Tag: Jerusalem - Page 78 - International Solidarity Movement

Home Destruction Threat in Bir Nabala village

Documents granting the Bedouin the right to the land

Today Bedouin houses were under threat of demolition in Bir Nabala village in the Jerusalem area. Since 1994, when forced to leave their homes in Al Ram by the Israeli military, about 100 Bedouin have been living in small shanties near the Atarot Industrial Area. The homes of these refugees are once again facing demolition due to the Israeli expansion of the annexation wall, where the Israelis claim 200 meters of free space are necessary to secure the area.

The Bedouin here are already facing numerous problems with the annexation wall. The construction of the wall has cut water pipes to their homes. In addition, the wall severely hinders their movement as they have to cross into Jerusalem to work and sell their products, but are forced to go through Ramallah and the Qalandiya Checkpoint. If they are successful in crossing, these checkpoints can cause major delays. The Bedouin children are also forced to take the same circuitous and road-blocked routes to get to their school. The soldiers guarding the wall often will not let sheep herders go out to hills for grazing. The situation with travel is compounded by the fact that Israeli factories in the industrial area are draining their sewage water next to the Bedouin homes (see photo below).

Bedouin in the West Bank are forced to move again and again by the Israeli Military and it is nearly impossible for them to get permission to stay anywhere regularly. This threatens their culture and economy which is largely dependent upon grazing. The water and air pollution from the factories as well as the wall is undermining dairy production and will make Palestinians even more dependent on Israeli products.

The Bedouin in Bir Nabala hold documents granting them permission from the Palestinian land owners to stay in the area (see above). They have taken their case to the Israeli court which today, while the Bedouins stood by fearing destruction of their homes, ruled that they could remain temporarily. Even if they court rules in their favor, the community faces a future completely surrounded by fences and soldiers effectively strangling the Bedouin way of life.

Travel Advisory: Prayer may be Hazardous to your Health in East Jerusalem

by Lucretia and Sunbula

Outside the Faisal Hostel opposite Damascus Gate/Bab’al-‘Amoud, there appeared to be about one cop for every two Palestinians. There were regular police, along with the dreaded and despised Special Units and Border Police, who are well-known for “breaking” pesky troublemakers. They looked like they were prepared for war.

There is a small square where Palestinian men who can’t get into Al-Aqsa often pray on Fridays. It had been taken over by some police on horseback who were forcing anyone standing around to move. The horses were defecating all over the square, making it impossible to pray and it seemed to be almost a deliberate tactic by the authorities to add insult to injury by not letting the Palestinians pray even outside the walls of the Old City. Horseshit was everywhere and people were complaining. Sunbula and I began taking pictures of the mounted special forces strutting around. I walked up to one of the police on horseback and calmly asked him, “Hey, people pray here, are you going to clean up this shit?”

Of course I didn’t expected to get trampled for mouthing off to a cop, but he grabbed the reins and jerked the horses head so that it hit my head and the horse barged straight into me causing me to fall over backwards and under the horse, which stepped on my foot.

Somehow I wasn’t seriously hurt. Sunbula began screaming at the cops and about four of them jumped on him and started pushing and hitting him even as he tried to photograph them misbehaving. We were both screaming at them to leave us alone and fortunately some guy showed up snapping pictures which I think caused them to stop being violent. We left as soon as we could get away.

We were really shaken and stopped on a grassy area under the wall of the old city to rest and make a few phone calls and decide what to do from there. There were men gathered there to pray with a volunteer imam and volunteer muezzin so it was a small consolation at least for us. After crying for a little while together and for this stupid, messed-up war, all the people who have died, and the inhumanity of Zionism as it convinces the whole world that it is the victim, we decided to continue our errands.

