students of English in the Israeli-occupied West Bank village of Jayyous, declare our complete opposition to the Israeli businessman Mr. Lev Leviev who is destroying our olive groves that have sustained our village for centuries. Many of our families are not allowed permits by the Israeli occupying forces to work our own lands that Israel’s Wall is stealing for Mr. Leviev so he may expand his settlement “Zufim” onto our village’s farmlands.

We hear that the government of the United Arab Emirates has stopped Mr. Leviev from opening his diamond stores in Dubai Emirate. We ask the government and the people of Dubai to prevent the sale to customers in Dubai of “Leviev’s rocks of apartheid,” which will be used by Mr. Leviev to build more settlements on Jayyous’ lands.

How do we describe to the world what our life is like in occupied Jayyous in Palestine? The sadness in the eyes of our neighbors, whose only farmlands have been confiscated to build a settlement financed by Mr. Lev Leviev; the exhaustion that results when every daily action requires an extraordinary effort and when despair fights for a place on our people’s faces, as they carry their bags and babies through checkpoints, passing soldiers and tanks.

On rainy days the water swells around our feet while we are going to our schools in Jayyous and Qalqilia. On the other hand, Israeli soldiers stand in shelters and never seem to get wet under their helmets and uniforms. They pull us out of our cars and line us up facing the wall. They sometimes make us sit in the dirt or in the rain, or under the hot sun while they chat on their mobile phones, joke with their friends, eat, smoke, and insult us with their words and their actions.

How do we explain how it feels when the wind blows and fill our noses with dust, and with the smell of sewage and garbage? Everyday, we feel more insecure, as curfews prevent pregnant women from giving birth in hospitals, and stop ambulances in their tracks, forcing some families to live with the decaying corpses of their family members for days.

What has increased our feeling of insecurity as students is the growing number of school days missed, the invasion and closure of the schools by Israeli forces, the number of teachers who cannot get to work, and the number of Palestinian prisoners who are without adequate food, water, sanitation, trials and family visits. These provocative practices that we grew up with in Jayyous have created many psychological problems for us. We think often of our fellow students who cannot afford to go to universities, students made poor because their families can no longer work on their farms because those lands are now isolated behind the “separation wall” where Mr. Leviev’s bulldozers destroy our grandfathers’ trees.

We think about the flood of indignities at the checkpoints. All our dreams for the future have been negatively affected and it’s becoming too challenging to fulfill them. As students we always dream of preparing for the future, but unfortunately many obstacles, such as curfews, Walls, closures, and unpredictable checkpoints are preventing their realization.

We hope for all students to live in peace, justice, freedom and love. Every Leviev diamond bought in Dubai pays for our oppression and dispossession. Give our proud village the chance to feed itself and grow again — boycott Mr. Lev Leviev, in Dubai and all over the world.

Update: Ashraf Abu Rahme released, but remains under house arrest

UPDATE: Ashraf Abu Rahme was released from Israeli enforced detention yesterday (3rd June) after 8000 NIS bail was paid on behalf of him, yet he remains under house arrest.

On Monday 26th May, Israeli settlers from the Matityahu East settlement, protected by the Israeli army, started construction work looking to expand their settlement further onto the village of Bil’in’s land. Bil’in residents, joined by international and Israeli activists, attempted to block this construction. Ashraf Abu Rahme of Bil’in known to many as Dabaa, managed to scale one of the settler cranes, holding a Palestinian flag. He remained there and succeeded in stopping the work for six hours before being forced down and arrested by Israeli police.


Photo from IMEMC

Ashraf has been transferred to a military facility. In Israel’s military system Palestinians can be held for 8 days before a military judge approves prolonging their detention. (Israelis on the other hand can only be heals for 24 hours before being brought in front of a judge.)

Despite the fact that Despite the the first Phase of the roadmap requires the Government of Israel freeze all settlement activity the Government, including natural growth, the Israeli civil administration (the administrative wing of the occupation) granted permits for the expansion of the outpost of Matityahu East. Six new caravans have been placed on Bil’in land.

Eight months after the High Court of Justice ordered the state to dismantle the segment of the separation fence near the Palestinian village of Bil’in within “a reasonable amount of
time,” the Defense Ministry has yet to do so. It has not even begun to plan an alternative route there, in accordance with the court’s instruction. See

The day after this ruling on the wall the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the outpost of Matityahu East which was built illegally according to Israeli law was retrospectively legalized. Needless to say, the Israeli authorities are not delaying the implementation of this decision. The Israeli authorities consider Matityahu East a “neighborhood” of the Modiin elite settlement and it’s legalization paved the way for granting this ” settlement bloc” the status of a city. See

Settlers assaulted the Al Jazeera film crew, and the international and Israeli activists who came to protest the construction. One of the settlers was arrested by the Israeli Police after attempting to bash an international activist head with a rock.

