The Israeli army erected a giant earth mound across a crucial agricultural road in the northern West Bank village of Madama this week. The road block severely limits hundreds of farmers’ access to their lands, making transport by vehicle all but impossible. The intentional crippling of the village’s chief economy comes as settler violence continues unabated in the region.
Four Israeli military jeeps and one Caterpillar bulldozer entered the village on Wednesday night to construct the road block. The targeted dirt road cuts directly underneath the speedy settler road leading west from Yitzhar settlement, where a tunnel was constructed to allow the road’s continuation to farmers’ land. The bulldozer quickly moved massive mounds of earth across the road underneath the bridge, entirely blocking it and removing the possibility of access to cars and tractors by village farmers.
ISM activists visited Madama to witness families clambering over the earth mound on foot and herding, with great difficulty, donkeys and flocks of sheep and goats across the blockage. The prevention of tractor access is critical now especially, as Palestine enters its wet season and land must be ploughed to become fertile for the new year. Approximately 500 of Madama’s farmers hold land on the other side of the road block, whose economic livelihood is severely threatened by this senseless impediment.
The road overhead, linking Israeli settlers effortlessly with their homes and work outside the settlements, cuts deeply through Madama’s land, as it has done since it was built 10 years ago. Two homes, belonging to Yasser Taher’s family, are now isolated on the other side of the highway, marking them as prime targets for settler and military harassment, leaving children traumatised and inevitably forcing the majority of the family to move to a safer home within Madama.
Madama resident Abed Al-Aziz Zeiyada became the latest victim in an endless series of settler incursions as he drove his taxi home on Friday night. Settlers of Yitzhar settlement, waiting on the side of the road, hurled rocks at his car and destroyed the windscreen. When Zeiyada reached Huwara, now without a windscreen in his car, he was stopped by Israeli forces at a flying checkpoint. Showing them the unmistakeable damage, Zeiyada was refused assistance by Israeli soldiers. He returned to Madama and paid a 700 shekel bill for the window to be fixed the next day.
Residents of Madama always have one eye fixed on the settlements that loom over the village; Bracha to the north, and Yitzhar to the south. Yitzhar alone is built on 1000 dunums of Madama’s land, including all of its water wells. Villagers are forced to spend vast amounts of their income on water, a 90-litre tank costing a crippling 125 shekels. Settler incursions also occur frequently, wrecked upon homes on the edge of the village, if not from the settlers then from the military, whose base next to Bracha send jeeps careening through the streets of Madama and neighbouring villages by night.
Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, and their network of Apartheid roads, in addition to Israeli government and military suffocating policy and presence in occupied Palestine culminate in a devastating effect on the everyday lives of Palestinians, such as residents of Madama village, whose voices all too often go unheard.
I’m banned from Sheikh Jarrah and occupied East Jerusalem so I spent the last two days in Hebron and recently arrived in Nablus.
Hebron is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and the place where Isaac and Ishmael buried their father, Abraham, signaling a reconciliating between the two feuding brothers. Unfortunately there is no such reconciliation in Hebron today.
Hebron is unlike any place I’ve ever seen before. The old city reminds me of the old city in Jerusalem, except not as crowded. But there are military check-points and Israeli Occupation Forces everywhere, including in watch-towers all across the city. When we were walking through the city, settlers openly carried automatic weapons and assault rifles.
I asked one of them if I could take their picture.
“No,” he said. “It’s forbidden on the Sabbath.”
“It’s forbidden to get your picture taken on the Sabbath, but it’s okay to walk around with an automatic weapon?” I asked him. He snorted and turned around, ignoring me.
Hebron is also the only city I’ve visited so far where beggars are openly walking the streets, asking for money. Street hustlers are also much more aggressive here than in Jerusalem. A few hundred Israeli Jewish settlers live amongst thousands of Palestinians in Hebron, and the tension is palpable. A thick layer of netting seperates the Israeli apartments from the Arab markets below them because the settlers throw stones and trash at the Palestinians from their windows.
Later on, we met up with our contact, a woman named Leila who runs a Women’s Collective that sells homemade tapestries, kufiyyas, purses, coin wallets, and other items. She invited us into her our home and told us a little bit about the situation in Hebron over a delicious Arab dinner.
“The situation in Hebron is very bad, very dangerous,” she said. “There is no work, and the settlers and the Army threaten us and attack us everyday.”
