Tag: Salfit

Remembering Deir Yassin
by Anna Baltzer, 1 May 2007

Um El Fahim town in present-day Israel, home to 48,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel, mostly internal refugees denied services equal to Jews or the right to return to their homes.

59 years ago this month, the militant Zionist Irgun and Stern Gang systematically murdered more than 100 men, women, and children in Deir Yassin. The Palestinian village lay outside the area the UN recommended to be included in a future Jewish State, and the massacre occurred several weeks before the end of the British Mandate, but it was part of a carefully planned and orchestrated process that would induce the flight of 70% of the native population to make way for an ethnically Jewish state.

Deir Yassin was just one of more than 400 Palestinian villages depopulated and destroyed by Jewish forces in 1948 (or shortly before and after). I recently visited the ruins of a Palestinian village called Kafrayn in present-day Israel on a tour with Zochrot, “a group of Israeli citizens [both Jewish and Palestinian] working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948.”

Our group met in the home of Adnan, a refugee from another village called Lajjun who now lives in Um El Fahim town in Israel. A well-dressed man in his late sixties, Adnan welcomed us into his living room when we asked to hear his story. His grown son brought around fresh strawberries and fancy chocolates before sitting down to translate as his father began to speak:

“I remember Lajjun as if in a dream. I was only seven years old when the men with guns came, but I still remember certain things so clearly. I remember my school, and the name of my teacher. I remember we had a community center for visitors, and the village was very excited because an English ambassador was planning a visit. We worked for weeks renovating the big gardens in anticipation. I remember our village had a strong spring and a sophisticated water system. Israel has succeeded in convincing the world that Palestinians were primitive and uneducated until the Zionists arrived, but that is propaganda. We even had developed agricultural tools like trucks to turn corn. We were well-educated and we had good relations with our Jewish neighbors living in a kibbutz several kilometers away.

Adnan holds a map of his village Lajjun, which he and his family were violently expelled from in 1948. Although they are Israeli citizens, they have never been allowed to return.

“Then the soldiers came. I remember them shooting from atop a mountain, bullets flying over my head as we ran. We fled to a town called Taybi, taking nothing with us – we had no time, and assumed we would be back when the war was over. In Taybi we had to borrow woolen tents to live in. Eventually we found our way to Um El Fahim with thousands of other refugees, and we’ve been here ever since. Our village had 44,000 dunums of agricultural land and they took ever last one of them. We are citizens of Israel, but never allowed to return to our land and our homes nearby. We are refugees in our own state.

“Between 1948 and 1966, Palestinians in Israel lived the way Palestinians now live in the West Bank and Gaza. We were prisoners in our homes in Um El Fahim, under constant curfew, controlled by checkpoints, etc. Although certain restrictions have been lifted, as non-Jews we are still generally refused from more than 93% of the land in Israel, owned by the state or the Jewish National Fund. That includes my land, my village. They’ve surrounded it with a fence and won’t even let us go pray in the mosque, one of the only structures still standing. The mosque belongs to the nearest kibbutz now, so Jewish kibbutzniks can visit it when they please.

“How can Israel call itself a democracy when I cannot go to my land simply because I am a different ethnicity from my old Jewish neighbors? What kind of a democracy is this where political parties can’t challenge the Zionist exclusivist framework, but they can challenge the rights of the indigenous population to stay here? Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman came from Russia a few years ago, and now he’s talk about sending Palestinians away, we who’ve been here for hundreds if not thousands of years! The Jewish people know catastrophe and suffering. They work for justice in their own lives… why not in mine?”

Almost all the residents of Um El Fahim are internal refugees from 1948 like Adnan. They live as second-class citizens, receiving fewer services than their Jewish counterparts. Israel spends an average of 4,935 shekels ($1,372) for each Jewish student per year, compared to 862 ($240) per Arab one. In the words of the Israeli parliamentarian Jamal Zahalka, “Israel is a democratic state for its Jewish citizens, and a Jewish state for its Arab citizens.”

Driving around with Nakba survivors trying to find villages that no longer exist.

Several elderly Um El Fahim residents accompanied us on our tour to Kafrayn. It was a strange thing, driving around in a bus looking for a village that no longer exists. Before we’d reached Kafrayn, one elderly Palestinian named Muneeb jumped up and began motioning outside the window: “That’s it! That’s my village!” I turned to see several hills covered with trees. Like so many others, Muneeb’s village (near Kafrayn) had been emptied of Palestinians and then planted over with fast-growing Jerusalem pines by Zionists who would later brag about “making the desert bloom.”

