Tag: Digests

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is inviting volunteers to come to Palestine for a conference on Joint Nonviolent Struggle in Bil’in and for ISM’s Spring campaign

The Bil’in Conference will take place February 20 & 21, 2006. ISM’s Spring Campaign will take place between March 1st and April 23rd, 2006.

Come for a week, a month or two months. Volunteer training sessions will take place every Sunday and Monday. For more information on travel and logisitcs, see our Join Us in Palestine section.

ISM needs volunteers to support Bil’in and other west bank village’s nonviolent resistance. We also need volunteers to serve as human rights monitors in the Hebron neighborhood of Tel Rumeida, where Palestinian children are harassed on their way to school daily by settlers, and in the small village of Qawawis, where shepherds and farmers face regular intimidation from soldiers and the occupants of three surrounding hilltop settlements. Last but not least we need volunteers in the ISM media office doing support work for activists out in the field.

For the last year our West Bank village of Bil’in has campaigned nonviolently to save our land – chaining ourselves to olive trees, locking ourselves to tree roots, lying in front of bulldozers, and tyng our hands together in front of jeeps. We even established the first ‘Palestinian outpost’ on our land beyond the wall, 100 meters from several Israeli settlements also built on our land. The Israeli soldiers have responded with violence – tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, live ammunition, arrests, beatings and curfews. Still, some days we reach our goal.

The media paints a confusing picture as to who are the victims and who are the aggressors here. Focusing on armed Palestinian resistance, the media portrays the conflict as a struggle between two armies. But there is really only one army (Israel’s) against one people (the Palestinians) and we want the world to see this.

According to the fourth Geneva Convention as an occupied people we have the right to resist Israeli occupation under international law, even by violent means. However, when we use nonviolent resistance, Israel’s weapons lose their power. When I face a soldier with nothing in my hand, the soldier is forced not to use his weapon. If he uses it, he shows the world that we are being attacked for opposing the theft of our land. When we protest peacefully, we are equal because we cancel out the soldier’s power.

Though Bil’in sits inside the West Bank, 2 1⁄2 miles east of the Green Line, Israel is building its Wall on our land, seizing 57% of our village’s land to expand two settlements. We have depended on this land to feed our families for generations.

The leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad participated in two protests here, marching in nonviolent demonstrations with Israeli activists. Hamas leader Hassan Youssef told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz Daily that if they see that this kind of demonstration can end Israel’s occupation, and then they will do it. So we in Bil’in and other villages chose nonviolent resistance to show that it can end the occupation.

We will continue to try and touch the soldiers’ humanity. There will never be security for any of us unless the Israeli people respect our rights to this land, end the occupation, and let us achieve our freedom.

But we need help. If the Palestinian people saw more support from the international community, from ordinary people and governments, many more would choose this path. We hope that the power of people who believe in peace between these two peoples will prevail.

–Mohammed Khatib, member of the popular committee against the wall in Bil’in

For more information on joining the ISM see our Join Us in Palestine section.

*Reflections of a Deportation
*ISM Co-Founder Among Duo Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
*Palestinian Action Alert for Friday, February 10
*Church Votes to Sell off Shares to Caterpillar
*Villagers Expand First Palestinian Settlement
* Rickman and Rachel Juggle Three Wins
*How to Provoke a Settler in Hebron
*Bil’in Waiting for Justice

REFLECTIONS ON A DEPORTATION

By David

In six days I will be deported by the state of Israel.

I am a human rights worker. I have been working to prevent and document violence against the Palestinian residents of Hebron in the West Bank. Attacks on Palestinians by violent Israeli settlers occur on an almost daily basis and range from insults and spitting to stonings and beatings; these attacks take place in an area heavily patrolled by Israeli police forces and often happen immediately in front of complacent soldiers. The presence of international human rights workers, like myself, sheds some light on the abuses that settlers and occupation forces commit, and on the crimes that police consistently fail to prevent, pursue and prosecute.

***

On January 19th, I was standing on Shuhada Street, in Tel Rumeida, after escorting some Palestinians safely to their homes. It was 20 minutes past 2 o’clock when an Israeli police jeep rolled up to where I was on the sidewalk – I recognized the police officers in the jeep. A police officer in the passenger seat leaned across the driver and asked me, in Arabic, “What is your name?” Within minutes I was inside the back of the jeep, under arrest and leaving Tel Rumeida.

Before going to Ben Gurion Airport, I made a brief stop at the Kiryat Arba police station where I was paraded – trophy-like – in front of Hussein Nabia, a police officer who previously arrested me on false charges of failing to identify myself and assaulting a soldier, and who has tried – without warrant – to break into the ISM/Tel Rumeida Project apartment. The officers who arrested me brought me into an office where Nabia was seated, “David!” he said, and the officers brought me back outside.

***

Tel Rumeida, a small neighbourhood of Hebron, is sandwiched between two small settlements. The settlers of Beit Hadassah and Tel Rumeida Settlements are some of the most extreme and violent in the West Bank; the founders of the settlement movement are among them. These settlers, with the support of the Israeli Military, aim to make life intolerable for Palestinians – with the goal of driving Palestinians from their homes, from the neighbourhood and, ultimately, from Hebron itself.

The victims of these attacks range the gamut of Palestinians in the neighborhood with no one being immune – old women and young boys, businessmen and university students.

***

At the airport I had a hearing with a member of the Ministry of the Interior (MoI). I had been waiting outside her office with police officers and just before I was summoned into her office, I received a phone call from a friend. Just as we began to speak, the police physically pried my telephone from my fingers, and took it away; I was told, “It is rude to talk on the phone when you are in someone’s office.”
My tourist visa has expired, but before it did I went to the MoI office in Jerusalem and asked for an extension. I was given, instead, an appointment at which I could officially apply for an extension. I explained to the official whom I met with, that my visa would expire before this appointment; “No problem,” she told me, and gave me a slip of paper explaining that I had an appointment at the Ministry of Interior. I explained this to the official who then issued a deportation order against me.

***

There was questioning and there were forms to sign. An oversize three-ring binder held copies of form after form, deportation order after deportation order, each form a different pastel colour, and each form translated into an array of languages.

During my hearing a police officer interrupted asking me to sign a form he held out to me. Among other things, the form was a waiver, and my signature would indicate that I was refusing my right to pick up my belongings (which remained in Hebron). To paraphrase: I recognize that it was suggested to me that I go to my place of dwelling, accompanied by police, and gather my personal effects.

“This wasn’t suggested to me, and I don’t want to waive my right to gather my belongings,” I explained in English. The MoI official translated the sentence into Hebrew for the police officer.

“In fact, lets go and get them right now,” I made to stand up from the chair, having visions of a police escort and me walking into the apartment after dinner. “Will you take me now to get my things? It says here,” I gestured to the form, ” that you will accompany me to get my things.”

More translation and then the MoI official asked, “Where are your things?”

“At my home.”

“Where is that?”

“Hebron.”

“Hevron?” incredulous. “You live in Hevron?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “So? Can we go?”

Again some translation and discussion before, “No one is going to take you to Hevron. Just sign the paper.”
I explained that I wasn’t going to sign a form saying that I waived my right, when in fact I was being denied said right. “Sign the form,” they replied.

I didn’t sign the form.

***

I was held in a room near Ben Gurion Airport for three days. The room had two windows, six beds, one toilet, two sinks, two showerheads, two chairs, one table and one television.

On at least two occasions I am convinced that the guards forgot I was there. One evening guards turned out my lights at ten-thirty P.M. It was not until after five P.M. the next evening that the lights came back on. That same evening a guard opened the door around half-seven, “Do you need anything?” he asked.

“Dinner?”

The guard threw a sandwich, wrapped in plastic, onto the table. These sandwiches were the staple food served to me at least nine times in three days. White bread – baguette-style – halved length-wise, three slices of white cheese, some pieces of iceberg lettuce and two cherry tomatoes.

A guard searched me – marking the fourth time I was searched that day – when I first arrived at the airport “detention centre”, before he put me into my cell. Looking at two marbles that I had in my left pant pocket – gifts from a child in Tel Rumeida – he asked, “Do you need these?”

“They’re mine,” I told him, and he let me keep them.

On the third morning of my imprisonment, I was sleeping when a guard came into my cell. “Hey!” he yelled at me, “Get up. It’s time to go!”

***

At Ramle Detention Centre I was searched again – grand total: five times. This time my marbles were confiscated. My lip balm was also confiscated. What was not confiscated was the razor – now broken – that I had been given in detention at the airport. The head came unattached in such a way that the two blades became removable. This remained in my custody throughout my time in prison.

During the three days that I was held at Ramle, I learned a some of what life is like there on a daily basis for the refugees and economic migrants who are imprisoned there – most for much longer than me.