On Saturdays, a settler “tour” goes into the old city through a military checkpoint to visit the holy sites important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. They are guarded by a phalanx of soldiers and private security, but sometimes the overzealous ones use the day as an opportunity to take potshots at the Palestinian merchants, overturning their stands, stealing from their stores, insulting them, spitting on them, and sometimes worse.
We spent most of the day and night patrolling the streets of the old city, but it was quiet. We talked with the young men on the streets, drank tea inside their houses with their families, and generally just had a relaxing time.
Elders’ chair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has expressed his deep concern about the arrest and indictment of Abdallah Abu Rahmah of Bil’in and has called for his unconditional release.
Abu Rahmah is a school teacher and coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements, which has carried out a five year campaign of non-violent protest and legal challenge against the wall that separates Israel from the West Bank.
“My fellow Elders and I met Abu Rahmah and his colleague Mohammad Khatib in August when we visited Bil’in,” said Desmond Tutu. “We were impressed by their commitment to peaceful political action, and their success in challenging the wall that unjustly separates the people of Bil’in from their land and their olive trees. I call on Israeli officials to release Abu Rahmah immediately and unconditionally.”
Abu Rahmah was arrested by Israeli soldiers at 2am on 10 December 2009 and indicted on 22 December 2009 on several counts stemming from his leadership role in the Popular Committee. On 15 September Mohammad Khatib was severely beaten during a raid attempting to arrest Abu Rahmah. Since 23 June 2009, 31 residents of Bil’in have been arrested.
“Abu Rahmah’s arrest and indictment is part of an escalation by the Israeli military to try to break the spirit of the people of Bil’in,” said Tutu. “But they must realize that they cannot break the spirit of those who fight for freedom and justice.”
Abu Rahmah met six members of The Elders on 27 August 2009. The Elders visited the site of Bil’in’s weekly demonstrations near the separation barrier and also saw the memorial site paying tribute to Abu Rahmah’s cousin Bassem Abu Rahmah who was killed when he was hit in the chest by a tear gas canister during one of the demonstrations. (see photo)
The Elders who visited Bil’in were Desmond Tutu, Ela Bhatt, Gro Brundtland, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson. For more information go to www.theElders.org/middle-east
The Elders visit the memorial to Bassem Abu Rahmah in Bil'in, 27 August 2009. L-R: Gro Brundtland, Mary Robinson, Fernando Cardoso, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Mohammed Khatib, Ela Bhatt, Abdullah Abu Rahma.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Abdallah Abu Rahmah
Abdallah Abu Rahmah was indicted in an Israeli military court on Tuesday, 22 December 2009. Abu Rahmah was charged with arms possession for collecting used tear gas canisters shot at demonstrators in Bil’in by the army and showcasing them in his home. The indictment also includes incitement and stone throwing charges.
On receiving the indictment Adv. Gaby Lasky, Abu Rahmah’s lawyer said that “the army shoots at unarmed demonstrators, and when they try to show the world the violence used against them by collecting presenting the remnants – they are persecuted and prosecuted. What’s next? Charging protesters money for the bullets shot at them?”
Abdallah Abu Rahmah was arrested from his West Bank home on 10 December, the International Human Rights Day. Seven military jeeps surrounded his house, broke open the door, and after briefly allowing him to say goodbye to his family; the army blindfolded and took him into custody.
Abdallah has been a member of the Bil’in Popular Committee since its conception in 2004. Following the initial construction of Israel’s wall on Bil’in’s lands in March 2005, Abdallah has participated in organizing almost daily direct actions and demonstrations against the theft of their lands. Garnering the attention of the international community with their creativity and perseverance, Bil’in has become a symbol for Palestinian popular resistance. Almost five years later, Bil’in continues to have weekly Friday protests.
As its coordinator, Abdallah has represented the village around the world. In June 2009, he traveled to Montreal to attend the village’s precedent-setting legal case against two Canadian companies illegally building settlements on Bil’in’s land and participate in a speaking tour. In December of 2008, he participated in a speaking tour in France, and on 10 December 2008, exactly a year before his arrest, Abdallah traveled to Germany on behalf of Bil’in, to accept the Carl Von Ossietzky Medal for outstanding service in the realization of basic and human rights, awarded by the International League for Human Rights.