We went to the post office and noticed about 50 cops surrounding some men praying in the street from all sides. It may have been a demonstration or maybe it was because they couldn’t go to the mosque to pray. The street was cordoned off by barriers and every male going in and out was having and ID check and being searched – a most ridiculous sight…

The post office in East Jerusalem was closed so we decided to go to the one in West Jerusalem. The surreality of the contrast between Arab East Jerusalem and Jewish West Jerusalem was even more astonishing than it usually is. There was hardly a cop in sight in this upscale neighborhood filled with American tourists sporting Israeli Defence Force tshirts. We passed one girl wearing a tshirt which read “Everybody Loves Jewish Girls,” and “Don’t worry, Be Jewish.” A bunch of teenagers were playing the guitar and blowing bubbles in Zion Square while people half a kilometer away down the hill were living under apartheid. The post office in West Jerusalem was closed too, as was the camera shop.

Sunbula wanted ice cream, fresh homemade ice cream and there was none to be found anywhere. It seemed as if nothing we wanted today was going to be granted to us. Ok, we give up now. enough, ok ?

Well, not yet…

We ended up at the American consulate where I decided to file a complaint against the police in Jerusalem as well as against the police in Hebron for failing to do anything about the settler assaults on us (the US citizens working in Tel Rumeida). The people there were pretty nice, one of the security guards was a Palestinian originally from Hebron and he sympathized with the situation there. I did end up feeling a bit silly for making a fuss about this when people in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon are being arrested, assassinated, kidnapped, murdered and bombed.

An employee at the consulate asked me, “Where are you staying in Israel?”
“Hebron,” I replied.
“You know there is a State Department travel advisory against Americans traveling to the West Bank ?”
“Yes, but I live there.”

She was kind enough to give me a printed copy of the travel advisory, a paragraph of which is quoted below:

“In recent months, citizens of Western nations, including Americans, involved in pro-Palestinian volunteer efforts were assaulted and injured in the Occupied Territories by Israeli settlers and harassed by the IDF. Those taking part in demonstrations, non-violent resistance, and “direct action,” are advised to cease such activity for their own safety.”

Of the three security guards hanging around, two were Palestinian and one was Israeli. Oddly enough, they were laughing and joking with each other and slapping each other on the back. I asked them how they found the situation in Jerusalem today. They said with confidence that they felt very safe in Jerusalem, no one was going to bomb it because it was the holy city for the three religions. This statement seemed in such contrast to the tension just a few blocks away. I for one certainly don’t feel very safe there. But then again, I thought to myself, I don’t have a cushy job in the confines of the American consulate.

We were both exhausted and angry and decided to go back to Hebron. On the bus back, a Palestinian guy saw Sunbula reading Nizar Qabbani and started talking to us as most Palestinians have here, wanting to know the low down on who we are and what we do. He kept teasing us by asking “Don’t you like the Jews?” and “aren’t the settlers in Hebron wonderful? I think the Arabs are lying about them!” Neither of us had the energy to get into this discussion not really due to our part Jewish origins, but due to exhaustion. Sunbula being the better Arabic speaker had to keep him entertained and field other interesting questions such as “do all of the foreigners sleep together in the same room in your apartment?”

After arriving back in Tel Rumeida, we heard some really loud fireworks across the street that sounded more scary than the sound bombs in Bil’in. Someone was apparently very happy about their exam results, but the settlers and army didn’t want to partake in the happiness. Instead they came skulking down to Tel Rumeida street to “investigate” what was going on by barging into a family’s house opposite our apartment and going onto the roof. We had the privilege of witnessing the appearance of Mrs. Baruch Marzel herself who called us “dirty nazis” and said we doing Hitler’s work here. She’s apparently forgotten that he committed suicide in 1945. We followed the soldiers into the terrified family’s house and stayed there as they hung out on the roof for a few minutes. Not finding any terrorists up there, they left fairly quickly.

It’s now approximately 10pm at night but our story is not quite over yet. As if enough already hadn’t happened in one day, we got an urgent call from the Abu Haykal family near the olive groves – soldiers had come into their house and made everyone go outside, confiscated their cell phones, in order to “look for photos” (?) What photos? That is a “military matter”. The family wanted us to come over so we did and began filming and questioning the soldiers about what they were doing there. One of the soldiers in a slow frat boy drawl told us to go back to America to our homes and said we wanted to help the people who kidnapped Israeli soldiers at the Lebanese border. We told them that we are invited here whereas they aren’t and that this isnt their land. They apparently didn’t find what they want and left after about 20 minutes, threatening they would be back. Three of our volunteers stayed the night in their house in case of any late night mischief.