Just before half-past six A.M. every day, loudspeakers blasted a wake-up warning up and down the halls of Block 4, second floor. Shortly thereafter, guards would enter every room and count the prisoners; everyone was expected to be on his feet. This marked the first such count, there being often six or more per day – wake up from your nap, stop your card game, get off your top bunk; stand up when the guard enters the room; wait while the guard counts each man; relax when the guard leaves.

Economic migrants spend time in Israeli “deportation centres” (read: prisons) awaiting their deportation, or awaiting a new job.

Most of the economic migrants I met in jail await deportation, and their stay in jail is punishment for having worked in Israel without a valid work visa. These people spend between one week and four months in jail waiting to be deported. Most of the prisoners I met who fell into this category had resigned themselves to the fact that they would be deported and were simply waiting to go home. Unlike me (if I had agreed I would have been on a plane the evening that I was arrested) these people often have to wait weeks or months for their deportation.

On the morning of the day that I was released from Ramle, guards came into my cell and told another inmate, Get ready. You leave today. The Thai fellow, who slept on the bunk next to me, had been four months in prison and the first notice he received of his departure was this warning, less than two hours before leaving the prison.

I met a Nepalese fellow who had a valid work visa. He had been imprisoned because he lost his job.

His employer was ill and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A turn for the worse in his employer’s disease left him without a job. For this, he was jailed until he was able to find a new job; after one week in prison he had a new job in Tel Aviv and was released on a Wednesday afternoon to prepare for his first day of work that Sunday.

***

If the economic migrants have a rough time in Israeli prison, the refugees have it worse. With not even the hope of deportation – having fled their home countries seeking asylum – the refugees at Ramle have no way to know how long they will stay in prison.

For the refugee men with whom I was imprisoned – from Ethiopia, Sudan, Liberia and other, mainly African, countries – each day is much like the other. Months pass without any change in their situation. Human rights workers come to meet with other prisoners, and tell the refugees they cannot help them. UNHCR meets with them and says, “We’re sorry; we know you are refugees, but unfortunately, we cannot help you.”

Tyson, from Ethiopia, has been nearly two years in prison, he showed me copies of letters written on his behalf – the return addresses are Canadian. One is from a group called Welcome Place in Winnipeg, and the other from a Canadian Member of Parliament. Both letters call on officials at the prison, and officials in the government, to release Tyson and the “70” Ethiopian refugees in his position.
Welcome Place wants to sponsor Tyson and the other Ethiopian refugees and bring them to Winnipeg. Most of the legal work has been done, what remains is for the refugees to have an interview with a Canadian official in Israel. The letters petition the government to please release them to allow them to fulfill these final requirements. This has not happened. Both of the letters are dated 2004.

“We are not criminals,” Tyson said. “We all have one thing in common. We are refugees and we are looking for safety.” Israel has shown them only imprisonment. “Israel should not forget it’s past. It was a nation of refugees.”

Looking out a window, barred with three separate layers of steel, Tyson pointed to a series of small huts arranged around a central courtyard with benches, palm trees and a small garden. “Those are the criminals,” he says, explaining that in those huts are Israelis who have been convicted of crimes and are serving their time. “Their doors are open 24/7 and they have a 41-inch TV.” These prisoners – convicted criminals – can walk freely in their courtyard, while Tyson and his fellow refugees are allowed outside for one hour daily, except Tuesdays when they remain inside all day. The refugees and economic migrants I was imprisoned with do not have a television; there is no common room – people socialize in the hallway near the bathroom or in their small cells.

Refugees like Tyson wait in prison with few ways to entertain themselves, extremely limited access to fresh air, and with no way of knowing how long they will be held in jail. Compared to theirs, my lot was quite easy.

***

After six days in prison, I was released on bail.

The MoI judge set bail at one thousand sheqels. Fifty thousand sheqels is considered a high bail, and fifteen thousand can generally be considered low. With white skin, and a Canadian passport, my NIS1,000 bail demonstrates the institutional racism that pervades all aspects of Israeli Bureaucracy that I have had the opportunity to witness.

The two conditions of my bail were that I leave Israel no later than February 10th, and that I not participate in any “International Activities” in Hebron.

As an “international,” I have wondered what might constitute “International Activity” in Hebron, and my conclusion is this: anything I might do in Hebron, witnessed by the Israeli police. Eating breakfast, visiting friends, drinking tea on the street – indeed, even walking on the street – in a nation (Palestine) which is not my own, could be viewed as a type of this activity. As such, I have not been back to Tel Rumeida, and have not seen my Palestinian friends, since I was arrested.

But: I am free.

***

I felt bad leaving Ramle. I breezed in and out of there with my blue passport, staying just over three days, while hundreds of other prisoners – who have committed no crime – remain for months. Tyson and the others didn’t feel bad; they were genuinely happy for me. No one should be in there, they believe that, and that included me.

***

I was arrested because Israeli police in the Palestinian city of Hebron know who I am; because they know that I am a human rights worker, and because human rights workers in Hebron often have to do the work of police officers: intervening in attacks to protect civilians from settler violence.

Instead of prosecuting or even – pursuing – the settlers who have maliciously attacked their Palestinian neighbours, the police of Kiryat Arba (Hebron) harass and arrest international human rights workers, who strive for justice alongside the Palestinians. If the state of Israel is interested in peace, then she should allow human rights workers, and international observers to work for justice; deporting those who work for justice cannot be seen as part of any “peace process.”

***

And so, in six days I will be deported. I paid for my ticket. I was planning to leave on this date. I will go to the airport on my own. Security guards will not carry me onto the plane – I will walk. This will be my deportation: quiet, and with a stopover in Budapest.

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ISM CO-FOUNDER AMONG DUO NOMINATED FOR NOBEL PRIZE
Letter from the AFSC nominating Ghassan Andoni and Jeff Halper

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker peace and social justice organization, has nominated two candidates for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize: Jeff Halper from Israel and Ghassan Andoni from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In a region torn by conflict, these grassroots peace activists have resolutely followed nonviolence as the path to justice, peace and reconciliation. For decades they have worked to liberate both the Palestinian and the Israeli people from the yoke of structural violence – symbolized most clearly by the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They have opposed every element of the Occupation, including settlements and the Separation Barrier, striving for equality between their peoples within the framework of sovereign and democratic states.

Ghassan Andoni is a Palestinian, a physics professor at Birzeit University and a resident of the Christian town of Beit Sahour, next to Bethlehem. He already began his peace activities while a college student in Iraq, leaving his studies in order to work in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon during that country’s civil war. Returning home to Palestine from Lebanon, he was arrested by the Israeli authorities and jailed for two years for his membership in the PLO. He subsequently traveled to the UK where, in 1983, he earned his MSc in Physics.

Once more back in Palestine, Ghassan was one of the main initiators of the famous Beit Sahour’s tax revolt against the Israeli Occupation during the first Intifada (1987-1993), perhaps the most effective broad-based community resistance to have been organized since the start of the Occupation in 1967. Ghassan understood the power that nonviolence has in leading a mass movement of liberation and utilized it effectively. After serving another jail term for his participation in the tax revolt, he co-founded in 1988 The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between Peoples, which sponsored dialogue and joint activities between Israelis and Palestinians. As the Occupation wore on, Ghassan and Rapprochement moved from dialogue to direct nonviolent action intended to end the Occupation. In this connection he co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), in which international volunteers and Palestinians initiated grassroots nonviolent actions of resistance to the oppression created by years of occupation. In working with ISM, Ghassan has insisted that all international participants commit themselves to nonviolence, both physical and verbal.

As he continued his peace work, Ghassan proceeded strategically. He realized that a nonviolent movement must always be able to respond creatively and effectively to ongoing developments. His creative, brave and proactive responses have made him one of the leading figures of the Palestinian peace movement.

Jeff Halper is an Israeli professor of Anthropology. A Vietnam War resister in America, he emigrated to Israel in 1973. Although he insists that Jews have a legitimate place in Israel/Palestine, he has always rejected the exclusivity of Jewish claims to the country that has led to the displacement of Palestinian refugees and to the Occupation. As an Israeli citizen he has refused to bear arms even during his military service, and refused to serve in the Occupied Territories. Two of his children have been imprisoned as conscientious objectors.

Jeff co-founded The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) in 1997, which was among the first Israeli peace groups to work with Palestinians inside the Occupied Territories. ICAHD works closely with other critical Israeli groups such as Bat Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, Gush Shalom and the Alternative Information Center, as well as with Palestinian partners such as the Land Defense Committee, Rapprochement and the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC). ICAHD resists the demolition of Palestinian homes, actions in which Jeff often displayed immense courage, sitting in front of bulldozers, confronting Israeli soldiers and suffering arrest. He and ICAHD also organize Israelis and internationals to rebuild demolished homes with Palestinians as acts of political resistance to the Occupation. Through resistance to Israel’s house demolition policy, ICAHD exposes the injustice of the Occupation and asserts the crucial role of the international civil society in bringing about change, just as Ghassan Andoni has done with the founding of the International Solidarity Movement.