When settlers attempted a similar action on the 1st January 2008, two of the Bil’in Popular Committee were hospitalised as settlers attacked them for attempting to block the illegal construction (click here to view video).

Haaretz – Panel: Ultra-Orthodox settlement should be city, despite illegal construction

By Akiva Eldar, published in Haaretz.

To view original article click here

The ultra-Orthodox settlement of Modi’in Illit in the West Bank should be granted city status despite suspicions that its council members were involved in authorizing illegal construction, an ad hoc committee set up by the Interior Ministry has recommended.

The committee’s decision contradicts expert opinions that severely criticized Modi’in Illit’s council for its involvement in approving the construction of Matityahu East, a new neighborhood that borders the Palestinian town of Bil’in.

Construction of Matityahu East was brought to a halt about two years ago after a petition filed by Peace Now and Bil’in residents to the High Court of Justice, claiming that the project lacked proper permits.

“[The petition] has exposed a serious phenomenon of building without plans or permits, or with permits issued devoid of a complete plan,” the High Court justices wrote.

During the committee’s hearings, the city council comptroller and Interior Ministry officials severely criticized Modi’in Illit’s council. A representative of the Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, told the committee that the city was in a “state of lawlessness.”

One of the committee’s two members, however, is suspected of being in a conflict of interest. Committee member Zvi Cohen, the mayor of the nearby ultra-Orthodox town of Elad, recently told a local weekly newspaper that he has close ties to Rabbi Yitzhak Guterman, the mayor of Modi’in Illit.

“We have loose ties [to Guterman] due to a number of common interests that aren’t necessarily related to our geographic proximity,” Cohen told the paper.

Criticism of the construction of Matityahu East, which envisions 42 buildings containing around 1,500 apartments, began in September 2004.

Moshe Moskowitz of the Civil Administration, the highest authority for planning and construction in the West Bank, wrote to the Modi’in council comptroller that the council authorized the project even though it was beyond its jurisdiction.

“Construction authorization for the new project of Matityahu East was no doubt given against the instructions of the existing [master] plan and therefore was not within the licensing authority’s power,” Moskowitz wrote.

The petitioners’ attorney, Michael Sfard, who asked that construction be halted, said the planning authorities knew about the illegal circumstances and did nothing to stop the project.

“The takeover of the lands was carried out by a conspiracy involving private developers and Israeli authorities. Thus, criminal companies that stole private Palestinian lands won the protection of the fence – which was intended as a means of security and became a tool for annexation – as well as backing from the planning authorities, whose approval laundered the offenses,” Sfard wrote.

In the decision to legalize construction of the new neighborhood, the Supreme Planning Council for Judea and Samaria conceded that it had no master plan for Modi’in Illit, but cited an exception in Jordanian law – the basis for Israeli law in the West Bank – by which small communities do not require a master plan for the construction of new neighborhoods.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Modi’in Illit had 33,200 residents as of September 2006.

Non-violent demonstrations in Bil’in and Al-Khader

Bil’in:

On Friday the 9thof may, at the village of Bil’in around 100 hundred Israelis, Palestinians and Internationals gathered in solidarity to protest against the illegal wall separating the village and the local residents from their land.


Photo By IMEMC’s Haithem El Khatib

Shortly after mid-day, local villagers, Israelis and International peace activists marched towards the wall to show their support against the illegal occupation of the village’s land. Not long after reaching the wall, the Israeli Army began launching tear gas and firing rubber bullets into the crowd of peaceful protesters. The excessive use of tear gas even effected local villagers not participating in the demonstration as a number of canisters were fired at a nearby house.

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Al-Khader:

IMEMC: Protesters in Bethlehem affirm the right of return

To view original article published by IMEMC, click here

Around 200 Palestinians, internationals and Israelis demonstrated at military checkpoint placed at the southern entrance of Bethlehem, to protest the wall Israel is building on the lands of the Palestinian village of Al-Khader near Bethlehem on Friday morning.

The protest started with a prayer near the checkpoint, during which the preacher affirmed the right of return for the Palestinian refugees instated by the United Nations Resolution 194, as the 60th anniversary of the dispossession of the Palestinian people nears.

As soon as the protesters gathered for the prayer, at least 30 Israeli troops backed by 6 military vehicles, blocked the checkpoint in an attempt to foil the protest.