My Kung Fu teacher taught me an Arabic proverb saying something like the most miserable things in life are the funniest ones. This day was both miserable and hilarious for us, a small microcosm of how absurd life can be sometimes in occupied Palestine.

Fourth of July in an Occupied Land

by Jill and Liz, Michigan Peace Team, July 6th

Several days ago, we emailed a reflection and analysis of a peaceful demonstration in Bil’in and some data that underscores the severity of the settlements in the West Bank. Another critical issue is the mushrooming of settlements in and around Jerusalem, specifically East Jerusalem, the traditionally and historically Palestinian neighborhoods, and in the Old City, which is considered to be part of East Jerusalem.

Reflecting on our experiences in Occupied Territory

A few days ago, on July 4th, we marked the 230th year of independence from British rule (and occupation) in the United States of America. Yet to observe this occasion from (Occupied) East Jerusalem and the West Bank causes us to question how we understand ‘independence’ and what would independence look like for the Palestinians? On the surface, life proceeds “as usual” people work and laugh and play, shop, cook, go home to their families, and visit friends.

But, from the vantage point of a rooftop balcony overlooking the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, we see a proliferation of Israeli flags. These mark the settlements which are proliferating in the Old City and throughout East Jerusalem are growing at an alarming rate. Looking at the landscape, we begin to recognize the architecture of occupation: large Israeli flags displayed in the Christian and Muslim Quarters of the Old City, road blocks and checkpoints for travel between adjacent cities (such as Jerusalem and Bethlehem or Ramallah), large tracts of empty space, demolished buildings. There is a military or police presence at nearly every turn.

Some background on Jerusalem

Historically, Jerusalem has been the capital of Palestine. It has served as both cultural and religious center for the three Abrahamic traditions Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Old City, encircled by 16th century walls, takes up less than one square kilometer of the greater Jerusalem area, which is currently 123 square km. In 1947, the UN-drafted partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state recommended that Jerusalem be designated an ‘international’ city. This recommendation was ultimately not accepted, and during the war of 1948, an estimated 70,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in the western areas of Jerusalem, and at least 40 Palestinian villages in and around Jerusalem were destroyed.

The 1949 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Jordan divided Jerusalem into the Jordanian-controlled East and Israeli-controlled West, and shortly thereafter, the Israeli Prime Minister illegally declared West Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel [and in 1980, Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem and declared the entire city as the “eternal, undivided capital of Israel” – most embassies (including the US and UK) are still retained in Tel-Aviv in non-recognition of this illegal move]. Since the war of 1967, the state of Israel has been an occupying power in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. And since that time, the Israeli government has annexed Palestinian villages to the east of Jerusalem such as Sawahr eh Ash-Sharqiyeh, Al-Izzariyya (Bethany), Abu Dis and At-Tur and incorporated them into Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. However, all Palestinians who reside within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem (“Jerusalemites”) are classified as forgein citizens with residency, and not as citizens of Israel. (Passia 2006, p. 324)

Israeli settlements in and around Jerusalem

“Under international law, East Jerusalem is an occupied territory, which means that the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable and Israel has no claim to East Jerusalem by virtue of having taken control of it militarily.” (Passia 2006, p. 324)

Nevertheless, settlements have sprung up around, and more recently, IN East Jerusalem. In fact, “[m]ost of the largest settlements are located in the Jerusalem region. The ten most populated settlements house 59% of the total West Bank settler population. (p. 294) One of the most populous Israeli settlement is Ma’ale Adumin, which has nearly 30,000 residents, and is located within greater Jerusalem. While PASSIA reports that ”settlers comprise less than 10% of the total Israeli-Jewis h population,” the state of Israel has expropriated an estimated 79% of land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (pp. 294, 297).

More recently, Israeli settlers have been moving into the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City, including a site in the northeastern corner of the Old City. Such a settlement was first reported in May 2005, and on July 4, 2005, the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction “gave its provisional approval to move forward on a plan (Town Planning Scheme 9870) to construct a new Jewish settlement, in the Burj Al-Laqlaq area of the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, near Herod’s Gate.” (p. 337). Furthermore, on July 10, 2005, one year after the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s separation barrier illegal under international law, the Israeli cabinet approved a decision to complete the wall in and around East Jerusalem by the end of August (p. 337). In order to complete the barrier, land was confiscated from the towns of Sawahreh Ash-Sharqiyeh, Al-Izzariyya, Abu Dis and At-Tur.