ICAHD has been well ahead of other peace organizations in its appeal to the international community, disseminating information and networking, analyzing what Jeff calls the “matrix of control” employed by Israel in its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – the framework created by strategic settlement blocs, settler-only highways and the Separation Wall. In ways that parallel the development of Rapprochement, ICAHD has come to see that reconciliation cannot be placed ahead of the restoration of justice – a justice to be brought about through nonviolent direct action and adherence to human rights.

Jeff Halper has in recent years spent a great deal of time traveling abroad to inform the public about the “realities on the ground,î and has established ICAHD chapters in the US, the UK and elsewhere. His travels and writings have added to his international stature. Ghassan and Jeff are currently working on a book about nonviolent resistance to the Occupation. They share a fundamental belief that Palestinians and Israelis who stand for human rights, international law, peace, justice and reconciliation are on the same “side.î This is what makes their message relevant and universal, and why their voices – the seldom heard voices of critical advocates of peace and non-violence – are acknowledged in this nomination.

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. It was the 1947 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The AFSC’s national headquarters is in Philadelphia. It has nine regional and 34 area offices in the US and is active in 22 countries around the world. Its work is based on the belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice. Additional information about the AFSC can be found at www.afsc.org. Ghassan Andoni can be reached at g_andoni@yahoo.com; Jeff Halper at jeff@icahd.org.

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PALESTINIAN ACTION ALERT FOR FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10

Bil’in:
Villagers will attempt to hold a demonstration on areas of their land confiscated for the construction of Israel’s annexation barrier after 12 p.m. prayers. Bil’in villagers have employed an array of creative nonviolent tactics to oppose the expropriation of about half their land for nearly one year. The most recent development has been the expansion of the first Palestinian settlement west of the barrier. Tuesday night Bil’in villagers built the outpost’s second house. The march will begin at the mosque, and proceed toward the Modi’in Illit construction site.

For more information call: 0547-258210

Aboud:
Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, will march to sections of the annexation barrier under construction in Aboud village. They will march in protest of the derogatory cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed as well as against the theft of their land. The purpose of the demonstration is to highlight two points. The first is that the Palestinian reaction against the cartoons transcends religion. The villagers also hope to raise awareness that the current path of the barrier will confiscate 20 percent of the West Bank’s water supply, numerous important archeological sites, and a historical church.

Protesters will gather in front of the local council at 11 a.m.

For more information call: Operation Dove 0599311344 02-2864774

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CHURCH VOTES TO SELL OFF SHARES IN CATERPILLAR

Reported by the Guardian

The Church of England’s general synod – including the Archbishop of Canterbury – voted last night to disinvest church funds from companies profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

The main target of the plan will be the US earth-moving equipment company Caterpillar which has supplied vehicles used by Israel to demolish Palestinian homes. When the worldwide Anglican communion called for such a move, at a meeting last summer, there followed protests from Israel and Jewish groups. The church currently invests about £2.5m of its £900m share portfolio in Caterpillar and had been engaged in negotiations with the company about its activities. Caterpillar insists it has not provided the earth movers directly to Israel but to the US military which sold them on.

So passionate was the debate that it squeezed out an equally contentious decision last Friday by the Church commissioners, managers of the church’s investment and property portfolio, to sell off the century-old Octavia Hill housing estates for more than 1,000 poor tenants in south London to property developers.

On the first day of its meeting in London, the general synod, the church’s parliament, heard denunciations of Israel’s use of the machines from one of its own bishops and from the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, who is Palestinian, whose letter was read out.

The Rt Rev John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, who is chairman of Christian Aid, told the meeting that the problem in the Middle East was the government of Israel rather than Caterpillar but that it was vital that the church should invest only in organisations which behaved ethically.

A CD containing a PowerPoint presentation on Divestment (based on the Sabeel MRI report), an audio presentation and the text of the Divestment paper presented to the Church of England General Synod is available for £5 including postage. An MP3 version of the talk will be available for download from Stephen Sizer’s website www.sizers.org later in the week.

Here is the text of the motion passed by General Synod:

“This Synod:
a) heeds the call from our sister church, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, for morally responsible investment in the Palestinian occupied territories and, in particular, to disinvest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation, such as Caterpillar Inc, until they change their policies;
b) encourages the Ethical Investment Advisory Group to follow up the consultation referred to in its Report with intensive discussions with Caterpillar Inc, with a view to its withdrawing from supplying or maintaining either equipment or parts for use by the state of Israel in demolishing Palestinian homes;
c) in the light of the urgency of the situation, and the increased support needed by Palestinian Christians, urges members of the EIAG to actively engage with monitoring the effects of Caterpillar Inc’s machinery in the Palestinian occupied territories through visiting the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East to learn of their concerns first hand, and to see recent house demolitions;
d) urges the EIAG to give weight to the illegality under international law of the activities in which Caterpillar Inc’s equipment is involved; and
e) urges the EIAG to respond to the monitoring visit and the further discussions with Caterpillar by updating its recommendations in the light of these.”

The Episcopal Bishop of Jerusalem, the Right Revd Riah Abu El Assal had sent the following challenging message to the Synod:

“I am saddened to witness less courage within our church than one would expect. Both time and energy have been spent on issues such as human sexuality. But non violent instruments such as divestment from companies that produce death rather than life does not get the same attention. No wonder the church is loosing credibility in many parts of our world.

The Elijah’s are absent and the voiceless wait in vain for church Synods to be their voice. Need the church wait until there are no homes and no trees for our people to wake up and tell the Ahabs of today that Naboth is but another child of God and deserves to lead a life with dignity and secure enough that those bulldozers will not reach his home.”
+ Bishop Riah Abu El Assal

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VILLAGERS EXPAND FIRST PALESTINIAN SETTLEMENT

The Israeli army served Bil’in villagers a seizure order for six dunams yesterday. The villagers responded by expanding their own outpost, building a second house on the west side of the annexation barrier. The military order was issued for the construction of a watchtower adjacent to the route of the barrier that will separate villagers from approximately half their land.

At 8 p.m. a group of villagers constructed the new house in less than two hours. Israeli soldiers arrived on the scene and attempted to stop the construction but, dozens of villagers barricaded themselves in the structure.

Wednesday morning, contractors working on building the Metityahu Mizrah settlement dumped rubble on Palestinian villagers who stood in front of their bulldozers. Popular committee member Muhammed Khatib was lightly wounded while he and other villagers attempted to prevent contractors from blocking the road to the new structure. Construction on Metityahu Mizrah has been frozen by a Supreme court order but the contractors continue to prepare the foundations for the settlement outpost, an act which they claim does not constitute construction. Bil’in villagers await a ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court regarding the route of the annexation barrier on their land.

“The purpose of this land confiscation is for settlement expansion, not security,” said Khatib. “The army wants to create facts on the ground before the court decision.”

The construction of “Bil’in West,” the first Palestinian settlement, marks a new and creative advance in Palestinian nonviolent resistance. The two structures place Israeli authorities in an embarrassing position. Israel will highlight its own selective law enforcement policies if the houses are demolished and recent additions to Metityahu Mizrah, which lack building permits and are illegal even according to Israeli standards, are not.

“As owners of this land, we have the right to decide its future,” Khatib said.

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RICKMAN AND RACHEL JUGGLE THREE WINS

From What’s on Stage News

My Name Is Rachel Corrie was the biggest straight play winner in this year’s Theatregoers’ Choice Awards, triumphing in three categories: Best New Play, Best Solo Performance and Best Director (See News, 31 Jan 2006). Alan Rickman, Megan Dodds and Katharine Viner – the trio behind Rachel Corrie – reunited at the Royal Court, where the play premiered in April 2005, to collect their trophies.

Why did a 23-year-old woman leave her comfortable American life to stand between a bulldozer and a Palestinian home? My Name Is Rachel Corrie recounts the real story of “the short life and sudden death of Rachel Corrie, and the words she left behind.”

Alan Rickman took the idea to the Royal Court after reading an email written by Corrie and posthumously published in the Guardian. With the permission of Corrie’s family, he and Guardian journalist Katharine Viner developed the play based on Corrie’s own writings. Megan Doddsstarred as Corrie in the 80-minute monologue.

Following its sell-out premiere season in the 80-seat Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, My Name Is Rachel Corrie returned to the Royal Court’s 395-seat Jerwood Theatre Downstairs for a second limited season last October (See News, 3 May 2005). Next month, it will receive its US premiere – running from 22 March to 14 May 2006 at the New York
Theatre Workshop – ahead of a planned US tour and further international dates.