Abu Rahmah’s arrest is seen as part of an escalation in Israeli military’s attempts to break the spirit of the people of Bil’in, their popular leadership, and the popular struggle as a whole – aimed at crushing demonstrations against the Wall. Recently, Adv. Gaby Lasky, who represents many of Bil’in’s detainees, was informed by the military prosecution that the army intends to use legal measures as a means of ending the demonstrations.
An exhibition of spent tear gas grenades and projectiles in the village of Bil'in for which Abu Rahmah was indicted on. Picture credit: Oren ZivActiveStills
Bil’in
Located 12 kilometers west of Ramallah and 4 km east of the Green Line, Bil’in is an agricultural village spanning 4,000 dunams (988 acres) with approximately 1,800 residents.
While construction of the Wall and opposition to it began in 2005, the majority of land had been expropriated from Bil’in earlier.
Starting in the early 1980’s, and more significantly in 1991, approximately 56% of Bil’in’s agricultural land was declared ‘State Land’ for the construction of the settlement bloc Modi’in Illit (Modi’in Illit currently holds the largest settler population of any settlement bloc, with over 42,000 residents and plans to achieve a population of 150,000).
In addition to grassroots organizing, Bil’in has held annual conferences on popular resistance since 2006; providing a forum for villagers, activists and academics to discuss strategies for the unarmed struggle against the Occupation.
Bil’in embraced legal measures against Israel as part of its multi-lateral resistance to the theft of their livelihoods. The village first turned to the courts in the winter of 2004. Three years after they initiated legal proceedings, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that due to illegal construction in part of Modi’in Illit, unfinished housing could not be completed and that the route of the Wall be moved several hundred meters west, returning 25% of Bil’in’s lands to the village. To date, the high court ruling has not been implemented and construction continues.
In July 2008, Bil’in commenced legal proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec against Green Park International Inc and Green Mount International Inc for their involvement in constructing, marketing and selling residential units in the Mattityahu East section of Modi’in Illit
In an effort to stop the popular resistance in Bil’in, Israeli authorities intimidate demonstrators with physical violence and arrests.
Israeli armed forces have used sound and shock grenades, water cannons, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear-gas grenades, tear-gas canisters, high velocity tear-gas projectiles, 0.22 caliber live ammunition and live ammunition against protesters. On 17 April 2009, Bassem Abu Rahma was shot with a high-velocity tear gas projectile in the chest by Israeli forces and subsequently died from his wounds at a Ramallah hospital.
Out of the 78 residents who have been arrested in connection to demonstrations against the Wall, 31 were arrested after the beginning of a night raid campaign on 23 June 2009. Israeli armed forces have been regularly invading homes and forcefully searching for demonstration participants, targeting the leaders of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements, as well as teenage boys accused of throwing stones at the Wall. 13 currently remain in detention, 4 of which are minors.
The war the police and the Israel Defense Forces are openly waging against protests by left-wing and human rights activists has heated up in recent weeks. As a result, concern is growing over Israel’s image as a free and democratic country, one that accords equal and tolerant treatment to all its citizens and residents.
Nonviolent protests in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah against the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes by extreme right-wingers have met with a violent and disproportionate police response. The IDF has responded with insufferable harshness to protests against the separation fence in the Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Na’alin.
In Sheikh Jarrah, police are fielding unnecessarily large forces armed with tear gas and pepper spray. Over the past two weeks, no less than 50 demonstrators have been arrested at these protests.
In Bil’in and Na’alin, IDF soldiers are firing live rounds at unarmed protesters who do not endanger the soldiers’ lives, in violation of the military advocate general’s orders. Major arrest sweeps are also taking place in these two villages, of protest organizers and members of the popular committees. Some of those arrested have been brought before a military court, charged with incitement and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
In terms of violence, this represents an escalation. In terms of tolerance, it represents a deterioration – of attitudes toward legitimate protest. Two Israeli lecturers, Prof. Galit Hasan-Rokem and Prof. Daphna Golan, recently described the harsh police response in Sheikh Jarrah in Haaretz. Protests were also dealt with harshly during Operation Cast Lead a year ago: About 800 Israeli citizens, most of them Arab, were arrested, and criminal proceedings were begun against 685 of them. This was an evil omen regarding the state’s attitude toward protesters.