The nonviolent demonstration was organized by the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements as part of series of weekly protests against Israeli measures in Palestine.

Protestors carried Palestinian flags and banners reading, “Stop erasing Palestinian identity”, “Stop ongoing Nakba”, “End the Israeli occupation”, and called for the recognition of right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The demonstration ended peacefully after one hour with no friction with the army.

NY Jewish Week: Protesting Leviev, From Here To Dubai

by Walter Ruby – Special to The Jewish Week. To view original article, click here

N.Y.-based Arab-Jewish group claims credit for UAE snub of diamond merchant; Leviev spokesman says stores will open under his name.

Leviev already operates two jewelry stores in Dubai under the name “Levant” through a Moroccan-Palestinian agent Arif Bin Khadra.

Israeli diamond producer and retailer Lev Leviev’s penchant for flamboyantly branding his posh jewelery stores with his own name appears to have gotten him into trouble again – this time with the government of the glittery Arabian emirate of Dubai.

Leviev has been under siege from pro-Palestinian protestors who have been picketing his posh diamond shops on Madison Avenue and London for months. They are protesting the fact that subsidiary firms of Leviev’s company Africa-Israel have been constructing Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The diamond producer suffered a new setback last week when a high-ranking Dubai official last week stated that his opulent city-state in the United Arab Emirates will not grant the Uzbekistan-born magnate a trade license to open two new stores there – at least not under the name “Leviev.”

But a Leviev spokesman insisted the 51-year-old billionaire will get his way in the end and open “Leviev” stores in Dubai to add to those already in existence in New York, London and Moscow.

Responding to a recent announcement by Leviev that he plans to open new stores this fall in Dubai, Ali Ebrahim, deputy director general for executive affairs in Dubai, said: “We are aware of these reports and have not granted a trade license to any business of this name. If such an application does come to us, we will deal with it accordingly.”

According to Leviev, one of the new stores is slated for the Dubai Mall, soon to be the world’s tallest building; the other is slated for the Atlantis Hotel, on a recently constructed artificial island.

Ebrahim said Israeli citizens are not permitted to operate businesses in Dubai. He added that such citizens would also be prevented from operating through local partners, even though Leviev already operates two jewellery stores in Dubai under the name “Levant” through a Moroccan-Palestinian agent Arif Bin Khadra. According to media reports, Israeli diamond traders have operated openly in Dubai for years.

Ebrahim made his comments after Adalah-NY, a pro-Palestinian group here that has been holding anti-Leviev demonstrations since last November outside the magnate’s diamond shop on Madison Avenue, strenuously protested to the Dubai government over Leviev’s plans to open new diamond stores there.

Yet on May 4, Leviev spokesman Justin Blake told The Jewish Week that, Ebrahim’s comments to the contrary, Leviev remains committed to his goals for Dubai.

“The stores will be opening in Dubai under the Leviev name as planned,” Blake said, declining to respond to questions as to how Leviev will manage to open his stores in Dubai despite the stated refusal of the authories there to allow him to do so.

Before Blake made his comments, observers in Dubai speculated that Leviev, acting through Bin Khadra, would ultimately agree to open his new stores there under the name “Levant” rather than his own name.

Yet Blake’s remarks indicate that Leviev may be planning to fight Dubai’s decision not to allow him to brand the stores with his own name, and will likely press the U.S. government to apply pressure on Dubai to reverse its decision. Leviev has previously asserted that attacks on his business activities by Adalah-NY and other groups are “politically motivated” or impelled by anti-Semitism.

Ethan Heitner, a spokesman for Adalah-NY, which is composed almost equally of Arabs and anti-Zionist Jews, claimed primary credit for Dubai’s reversal of its earlier apparent willingness to allow Leviev to open his stores there. “Working in conjunction with activists in Dubai and Palestine, Adalah-NY sent out a press release calling for Dubai to boycott Leviev on the basis of his violations of international humanitarian law. … We’ve heard reports of UAE papers and officials receiving our press release from multiple sources and angry phone calls.”

Heitner said that even if Leviev ultimately succeeds in opening his new stores in Dubai under the “Levant” name, Adalah-NY will still have achieved a moral victory. “Before our boycott call … Leviev was proudly planning to open an eponymous flagship boutique in the tallest building in the world – a grand symbolic achievement for a titan of global capitalism. Now, that’s not going to happen.”

Lev Leviev appears to believe otherwise.

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See also: “For Leviev, all that Glitters isn’t Gold,” NY Jewish Week, Feb. 20