Tag: Digests

1- Israel Tunes Out: Denies entrance to piano tuner from California
2- Toronto Sun: “Protesting against Israeli apartheid”
3- Visiting Your Neighbours in Tel Rumeida
4- Villagers in South Hebron Hills Win “Battle of the Gap”

Israel Tunes Out: Denies entrance to piano tuner from California
June 5th, 2006

For pictures please click on the link below

https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/06/05/californian-piano-tuner-faces-deportation-from-israel-for-supporting/

ISM MEDIA GROUP —”This is something small I can do to make life under occupation just a little more bearable for people, so I do it.”
Paul Larudee, Ph.D, a 60-year-old piano tuner from El Cerrito, California travels with the tools of his trade and had twenty piano-tuning engagements scheduled around the occupied West Bank.

However, when he got off the plane in Tel Aviv Sunday night, Israeli authorities pulled him from the line, interrogated him about his political beliefs, not about his ability to tune pianos, and took him to an immigration detention center at Ben Gurion Airport. They intend to put him back on a plane today.

Dr. Larudee has visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories four times and has lived in the region. He has a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University. Although never arrested or detained in the past, Israeli authorities have now decided to deport him based on his outspoken support for the work of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and the Palestinians’ right to nonviolently resist occupation.

Israeli attorney Gabi Lasky stated: “The policy of blacklisting a nonviolent peace activist as persona-non-grata, then denying them access to the Occupied Territories because of their nonviolent activities raises questions regarding Israel’s intentions to resolve the conflict through dialogue and nonviolent means”.

While airport officials routinely forbid entry to anyone involved with ISM, such denials run counter to Israeli policy. The Ministry of the Interior openly states that it does not seek to stop those involved with ISM from entering the country.

Dr. Larudee will refuse to get on a plane to be deported against his will, while attorney Lasky is appealing the deportation order on his behalf. His family and friends are concerned for his health while he’s in detention, since he is diabetic and has specific dietary and medical needs.
The International Solidarity Movement calls on Israel’s Department of the Interior to honor its stated policies and not discriminate against peaceful individuals such as Sr. Larudee on the basis of their beliefs.

For more information, please contact
Neta Golan at the ISM Media Office: 011-972-2-297-1824
Attorney Gabi Lasky: 011-972-5444 18 988
ISM Media representative, Greta Berlin, Los Angeles 310-422-7242

Toronto Sun: “Protesting against Israeli apartheid”

June 6th, 2006
By Sid Ryan, Toronto Sun. June 2, 2006

http://torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Ryan_Sid/2006/06/02/1610863.html

Last weekend, amid resolutions on health care, pensions, social services, education and matters of social justice, CUPE Ontario delegates attending our annual convention in Ottawa voted overwhelmingly to support a global campaign against Israel’s apartheid-like policies until that state recognizes “the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination.”

The conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories have been likened to the apartheid system in South Africa. This was the official government policy of racial segregation that divided people by the colour of their skin.

Blacks were segregated into so-called homelands, or Bantustans, with their own institutions and voting procedures. Non-whites were forced to carry passes to travel outside the Bantustans. Checkpoints were set up to police this racist policy. Blacks living in white South Africa were treated as less than citizens and only held rights in their far-away designated “homeland.” In effect, they became aliens in their own land.

As the famous Jewish South African cabinet minister, Ronnie Kasrils, who fought against the apartheid South African regime, said on a visit to Jerusalem, “Apartheid was an extension of the colonial project to dispossess people of their land. That is exactly what has happened in Israel and the occupied territories; the use of force and the law to take the land. That is what apartheid and Israel have in common.”

There are two groups of Palestinians living under Israeli rule. One group is in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank. The others are Israeli citizens, but even so with fewer rights than Jewish citizens of Israel regarding where they can live.

Those living in the occupied territories have no Israeli citizenship, yet are subject to the military might and laws of Israel and need the permission of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to move about, thus restricting their ability to go to school, work or even get health care. Israel has allowed Israeli settlers to grab prime pieces of land and set-up settlements for Israelis only. The Palestinians are forced to use inferior quality roads that take hours longer to travel. The network of roads combined with the labyrinth of checkpoints has carved up Palestinian communities and created long and humiliating waiting periods at the checkpoints.

The former archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, said after visiting the occupied territories, “I have seen the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.” Israel is now building what has been called the “apartheid wall” because it has led to the expropriation of land, expelled Palestinians from their homes and separated farmers from their livelihood. As NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough said in a letter last week to Minister Peter MacKay, it is a “685 km barrier — deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in July 2004 — which annexes 8% of the West Bank and places internationalized East Jerusalem firmly within a unilaterally-drawn Israeli border by 2008.”

It was this wall that spurred CUPE Ontario delegates to adopt a policy in support of an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions. Like members of many church congregations, a large number of organizations in Quebec and the 67,000-member union of university lecturers in the United Kingdom, they are frustrated by Israel’s lack of response to what has been tried through reason and law with United Nations resolutions and the International Court of Justice. The resolution submitted by several CUPE Ontario locals was designed to draw attention to the lives of ordinary innocent civilians living in horrific conditions in Palestine.

For the record, our members have also decided at a previous national convention to “call for and actively work towards an end to all acts of violence that take the lives of innocent people, whether they be Palestinian or Israeli.” We continue to support a negotiated peace process based on equality — and that means the wall must come down.

Ryan is president of CUPE Ontario

Ryan_Sid@canoemail.com

Visiting Your Neighbours in Tel Rumeida

June 5th, 2006
by Shlomo Bloom

On June 4th at approximately 3:30 pm a delegation from France came to Tel Rumeida to learn more about the situation here. We met with them at the Tel Rumeida community center and I told them a bit about our work here. After we all talked for a bit, a man who lives directly across the street from the Tel Rumeida settlement invited the delegation of about ten people to visit his house. No one is allowed to even go near this house unless they actually live there (meaning Palestinians or internationals). Settlers, of course are allowed in this area which is about half a block from where I live.

We could have predicted what happened next of course. The soldier on duty at the top of Tel Rumeida hill refused to let the delegation go to the man’s house. I kept back and did not intervene because I wanted to give the French people a chance to experience for themselves the ridiculousness of the situation. However I can guess at the reasons the delegation were told why they were not allowed to visit the man at his home.
• security
• provocation to the settlers
• no one is allowed in that area unless they are Jewish

So in the end, even with all the French passport waving and the French insisting that they were politicians and diplomats, the soldier did not give them permission. So I guess they are going to go back to their country now and write about how they got to witness first hand the racism that governs Tel Rumeida. Hopefully this will be more fuel for boycotts and a nail in the coffin for the settlements in Hebron.

Can you imagine not being able to visit your neighbor who lives half a block away because it will provoke the people who live near him?

Villagers in South Hebron Hills Win “Battle of the Gap”

June 4th, 2006
For pictures please click on the link below:

https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/06/04/qawawis-gap-victory/

Qawawis, 4th June 2006: About thirty inhabitants of the small Palestinian village of Qawawis and the neighbouring villages of Jatta and Al-Twane gathered in Qawawis this morning at around 9 am. They were joined by three internationals from ISM and CPT as well as several journalists. All were assembled in opposition to the construction of a meter-high wall on the nearby settler-only road that building started on last Wednesday, and was due to be completed this morning. The demonstrator’s demand was a gap in this wall, to make it possible to pass through to the village by car and to reach their farming land on the other side.

The group went to the road and positioned itself in the work area, preventing continuation of the building. At that time no army was present, only the workers, so a villager from Qawawis tried to talk to them to convince them to leave their work. After around 15 minutes the first army jeep arrived and the soldiers asked the demonstrators to leave the area. They were not prepared to debate with the villagers and threatened to use violence if the people continued hindering the work. Over the next half an hour, three more army jeeps and two police cars arrived. The demonstrators held firm in their places while some were trying to negotiate with the soldiers. One soldier and a police man were videotaping those gathered in the demonstration, and police men were taking passports and ID cards of some of those present.
After some time, the responsible officer agreed after negotiating with Moussa Abu Maria, a Palestinian activist in the Hebron region, that there will be an opening left that allows passing through.

Altogether the group hindered the continuation of the construction for about three hours, until around 12am. Afterwards we could see the army jeeps driving around nearby and soldiers harassing people who were on their way back from the demonstration.

1-Students Unite Against Checkpoints
2- Ha’aretz: “With a little help from the outside”
3- Palestinian Unity Against Military Brutality
4- Beit Ummar Farmers Struggle to Work Their Land
5- Two Houses Demolished in Brukin, Salfit
6- The impact of the financial crisis on the Palestinian community
7- Sunbula’s Journal: “Normalised Occupation”
8- Tel Rumeida, Hebron: Recent Settler Attacks

Students Unite Against Checkpoints

June 3rd, 2006

For Pictures see the link below:
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/06/03/students-unite-against-checkpoints/
A nonviolent demonstration was held at Atara checkpoint today to protest against the Israeli Occupation Forces’ preventing students from reaching their universities and schools.
Palestinian and Israeli students, including Palestinian Israelis, were joined by international solidarity activists. The Atara checkpoint is located on the road to Bir Zeit University, north of Bir Zeit village.