Speaking to Whatsonstage.com over celebratory coffee and croissants at the Royal Court, Rickman said: “The way I feel about My Name Is Rachel Corrie winning these awards is, I think, what I felt every night in the theatre – that the audience somehow owned the play. With the best kind of work, you always feel like you give it away to the audience.
As an actor or a director, I’m just there to facilitate that.” He added, with regards to his own personal Best Director win for the play: “Thank you very much indeed. It’s really not about me, it’s about Rachel. You have honoured her and her memory with these awards and now her story goes on.”

Dodds, who collected the award for Best Solo Performance, said: “I want to say thank you to the people who voted and the people who came to see the show. It takes a certain level of commitment because it’s not an easy piece and it’s not a typical play. But so many people seemed to feel it wasn’t just Rachel’s story, it was their story, too.
Of course, it never would have happened if Alan hadn’t read about Rachel in the Guardian one day. I’m so grateful to have been a part of it.”

Rickman’s co-author Viner still seemed taken aback by the play’s success. “My Name Is Rachel Corrie is the first play I’ve ever been involved with,” she admitted. “To work with the material of such a brilliant writer and with such a wonderful team was a dream come true. I’ve loved doing it, it’s opened up a whole new area of my imagination. Thank you to everyone who voted for us for honouring Rachel’s memory in this very special way.”

As for triumphing over premieres by Neil LaBute, Richard Bean, Simon Stephens, Aaron Sorkin and Helen Edmundson to win the title for Best New Play, Rickman compared it to being “a bit like Krufts – you know, when you’ve got a poodle up against a sheep dog. We feel like the little poodle, but with the muscle of a much bigger dog. It’s for
other people to judge, of course, but I think this piece is so important because it reminds us that we are part of the world we live in.”

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HOW TO PROVOKE A SETTLER IN HEBRON

By Johan

When Baruch Marzel’s son and his three friends walk the streets of Tel Rumeida, Hebron, armed with sticks and looking to pick a fight, it is considered provocative to film them with a video camera, as soldiers tried to explain to Human Rights Workers after two of them were physically attacked by the quartet. The soldier commented, “It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t filmed them.” How provoked should Palestinians feel, who daily face threats from armed settlers on their way home from work?

Baruch Marzel, a.k.a “Mr. Hebron,” is a fanatic fundamentalist leader of a recently formed Israeli religious right-wing political party, “Hazit,” and is currently running for the Knesset. Hazit’s website declares that “expelling the enemy [the Arabs] is moral. The Torah of Israel is the primary source of human morality, and according to one of its mitzvahs, Israel must conquer and liberate the Land [Israel and the occupied territories].” Hazit leaves no doubt regarding their stand on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and their divine right to other people’s land. Baruch Marzel himself lives in the Tel Rumeida settlement in Hebron, on stolen Palestinian land. He is one of the ideological leaders and most prominent figures in his extremist settler community.

When Palestinian children walk to school in Tel Rumeida, settler children often throw stones at them. The residents of Beit Hadassah settlement, opposite the school, are provoked when they see Arabs pass outside their windows. How provoked should Palestinian children feel when they get stones thrown at them on their way to school?

The notion of provocation implies a certain normality. It also implies a stability or a status quo, that can be violated. In the violation lies the provocation. The settlers of Hebron have managed to distort this normality, and forced all others involved to accept their irrationality and their violence as something of the ordinary.

Having international Human Rights Workers (HRW’s) living in Tel Rumeida, documenting the inability and unwillingness of Israeli Authorities to deal with the violent acts of settlers, is considered provocative by the Kiriat Arba Police and the Israeli Defense Forces. This is why they falsely accuse the HRW’s of assault, intimidate and harass them and their Palestinian neighbors, raid their apartment, and deport them. How provoked should an HRW feel when he or she gets deported, guilty of using a video camera, a pen, and his or her own body as a human shield to support Palestinians in Tel Rumeida?

The Kiriat Arba Police and the Israeli Defense Forces have not only adopted the tilted reality promoted by the settlers, and are acting within its boundaries – they have also contributed to its creation, and are contributing to uphold it.

When a large group of settler visitors, some wearing ski-masks to cover their faces, rampage through the streets of Tel Rumeida throwing paint-bombs and stones, and hitting whoever gets in their way, it is considered provocative to be in their way. Police explain to HRW’s who tried to protect the Palestinian residents in the area that they shouldn’t be on the streets; that their presence was what agitated the settlers and could have caused further riots. How provoked should Palestinian men and women feel when they are attacked by settler mobs in the middle of the street they live on?

In this distorted reality of the Hebron settlers, a violent act in itself is not a problem, but the excuse the violator uses to explain the attack, however racist, crazy or extreme this excuse may be. Applying the same logic in other situations would result in, for example, accusing a rape victim of dressing too sexy, or a school kid of talking too much before he is hit in the face by a teacher.

A few days after a Palestinian family moved into a house adjacent to the Tel Rumeida settlement, they had their windows smashed by a mob of settlers, who were clearly provoked by the presence of their new neighbors. The family turned off the lights, locked their door and pretended not to be home, while the settlers screamed insults at them from the outside. “It’s like living in a prison,” said the mother in the family after the attack. How provoked should she feel for not daring to let her child play outside anymore?

The mere existence of Palestinians in Hebron is a provocation and a reasonable excuse to act violently against them, according to Baruch Marzel and his like. In a worst case scenario, this provocation could cause settlers to attack and even kill the Palestinians. How provoked should a Palestinian feel by living in a sealed-off area, passing through a checkpoint twice a day, having his ID checked at will by any soldier at any time, not being able to use a car or open shops in the neighborhood due to military orders, being ignored by the police after being attacked by settlers and knowing that their next door neighbor constantly conspires to take over his or her house?

Like spoilt children, the Hebron settlers are not accountable for their violent acts. In the racist framework that they have created, attacking a person is not something provocative, provided that the person attacked is of a certain ethnic origin. When will Baruch Marzel and his violent friends start to be treated as the accountable and responsible adults that they are?

___________________________________

BIL’IN WAITING FOR JUSTICE

By Dan Izenberg, Jerusalem Post

The High Court of Justice on Thursday issued a showcause order instructing the state to explain why it had chosen the specific route of the separation barrier near the Palestinian village of Bil’in and why the barrier should not be moved westward, closer to the nearby Jewish settlement of Modi’in Illit.

The court’s decision followed a hearing the previous day on a petition filed by attorney Michael Sfard on behalf of Bil’in Town Council head Ahmed Yasin.

Sfard asked the court for a show-cause order that would oblige the state to provide a more detailed response to the petition, along with an affidavit from a senior state official supporting the state’s argument.

The panel of three justices that heard Wednesday’s hearing – Supreme Court President Aharon Barak and Justices Dorit Beinisch and Eliezer Rivlin – rejected Sfard’s request for an interim injunction to prevent the Defense Ministry from completing construction of the threekilometer stretch of barrier near Bil’in, which is the subject of the petition.

However, the justices reminded the state that it had promised not to close the current opening in the barrier with a planned gate, which is earmarked to be the controlled entry point for villagers seeking to work their lands on the “Israeli” side of the wall.

The court gave the state 21 days to present its detailed response to the petition. It also ruled that a number of respondents should be added to the petition, which was originally directed at the government and the West Bank military commander.

The respondents to be added include the Modi’in Illit Local Council and several construction and management companies currently building housing on land the petitioners argue should be on the Palestinian side of the barrier.

The companies include Green Park, Greenmount, Hefzibah, the Fund for Redeeming the Land, Planning and Development of Settlements and the Ein Ami Initiating and Development Company.

In the petition, Sfard charged that the route of the fence near Bil’in cut the village off from hundreds of dunams of its agricultural land.

Bil’in claims it owns more than 2,000 dunams of land on the “Israeli” side of the barrier, including approximately 900 dunams upon which the construction companies are building housing for the planned Jewish neighborhood of Matityahu East. Sfard said that by all accounts, 700-800 dunams of land belonging to Bil’in farmers, including some within the housing project, are located on the Israeli side of the barrier, and therefore the route should be changed to allow the farmers free access to their lands.

___________________________________
end

Statement by the International Solidarity Movement, International Women’s Peace Service, the Tel Rumeida project and Holy Land Trust (local organisations working with international citizens and peace teams in Palestine):

We strongly condemn the recently published derogatory illustrations of the prophet Mohammed. The cartoons demonstrate disrespect and ignorance about Islam and perhaps also deliberate incitement. We are troubled that such material has been published and backed by media of countries that claim to tolerate all religions, cultures and people.

As people of many faiths working with and among Muslims we call for public apologies from media that published the cartoons as opposed to continued incitement. We also call upon all governments to condemn Islamophobia and its various expressions.