Interconnections the Separation Barrier, Settlements, and Israeli Occupation

It has been noted time and again that the separation barrier is not about increasing security, but a land grab by the State of Israel. This barrier takes many forms: it exists as an 8-m high concrete wall, trenches, fences, razor wire and military-only roads. In addition, there is a 30-100 meter wide “buffer zone” east of the Wall with electrified fences, trenches, sensors and military patrol roads and some sections have armed sniper towers. The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs has noted that,

“In June 2002 the Government of Israel decided to build the separation barrier to prevent the uncontrolled entry of Palestinians from the West Bank into Israel. In fact, the separation barrier is part of a strategy that aims to annex large parts of West Bank/Gaza Strip land while encircling Palestinian population centers. The barrier runs through some of the most fertile parts of the West Bank and has severely harmed agricultural activity, which is one of the main sources of income of many villages.” (Passia 2006, p. 298)

The costs of the occupation are high not only in economic, but also social, political and psychological. The ideological settlers are ruthless in their desire for making the entire State of Israel a Jewish-only state, and are often violent towards Palestinians physically and psychologically violent, by spitting, slapping or beating nearby Palestinians (especially those who stand up for the injustices against them), and also using verbal threats intended to intimidate. Many settlements are protected by a private police force, and when settlers walk through the Old City together, they are accompanied by armed guards. This is a measure of intimidation against Palestinians, but is also an indication of the deep insecurity felt by many settlers.

In conclusion, an October 6, 2005 article in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports:

“[A]ccording to a recent study by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies the separation [sic.] barrier also harms Jerusalem’s Jewish population in as far as ‘To a large extent, Jerusalem has changed from a central city providing service to more than a million people in the surrounding area to a peripheral town. It is a limited metropolitan area that serves only 20% of the residents it formerly did, most of them Jews.’ The report adds that ‘the barrier has a negative effect on life in the city and its surrounding area’ and in the long run may increase hostility and terrorism. ” (quoted in Passia 2006, p. 338)

Sources

Muller, Andreas. A Wall on the Green Line? Jerusalem and Beit Sahour: The Alternative Information Center, 2004.
Palestine and Palestinians Beit Sahour: Alternative Tourism Group, 2005.
Passia 2006. Jerusalem: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, 2005.

Robert Novak: “Holy Land Christians blame Israel”

by Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times columnist, 3rd of July

On June 19, two young members of Congress received an extraordinary letter from Jerusalem. On behalf of Christian churches in the Holy Land, they were told a House resolution they were circulating blaming the Palestinian Authority for Christian decline there “is based on many false affirmations.” The Very Rev. Michael H. Sellers, an Anglican priest who is coordinator of Jerusalem’s Christian churches, said the real problem is the Israeli occupation — especially its new security wall.

Prior to hearing this, freshman Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin, Texas, and four-term Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York (Queens) had collected 21 co-sponsors (mainly conservative Republicans) for their resolution. Sellers’ communication was followed two days later by a letter from Rep. Henry Hyde, House International Relations Committee chairman. He told the two congressmen their claim of systematic persecution by the Palestinian Authority is “inaccurate and incomplete.”

McCaul and Crowley put their resolution “on hold” going into the long Fourth of July recess. So apparently ends an audacious effort by Israeli public relations to place full blame for the Christian exodus from the Israeli-controlled Holy Land on Muslims. Instead, problems caused by the security wall have been highlighted once again.

The House was pulled into this issue by Justus Reid Weiner, an Israeli lawyer with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Weiner, who long has blamed Christian misfortunes on the Palestinian Authority, contacted Ari Stein, a staffer in McCaul’s congressional office. Stein in turn brought in Crowley, a prominent Democrat, through his staffer, Gregg Shelowitz.