The area directly in front of the checkpoint was cordoned off by Israeli Border Police prior to the demonstration. The protest commenced with Palestinians, internationals, and Israeli students and anarchists chanting “Red Blue Green White, Palestine is going to fight!” in English and “Refuse!” in Hebrew. The latter slogan reflects the growing popularity of the refusenik movement, Israeli youth who reject conscription in the IOF to serve in Occupied Palestine.
Soon after, Palestinians students from al-Quds Open University and Bir Zeit University arrived. The atmosphere was one of festive resistance. The protestors sang Palestinian revolutionary songs and Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals danced in front of the Border Police, who appeared more like sulky guests at a party and not an occupying military force.

The general message of the protest was, “Out with the Occupation. This time is the last time.” The call to move forward towards the checkpoint was given. Immediately afterwards, an Israeli commander presented ISM coordinator Abdullah Abu Rahme with an order that apparently stated that the area was a closed military zone, and that the presence of the protestors was forbidden. The commander then attempted to announce on a bullhorn that crowd had ten minutes to disperse.He was, however, drowned out by whistles and booing from the crowd.

Two soldiers could be seen photographing and filming the protestors from a short distance.
There was relatively little violence. Only once was an Israeli protestor shoved by a Border Policeman. At one point, several taxis carrying passengers were stuck behind the demonstrating crowd. The drivers asked the crowd to make enough room for them to pass, and they complied. However, the military refused to let the taxis through the checkpoint, blaming this decision on the protestors. The Palestinians present chose not let this turn of events deter the remainder of the protests. They began to shout, “It is not the protestors, but the checkpoint and the Occupation, that will not allow the taxis to pass.”

The demonstration continued in this way until it ended in stalemate. The demonstrators were not able to break the gauntlet of the military, nor was the IOF able to disperse the crowd of protestors. The spirit of solidarity was evident in the unity shown by protestors coming from different backgrounds sticking closely together.
Demonstrations will be held this evening simultaneously in al-Manara square in Ramallah and in Tel Aviv.

Ha’aretz: “With a little help from the outside”

By Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz. 4th June 2006

The laugh of fate: The state waging a broad international campaign for a boycott is simultaneously waging a parallel campaign, no less determined, against a boycott. A boycott that seriously harms the lives of millions of people is legitimate in its eyes because it is directed against those defined as its enemies, while a boycott that is liable to hurt its academic ivory tower is illegitimate in its eyes only because it is aimed against itself. This is a moral double standard. Why is the boycott campaign against the Palestinian Authority, including blocking essential economic aid and boycotting leaders elected in democratic and legal elections, a permissible measure in Israel’s eyes and the boycott of its universities is forbidden?
Israel cannot claim the boycott weapon is illegitimate. It makes extensive use of this weapon itself, and its victims are suffering under severe conditions of deprivation, from Rafah to Jenin. In the past, Israel called upon the world to boycott Yasser Arafat, and now it is calling for a boycott of the Hamas government – and via this government, all of the Palestinians in the territories. And Israel does not regard this as an ethical problem. Tens of thousands have not received their salaries for four months due to the boycott, but when there is a call to boycott Israeli universities, the boycott suddenly becomes an illegitimate weapon.

Those calling for a boycott of Israel are also tainted with a moral double standard. The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) in Britain and the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ontario, which have both decided to boycott Israel, did not act similarly to protest their own countries’ war crimes and occupations – the British army in Iraq and the Canadian army in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the handful of human rights advocates and opponents of the occupation in Israel should thank these two organizations for the step they have taken, despite their flawed double standards.

It would have been preferable had the opponents of the occupation in Israel not needed the intervention of external groups to fight the occupation. It is not easy to call upon the world to boycott your own country. It would have been better had there been no need for Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, bold people of conscience who paid with their lives after standing in front of the destructive bulldozers in Rafah. These young foreigners did the dangerous and vital work that Israelis should have done.

The same is true for the few peace activists who still manage to roam the territories, to protest and offer assistance to the victims of the occupation in the framework of organizations like the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) – which Israel fights – preventing its members from entering its borders. It would be better if Israelis mobilized to fight instead of them. But except for a few modest groups, there is no protest in Israel and no real mobilization. Thus, it only remains to hope for the world’s help.

The world can help save Israel from itself in limited ways. In a situation in which the governments of the West effectively support the continuation of the occupation, even if they declare their opposition to it, this role moves to civil organizations. When a group of American attorneys, including Jews, calls for a boycott of the Caterpillar company, whose bulldozers razed complete neighborhoods in Khan Yunis and Rafah, it should be thanked for this. The same applies to the boycott of the universities: When an association of British university lecturers boycotts Israeli colleagues who are not prepared to at least declare their opposition to the occupation, we should appreciate it. Each group in its field, and perhaps this will someday also include tourism officials, business people, artists and athletes. If all these boycott Israel, perhaps Israelis will begin to understand, albeit the hard way, that there is a price to pay for the occupation – a price in their pockets and in their status.

The occupation is not just the domain of the government, army and security organizations. Everything is tainted: institutions of justice and law, the physicians who remain silent while medical treatment is prevented in the territories, the teachers who do not protest against the closing of educational institutions and the prevention of free movement of their peers, the journalists who do not report, the writers and artists who remain mum, the architects and engineers who lend a hand to the occupation’s enterprises – the settlements and the fence, the barriers and bypass roads and also the university lecturers, who do nothing for their imprisoned colleagues in the territories, but conduct special study programs for the security forces. If all these boycotted the occupation, there would be no need for an international boycott.
The world sees a great and ongoing injustice. Should it remain silent? It is not, of course, the only injustice in the world. Nor is it the most terrible. But does this make it any less necessary to act against it? It is easy to exempt ourselves from our moral responsibility and attribute, as usual, any criticism to anti-Semitism. There may indeed be some elements of anti-Semitism among those calling for the boycott. But also among them are groups and individuals, including quite a few Jews, for whom Israel is close to their hearts. They want a just Israel. They see an Israel that occupies and is clearly unjust, and they believe they should do something. We should thank them for this from the bottom of our hearts.

Palestinian Unity Against Military Brutality
June 2nd, 2006
For Pictures see the link below:
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/06/02/palestinian-unity-against-military-brutality/
This week’s demonstration a call for greater Palestinian unity against the occupation. It was also a recognition of the 39th anniversary of al-Naksa, “the great disappointment” which marked the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza strip and the Golan Heights in 1967.
About 300 demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags marched to the wall together. Among them were Palestinian Legislative Council members Mustafa Bargouthi and Kais Abu Leyla; al-Quds University President Sari Nusaybah; Knesset member, Muhammed Baraka, and Israeli supporters from Anarchists Against the Wall, Gush Shalom (including Uri Avnery) and other Israeli anti-occupation groups. International supporters from ISM were also present.

As they approached the gate in the annexation barrier, demonstrators found that Israeli soldiers had positioned themselves behind journalists, as well as in front of the gate, surrounding them. Some of the demonstrators tried to non-violently cross the gate. Soldiers attacked the demonstrators from all sides with sound bombs and serious beatings. The soldiers then rushed forward, violently pushing everyone back causing widespread injuries. The soldiers then proceeded to fire tear gas at Palestinians and internationals attempting to extinguish a fire which the explosion from a sound bomb had started in the olive groves.

Amongst those known to be badly injured by beatings and evacuated in ambulances so far are: Mohammed Mansour- who was hit with two rubber bullets in the arm and a sound bomb in his abdomen, Mohammed saw a soldier aiming for his head from close range and covered his eyes with his arm, Akram al-Katib- who was beaten, Abdullah Abu Rahme- from the Popular Committee, was beaten as well as a woman named Yahia Abullah Yasin. Two Israelis were also seriously injured. And there were many minor injuries from beatings.

Beit Ummar Farmers Struggle to Work Their Land
June 1st, 2006

For Pictures see the link below:
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/06/01/beit-ummar-farmers-struggle-to-work-their-land/
by Zadie Susser
We visited the land of Samer Shahdah Abu Asara, a Beit Ummar farmer who owns land directly next to the illegael Israeli settlement of Efrat. In part of his land he used to grow grapes. Another part, 25 dunums in size, has been annexed and enclosed by the settlement. This section of his land is surrounded by an electric fence, which was built about 6 months ago. It has been ten years since he used his land for growing grapes because settlers have erected a barbed wire fence inside and put up a tent that is used for vegetables. The tent has been there for about 4 years. Efrat settlement was built 27 years ago on the land of Abu Brekoot and now spans 3000 dunums. Samer Asara is intending to take his struggle to the Israeli courts to show that he has legal right to the land and the documents to prove it.

Later we visited the land of Mohammed Abu Solebey on the wadi Abu Reesh. He has 200 dunums of land near the Beit Aian settlement and suffers from the settlers there. The settlers bring their sheep to his land to graze and the sheep eat the new growth on his grape vines, fruit and olive trees. The settlers have pushed over many of the grape vines and destroyed them. He has gone to the police and they have written eight different police reports dating from 2004 to this year. On the 3rd of February last year he was severely beaten by a settler and was admitted to the hospital for his injuries.

Two Houses Demolished in Brukin, Salfit

May 31st, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 May 2006: Two houses were demolished by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the village of Brukin, Salfit, West Bank, on Tuesday morning, 30 May, 2006. They were among 70 houses that have received demolition orders, according to Brukin’s Mayor Ekremah Samara. The village, which has lost 8000 dunums of land to Israel, is designated as “Area C” under the Oslo Accords and is along the route of the Apartheid Wall.