Racism against people in the Middle East and against Muslims has a long history in Western culture. It also underlies much of the West’s current policies in the Middle East and toward its own Muslim citizens. Most Western media are ignoring these facts while discussing the issue of free speech. This frames the situation in a way that fails to accurately represent the deep hurt felt by Muslims, and reinforces stereotypes that the Muslim world rejects Western liberties. The Muslim world’s response is being portrayed as violent. However at the time of writing this statement, though property damage has occurred the protests have largely been nonviolent. Ten people have been killed, all of them Muslim demonstrators.

We believe in the power of people to confront racism and oppression through nonviolent tactics, and recognize that boycott initiatives and most protests sparked by the cartoons have been non-violent. Responsible journalists report in a fair and objective way. Conscientious governments do not wash their hands of responsibility for racism occurring within their societies.

————————————————————————————————————
This is a statement of local and international organisations that work in Palestine in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli occupation. We continue our work in the hope that the Palestinian people will find justice and live free in
their own land.

We welcome other organisations to sign this statement. Please send an e-mail to
iwps@palnet.com if you would like to add your organisation to the signatories.

1. A Call From Hebron.
2. Gaza, Elections, and Democracy.
3. Close Encounter of a Settler Kind.
4. Poems against the Occupation.
5. Palestinians Unite Again to Appeal for the Release of the Peace Activists held Hostage in Iraq.
6.Bili’n on the streets of Tel Aviv.
7.High Court Wants Answers from the State; Bil’in Decision Coming Soon…
8.Palestine Solidarity Activist Fined; Pie in the Face Humor not Appreciated

1. A Call From Hebron
February 1st, 2006

A Call from Hebron to the Israeli government to respect Israeli commitments
toward Palestinians in Hebron on January 17th, 1997.

“Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron”
Since Hammas won in the Palestinian elections the entire world is putting
conditions for dealing with the Hammas government. Here in Hebron we want to
know why no one puts conditions on dealing with the Israeli Likud
government?

I am sending this letter to the world to ask you to put pressure on Israel
to respect their commitment towards the Palestinians in Hebron and open the
wholesale market and open Al-Shuhada street which connects the two part of
the city (H1& H2), and let Palestinians to use the area to get to their
houses, schools, hospitals, shops and to let the customers to shop freely in
that area.

The people in Hebron are just looking to:

1. Live in dignity and peace in old city and Tel Rumeida;
2. Open AL-SHUHADA street;
3. Open all the shops in the old city and Tel Rumeida;
4. Remove all the check points (obstruction points) from old city and Tel Rumeida;
5. Remove the three electronic detectors from the entrance of Al Haram Al
Ibrahimi;
6. Remove the electronic check point from Tel Rumeida area;
7. Open Tel Rumeida main street;
8. Let the students to study freely in the old city schools ;
9. Let the girls in Qurtoba School to enter their school from the main entrance and to let them feel that they are safe in their school;
10. Open the main entrance of Soniah mosque near the old vegetable market;
11. Remove all the ironic gates from the entrances of the old city;
12. Stop the settlers from the daily attacking and harassing the Palestinians in the old city and Tel Rumeida;

I am asking all the activists in the world to come to Hebron and see the real picture on the ground and to put pressure on the Israeli army and police to stop the settlers’ violence.

(see ”Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron January 17th, 1997″)

**********

2. Gaza, Elections, and Democracy
January 29th, 2006
by Hannah

Finally, after several years of wanting to go to Gaza, Dunya and I managed
to spend two days there under the auspices of election observation. It
didn’t take very long for Dunya to observe that the elections in Gaza City
were far cleaner than those in Ohio in 2004, where she was working at the
time. Lack of democracy is not Palestine’s problem.

We stayed in Gaza City with Khaled Nasrallah and his family, one of the two
families who had been living in the house in Rafah that Rachel Corrie was
killed defending in March 2003. They now live in an apartment in Gaza City
while a new house is being built, with the help of the ‘Building Alliance’.
Most of the people in Gaza who have been displaced by home demolition have
been displaced at least once before – in 1948 – and some of them more than
once. They’ve lived in a constant state of terror for the past five years,
and according to some, it got worse after the “disengagement”. Israeli
shelling is not uncommon, not to mention the sonic booms that only started
since the settlers have left. A 9-year-old girl was shot and killed by the
Israeli army on Thursday in Gaza, probably just a few miles from where we
were.

The Gaza International Airport is really something else, like any other
airport, but with more beautiful design. And it is deserted. The control
towers have been bombed by Israeli Apaches. The runways have been bulldozed
every couple hundred meters. According to security at the airport, the only
employees currently working, it was opened in 2000, and was forced by Israel
to close early in 2001. Israel still forbids Palestinians from even
beginning to reconstruct the runway. Palestinian Airlines only flies now
between Egypt and Amman.

And then there’s Rafah. The row of houses along the border of Gaza and
Egypt, are shot up thousands and thousands of times. That is, the houses
that are still standing. More of them are in rubble. With bullet holes
through the windows, doors and walls… it looks more like war than anything
I’ve ever seen. Our hosts described to us some of the terror of their last
two years in Rafah: never knowing which rooms were safe to be in, Israeli
bullets flying through their windows at all hours, the young daughters
waking up in the middle of the night and screaming. The girls are still
affected, their mother Samah told us.

The oldest, now five years old, remembers a story from Rafah. The family had
been sleeping in the garden because it was safer than the house. At one
point they were all in different places, someone in the garden, someone in
the house, someone on the stairs. The shooting started, and young Mariam
remembers the bullets flying towards their house, hitting a tree, and
watching a guava fall off a tree and hit her father on the head. Her mother
told the story laughing, saying “alhamdulillah” – thank god we weren’t hurt
any more than we were.

Hope looks different, too, as Dunya pointed out during our visit to the
former settlements. At every turn our driver explained that the Israelis
used to be here, and here, and here. This is where this person was killed,
this is a school that was bombed, this is an old checkpoint. And then we
entered the old settlement of Netzarim. The scene looked remarkably similar
to me to demolished Palestinian homes.

The Israelis are good at destroying things, we joked to each other. They
destroy Palestinian homes, and they also destroyed the settlers’ homes. This
is hope, I suppose. Can rubble be hopeful?

Gaza City is bustling. We arrived our first evening, met the family, ate
dinner, and then Khaled asked, “Do you want to walk around the city?” We
were shocked that he would go out at night, especially with two female
internationals, but it was completely normal to him. The shops were open,
everyone was buying ice cream at the local ice cream parlor, last minute
campaigning was subtle (campaigning is banned for 24 hours before election
day, but nobody can be prevented from driving their cars, vegetable trucks,
or donkeys with party flags on them).

Apparently Gaza City is the Ramallah of Gaza, a thriving city where poverty
is somewhat less apparent than other parts of Gaza. Gaza is beautiful. I’ve
heard about it being the most crowded place on earth, so I wasn’t prepared
for the open space, the parks of palm trees, the plazas with monuments and
wide roads that are pedestrian friendly. In contrast, while driving south
along the road with the Mediterranean to the right, we could look left and
see refugee camps that look more like I expected refugee camps to look
before coming to Palestine. The camps in the West Bank have slightly
narrower streets than cities and villages, and a few more visible signs of
poverty. Some of these camps in Gaza are different, and with their tiny
buildings and narrowest of streets they certainly look like they could be
described as the most crowded places on earth.

You couldn’t be in Palestine and not be doing some sort of “election
observing” during these past couple weeks. In an American context where
civic engagement is among the lowest in the world, it excites me to be
somewhere where even with such difficulty living under occupation, at least
75% of eligible voters voted. I know too that 8,000 Palestinian political
prisoners can’t vote from Israeli prisons, that the Israeli government only
permitted 6% of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to vote in the
Palestinian elections, and that the 2/3 of the Palestinian population that
lives outside of Palestine, do not have any say in who will be representing
them and potentially negotiating away their right to return to their land.
Not that negotiations will be happening any time soon here, since Israel
refuses to negotiate with a Hamas that doesn’t disarm. I wish Hamas would
refuse to negotiate with an Israel that doesn’t disarm. The most common joke
I’ve heard made in the past couple days, if it can be called a joke, is that
I’ll have to start covering myself fully. A man joked today that he’s
already starting to grow his beard. I was in Dheisheh refugee camp yesterday
where the kids were discussing the election, and the teenage girls
unanimously decided they would never wear hijab, even if Hamas legislated
for it. We had a vote on the title of the exhibit that we’re putting
together with the children about the trips we took them on, with suggestions
like “Life Within Two Days,” “New Life”, and “Destroyed Villages”. At the
end of the voting one of the kids suggested, “Hamas won!”.