Muneeb pointed excitedly towards one part of the hill: “That’s where I used to walk to school! And that’s where we’d go to fetch water! And that – that’s where my house was…”

Nakba survivors and their descendants commemorate their destroyed village with Zochrot.

Suddenly Muneeb’s voice cracked and he looked down, embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have come here today,” he confessed after he’s regained his composure. “It’s too emotional. You were here thousands of years ago and you miss your land,” he spoke to the Jews in our group, “I was here fifty years ago and I miss my land.”

What most struck me about our drive was how bare everything was. Nobody was living in Muneeb or Adnan’s villages, or anywhere near them. Their villages had been turned into forests, military bases, and grazing land, controlled by kibbutzim sometimes many miles away. One Israeli on the tour explained to me that Israel typically develops large land-intensive projects to maintain control over empty areas where it doesn’t want Palestinians to settle. When we arrived in Kafrayn, we found several empty fenced off areas. One was labeled “Welcome to military base 105.” Another posting said “Danger: Firing Area – Entrance Forbidden!” A third sign read “Cattle-grazing land.”

“So they let cows live here but not Arabs?” I asked my new friend.

“Cows don’t have nationalist aspirations,” he smiled. “Besides, do you even see any cows around here?” He was right – there were no cows in sight, nor soldiers for that matter.

One common misconception about the Palestinian refugees’ right of return is that its implementation would create a new refugee crisis by displacing most Israelis. In fact, according to Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, a former member of the Palestine National Council and researcher on refugee affairs, “78% of [Jewish Israelis] live in 14% of Israel. The remaining 22% of [Jewish Israelis] live in 86% of Israel’s area, which is Palestinian land. Most of them live in a dozen or so Palestinian towns. A tiny minority lives in Kibbutz… Thus, only 200,000 Jews exploit 17,325 sq. km, which is the home and heritage of 5,248,180 refugees, crammed in camps and denied the right to return home” (See Dr. Abu Sitta’s highly recommended Nakba Map, available HERE.

The issue is not about space, it’s about demographics. Allowing Palestinian refugees to return would threaten the ethnic character of Israel. Rather than being the state of the Jews, it might have to become the state of the people who live in it, some of whom are Jews, some of whom aren’t. But until that happens, the most people like Muneeb and Adnan can look forward to is an occasional tour with Jewish fringe activists every few decades. Some of the Kafrayn expulsion survivors who accompanied our tour had not been back since 1948 – almost 60 years. They wandered around, as if in a dream, pointing out where the old cemetery and school used to be. One survivor, Abu Ghasi, recalled his story for the group:

“We had all heard about the Deir Yassin massacre a few days before, so when the Zionist forces arrived and began shooting, we all ran. Those of us who survived took shelter in a nearby village, and soon we heard the blasts that we knew were our homes being exploded. After the Jewish forces had moved on, we returned to find our village completely obliterated. It was clear we had no alternative but to move elsewhere, and eventually we settled in Um El Fahim.”

An old woman from the nearest kibbutz spoke with the survivors and all agreed that their communities had gotten along well before the expulsion. They reminisced about a school bus driver they had shared, and the woman confirmed their story about the Zionist forces razing and bombing Kafrayn. The tour ended with a communal lunch between survivors, kibbutzniks, and the rest of the group next to Kafrayn’s old springhouse and main water source.

Nakba survivors and their descendants commemorate their destroyed village with Zochrot.

Somebody had painted “Death to Arabs” in Hebrew on the springhouse before we arrived, but we didn’t let that keep us enjoying the spring’s natural beauty as several people got up to speak. One Jewish woman who had immigrated from Canada to Israel 27 years ago said it took her the first 20 to really understand the truth about Israel’s past and present. One man asked the kibbutznik woman if she thought her Palestinian neighbors should be allowed to return, but she was unwilling to give a straight answer, saying it was complicated. An Israeli man responded to her with frustration, saying, “We are here on 100,000 dunums of empty land. We have in Israel many internal refugees from this land that lies empty. Why not give families just one of their thousands of dunums to let them come back to their homes?”

A Kafrayn survivor addressed the kibbutznik as well: “Look, we all want peace. It’s very easy to say, but peace requires making an effort. I’ve lost 60 years on my land. How can you expect me to live in peace with the Jews if they refuse to give me back my land and my rights?” Another refugee echoed his sentiments: “Peace does not look like one type of person enjoying land and others forbidden. If you want peace, let’s share everything. Let’s live together.”