According to eyewitnesses, 25 military vehicles comprised of hummers and two bulldozers entered the village at 6:30 a.m. They split into two groups, one heading for Buk’an, the northwestern part of the village, and the other to a hill overlooking the Mosque.
In Buk’an the bulldozer demolished a half-completed home being built by a local man who works in Jordan. He had planned to house his family of ten in it. None of his relatives witnessed the demolition. The home was among five other houses in the same neighborhood under threat of demolition.

Simultaneously, the IOF razed a newly-completed 130-square-meter home valued at approximately 150,000 NIS. It was to house a 26-year-old unemployed man and his wife after their marriage this summer. The family had hired a lawyer to appeal the demolition order but no action had occurred.

In both locations, soldiers prevented other villagers from entering the areas. Local residents were ordered to remain in their homes on threat of being shot.
According to Ekremah Samara, if all notified homes are demolished, nearly 700 people could become homeless.

For more information and photos contact:
The International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS)
Office: 09-2516-644
iwps@palnet.com
www.iwps.info

The impact of the financial crisis on the Palestinian community
May 30th, 2006

by Qusay Hamed, Nablus, Palestine. 13th May 2006

The term “Financial crisis” is an old/new term in the Palestinian dictionary; this occupied territory – that has scanty resources – is economically bounded with Israel.
Nowadays Palestine lives a dramatic financial crisis that is considered one of the worst in the nation’s history.

Palestinians have been punished for their democratic choice, where the Palestinians practiced choosing their representatives to the Palestinian Legislative Council; this choice practically brought Hamas up to the power by majority.

This choice that has been embodied by the democracy became as a pretext to refuse this choice and stop the international community subsidy to the Palestinian Authority.
I personally understand the term “Democracy” as the people’s choice for their representative in a civilized, transparent and highly credited manner.

The main and most important factor of the crisis is the external stipulated subsidy that has been cut by the American government and the European countries, in addition to the huge pressure that they practice in order to not transfer money to the newly elected government.
At the same time, Palestinian Authority has no control over their borders to import or export, That leaves Palestinian people depending on the international aid to keep the Palestinian economy and the infrastructure alive.

Political and security impacts

Security

There is no doubt that the crisis came out as a result of the American, Israeli and European pressure upon the Palestinian authority in general and upon Hamas government particularly, in order to force the government to change its political agenda. The continuation of this crisis means that the Palestinian authority will not be able to maintain it’s authority on the economical, social, health and security institutions; Which could be simply represented by the disability of what has remained from the security force, in securing the essential needs like food, health services etc, whether for it’s members or even the prisoners. In addition to that, the government is not able to pay the police force salaries. Therefore, the police force will not be able to practice its high demanded job, thus disorder, revelry and robbery will spread out and prevail.

Compulsory resignation

The other political impact is that the government becomes forced to resign or to be deposed.
This scenario is approaching for sure as this crisis continues, where the government will be forced out or will have to resign which will bring the region to a complex problematic situation that will inflame the anarchy and will have unacceptable and unpredictable results.
The economical impact of the crisis.

The external financial subsidy equals 85 % of the total Palestinian income, a part of that goes to feed 150,000 employees’ families, which is the soul source of life for them. These salaries help to keep the Palestinian economy surviving, which is also considered as the main factor that keeps the Palestinian economy functioning; since these subsidies were frozen, families are not able to secure their essential life necessities. Thus the economic life is frozen also; it’s clearly embodied in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron as the biggest cities in Palestine territories; factories, supermarkets and companies were closed as a result of the economical stagnancy and not being able to bear extra cost. Consequently that means what is called Palestinian economy will collapse at any time.

Humanitarian impact

The health sector can also clearly show the suffering which caused by the current financial crisis, whereby this institution is not able to offer its health services, in addition to the huge lack of medical staff and medicine. Therefore they are not able to give the very basic needs of life, children’s milk and health care services to the people, where also the problems of isolation and lack of mobility make it difficult for people to access essential services.

On the other hand, the education sector is highly affected by this crisis, Transportation is almost impossible because people would rather save money for basic needs of food.

Finally, the continuation of the crisis is mainly harming the lower class, Poor families are barley managing; about 150.000 families are having no money for the past three months and not clear future in the horizon, make it almost impossible for them to survive.

All this require a serious stand from the international community in order to stop the continuous suffering of the Palestinian people as a result of this financial sanction.

Sunbula’s Journal: “Normalised Occupation”
May 30th, 2006

Saturday May 27th: I have returned to Ramallah. I feel a little worried I’m getting used to certain things I shouldn’t really be used to. When I was coming back in the taxi from al-Quds/Jerusalem, driving through Ar-Ram and Qalandia, the Wall is alongside us on our left, and separates people’s homes from stores and vice versa. The sight of the Wall, the fucked up Qalandia “terminal” – it’s not occurring to me anymore to describe or write about these “small” things because they don’t seem to me to be anything worth noting anymore. They’ve become “normal”. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad, whether this means I’m “stabilizing” or getting more numbed in regards to the situation. But I’m reminded I do need to write about these small things. Like I wrote in my last trip, getting into the West Bank from Jerusalem is much easier than vice versa. Still part of the road to Ramallah is blocked off for no ostensible reason and we had to drive through the side roads. The Qalandia “terminal” is still as messed up as ever, still the soldiers barking orders through microphones, sitting behind windows in cubicles, still metal revolving gates and sanitized apartheid. It’s getting really hot here now as well and the sun is pretty strong. When I was going back to Jerusalem a few days ago, we had to get off from the shared taxi to walk through this “terminal”. A young woman with a baby asked in a somewhat sarcastic tone, can’t people with small children stay on? Unfortunately not.
Because of getting asked by every single new person I met, I decided to take out my nose and lip ring. When I was putting my bag into the back of the shared taxi at the stand in Jerusalem one of the drivers recognized me and starting telling me how much better I looked and how happy he was to see much without the piercings. Yay, victory for gender conformity and heterosexism.

Our friends in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the old city in Hebron/al-Khalil are getting stoned, spat on, assaulted almost daily by the little kids of fanatical ultra rightwing Jewish settlers who deface houses with slogans such as “gas the arabs” and yet when they do this the supposedly law enforcing Israeli police just looks the other way. The most pathetic thing is they send their children to harass Palestinians, because the army/police won’t arrest minors under the age of 14. Talk about cowards.

There were lots of PA security forces of different kinds on the streets of Ramallah today. I just read that Israel has allowed transfer of light arms to forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas – talk about local enforcers of the occupation. Between all the different kinds of Palestinian Authority and Israeli occupation forces, I’m getting a little confused.

I visited Birzeit yesterday where I will be taking Arabic classes later on and liked the look of the place, it is really pretty and a small village, quiet and green unlike noisy bustling Ramallah that reminds me more of neighborhoods in New Delhi (not that that’s a bad thing). I’m looking forward to being based out of there though and living in a more quiet green area, plus its only about 20 minutes (and 3.5 shekels ie less than $1) from Ramallah. The people that I met in the program were nice, seemed on top of their stuff, but somewhat condescending and power-trippy, kind of like at Columbia – birzeit is supposed to be the “Harvard of Palestine” whatever that means, maybe it’s a similar complex. I detest hierarchies and power in general, if I could only get rid of my own personal dependence on them sometimes. I didn’t really like the way they intimidated me about my level of Arabic and made me feel like my Arabic education was inferior to theirs (funnily, my professor in the US said the same thing about them!) and told me to review for the “placement test” which will decide which level of Arabic I can be in. Blah, blah. I met another international student from Japan and sat with her and a Palestinian student. He was really nice to me and gave me friendly advice to not tell anyone if they asked me my religion that my mother is Jewish because: a) there are some folks around who don’t distinguish between Zionists and Jews, unfortunately; and b) the Palestinian security forces monitor international students at Birzeit for spies and saying something like that would make them more suspicious. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, but probably a wiser thing.
Walking back to the ISM apartment in Ramallah, I bought Ghassan Kanafani’s story “Returning to Haifa” in its original Arabic. I had read it in English this semester for a class on Israeli and Palestinian literature I took that was awesome. It’s short enough that I think it’s a reasonable reading project in Arabic. Everyone should check out his writings for the best of Palestinian resistance literature, especially this story.

I was also taken out to a nightclub in Ramallah and got to observe from close quarters members of the occupied Palestinian upper class. Seeing people dance to reggaeton in the occupied territories was an interesting and amusing experience. It was something light and fluffy that I felt I needed for a while. Let’s see what the next few days bring. Distilled excitement, hopefully.

Tel Rumeida, Hebron: Recent Settler Attacks

May 30th, 2006

29th May 2006. Tel Rumeida, Hebron

5:30 pm, Shuhada St, near Bet Haddasah settlement
Four settler children were throwing stones at a Palestinian home. The two youngest were less than four years old and the older two were between 7 and 8 years of age. A Danish Human Rights Worker (HRW) approached the Israeli soldier on duty, and asked him to stop the children. The older two settler children then turned on the Danish HRW, and began throwing stones at him, one of which hit an Australian HRW who was filming the incident.
The entire incident lasted about five minutes, and ended when the soldier on duty called for backup.

7:30 pm, Tel Rumeida St, just outside the ISM apartment A Spainish HRW was in the street playing football with some Palestinian children. Ten or twelve settler children, around thirteen years of age came up Shuhada st, swearing at the Palestinian children. The HRW and a Palestinian man went to stand in the entrance of a nearby Palestinian store. The children threw stones at them, until the soldier on duty shooed them away. They moved up Tel Rumeida road, to a nearby Palestinian house, taking a table from the front yard and tossing it into the street.
When they moved further up Tel Rumeida strett, the HRW tried to return the table, at which point the settlers threw stones at him again.