And there is still occupation. I was able to meet my friend Fatima’s mother
in Rafah, who hasn’t seen her daughter since 1997 because people in Gaza
can’t get out and people in the West Bank can’t get to Gaza. A 20-year-old
man we spent some time with in Gaza did not go an hour without saying, “Take
me with you to the West Bank.” He’s never been there. Our crossing out of
Gaza showed us firsthand for the first time what can only be described as
indentured servitude. Thousands of Palestinian workers – those lucky enough
to have permits – were standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting for hours to
be allowed to cross back home to Gaza after a long day at work in the fields
or building construction.

The occupation and injustice goes on in all of Palestine, regardless of its
status. In Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Israel, Palestinians do not have
equal rights. Someone tried to convince us yesterday that while Palestinians
inside Israel don’t have equal rights, at least they have some rights.
Unequal rights are not rights, Dunya pointed out. I know the Gaza
“disengagement” caused people around the world to start thinking that
occupation is over and everything is okay but Palestine still needs all the
support it can get.

Photos from my trip to Gaza:
community.webshots.com/album/546824389rbKVnd
**********

3. Close Encounter of a Settler Kind
by Jon
see photos at
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/01/31/close-encounter-of-a-settler-kind/

Qawawis is a village in the south Hebron Hills, very close to the green
line, and surrounded by settlements and settlement outposts. In Qawawis are
about 5-6 families, all of whom have roughly 10 kids (the kids, however, are
scattered about the region depending on their age & schooling; some are
close to home, some in Yatta or Al-Khalil/Hebron). They have been tending
their sheep and goats their for generations, carving and digging from the
rocks of the hills caves & wells, which they use for shelter and sustenance
for both themselves and their flocks. Some of them, such as my dear friends
Hajj Khalil have built small homes for themselves, and Hajj Mahmoud has a
clay walled home.

But Hajj Ibrahim, he lives in one of the caves, which is a great place; the
light almost always seems to be filling the cave, no matter what time of
day. And aside from their kindness and hospitality, the people of Qawawis
are renowned for their sweet tea; and oh so much of it! I have never drank
so much tea in my life!

Within the last two years the people of Qawawis were evicted from their
lands and homes, only to return after a year due to an Israeli court ruling
& the support they received from organizations such as Taayush and the ISM.
Since their return, we have tried to keep a near constant presence of
internationals in the village due to the presence of numerous violent and
unpredictable settlers in the region. On my last visit, December 12th, we
found that 6-7 olive trees had been cut down in the night by settlers. The
most basic tactic of Zionism, at just about every stage of the colonization
of Palestine, is to acquire as much territory as possible with as few
Palestinians as possible. One sees this pattern very clearly in the South
Hebron hills, with small villages such as Qawawis being surrounded by
expanding settlement blocs while being terrorized and harassed by the
presence and impunity of the settlers and the army.

So, despite what has been weeks of either bitter cold or rain (or both), I
went to Qawawis via Al-Khalil/Hebron, along with a new ISM volunteer from
the bay area. We did the usual, packed up with food & essentials such as
candles for the required nighttime reading once the lights go out, and off
we went. To get there, one takes a service/bus from Al-Khalil to Yatta
first, but this time we had to take a different route. Previously, we had
been able to pass through the Al-Fawwar refugee camp, but that route, most
likely due to the elections, has been closed, so instead you now take a bus
about 15 minutes down the road until you reach a truly ridiculous
Israeli-made assemblage of large rocks, dirt and concrete. Its only purpose
is to block direct transit between Al Khalil and Yatta, making life just
that more difficult for Palestinians.

So, we cross the wasteland barrier of sorts, get another service ride, and
luckily, this one takes us all the way to Yatta & beyond the next town of
Al-Karmil, which is cut off to the east by a settler highway. We go down the
hill, cross the highway, and that’s it, we are back in Qawawis!

I was slightly nervous about our reception there, because it has been
difficult to keep every place we have committed to covered with an
international presence, and Qawawis has been on its own lately. This is a
truly critical area that is obviously coveted by the Israeli settlers and
government; the first wall route planned cut off almost all the villages
east of the settler road, annexing numerous settlements and outposts into
Israel (for a great map and report on the area, go to
http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Index.asp ). Qawawis is hemmed
in by the road, and a number of settlements, such as Suseya, Mizpe Yair and
Avigayil; seriously, you can stand in front of Hajj Khalil’s house and see
all three of them, and the road.

But, with their usual hospitality and welcome, I was home again with no
worries. They did relate to me some incidents, mostly having to do with
being too close to the road and the army yelling at them, but no one had
been hurt and no property had been damaged, so all was good. There are three
brothers that rule the roost, and they are Hajj Khalil, Hajj Mahmoud, and
Hajj Ibrahim (and of course, along with their spouses, the Hajjas; Hajja
Aime, Hajja Fatmi, and Hajja Aeshia). Then there and the sons, the
daughters, just so so many kids! While we were there, the kids of Ibrahim
and Aime (different Ibrahim) were there, tending the goats, making meals,
playing marbles, you know the usual.

Yes, I’m back in Qawawis, drinking insane amounts of sweet tea and getting
up at the crack of dawn to take out the goats and sheep for some walking and
eating. The land seems more green since I was last there, possibly due to
the fact that we haven’t been around as much, so they haven’t taken them out
much for grazing. With the loss of so much land due to settlements and
roads, they have to bring in food for them to eat.

The first night back, we are in our room but cannot sleep; from the nearby
settlements we can hear the sound of rifles firing, and loud noises and
people speaking. I’ve heard similar things there before, but the shooting,
that is something new in my experience of this area.

So, the first morning, I am up at around 6 am, I take a few pictures, talk
with Hajj Khalil, drink some tea, and then wander over to the house of
Ibrahim, who is taking his goats out at that moment. But, in the distance I
see Hajj Khalil taking his sheep up the hill, right near the settler highway
leading to Mizpe Yair. Being an area prone to confrontation with settlers, I
asked the other ISMer to stay with the other sheep in the village while I
catch up with Khalil.

So off I run, trying not to twist my ankles (again), and I reach Hajj
Khalil. We take the sheep up the hill, and he does his usual combinations of
clicks, whistles, commands and grunts to tell them where to go; and when
that doesn’t work, just throw a rock at them, no problem!

While we are walking with the sheep, we can hear more of the rifle noises we
heard the night before, this time coming from Mizpe Yair. After about nine-o
clock, I noticed a white van sitting at the intersection, which is closer to
Suseya settlement, but didn’t think anything of it. A little later, I saw a
person slowly walking up the road from the intersection, on his own, and
walking very slowly. He was heading in our direction, but at that point, I
had no idea what to expect. Then, I noticed that Mahmoud was bringing his
goats near to where we were, and the other ISMer was with them as well. I
was really hoping that the man would pass up harassing them, which he did,
but then he started to get close to where I was. He immediately turned off
the road and headed straight for Khalil’s sheep, yelling at them and kicking
them. He had a kipa on, so he was obviously a settler, but thankfully he had
no weapons. So I did what I thought was best, I moved between him and the
sheep stating calmly “sir, this is not your home, please leave, this is not
right,” and such. He screamed at me “Go back to Europe!” and shoved me a
couple of times with his shoulder.

Being a bit bigger than me, I was knocked about a few times, but not hurt,
and the sheep were able to take care of themselves. But then the man turned
from me and headed straight for Hajj Khalil, who is about 80 years old. He
got right in his face, screaming at him, while Hajj Khalil simply replied
“Marhabah, Ahlen Whasalen,” that is, hello, welcome. It was a remarkable
sight that I wish could have been photographed; this young, unstable, angry
bully face to face with a man old enough to be his father’s grandfather,
that stood his ground, not moving an inch, and returned his insults with
nothing but kindness and a firm rootedness in his place, his home… his
land.

So, without thinking, I rushed over and got myself in between the two of
them; one body check to Khalil and he could be seriously hurt. So I got
shoved a again, at which point I repeated the things that I had already been
saying, along with “I am calling the police.” I don’t know if that worked,
but then the man turned back towards the road, where there was a white car
waiting for him.

At this point, with the threat of violence subsiding, I took some pictures,
as did the woman driving the car; she also screamed at me “Nazi,” Nazi dog!”
As I got closer, I noticed two small children in the back seat. Hmmm… is
this a settler family outing?

After getting into the car, they drove away towards Suseya, while I spoke to
the police. They came back, stopped the car for a minute, and then drove to
Mizpe Yair. Then after five minutes, a police jeep shows up, with 2 men in
the front and 1 in the back. I walk over to them, as they declined to get
out of their jeep, and I described the incident. I showed them the pictures,
2 of which had the car’s license plate on it. In an incredible display of
unprofessional police work, they looked up the number on their computer in
front of me and said out loud the name it was registered to. After that,
they told me “you must go to the Kiryat Arba police station and file a
report.” I said, “ok, maybe I can go tomorrow, it is far from here,” to
which they replied “NO, you must go TODAY!” Ummm… ok! Even worse, the
police inform me that the land of that area “belongs to the people there,”
as he pointed to the settlements, which of course are all illegal under
international law.