The Palestinian refugees on our tour are the lucky ones. Unlike the two thirds of Palestinians who are in the diaspora, Adnan, Muneeb, and Abu Ghasi are still here, in historic Palestine. And although not as privileged as Jews, they are at least not living under Occupation like their West Bank and Gaza refugee counterparts. This year, I spent Deir Yassin day in Izbat At Tabib, a village of 226 Palestinians refugees from 1948 whose families resettled in the West Bank and have been facing repeated attempts by Israel to expel them a second time. Almost the entire village is under demolition order to clear the way for settler roads and the Wall.

Not only have the massacres and expulsions of the past never been officially acknowledged, but the Nakba goes on in some form or another for all Palestinian refugees today, whether in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, or the diaspora. This is not ancient history – this is now, this is urgent. The Nakba continues. Deir Yassin continues.

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CALL TO ACTION:

The injustices must not remain unrecognized. This year, remember that May 15 is not only Israeli Independence Day… Consider organizing a Nakba Day commemoration event!

Join activists across the country in remembering the Nakba. Here’s a simple, interactive, moving action you can organize in your city. Zochrot, an Israeli activist organization, has already created it, but we need YOU to put it on. Please take a look HERE.

If you are interested, email Hannah at hmermels@hotmail.com with confirmation and questions. She can also tell you if anyone else in your city is already planning a similar event.

In peace,
Anna

Anna Baltzer is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service in the West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.

Prelude to the Third Intifada?
by Anna Baltzer, 30 April 2007

Atara Checkpoint in early April: Passover—the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from oppression—is accompanied by tightening restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank, resulting in checkpoint waits of many hours. Photo by Anna

It’s been more than three weeks since I last wrote. The reason is simple: things have been awful on the ground here in Palestine, leaving little time for reflection. As usual, Passover—the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from oppression—was accompanied by tightening restrictions on Palestinians. While Jewish Israelis were feasting nearby, travel within the West Bank became difficult if not impossible, except of course for settlers who would breeze by the hundreds of Palestinians waiting for hours at checkpoints on their way home, to work, to the hospital, or elsewhere. Calling the Army was no help since most offices and services were closed for the holidays. Palestinians urgently requiring permits to reach hospitals were forced to wait as well.

A quick look at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ weekly report shows that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)—among other activities—killed 9 Palestinians (including 2 children and 4 extra-judicial assassinations), injured 20, conducted 30 incursions into West Bank Palestinian communities, arrested 44 Palestinian civilians (including 8 children), demolished 8 houses rendering more than 48 people homeless, and continued to impose a total siege on the Occupied Territories… all in the past week. This is about average. In the past few weeks, Israeli settlers have also moved back into an evacuated settlement in Nablus.

Hani Abu Hakel’s car torched by Israeli settlers, Photo: ISM Hebron

Meanwhile, several hundred Jewish settlers took over a massive building in the heart of Hebron, and Israel immediately deployed soldiers to protect the new Jewish-only colony. The nearby Abu Haykal family, friends whom I visited last month in Tel Rumeida, had their car torched by Hebron settlers who want nothing more than for them to leave so that a new Jewish settlement can be set up next to the already existing ones.

The ongoing brutality and harassment are fuelling a growing tension that I predict will one day explode into a third intifada (Arabic for “uprising”). The signs are there—intense frustration but an even stronger determination to throw off the Occupation’s yoke. Demonstrations have been happening all over the West Bank, sometimes several per day. Israel’s excessive force and continued colonization are unsustainable, because the Palestinians will never stop resisting. To stop resisting is to have no future—it is national suicide. The worse the Occupation gets, the stronger the resistance.

Although it is not reported as such, most of the current Palestinian resistance has been nonviolent. At the Arab American University of Jenin, the “Green Resistance” student group succeeded in banning the Israeli-produced Tapuzina fruit juice from the AAUJ campus, part of a growing Palestinian campaign to support local products rather than paying for their own Occupation. My neighbor Abu Saed in Haris, whose trees have been uprooted by settlers three times over the past month from his land near Revava settlement, continues to replant them week after week, with support from Rabbis for Human Rights and IWPS.

Israeli Forces prohibit bike race to Jericho, Photo by Jonas

And about a month ago, more than 350 people—Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals—gathered for the first-ever Palestine International Bike Race from Ramallah to Jericho, an event organized by the East Jerusalem YMCA for people from all over the world to protest human rights violations in Palestine, demand freedom of movement for Palestinian civilians, and “support the values of peace and tolerance in the area.” The event was projected to be the longest ever international sporting event protesting the Occupation, but Israeli jeeps cut the race short by closing traffic to two-wheelers and the “Bikes not Bombs” enthusiasts were forced to turn back.