A Quiet Shabbat in Tel Rumeida

June 4th, 2006

by Shlomo Bloom

One of the Palestinians said today that he thought most of the settlers were in Kiryat Arba and there were very few of them on the street so there was hardly any trouble.
At about 3pm, three settler boys of approximately 10 years of age began throwing rocks at two Human Rights Workers (HRWs) on Shuhada street. One HRW began filming and the other tried to get the boys to stop and encouraged the soldier to help. The soldier was able to get the boys to stop throwing rocks. A few minutes later a police jeep came by, asked if everything was OK and a HRW told him 3 boys were throwing rocks. The officer said he would look into it. After that, about three border police appeared at the stone stairs that lead to the Qutarba girls school.
At approximately 4pm the old man with his donkey attempted to pass through the checkpoint. The soldier on duty would not let him. A HRW inquired to see what the problem was. There was one nice soldier and one mean solder. The HRW spoke at length to the nice soldier who told her his commander had ordered them not to let the man through. The HRW told him the man goes through that checkpoint everyday. The soldier said he could not go through today. Attempts at reasoning with the mean soldier were futile. An HRW called Machsom Watch (the Israeli human rights group that monitors the behaviour of soldiers at checkpoints), who said she would see what she could do.

Eventually a deal was reached wherein the Palestinian man with the donkey would show the soldiers what was in the saddlebag and then he could go through. He was allowed to pass after approximately 20 minutes.
Q: What if you live in Tel Rumeida and you have a heart attack ?

May 29th, 2006
A: You die.

By Shlomo Bloom

I had a pretty bad case of stomach flu for the last few days and was reluctant to even try to go to the doctor because it meant leaving Tel Rumeida on foot, as Palestinians are not allowed to drive cars here. Not even taxis, buses or ambulances. The entrances to the neighborhood are blocked off by checkpoints and roadblocks. Settlers are, of course allowed to drive cars, buses, taxis, ambulances and can leave the neighborhood through settler-only roads that Palestinians are not even allowed to walk on.

I had decided it might be better to just stay in bed than to try to walk out and catch a taxi but then some friends came over and told me they had a car parked at the roadblock outside Tel Rumeida and would take me to the hospital. It was at night so the temperature outside was not so dreadfully hot and I decided it might be a good idea to at least get some fresh air.
As we were walking to the roadblock, about a quarter of a mile away from where I live, I asked my friend “What happens here when someone is really sick and cannot walk to the checkpoint or to one of the roadblocks ?” He told me that they have tried to call for ambulances to come in here but they are not allowed. Last year his uncle had a heart attack. They had to carry him out to the checkpoint where an ambulance was waiting. But by the time he got to the hospital, he was already dead.

So that was the answer to my question. Some observations about this Palestinian hospital:
At first I was reluctant to go at night because it meant going to the emergency and stomach flu was not an emergency and I didn’t want to get in the way of people who were really sick, but my friend said, no it was ok and not to worry. I was expecting to wait like 4 hours like you do when you go to the emergency at night in the United States. What happened when I got there shocked me.

I literally did not even sit down in the waiting room. I was seen immediately but two nurses and a doctor. They did a blood test and gave me an injection. I was in and out in about 40 minutes (the blood test took half an hour to process).
Total cost for an uninsured foreigner ? $10

This is of course if you can make it out of the Israeli controlled part of Hebron into the Palestinian controlled part without dying first. So, Americans.. you go to the emergency with no health insurance, get a blood test and an injection.. I think it would be safe to say that you can count on paying minimum $400 for this. This is democracy ! We can give billions of dollars to Israel and spend God knows what on a war in Iraq but we cannot afford to give all our citizen health insurance.

1. Arson at the Outpost in Bil’in

2. Occupation Forces Continue Raids on Budrus Village

3. Settler Attacks on International volunteers in Tel Rumeida, Hebron

4. IMEMC: “Five Palestinians, including three teens, killed by Israeli artillery shells in the Gaza Strip”

5. Non-Violent Demonstration in Bil’in Deliberately Targeted by Israeli Soldiers

6. Palestinian Buildings Destroyed by IOF in Beit Ummar

7. Buildings demolished in Qalqiliya district, 26 more to be demolished

8. Q: What if you live in Tel Rumeida and you have a heart attack ?

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1. Arson at the Outpost in Bil’in
May 28th, 2006

At 5pm today, May 28, 2006, Palestinian workers from the nearby settlement of Modi’in Illit called Abdullah Abu Rahme, from Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements of Bil’in, to tell him there was huge fire at the outpost. Abdullah went quickly to the outpost and found the army, the police, ambulance, and a fire truck there. He found one of the structures at the outpost burned down.

The outpost is two structures built by the people of Bil’in on their land that is separated from them by the Annexation Barrier and is near the settlement of Matityahu Mizrakh. It is an important site for the non-violent joint struggle between Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals. The people of Bil’in with Israeli and international peace activists have maintained a 24 hour presence at the outpost for the past few months. Today while Palestinian and international activists went to get food, the outpost was attacked.

The workers did not see who started the fire, but people in Bil’in suspect that settlers started it because last week people of Bil’in were harassed as they attempted to talk with settlers. The settlers were moving in to Matityahu Mizrakh settlement despite the Supreme Court injunction forbidding it. And three months ago, settlers attacked people with stones when they attempted a conversation with the settlers about the illegality of their presence in the settlement.
The police filed a report of the arson and said they will begin an investigation.

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2. Occupation Forces Continue Raids on Budrus Village
May 28th, 2006

Report by Shai E. and Matan. Translated by Rann B.
For pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/28/occupation-forces-continue-raids-on-budrus-village-2/

On Friday the 26th of May 2006, about six jeeps belonging to the border police unit and gunner unit that is currently serving in the Macabim division drove around the village of Budrus firing in every direction. The forces fired tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and sound bombs. Almost every point in the village received a gas attack and there was nowhere to escape to.
We and an international friend were on the roof of a building visiting some friends.

After a few failed attempts to communicate with the Ramallah area District Coordinating Office (DCO), Matan called Dov Chanin, a Knesset member from the Hadash party. Eventually, a decision was made by the commander of Macabim division to remove the forces from the village.

As the forces were on their way out they shot two tear gas canisters into the house we were in. We sat in a small room with around five children, aged 2-10. The house was dense with tear gas and the children were crying. It was very difficult to breathe.

The father of the family decided to take the children outside. He, his wife, and a family friend went outside with the children.
The soldiers shouted to us “Get out of the house or we will blow it up!”. We went down the stairs – everyone who went was beaten by the commander (a Druze Border Police officer) and thrown against the wall with his or her back to the soldiers. We were forced to our knees and ordered to put our heads down. “You will be humiliated this evening,” they said to us, “came to say a Sabbath blessing in the village? We will say a mourning prayer over you”. Matan was recognized as the guy from Beit Sira who had been shot in the eye with a rubber-coated steel bullet (one soldier even apologized to him a little), and I as a participant of demonstrations in Bil’in. To our non-Israeli friend, they claimed I throw stones in Bil’in.
Our IDs were checked. The international was interrogated in English and at one stage a rifle was aimed at his head, with a canister containing a number of rubber-coated steel bullets that fire simultaneously. I shouted at them that they should point the rifle away and got another beating.

They asked us if our mothers know what we’re doing. I asked them the same and they said “of course!”. I said that she probably isn’t very proud. They asked “who?” and I said “your mother”. I got kicked twice and they shouted at me not to talk about their mothers.

When Matan told them there was an order from the commander of Macabim division that they exit the village, they got very angry and pushed his head against the concrete wall of the house, at a point with barbed wire.
Throughout the entire incident, the soldiers refused to identify themselves. After about half an hour they got into their jeeps and drove off. They left the village at about 9pm.

The trauma suffered by the children of the village is clearly visible on their faces and is evident by their nightly crying. These are innocent children whose streets are flooded every few days with dozens of soldiers who turn their village into a war zone.
The so-called IDF is a terrorist organization.

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3. More Settler Attacks on International volunteers in Tel Rumeida, Hebron
May 27th, 2006

Youth from the Tel Rumeida settlement spat on, beat, assaulted, and stoned human rights workers from Canada, Denmark and Sweden yesterday (May 27, 2006). In three separate attacks on internationals and Palestinians the kids were encouraged by adults of the religious extremist Jewish community. Israeli soldiers and police refused to do anything to stop the violence. These attacks occur almost daily in Hebron but on Shabbat they are more frequent and in the last few weeks have become more violent, sending more than two internationals to the hospital.

Yesterday afternoon, on Shuhada Street in the H2 area of Hebron, Jewish Canadian human rights workers Peter Trainor, of Toronto, and Canadian Chris Johnston were filming settlers throwing stones at the Palestinian Qurtuba Girls School. Two women, about 18 years of age, then tried unsuccessfully to rip Peter’s video camera out of his hands. About 10 boys, aged between 8 and 18, threw stones as well as kicking and hitting them. The soldier posted nearby, who was just a few meters away, did nothing to stop the stone throwing despite Peter’s calls for help. Instead he left the scene completely. An adult settler with an assault rifle approached and encouraged the children to keep stoning them.