Now, just stop and think about this for a moment. I was attacked, and Hajj
Khalil was threatened with violence by a settler that is only there because
the Israeli government subsidizes his residence and provides the military
force to make it possible. But when this person is to be reported for an act
of violence (as if his presence in itself is not enough violence; road
construction, land confiscation, occupation, etc), one must go to the
police, who happen to be located in one of the most extreme, racist, and
violent settlements in Palestine. Sometimes, when confronted by such ugly
realities, I think that Kafka and Orwell must be either laughing or weeping
in their graves; probably both.

The police leave, and I talk with my fellow ISMer and the others, but as
soon as they leave the army arrives! Yes, a humvee and about 7 soldiers or
so arrive and could not care in the slightest about the settler attack. All
they want to do is enforce some arcane military order which says that the
sheep must be 200 meters from the road, end of story. So, I talk to them,
try to stall them, keep the situation de-escalated, while calling anyone and
everyone I can. I’ve already called Hamoked (human rights group), so I call
Ezra fro Taayush (Israeli/Palestinian anti-occupation group) to see if he
knows what to do next; although the settlers are more unpredictable than the
army, the army can arrest people, and a lot more too. Ezra answers the phone
saying, to my surprise, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Oh, this is going
to get good!

Ezra arrives just in time, as more soldiers and other military functionaries
have arrived, and he does what Israeli peace activists do best; scream and
yell at the army in Hebrew!

It is really just a joy to watch, and it allows me to be the good cop and
stay cool, because there isn’t really much I can do at this point. If they
want us back from the road, we’ll probably do it, but we will put up a fuss.
The minutes ensue with either Hajj Mahmoud arguing with the soldiers in
Arabic, along with Ezra, who tells me in front of the soldiers “You should
be here every day by the road, make them work, hell, make them arrest you if
they want!” Hmmmm… ok, Ezra, I’ll see you at my deportation hearing!

After the scene begins to settle, I query a few soldiers as to why they need
large guns to deal with the oh-so dangerous sheep of Qawawis. Then I get a
ride from Ezra north to the Kiryat Arba police station… or at least close
to it. We stop once in Tuwani, another village in a similar situation, and
then they leave me at a checkpoint where I take a taxi through the
surrounding towns.

I am left at what I assume is a building, although hidden behind blocks of
concrete, fencing, and walls. There is a phone to call in, but the
instructions are in Hebrew, and there is a water fountain turned towards the
fence; but the fence makes it impossible to use, unless one shoots out the
water into one’s hand, and then slurps it from there. When I get there, a
Palestinian man and woman are already there, to get information about a
friend who has been arrested. When another man leaves the police station, he
explains to me that he was there to sign a statement swearing that he has no
intention to kill a certain settler… who had filed a complaint saying that
this man was going to kill him… ahh, it’s good to be the king! (sarcasm
alert, part II) He asks me why I am trying to get in, and I tell him the
story; he waves his hand and says to me “don’t bother, these people (the
settlers) are above the law.”

Finally I am let inside the compound (after calling a few times) and I wait
a bit until I am called in to file my report. I could list the dails of
this, but the important thing is that it was so surreal. The ( I assume)
detective, had no idea what or where Qawawis is or was, or the name of the
smaller settler outpost Mizpe Yair, or even what I could possibly be doing
there. The whole recounting of the event was dealt with as if I was
describing my latest foray into the jungles of the Congo. But it was right
in his backyard, I mean, he’s the police, shouldn’t he know that?! That,
however, is just part of the apartheid reality of this place; many different
peoples and communities, all of the living in close proximity, but according
to very different rules, with the threads of connection between them
tenuous, if there at all.

So, after writing many facts down, they ask for my pictures of the man. I
show them, and then they want to take my camera to copy them, which I
decline to do. After some haggling, it turns out they don’t have the right
connections to hook up my camera anyway, so another police man says, “come
back tomorrow with the pictures.” The last thing I want to do is take all
day to come back to this place when I could be drinking tea with my dear
friends in Qawawis, so I leave the station trying to think of what to do.
After a bit of walking, I realize that I am very close to Baba Zawya, in
Hebron, and I know a great photo store there that could probably burn the
pictures to disc. Soon enough, I am there, getting the pictures copied and
burned, seeing some friends, eating a bit, and heading back to the station.

I get there, and to my dismay, the same Palestinian couple that were there
hours earlier are still waiting outside the fortress of gates, fences &
disembodied voices. When my cop comes to let me in, I say to him, “could you
please see that these people get some help, they have been here all day.”
They talked a bit, and then we went inside. I have no idea if I helped them
at all, but it is so excruciating to see just how thoroughly degraded and
humiliated a Palestinian can be by just about every facet of the occupation.
I, on the other hand, have white skin, speak English, have one of those
Euro-american passports, and can pass for the Chosen People, which makes all
the difference.

Back in the station, they fill out more paperwork, and I am asked at least
12 times if all 6 pictures are on the 1 disc. Yes, they are I say…again.
Then they have me look at a book of pictures to see if I can id the man.

While waiting, I find myself looking at the display of pictures behind the
desk of another cop. There is the usual combination of friends and family,
along with other ones of a quasi-military nature. One of them I can still
remember; there he is, in a t-shirt, green army pants, and wearing
sunglasses. In the background are sheep, and slung around his shoulder is a
large rifle. I still wonder whose sheep they are, where he was & what he was
doing. Could it be his friend’s kibbutz in Israel? Or maybe he was in one of
the many Palestinian villages and stopped for a photo op. Was he in the
army? Or as a policeman? Or, dare I ask, policing the natives on his own
initiative?

So they put the book of Jewish Israeli settler felons in front of me and I
peruse. I really don’t think that I have seen such a collection of
maladjusted, freaked out & scruffy people in my life. Half of them were
staring into the camera with a confused malaise of anger in their eyes; of
just wanting, needing, to let loose and project some serious violence. The
other half smile like it’s their yearbook picture, kind of “look at me mom,
it’s my first arrest! I’m a real settler now!” After looking through 2 books
of these pictures, I had had enough, and more importantly, I could not
identify the settler.

So, that was that. There was a brief discussion of getting Hajj Khalil to
come and testify, but that was just ridiculous. I told them, why don’t you
just drive your shinny jeeps 30 minutes down your settler highway and talk
to him yourselves? I also was unwilling to put him through the humiliation
of the Kirayat Arba police station, all in regards to a complaint that won’t
be followed up by the police anyway. At one point, a cop was talking to me
and seemed surprised when it was clear that I didn’t think they would do
anything to follow up my complaint. He said to me “Do you think that we just
take our salaries?” No comment, sir (sarcasm alert, part III, in 3-D).

Soon enough, they were done with me and I was on my way back to Qawawis via
Al-Khalil. This time, the service driver from Yatta got some bad directions
from my fellow travelers, and I was dropped off near the village of Tuwani.
Now, as the crow flies, it’s not far from Qawawis, but the sun was going
down, and the terrain is very tricky. I had to manage walking near the
highway, but not too near so the army jeeps driving down wouldn’t notice me.
Also, I had to make sure to give a wide berth to the outpost of Avigayil, so
they wouldn’t see me, and keep an eye out so that any Palestinians I would
see would not think that I was a settler going out for a night time stroll.
All in all, a great time and place for a relaxing walk!(sarcasm alert, part
IV, the Final Chapter)

After making it through, I was back in Qawawis, exhausted, physically and
mentally, but missed by the village. But finally I was back, and the day’s
ordeal, which really wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, was over.

The next few days at Qawawis were calm, no problems or events to report.
I’ve been away for a little while now, but I am already feeling the need for
some sweet tea and the company of Hajj Khalil… and his sheep & goats, of
course! See you soon, Qawawis inshalah, inshallah.
********

4. Poems against the Occupation
February 1st, 2006
By A, an ISMer and birthright Israel participant
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/02/01/poems-against-the-occupation/

Tour of Old Jerusalem
The gate of Mercy
Built closed
Only the Messiah can open these doors
Rolling the bones
From Zion
I remember Zion?
The Gate of Mercy
Built closed
Only the Chosen can pass through these doors
The rolling bones
From Zion
I remember Zion?
Only when we are all
The Chosen
Will these gates open
Oh remember, Zion?
Walls riddled with the wings of bullets
Oh remember, Zion? we are all your Chosen?
First sight of the Apartheid Wall
On the building of walls
The separation of things
(not humans)
on the physicality
of what we feel
cold hard stone
Early Morn Jerusalem
Jerusalem in the early morn
Shafts of biblical light
Thru clouds
A hillside of graves
Or houses?
Distant voices
Unintelligible prayers
Footsteps on stone
Gleaming gold
(Grant us peace)
**********

5. Palestinians United Again to Appeal for the Release of Peace
Activists held Hostage in Iraq
January 30th, 2006
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/01/30/palestinians-united-again-to-appeal-for-the-release-of-peace-acitivists-held-hostage-in-iraq/

Following the recent release of new video footage of the four Christian
Peacemaker Team (CPT) members being held hostage in Iraq, Palestinian
leaders united again to appeal for their release.