Near the Quaker Friends School where the bike race commenced is a cultural center where dozens of Palestinian youth come together every week to make short films and dance together. After watching an intensely physical and emotive modern dance rehearsal when I visited one day, the students explained that for them “art is not a luxury—it’s a must.” The Occupation not only threatens Palestinians’ homes, land, livelihoods, time, and future, but also creativity and expression. The cultural center is tool to prevent Palestinian culture from being lost or distorted, and students described how they would meet in secrecy to practice quietly during invasions and curfews as their own form of creative nonviolent resistance.

In the Salfit region where we live, a new center has been established to conduct trainings and workshops in strategic communication, peace-building, conflict resolution, and techniques of nonviolent resistance. I spoke with the director Fuad, who explained that nonviolent resistance in Israeli jails (hunger strikes, etc) has recently increased, and that many Palestinians—particularly those returning from prison—have been building what he called “a nonviolent movement for freedom, equality, democratic values, and human rights.” His organization aims to develop programs suitable for each section of Palestinian society, as well as human rights and democracy awareness workshops and resistance trainings, but they lack the proper funding to do so. Fuad told me his own story of transformation from a soldier in Arafat’s “Sabahtash” Army to a committed nonviolence advocate after his brother was killed. Fuad was particularly inspired by the first intifada, during which all parts of Palestinian society joined in nonviolent civil disobedience to demand freedom with one loud voice. When I told Fuad that IWPS could offer no financial support (although you could—please contact fuad_alramal@yahoo.com if you can help), he replied, “We have no money, but our strength is in our beliefs: our commitment to nonviolence. Violence kills the spirit, pushing it towards more violence or submission, but nonviolence will always prevail in the end.”

Fuad said he chose to work in the Salfit area because of its history of nonviolent resistance. Indeed, the past few weeks have seen a number of major actions in our oft-forgotten rural region. On Land Day, hundreds gathered in Rafat village to protest the Wall that is slowly enclosing their village, but when they found the cage unguarded they grabbed hold and began to rock it, back and forth, all together, until finally the gates exploded open. When the soldiers arrived, protesters retreated to their homes, not a single stone thrown. They had made their point: Rafat will not accept collective imprisonment.

Demonstrators from Salfit remove the electric sensory wire lining the Wall that has cut their town off from their main road and land.

The next day in Salfit town a group of demonstrators found the Wall unguarded and began removing the electric sensory wire that lines the fenced sections. Soldiers arrived quickly and began shooting into the air, but protesters held their ground and raised Palestinian flags above the cage that cuts off their main road and annexes much of their land. Salfit, too, will not accept collective imprisonment.

Protesters raise the Palestinian flag above the Wall that encages them.

Nor will the rest of the West Bank, where many other actions took place on Land Day weekend. In Qaffin town in the north, thousands of demonstrators gathered and marched, danced, and drummed their way to the Wall to show their spirit and resolve to resist the illegal barrier and Occupation.

Nablus residents march to Beit Furik checkpoint

In Nablus, hundreds marched to Beit Furik, one of the six city exits—all Army checkpoints—through which men 16 to 45 years old are not allowed to pass without a special Israeli-issued permit that can only be obtained outside the city. The march, organized in part by the Nablus Women’s Union and a society for local handicapped people, continued through the checkpoint past stunned soldiers unable to hold the cheering protesters back.

After succeeding in pushing through Beit Furik checkpoint, Nablus residents occupy the checkpoint, climbing up onto the waiting pens and hanging freedom signs around the base.

The group then occupied the checkpoint, first by sitting down and later by climbing atop the waiting pens and hanging Palestinian flags and freedom signs around the base.

Injustice is unsustainable. It cannot be normalized, because there will always be resistance. The third intifada will come. It may be nonviolent as the first, or it may be more like the second. Is it a coincidence that Israel began construction at the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem just as warring religious and secular Palestinian factions were coming to a truce? Israel prefers that Palestinians resist one another rather than their oppression, but Palestinians in the West Bank and at the negotiating table have shown their resolve to work together against their common enemies: Zionist racism and the Occupation. United, they will prevail. If the third intifada does not succeed, there will be a fourth. And then a fifth… As many as it takes, until justice is served.

Anna Baltzer is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service in the West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.