At about the same time, Danish human rights worker BJ Lund was harassed and spat on at the top of Shuhada Street. The soldiers watched the event and agreed that it wasn’t OK, but when BJ asked why they had not intervened, they gave no answer.
Later that day Anna Svenson from Sweden, Chris, and Peter were attacked by a group of about ten male youth between the ages of 8-15 as they walked down Shuhada Street. The youth spat on them, hit Anna in the face, and taunted the soldiers who reprimanded the youth for spitting. A group of soldiers stood between the internationals and the youth, but the youth just threw the stones over their heads. When the police arrived, they threatened to arrest Anna and Peter if they didn’t leave the area.
Human rights workers are stationed in Hebron to make sure that Palestinian children are safe as they go to and from school past the Tel Rumeida settlement. The settlers regularly throw rocks at the children as they walk past and have told soldiers to put razor wire across the beginning of a path that leads to Palestinian homes. The children have to move the wire out of the way every day. There is an Israeli Supreme Court order that allows the children to use this path but soldiers on duty nearby rarely know this and often refuse to help the children get home safely.

Tel Rumeida is a Palestinian neighborhood in the center of Hebron that the most violent and extremist elements of the Israeli settler movement occupy. Soldiers tell the human rights workers that they feel there is nothing they can do to stop the children from throwing stones or hitting the international volunteers. In an article of the Jerusalem Post on Jan 16th, a senior Hebron Police officer Dep.-Cmdr., Shlomo Efrati, explained their lack of power in the area. “[The police] have been suffering from the settlers for years. The government needs to decide to fortify the police and army in Hebron on a permanent basis since even if we evacuate them they will just go back and take over new homes. It is up to the government to decide if it wants this minority to continue running the city or not.”

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4. IMEMC: “Five Palestinians, including three teens, killed by Israeli artillery shells in the Gaza Strip”
May 27th, 2006
Saed Bannoura, IMEMC & Agencies

As the Israeli army continued its shelling of Palestinian neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday night, five Palestinians, including three teens – two of them members of the same family, were killed when their home was hit by artillery shells and caught fire, and seven others were injured.

A Palestinian medical source reported that one resident was killed near the Kissufim Crossing after the army fired with heavy artillery at the area.
Also on Friday, two members of the same family were killed and four other residents were injured after the army shelled Izbit Fad’ous, in Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses reported that one of the Israeli artillery shells landed near a house that belongs to Qassem family, catching the house on fire in a blaze that killed three and injured four others.

The deceased were identified as Mohammad Yousef Qassem, Mustafa Shihada Qassem, and Arafa Zarandah. Seven other residents were hospitalized, one is in serious condition.

The residents were sitting in front of their house when an artillery shell hit them and the house.
A medical source at Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the Jabalia refugee camp, reported that the bodies of the three residents killed in the attack were severely mutilated.

Meanwhile, an Israeli military source denied shelling the area and claimed that the three residents were attempting to dismantle an old shell apparently fired by the army in previous incident.
Earlier on Friday, one resident identified as Omar Abu Warda, 54, died after the Israeli army shelled Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Abu Warda suffered shell fragmentations in his back and abdomen while working in his farmland.
One resident was also severely injured on Friday as the army continued firing shells at areas in the northern and eastern parts pf the Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops fired on Thursday evening and Friday morning at least 200 shells at the northern and eastern parts of the Gaza Strip.

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5. Non-Violent Demonstration in Bil’in Deliberately Targeted by Israeli Soldiers
May 27th, 2006
For pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/27/non-violent-demonstration-in-bilin-deliberately-targeted-by-israeli-soldiers/

At today’s demonstration in Bil’in, on May 26th, Israeli soldiers once again deliberately targeted peaceful demonstrators. As demonstrators attempted to cross razor wire, heading for the Bil’in village land annexed by the Israeli barrier, the soldiers threw sound bombs and tear gas grenades directly at them, causing several injuries. This violence was unprovoked by any stone throwing.

The demonstration had started with about 100 Palestinian, Israeli, and international protesters singing and chanting. They headed towards the gate the Israeli military has installed in the annexation barrier. The theme of the demonstration was a call for unity between the Palestinian factions. A banner carrying the flags of the main Palestinian political factions was carried, with a large Palestinian flag above them all as a message that unity against the Israeli occupation is above political differences. When we go there, the way was blocked by two of the soldier’s jeeps, and a large group of soldiers in riot-gear. Attempts were made to pass, but the soldiers prevented this with their clubs and the jeeps.

After about 10 minutes of trying to get past in this way, the demonstrators started to walk along the fence. When they got to a section in the barbed wire that was less thick than the rest, they started to calmly lay rocks and scrap metal on in so they could pass onto the military road that the military have ripped-up from the land of Bil’in to install. The demonstrators intended to pass to access the stolen village land. This was prevented by several soldiers in riot-gear who arrived quickly. The demonstrators did not have the numbers for another attempt at crossing which may have been successful while the soldiers were busy with the first attempt.

After about 5 minutes of attempting to cross in this way, the soldiers got fed up and started bombarding the demonstrators with sound bombs and tear gas. They were aimed directly at the peaceful protesters, hitting several and causing injuries. They threw so many that it seemed they were going to continue throwing sound bombs and tear gas at the demonstrators until they all left. One Palestinian had been arrested though, so the demonstrators stood firm until he was released.

Three international activists from Germany, Sweden, and the US were injured by soldiers who threw tear-gas canisters directly at them. One was admitted to hospital in Ramallah. At least two Palestinians were shot with rubber bullets – one 17-year old was hit in the head.

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6. Palestinian Buildings Destroyed by IOF in Beit Ummar
May 29th, 2006
For pictures see: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/29/palestinian-buildings-destroyed-by-iof-in-beit-ummar-2/

Last Thursday, May 24, we visited Beit Ummar, which is a village of 20,000 just south of Bethlehem’s large settlement block that includes Gush Etzion. The main road, route 60 that connects Bethlehem to Hebron and goes right through Beit Ummar. It is not a settler-only road, but because there are settlers near both Hebron and Bethlehem, they also use this road. Despite the illegality of their inhabitancy, the Border Police and Army use their duty to protect them as an excuse for confiscating land along route 60 and destroying property

We visited two groups of people whose livelihoods have been demolished by Israeli military bulldozers the night before. The military has issued demolition notices to all the business and homes 150meters from this road in Beit Ummar, saying that they needed to protect the settlers and these buildings posed a security risk. They also accused them of building without a permit, which in some cases is true because Israel rarely grants permits to Palestinians even on land that they own.

The IDF chose to bulldoze a flower shop with a small grocery and a mechanics shop a day before. At the flower shop, ceramic pots and flowers lay in the midst of rubble from grocery shop while back at the owner’s house, plants that the guy had managed to salvage lay out in the sun wilting for lack of water and cover. Habess Shehdah Adami, the owner of the land and shop lamented, “I see them dying in front of my eyes and I can’t do anything. In 5 hours these will be dead. What can I do? They cost thousands of shekels. I can’t cover them, I can’t irrigate them, I can’t sell them.”

And then he added, “What did I do? I’ve never been arrested. I am a man of peace. I am a romantic man. I love flowers. Even if they can’t make good to me, they should make good to the trees, to the flowers. They are a gift from god!”
Habess had papers proving that he owned the land and had a permit to build. When the bulldozers came in the night, however, and he told the commander of the 60 soldiers who showed up that he had a lawyer, the commander told him, “Let your lawyer sleep” and then proceeded to level the building.

As we stood near route 60 on the rubble in his lot brooding and feeling helpless, three army jeeps drove by heralding the approach of about 200 settlers on bicycles. It was the holiday of Jerusalem Day, which is the celebrates the capture of Jerusalem in 1967, and entails parading through Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem wearing Israeli flags. These settlers wanted to do some parading of their own, donning the Israeli flag and something not as accepted in Jerusalem: there were about three of the young guys wearing M-16, army issued, strapped to their backs. Some young women yelled at us and the Palestinians, “You are all donkeys!” and we laughed, because of the way she acted, it seemed obvious and pathetic that she was scared of us even though we just stood there.

The settlers are like a branch of the military, their presence makes it easier for the military to be there and their undercover violence towards Palestinians is unchecked by the military.

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7. Buildings demolished in Qalqiliya district, 26 more to be demolished
May 27th, 2006

IWPS Hares (Salfit)
On the 24.5.06 at approximately 7:45 a.m. the Israeli army came to the village of Funduq, Qalqilya district, with several military vehicles and three bulldozers / drills. Within minutes, they started to demolish one house and several agricultural structures between the villages of Funduq and Hajja.

The house was under construction and planned to house a family. The owner, Salim Odeh, had already spent about 6000 JD on the house. He stopped building after receiving a demolition order and fulfilled all the requirements to get a permit for the house, but he was told there is no way to “legalize” it and his appeal against the demolition order was subsequently rejected by the court.

All structures were on privately owned land, and the owners tried in vain to get permits to build on their own land. The Israeli authorities block the expansion of the villages in the area, which is slated as “Area C” under the Oslo Accords, thus preventing people from earning a living or building houses to ease the crowded living conditions inside the village.
Today’s demolitions are part of a larger campaign of house demolitions in the villages of Funduq, Hajja and Jinsafut. Another 30 houses, including up to 20-year-old houses inhabited by families with children, houses that are still under construction, agricultural barracks and structures, a well, a gas station and work shops, are currently under threat of demolition.
On February 22nd 2006 a house under construction that was planned to contain agricultural facilities as well as several family apartments was demolished. The owner, who had invested about 200 000 NIS, received a demolition order in April 2005 and was in contact with lawyers and the Israeli Military Administration. He was in the process of filing a petition against the
demolition order, but was preempted by the demolition. Some agricultural structures were demolished on the same day.