With the election behind them, representatives of Fatah and Hamas, along
with religious leaders, have come together to appeal for the release of the
hostages, political prisoners and all those working for Justice. The two
Hamas representatives, in calling for their release, refered to them as
friends of the Palestinians, stating that “These people support us against
the occupation,” and named each one of them; Harmeet Sodeen and James Loney
from Canada, Tom Fox from the USA, and Norman Kember from the UK.

CPT have been working for peace in Palestine for many years and are much
valued by the Palestinian communities they support. The speakers emphasized
Islam as a religon of peace, even in such difficult times. They spoke of the
suffering of the Palestinian and Iraqi people, and that they should release
those who work with them under occupation in Iraq.

Speakers were:
1) Dr. Mahmoud Rahmahi, newly elected member of the legislative council
representing Hamas;
2) Azam Al Ahmad, newly elected member of the legislative council
representing Fatah and previously Palestinian Ambassador to Iraq;
3) Abdel Aziz Ahmad, newly elected member of the legislative council
representing Hamas;
4) Abu Hassan, representing the Muslim scientists (Rabata Olama Al
Muslimin);

They were also joined by Jerry Levin a current CPT delegate who himself was
held hostage for a year by Hezbollah in Lebanon. He said, ” We are all under
one god, Allah, so please, let our brothers go, let your brothers go.”

Tyseer Tamimi, Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque, was unable to attend due to being
delayed for 2 hours at an Israeli checkpoint near Maale Adummim. He has
attended numerous other press conferences for the kidnapped CPTers, as well
as many non-violent demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall and Israeli
Occupation, such as at the villages of Aboud and Bil’in.

The speakers reiterated their calls for releasing the CPT captives, as well
as all political prisoners. They emphasized the solidarity of the CPTers
with the suffering people of Iraq and Palestine, and condemned the
occupations of Iraq and Palestine.
**********

6. Bili’n on the streets of Tel Aviv
February 1st, 2006
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/02/01/protest-art-now-you-see-it-now-they-rip-it-down/

Protest art – Now you see it, now they rip it down
by Noa Yachot from Haaretz

The latest art gallery in Tel Aviv is the city itself. Alternately put up –
and ripped down from – a half-dozen city sidewalk locales, is an exhibit of
photographs depicting the weekly struggles between Israeli security forces
and Palestinian, Israeli and international activists protesting the
construction of the separation fence in the Palestinian village of Bil’in in
the West Bank.

To see the entire article please see Haaretz
*********
Visit the International Solidarity Movement online at: palsolidarity.org

Consider supporting the ISM’s work with a financial donation! Donate
securely online at:
palsolidarity.org/main/donations

**********

7.High Court Wants Answers from the State; Bil’in Decision Coming Soon…
February 2nd, 2006

High Court: State must explain why it won’t move separation fence in Bil’in
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/678112.html

The High Court of Justice on Thursday ordered the state prosecutor to explain why Israel won’t alter the route of the separation fence where it passes over land belonging to the West Bank Palestinian village of Bil’in.

The state was given three weeks to explain why the fence can’t be moved west, toward the Upper Modi’in settlement, so that it won’t pass over Bil’in agricultural lands.

The High Court issued the preliminary injunction at the request of Bil’in residents, who are petitioning the court to order the state to alter the fence route in the area.

On Wednesday, lawyer Michael Sfard told the court the current fence route was not determined by security considerations, as the state maintains. Sfard said the fence route was designed to allow the eastward expansion of Upper Modi’in.

He also said the fence route allows the building of the new Matityahu East neighborhood. As was first published in Haaretz, illegal construction, without any building permits or legal building plan, is currently underway on the neighborhood.

“We had thought that the fence administration was building a fence,” Sfard said. “But now it is clear that the fence administration is building new illegal neighborhoods in settlements.”

The fence separates the village of Bil’in from a large portion of its agricultural lands.

The Matityahu East neighborhood has 750 housing units and another 2,000 are planned. The lands on which the neighborhood is being constructed belong to Bil’in residents. Portions of the land were obtained using documents suspected to have been forged.

****************

8.Palestine Solidarity Activist Fined; Pie in the Face Humor not Appreciated
February 3rd, 2006

Pro-Palestinian activist fined for throwing pie at Sharansky
By The Associated Press
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/678507.html

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, New Jersey – A man who threw a pie in the face of then-cabinet minister Natan Sharansky just before he was to speak at a packed Rutgers University lecture hall in 2003 was found guilty Thursday of a disorderly persons offense.

Abe Greenhouse, 27, was fined $200 and ordered to pay $155 in court fees and penalties. The case was heard in South Brunswick Municipal Court by Judge Mary Casey, who found Greenhouse guilty of causing public inconvenience or alarm because of “tumultuous behavior.”

Greenhouse, a pro-Palestinian activist, could have received up to 30 days in jail and stiffer fines. He declined to comment after the hearing but his lawyer, Leon Grauer of Nutley, said his client’s actions were a political act and that the verdict would be appealed.

At the time of the September 18, 2003 incident, Greenhouse was a Rutgers student and leader of Central Jersey Jews Against the Occupation; Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner, was Israel’s minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs.

Sharansky, who was on the New Brunswick campus to speak to a crowd of about 500 at an event organized by a Jewish student group, was not hurt. After quickly cleaning himself off, he joked about the “good cakes” available in New Jersey and then gave his speech without further incident.

Israeli security guards grabbed Greenhouse, breaking his nose and giving him a black eye and a swollen lip, according to court records.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is inviting volunteers to come to Palestine for a conference on Joint Nonviolent Struggle in Bil’in and for ISM’s Spring campaign

The Bil’in Conference will take place February 20 & 21, 2006.
ISM’s spring campaign will take place between March 1st and April 23rd, 2006.

Come for a week, a month or two months. Volunteer training sessions will take place every Sunday and Monday.

ISM needs volunteers to support Bil’in and other west bank village’s nonviolent resistance. We also need volunteers to serve as human rights monitors in the Hebron neighborhood of Tel Rumeida, where Palestinian children are harassed on their way to school daily by settlers, and in the small village of Qawawis, where shepherds and farmers face regular intimidation from soldiers and the occupants of three surrounding hilltop settlements. Last but not least we need volunteers in the ISM media office doing support work for activists out in the field.

“For the last year our West Bank village of Bil’in has campaigned nonviolently to save our land – chaining ourselves to olive trees, locking ourselves to tree roots, lying in front of bulldozers, and tyingur hands together in front of jeeps. We even established the first ‘Palestinian outpost’ on our land beyond the wall, 100 meters from several Israeli settlements also built on our land. The Israeli soldiers have responded with violence – tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, live ammunition, arrests, beatings and curfews. Still, some days we reach our goal.

“The media paints a confusing picture as to who are the victims and who are the aggressors here. Focusing on armed Palestinian resistance, the media portrays the conflict as a struggle between two armies. But there is really only one army (Israel’s) against one people (the Palestinians) and we want the world to see this.

“According to the fourth Geneva Convention as an occupied people we have the right to resist Israeli occupation under international law, even by violent means. However, when we use nonviolent resistance, Israel’s weapons lose their power. When I face a soldier with nothing in my hand, the soldier is forced not to use his weapon. If he uses it, he shows the world that we are being attacked for opposing the theft of our land. When we protest peacefully, we are equal because we cancel out the soldier’s power.

“Though Bil’in sits inside the West Bank, 2 1⁄2 miles east of the Green Line, Israel is building its Wall on our land, seizing 57% of our village’s land to expand two settlements. We have depended on this land to feed our families for generations.

“The leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad participated in two protests here, marching in nonviolent demonstrations with Israeli activists. Hamas leader Hassan Youssef told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz Daily that if they see that this kind of demonstration can end Israel’s occupation, and then they will do it. So we in Bil’in and other villages chose nonviolent resistance to show that it can end the occupation.

“We will continue to try and touch the soldiers’ humanity. There will never be security for any of us unless the Israeli people respect our rights to this land, end the occupation, and let us achieve our freedom.

“But we need help. If the Palestinian people saw more support from the international community, from ordinary people and governments, many more would choose this path. We hope that the power of people who believe in peace between these two peoples will prevail.”

-Mohammed Khatib, member of the popular committee against the wall in Bil’in

For more information on joining the ISM see: “join us in Palestine”: https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/join/