The result was a “Dear Colleague” letter from McCaul and Crowley blaming the Palestinian Authority for “the systematic destruction of the oldest Christian community in the world.” The staff-written letter asserted: “If we do not act now, Christians around the world risk losing control of and access to the most ancient and holy sites in Christendom.”

Their subsequent resolution spent three pages detailing alleged persecution of Christians by Arab Muslims, even assailing the State Department for failing to put “treatment of Palestinian Christians by the Palestinian Authority” in its annual report on human rights violations. The resolution immediately picked up 16 Republican co-sponsors and five Democrats.

This process was slowed by Sellers’ letter from Jerusalem. He said Christian churches in the Holy Land that he represents can take care of any problems with Muslims and “are not seeking your interference in their internal problems.” Where Congress could help, he added, was influencing Israeli government policy: “Your support for the Christian presence in the Holy Land will best be served by helping to remove the separation wall (which has converted all the Palestinian towns into big prisons for Christians and Muslims alike) and by helping to bring occupation to an end with all its inherent types of oppression and humiliation.”

After his letter to McCaul and Crowley, Hyde made an unscheduled appearance last Friday at an International Relations subcommittee hearing on the plight of religious minorities. He argued the problem for the Holy Land’s Christians is not Muslims but Israel. Long a steadfast supporter of Israel, Hyde testified: “I have been unable to understand how the currently routed barrier in Jerusalem — which rips asunder the existential poles of Christian belief, the Nativity and the Resurrection, and encloses 200,000 Palestinians on the Jerusalem side of the barrier — will improve the security of Israel’s citizens.”

Hyde was followed at the hearing by the Rev. Firas Arida, the 31-year-old Roman Catholic priest in the West Bank village of Aboud. Asserting that the Israeli security wall causes his parishioners to lose water and olive trees, he said “the Israeli occupation must end,” and “there must be no more settlements on Palestinian land.”

McCaul and Crowley did not attend Friday’s hearing and surely have not been to Aboud. Both Catholics, they might well visit the village and talk with Firas’ flock while prudently keeping their ill-considered resolution on hold.

Israeli Court Rejects Wall Challenges

Hisham Jamjom an International Solidarity Movement local coordinator and a resident of East Jerusalem talked about the effects of the Wall on the local residents of those areas: “When my children grow up and want to marry, they will not be able to build houses in Jerusalem and will thus be forced to move to the West Bank. In contrast, the settlements are allowed to build huge apartment buildings, that can house tens of families. Also, villages that fall outside what Israel defines as the Jerusalem municipality, such as Beit Furik and Biddu, are forbidden to build new houses. In order to even apply for a permit, you have to come up with thousands and thousands of dollars. All this is forcing Palestinians out of Jerusalem into the West Bank. The merchants here have no income, because they depend on both tourism and the Palestinians from surrounding villages and people from other Palestinian cities such as Hebron, Ramallah, etc.

“The Wall will force scores of Palestinian families to leave Jerusalem and loose their residency there. All of this comes as part of Olmert’s plan which is to create a Jewish Jerusalem, and he has implemented this policy in a wise way,” Hisham added.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Israeli Supreme Court rejected two efforts to change the route of the Wall in the West Bank around East Jerusalem. In both cases, Palestinian residents argued that the Wall would be built on private land and cut them off from their “centre of life” in Jerusalem. One argued that part of the barrier would be built on a cemetery that is still in use.

The court ruled for the government, which argued that the “security” needs of the Wall outweighed humanitarian concerns. The government argued that residents could still enter the city through passages located near their neighbourhoods.

Daniela Yanai, a lawyer at Ir Amim, an Israeli advocacy group that deals with Jerusalem issues, said the decisions reflect Israel’s goal to strengthen its hold on East Jerusalem.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem, West Jerusalem occupied in 1948 and east Jerusalem and the surrounding villages occupied in 1967, as its capital. In 1980 Israel officially annexed “East Jerusalem”.

International law, governments around the world (including the UK and the US who both keep their official ambassadors to Israel in Tel-Aviv, not Jerusalem) and the Palestinians view the parts of Jerusalem east of the Green Line captured by Israel in 1967, as the capital of the future Palestinian state.