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8. Q: What if you live in Tel Rumeida and you have a heart attack ?
May 29th, 2006

A: You die.
By Shlomo Bloom

I had a pretty bad case of stomach flu for the last few days and was reluctant to even try to go to the doctor because it meant leaving Tel Rumeida on foot, as Palestinians are not allowed to drive cars here. Not even taxis, buses or ambulances. The entrances to the neighborhood are blocked off by checkpoints and roadblocks. Settlers are, of course allowed to drive cars, buses, taxis, ambulances and can leave the neighborhood through settler-only roads that Palestinians are not even allowed to walk on.

I had decided it might be better to just stay in bed than to try to walk out and catch a taxi but then some friends came over and told me they had a car parked at the roadblock outside Tel Rumeida and would take me to the hospital. It was at night so the temperature outside was not so dreadfully hot and I decided it might be a good idea to at least get some fresh air.
As we were walking to the roadblock, about a quarter of a mile away from where I live, I asked my friend “What happens here when someone is really sick and cannot walk to the checkpoint or to one of the roadblocks ?” He told me that they have tried to call for ambulances to come in here but they are not allowed. Last year his uncle had a heart attack. They had to carry him out to the checkpoint where an ambulance was waiting. But by the time he got to the hospital, he was already dead.
So that was the answer to my question.

Some observations about this Palestinian this hospital:
At first I was reluctant to go at night because it meant going to the emergency and stomach flu was not an emergency and I didn’t want to get in the way of people who were really sick, but my friend said, no it was ok and not to worry. I was expecting to wait like 4 hours like you do when you go to the emergency at night in the United States. What happened when I got there shocked me.

I literally did not even sit down in the waiting room. I was seen immediately but two nurses and a doctor. They did a blood test and gave me an injection. I was in and out in about 40 minutes (the blood test took half an hour to process).
Total cost for an uninsured foreigner ?
$10
This is of course if you can make it out of the Israeli controlled part of Hebron into the Palestinian controlled part without dying first.

So, Americans.. you go to the emergency with no health insurance, get a blood test and an injection.. I think it would be safe to say that you can count on paying minimum $400 for this. This is democracy ! We can give billions of dollars to Israel and spend God knows what on a war in Iraq but we cannot afford to give all our citizen health insurance.

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1. Israeli Army Invades Centre of Ramallah, Kill 3 Injure Scores May 24th
2. Sunbula’s journal: “Farmers in Bil’in successfully plow their land behind the Wall”
3. Wire Cutting Action in Beit Omar May 22nd
4. Successful Land-Access Action in Beit Omar
5. Shlomo’s Journal: “The Magic Answer”
6. How Many Escorts Does it Take to Get 3 Children Home? May22nd
7. ICAHD: “Don’t Say ‘We Didn’t Know’”
8. SchNEWS: “Wall of Shame – West pushes Palestinians further into crisis”

FOR PICTURES SEE: PALSOLIDARITY.ORG
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1. Israeli Invades Army Centre of Ramallah, Kill 3 Injure Scores
May 24th, 2006

Update: Palestinian ISM activist Mansour who had gone to the scene was injured by shrapnel when soldiers opened fire at bystanders. Luckily he wasn’t hit directly but he was hit by shrapnel in the head and required stitches. At the time of writing this update, 3 are confirmed dead, including 21-year old Issa Qasim from Jenin, and over 35 injured.
Sunbula reports from the media office:

The Israeli Army have invaded al-Manara, close to the center of Ramallah in order to try and apprehended resistance fighters. They are rather uncomfortably close to the ISM apartment and we can see smoke rising in the distance and hear gunshots. I was about to go out with a friend but it’s not really a good idea right now.

Two of our Palestinian ISMers have gone to the scene of the action. We are now sitting in the ISM apartment watching al-Jazeera (that really is worth watching to find out what’s going on) and Neta’s daughter runs with her little baby footsteps toward the window every time there’s a gunshot to see what’s happened. She seems a lot less worried about things than the rest of us, she is rather more concerned with eating as many of the biscuits I bought a couple of hours ago as possible.

It’s really bizarre to see the place that I had wandered through the last time I was there and just a couple of days ago looking like a war zone on TV. Will update more on what’s happening as more developments come. The shebaab are trying to set up roadblocks and there are at least12 injured. The latest is that it would be preferable not for internationals to go to where there is an impromptu demonstration happening near al-Manara.
Just heard that two people were killed.

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2. Sunbula’s journal: “Farmers in Bil’in successfully plow their land behind the Wall”
May 23d, 2006

Today there was some plowing of the land around the outpost in Bil’n and as always and international presence was needed to help ensure soldiers didn’t attack Palestinians (the Popular Committee in the village decided to build this outpost at the end of last year in order to “counter-settle” the land being taken from the village see this article).

Trying to cross the fence in order to get there has become harder since I was last there in January. There is now a guard tower on the “security” road with soldiers in it. They can’t really stop us or Palestinians from going to the outpost because of a court order permitting the residents from reaching their land but they can harass plenty as they do. There still hasn’t been a response to the village’s petition to stop the building of wall on grounds of illegality, but instead a court order permitting the residents to pass through a gate in the fence. In addition to the army, there is also the Border Police and civilian security for the settlers.

Another ISM-er and I had to get to the outpost in near-dark with one of the village shebab (youth) and we were stopped by one of the Israeli patrol cars, and between their lack of English, my broken ‘ammiyya (colloquial Arabic) and Ashraf’s broken Hebrew, there was some awkward communication which I think eventually frustrated the guy enough for him to indicate to us to buzz off.

I was eager to know what had been going on since the last time I was there. The outpost has expanded a tiny bit and there are a few more places to sleep outdoors. However, my friend told me he is usually the only one from the village who is there regularly, all the time, because the other shebab are afraid to come to the outpost now. The police have been turning up to their homes and either arresting them or confiscating their IDs for allegedly throwing stones at the Friday demonstrations against the wall. His brother is among these and he just got out of jail two months. So, basically, internationals are needed more than ever to be permanently at the outpost. There was only one visit from the army that night, one of their more routine stops for no particular reason other than to scare the Palestinians. I was more disturbed by the mosquitoes buzzing around my head all night.

On Tuesday, for the planting and plowing, we were joined by a group of older Israeli peace activists and some more internationals. Some of the Popular Committee leaders came along with youth and some of the farmers.

Plowing some of the land took place successfully, along with some sheep grazing (they were adorable) and we started digging a hole in the ground for an eventual bathroom. Everyone took their turns at digging and scooping up earth in a pail. There’s something about the earth that gave it a really nice texture – Palestinian earth that has so many stones in it and is so fertile.
There was just one visit by an army jeep that seemed more curious than anything else to check out what was going on. It’s somewhat upsetting to think that farming your own land needs to be a planned “action” with international presence, and that despite an order from the court of the occupying country saying you have the right to do.

For a Video of Bil’in Action May 19th

Click here to watch http://mishtara.org/hingus/?p=52
click here to download. http://content.mishtara.org/bilin-19-5-06.wmv

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3. Wire Cutting Action in Beit Omar
May 22nd, 2006
Today, May 17, two international and one Israeli human rights activist joined a small group of Palestinian farmers in their non-violent action of cutting up 50 meters of a 500 meter long barbed wire fence. A fence the Israeli army illegally had set up the previous day on Palestinian owned land.

Together with the two other international activists I reached Beit Omar early this morning. We met up with Ahmed, one of the owners of the land that was now defaced by army barbwire. We bought some food and water and then went altogether in a car to Ahmed’s fields situated just outside the village of Beit Omar, opposite the farmers’ university of Arob village. It was a hot morning and we all sat down in the shadow of Ahmed’s grapevine, pear and all kinds of other sorts of trees to eat and he started to tell us the story of his land and the newly set up barbed wire.

He told us that the land we’re sitting on belongs to him and his family and that the surrounding parts of the field belong to two other families. In total the size of the land of the three families is 6000 square meters and altogether 40 people are living off and depending on the products and the incomes this land is bringing them.

The previous day the army had come and set up a 500-meter long barbed wire fence crossing straight through the bottom part of the lands of the three families. It effectively makes it impossible to enter the field with a tractor and all the farmer equipment necessary for the work. And though it’s possible to get around the fence by foot, even this is a disrupting and unpleasant 500 meters hiking in difficult terrain. Ahmed continued, “It’s spring! We’re soon going to harvest. If we’re not able to work in the fields now and prepare for harvest and then not even be able to do the actual harvesting, 40 people will starve this year!”

When Ahmed asked the army commander, Izik Affasi, in charge of the military operation, for a reason why the barbed wire was set up he got the answer that there had been Palestinian kids throwing stones from this land on settler cars on the close by settler bypass road. When Ahmed then asked the commander for papers proving that there was a court decision behind this operation he was told they didn’t have any papers right now but that they would bring him papers the following day.

When we, the internationals, later had the possibility to speak to the commander in question he made it clear that there were no accusations against the landowners or their families of throwing stones. The commander even said he knew that the kids came from another village close by, but then he added that the army still holds the landowners responsible for what ever happens on their land at whatever time.

Whether there had ever been any kids throwing stones from Ahmed’s and the other families’ lands or not, we could all agree on three things. First there were no legal papers shown to the landowners when the barbed wire was set up, so there was no reason for them to let it stay there. Second of all the stone throwing accusations weren’t directed to the farmers or their families and they should therefore not have to be the ones suffering for it. That’s called collective punishment and is, from what I know, illegal by international law. Thirdly the barbed wire doesn’t, in any way, serve the purpose of keeping stone throwing kids away. It’s perfectly possible to stand either in front or behind the barbed wire and throw stones. When this was made clear the internationals started to cut up the fence and effectively removed all the barbed wire from Ahmed’s land.

At 11 o’clock soldiers showed up and though they were obviously angry, after awhile they actually started to listen to what the farmers had to say. Showing the soldiers the damage the barbed wire caused on his groves, Haj Mahmoud, one of the neighbor landowners, argued the absurdity of the barbed wire being put in the middle of his land “Why does it have to be here, in the middle of our fields? Put a high wall on the side of the road instead!” To demonstrate Haj Mahmoud picked up a stone from the ground and threw it on the now empty road: “Even me, an 80 year old man, can reach the road with a stone from this side of the barbed wire!” A couple of hours of discussion actually made them agree on our arguments and it was decided that all of the remaining barbed wire could be removed and instead a wall will be set up on the side of the road, allowing the farmers full access to their land. No one was arrested.
We’ll have to wait and see if this agreement will be adhered to or not.

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4. Sunbula’s Journal: “Settler Brats and Weed Pulling”
May 20, 2006

From Jerusalem to Beit Omar, you need to change taxis three times in order to get there, partly because of two Israeli checkpoints. It is a small village outside Hebron (al-Khalil) past Bethlehem. An international presence was needed there today in order to help the farmers farm their land outside the village which is being encroached upon by an illegal settlement. The settlers have been harassing the villagers and attacking them to stop them from working on the land, in order to try and annex more of it.

We were received in the house of Ibrahim Abu Marya and his family and then walked with other internationals from the Christian Peacemaker Teams and Israeli anarchists and peace activists to the fields. Army jeeps were driving past us and when we got to the land just in front of the settlement, there were soldiers gathered. I thought they were going to harass us, but they were mostly trying to stop the settler children from coming and provoking us and the villagers.

The settler children, some of them probably under 10, were gathered there and cursing at us in Hebrew, shouting such nice things as “Nazis”, “sons of whores” and “Hitler needs help” and giving us middle fingers. This is one of the things I detest most about the settlers – they send their little children to attack Palestinians and peace activists because they know the army can’t and won’t do anything against them. Talk about cowardice. The soldiers today seemed rather indifferent to the settler kids and seemed to have a bored “I want to go home” expression on their face, which I don’t blame them for.

We were lucky in that sense that they didn’t help the settlers today. This behavior from settlers is pretty mild compared to what goes on in Hebron city, where the faithful of Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein, the Kach and other such nutcases live; they are considered racist and insane even by mainstream Israeli political standards, which is saying something, but they have money and influence in the Israeli establishment and from sections of American Jewish communities, who believe they are helping to settle the land of Greater Israel.

The internationals and Israelis helped pull weeds from the land and just stay there to prevent the settlers from attacking. The army is more likely to restrain them, in fact much more likely, when there are internationals present, which is why the presence of international solidarity activists is so important and why the Israelis harass people at the borders whom they suspect of being activists. The army is less likely to beat and shoot Palestinians at demonstrations when there are international faces present, watching, photographing, recording, and protesting.

It was fairly peaceful today overall, which is the way it should be more, especially after the large number of injuries at this Friday’s protest in Bil’in village. It was also fun, everyone was impressed by my Arabic and the village kids surrounded me and kept chatting with me about various things. They also demonstrated their ability to sing, in unison, “we shall overcome” and “we will rock you”, clearly showing their varied and eclectic taste in western music. I also learnt lots of vocabulary relating to nature and plants, which should hopefully be helpful.

I am off to Ramallah tomorrow, leaving Jerusalem, for the ISM office and the training for newly arrived people. Excited to meet people I had befriended last time and my good old first Palestinian friend, Mansour the big joker from Biddu.

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5. Shlomo’s Journal: “The Magic Answer”
May 22nd, 2006
By Shlomo Bloom

Today I arrived at Qalandia checkpoint on my way to Jerusalem from Ramallah and got in line behind about 15 Palestinians. The line moved at a slow but steady pace until two people showed their IDs to the soldiers behind the glass and an argument in Hebrew began. It was clear the Palestinians were having trouble communicating in Hebrew so one of them asked if the soldiers spoke English. The conversation then continued in English and I was surprised to hear this Palestinian talking in an extremely assertive manner with the soldiers. He seemed to talk like an American; I haven’t seen Palestinians being quite as sassy with the soldiers. The problem was very clear. The Palestinian-American man’s relative was not being allowed through the checkpoint. Apparently the relative had an appointment in Jerusalem to get a visa to go to America, but he did not have an ID that allowed him into Jerusalem.

Basically, depending on where you live controls where you can travel. If you are Palestinian and do not live in “Israel” (this includes all of occupied East Jerusalem which was unilaterally annexed to Israel in the 1967 war) you can’t go to Jerusalem. Never mind that it is one of the holiest cities for Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism… if you live in the West Bank, you cannot go there.

So, he needed an ID that says he is a Jerusalem resident, i.e. a blue-colored ID (West Bank residents have green and orange colored IDs). As he didn’t have one, he can’t go there no matter what, even if he has business there.

This reminds me of a friend of mine who had to appear in court in Jerusalem a few months back. He did not have a Jerusalem ID and was not going to be allowed into Jerusalem. But if he did not appear in court, he would have been arrested. So, he had to “sneak” into Jerusalem… basically walking around the wall. He had to enter illegally so he would not be arrested. It’s ridiculous.
And yeah, to get a visa to go to the US, apparently you must go to Jerusalem because that’s where the US consulate is…

The two men were showing the soldier a piece of paper which seemed to state that the man did have an appointment today. The soldiers did not care. They refused to let him through.
“How is he supposed to get his visa if you won’t let him through?” The American argued. The soldiers simply refused. This continued for a few minutes and then I asked the English-speaking man if he was, indeed American. He said yes. I told him “I am too, I’ll try to talk to the soldiers for you if they let me through.” He asked the soldiers to let me through and they refused.
Eventually the two men were forced to give up and go back. The American said they had been waiting two months for this appointment.

When it was my turn to show my passport to the soldiers I chastised them for not letting the two men though. “He clearly had an appointment in Jerusalem, why can’t you let him through to go to the appointment?” I asked.
Want to guess what the answer was?
I’ll give you a hint – this is the answer they give to any question you ask, such as: “Why did you beat this man?”; “Why is this man detained?”; “Why are you searching this little girl’s backpack?”; “What are you doing invading/destroying this family’s home?”
As my friend Thalya pointed out it is also the answer to the fallowing questions –
“Why did the NSA go trawling through millions of phone records of American citizens making domestic calls?”
“Why are an unknown number of young men being held indefinitely without charge in Guantanamo?”
“Why does the Patriot act give the government the power to review records of who is checking out what books from a library?”
“Why are we planning to bomb and/or invade Iran despite the fact that they have never threatened and could never threaten the U.S. and clearly do not possess nuclear weapons?”
“Why were all the ‘intellectuals’ in NAZI Germany arrested and imprisoned?”
“Why was Tibet occupied by the Chinese?”
The answer of course is- “Security.”

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6. How Many Escorts Does it Take to Get 3 Children Home?
May 22nd, 2006 |
“When are we going to get a reality show in Tel Rumeida?”
by Shlomo Bloom

20th May 2006: How many people does it require to escort three Palestinian children home while they pass a bunch of angry and violent settlers? Really, it was so many this time that I lost count. This report is the combined testimony of several different Human Rights Workers (HRWs) present in Tel Rumeida, Hebron today.

After last week’s attacks, we decided to have four HRWs present to make sure that three Palestinian children got home safely as they passed the Tel Rumeida settlement. I was going to stay on the roof of our apartment and film where I had a great view of the street and hopefully not get attacked by soldiers and settlers like last time.

A little bit of background on this particular situation: there are three Palestinian children who have to walk along a narrow path directly below the Tel Rumeida settlement in order to go home from school. The settlers consider this a provocation and regularly throw rocks at the children as they walk home. The settlers told soldiers to put razor wire across the beginning of the path and the children have to move it out of the way every day. There is an Israeli Supreme Court order that allows the children to use this path but soldiers on duty nearby rarely know this and often refuse to help the children get home safely.

Today, Shabbat, is always especially difficult because the settlers are not at work or school and they hang around waiting to cause trouble.

I began filming as I saw one HRW walking with the children up to the entrance to the path and this is what I saw and what the HRW later told me. The HRW walked with the three children up the hill. A member of EAPPI (Ecumenical Accompaniers for Palestine and Israel) was close behind. The HRW started explaining to the soldier on duty that the children must be allowed access to the path to go home. The kids began trying to climb over the wire when several settlers appeared and a settler woman began yelling at the Palestinian children and at the soldier, telling them they were not allowed to pass and that they had to go around. Immediately on hearing the settler woman, the soldier told the kids that they were not allowed here because this was Israel and that they should go back. The HRW replied that it was an Israeli Supreme court order that they should be allowed to pass! No one gave solid reasons why the children were not allowed. The HRW then asked the soldier to call for backup because the settler woman hit her and was shoving her in an attempt to get at the Palestinian kids. Many settlers were crowding around the HRW and the Palestinian children at this point as they were trying to climb over the razor wire. One of the settlers threw a rock that hit the HRW. The HRW begged the soldier to ask his commander about the order and he refused.

Eventually the soldiers ordered the two HRWs and the Palestinian children back down the hill where they would wait for approximately 45 minutes for the right people to show up and allow them home.

At this point there were about fifteen soldiers present and they noticed me filming on the roof. Some soldiers took my picture and I smiled, waved and blew them a kiss.
At this point the HRW on the street with the children called the District Command Office to try and get them to order the soldiers to let the children go home. She also called the police.
Another Jeep full of soldiers arrived. Some soldiers were holding the settlers at the top of the hill at bay but most had positioned themselves in the road so that the children could not pass.
Now there were four members of TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron), four members of EAPPI, three of us, two Israeli activists, two people wearing UN vests and God knows how many soldiers present all discussing whether or not these poor kids should be allowed home.

One of the Israeli activists called the police, explained the situation in Hebrew and requested their presence. They finally showed up.

Eventually someone figured out what was supposed to happen and one police officer, the two UN workers and three or four soldiers walked the children up the hill and over the razor wire.
As soon as the police and soldiers were out of view, an adult settler woman threw several rocks at the Palestinian children as they walked along the path to their home. The children got to their home about an hour after they should have.

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7. ICAHD: “Don’t Say ‘We Didn’t Know’”
May 22nd, 2006
A message from the Israeli committee against home demolitions
http://www.icahd.org/eng/

A few years ago Zakya from the village Zita donated a kidney to her brother. It didn’t help and he passed away due to delays in the granting of permits for continuation of the treatments. This was at the beginning of the Intifada. Today Zakya’s income feeds and clothes her sister-in-law, her four children (aged 2-12) and also her elderly parents.

Zakya’s main source of income is her land. The construction of the separation fence passes near her village, about 3km from the Green Line, has left around 500 dunam (out of the total village land of 1000 dunam) on the other side of the fence. Therefore Zakya is forced to walk 10km to pass through the gate in the fence and arrive at her land, which is around 500 meters from her home. Additionally, her permits are occasionally not reviewed and she is entirely prevented from reaching her land

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8. SchNEWS: “Wall of Shame – West pushes Palestinians further into crisis”
May 22nd, 2006

https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/05/22/schnews-wall-of-shame-west-pushes-palestinians-further-into-crisis/
From SchNEWS number 544
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news544.htm
The remnants of Palestinian civil society, brutalized by the occupation and ongoing encirclement by the apartheid wall, is now reeling under the shock of the sudden removal of all US and EU aid. Their crime? To have voted in free and fair elections for a movement, Hamas, which Bush and Blair argue is ‘terrorist’.
Bank transfers to the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been blocked by the US. Slowly but surely the PA is being starved of the funds needed to maintain basic services and infrastructure. The civil workforce have not been paid for two months and hospitals are desperately short of vital medicines. Jack Straw argued that aid to the PA had to be cut because Hamas refuses to recognise Israel or renounce the right to resist the occupation. Yet the UK is an enthusiastic backer of the Israel whose new Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said “I believe with all my heart in the people of Israel’s eternal historic right to the entire land of Israel.” – meaning a racially-exclusive state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. Hamas’s claim to the same territory, with roots in living memory rather than biblical mythology is treated as terrorist rhetoric and attracts crippling sanctions from the West. Are we about to do to Palestine what was done in Iraq during the nineties?
Annual UK arms sales to Israel have doubled over the last year to £25m, and since 2000 the UK has sold £70m worth of arms to Israel, including tanks, helicopters, mines, rockets, machine guns, tear-gas, leg irons, components for fighter jets and surface-to-surface missiles. Over the last 30 years Israel has been by far the largest recipient of US foreign aid.
This sanctions regime is being conducted against an occupied people on behalf of an occupying power. While the West demands that Hamas renounce violence, the low intensity war against the civilian population in Palestine continues. In the months of April and May, over 40 Palestinians have been killed by the army – most of them civilians, at least eight of them children – with the most perfunctory coverage in the western press. Aggressive expansion of settlements together with the building of settler-only roads continues. Israel maintains a stranglehold over the Palestinian economy, meaning that the PA is totally dependent on external sources of funding.
The icon of this oppressive regime is the building of the apartheid wall – some 730km of concrete and steel which will annex huge swathes of Palestinian land and turn towns and villages into gated mini-prisons. If completed it will allow Israel to control all significant movement within the West Bank, allowing further degradation of daily life in the Occupied Territories. A bitter fight to resist this symbol of repression has been growing over the past few months, as SchNEWS’s correspondent in the village of Bil’Iin, near Ramallah, reports…
BIL’IN UP
“Bil’In is a small village close to Ramallah six kilometres inside the Green Line (the 1967 ceasefire line). For over eighteen months the villagers of Bil’In have been resisting attempts by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to build a section of the apartheid wall on village lands.
At a demonstration on Friday 12th May, 300 Palestinians, international and Israelis converged at the gate of the wall, the villagers non-violent protest was met by a hail of plastic-coated steel bullets fired at close range. Two international activists were hospitalised with head injuries (one needing treatment for a brain hemorrhage) and dozens of Palestinians were also shot and injured.
As in other villages, the Israeli government argues that the route of the wall in Bil’in was determined purely for security reasons. However, a visit to Bil’In shows that the work is aimed at the annexation of the villages’ ancient olive groves in order to allow expansion of the illegal ‘Israeli-Jewish’ settlements of Mattiyahu East and Mod’In Illit. The annexation will directly benefit the Israeli real estate developers ‘Green Park’ and ‘Heftsiba’
.The villagers of Bil’In have gained large-scale support from Palestinian, Israeli and activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in their struggle against the construction. Since February 2005 villagers have staged hundreds of demonstrations at the route of the wall. The village has become a symbol of Palestinian non-violent resistance and the demos have become a regular feature in the Israeli press.
Israel has built an incomplete barrier separating the villagers of Bil’In from their olive groves. In 2005 the villagers built an ‘outpost’ on their own land, imitating the Israeli settler tactic of claiming Palestinian land through building illegal outposts, close to the settlement of Mod’In Illit. The outpost is constantly manned by Palestinian and international activists and has become a point where villagers can meet and discuss resistance to the construction.
The villagers hold a demonstration at the gate to their lands every Friday. On one such demo in April, villagers’ protests centred around the boycott of apartheid Israel. Protesters burned Israeli products in front of border police in riot gear, before breaking down the gate in the wall and trying to access their land. The demonstrators were met with with batons, tear gas and rubber bullets.
Mohammed Khatib, a member of the Bil’In Popular Committee Against the Wall, said… ‘in the face of our non-violent resistance, Israeli soldiers have attacked our peaceful protests with teargas, clubs, rubber-coated steel bullets and other ammunition. They have injured over 400 villagers, they invade the village at night, entering homes, pulling families out and arresting people.’
The IOF have repeatedly arrested youths from the village in attempts to intimidate those taking part in resistance, often demanding large sums of money in bail. In April two children were arrested while herding goats.The two boys picked up one of the pieces of scrap metal that litter the fields next to the construction site. One of the settlers noticed and called the police, accusing them of theft. The police arrested the pair and later made additional charges of entering Israel illegally and throwing stones at a recent demonstration. The boys’ release was secured by the ISM for 5000 NIS (Israeli shekels) each.
Despite IOF repression, the resistance raises the spirits of the people of Bil’In in the face of the brutal Israeli occupation. Tom Hayes, a volunteer in Bil’In with the ISM, an organisation aimed at supporting Palestinian non-violent resistance, said that, ‘the atmosphere in Bil’In is one of hope – the villagers respond to Israel’s apartheid policies with increased resistance and are confident that they will win their fight.’
Similar widespread resistance in the nearby villages of Budrus and Biddu, where other sections of the wall have been built, has lead to Israeli Supreme Court decisions limiting the amount of land which the IOF can annex behind the wall. The villagers of Bil’In are hoping to draw international pressure and media attention to influence the court’s decision.
The villagers of Bil’In have issued three petitions against the wall to the Supreme Court. The most recent, filed on May 14th, states that the route of the wall is specifically designed to benefit real estate companies and should be removed. Supreme Court Judge Salim Jubran ordered the state to respond to the villagers’ request for a temporary injunction within seven days.
The ISM has worked in Bil’In for over a year and is committed to supporting the villagers’ struggle. Contact www.palsolidarity.org to join us in Palestine.”
• www.brightonpalestine.org – blog of ISM activist working in Palestine
• www.palestinecampaign.org – Palestine Solidarity Campaign
• www.ism-london.org.uk – ISM London
• www.stopthewall.org – Palestinian anti Apartheid Wall Campaign
Solidarity Events
• May 20th – Demonstrate for Palestine, March and Rally, assemble 12 noon, Embankment, London
• May 24th – Introduction to ISM – Wednesday 24th May 7.30pm @ The Bread And Roses Pub, Clapham
• May 27-28th – ISM Training Weekend – @ The Square, 21 Russell Sq, London, WC1.
• May 30th – International Work in Palestine, discussion, 6.30pm, Cowley Club, 12 London Rd, Brighton