And all this is happening at a time when the same law enforcement agencies are showing much more leniency and consideration to right-wingers protesting against the construction freeze in the settlements. There, no massive arrests have been made, and there has been less police violence.
Citizens, whether from the right or the left, have both the right and the duty to protest, within the bounds of the law, against things that upset them. Tolerance toward such protests is the breath of life for any democratic regime.
Photographs of soldiers shooting live fire at demonstrators, in contrast, are familiar from the darkest regimes. If drummers are arrested in Sheikh Jarrah, and Palestinians are arrested in Bil’in for collecting and displaying ammunition shot by the IDF – this is a regime that is not acting with the required tolerance toward legitimate protest.
The pictures from Sheikh Jarrah and the scenes from Bil’in and Na’alin, which repeat themselves weekly, will remain hidden in the darkness of public disinterest and lack of media coverage. But what the police are doing in Sheikh Jarrah and what the IDF is doing in Bil’in and Na’alin should disturb every Israeli, whether right-wing or left-wing – because this is about the very nature of the regime of the country in which we live.
Ryan Olander is due to be deported by the Israeli state, after being illegally arrested and detained in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in Occupied East Jerusalem. Please contact the Embassy of the United States in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Minister of Interior, or consider donating towards Ryan’s legal costs.
Ryan is currently being held at a deportation facility in Ramle, where his request for release has been rejected by the prison judge. His lawyer is working on submitting an appeal to the District Court in Tel Aviv this Sunday, 27 December.
Ryan was visiting the al-Kurds in the tent the Palestinian family built in their own backyard, after the recent setter take-over of a section of their house. At 1.15pm, on Friday 18 December, 6 Israeli police walked into the tent, where Ryan was talking to the family members and drinking tea, and took him for questioning at the Russian Compound police station in west Jerusalem. (For more information about his arrest click here.)
Ryan was released without charges the following Saturday, 19 December, before the beginning of a trial with 26 Israeli activists arrested in Sheikh Jarrah, only to be illegally re-arrested by immigration police right outside of the same police station that told him he was free to go. Now Ryan is facing illegal deportation after being held in Israeli prisons for a week.
From the Givon prison in Ramle, where Mr. Olander was taken, he made the following statement:
“On Friday, 18 December, I was placed under arrest illegally. A police officer forcibly removed me from the al-Kurd private residence and proceeded to file a fallacious police report stating I participated in what they claimed was an illegal demonstration and refused to disperse when ordered. In fact, I was arrested before the demonstration even took place.
I have become a target of the police for standing in solidarity with the Palestinians of Sheikh Jarrah who struggle against the unjust and illegal evictions from the places they have called their homes for nearly 60 years. Now I face illegal deportation from Israel.”
His arrest happened just before a peaceful demonstration of around 300 people, held in solidarity with the evicted Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah, was violently dispersed by the Israeli police and 27 people arrested. Ryan, along with other arrestees from Sheikh Jarrah reported ill-treatment by the police, who subjected them to several strip-searches, denied them food and water for prolonged periods of time and held them outside of the police station until late at night, with insufficient protection against the cold conditions.
The Israeli police and authorities have previously attempted to deport activists supporting the struggle of the Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and, so far one case, succeeded. We need to fight this deportation not only to stop the authorities from deporting solidarity activists in the future, but also to highlight the settlement expansion in East Jerusalem along with discriminatory law enforcement towards Palestinians.
What can you do?
1. Contact the Embassy of the United States in Tel Aviv and ask that they enquire with the Israeli authorities and challenge Ryan’s detention and possible deportation. Numerous inquiries about Ryan’s case will make it difficult for them to ignore it. You can contact them by calling (+972) 3519 7575, faxing (+972) 3517 3227 or emailing amctelaviv@state.gov. Below is a suggested draft email:
Dear Ambassador James B. Cunningham,
I have recently learned of the arrest of Ryan Olander. He was arrested while visiting a family in Sheikh Jarrah. Contrary to the claims of the officer who arrested him, Mr Olander was not taking part in an illegal demonstration and was subsequently released without charges the following day. I am particularly concerned about his illegal re-arrest by the immigration police, which occurred only a few moments after his release. Despite having valid visa, Mr Olander is now facing deportation and has already been held at Givon prison in Ramle for over a week.
As a US representative to Israel, I ask you to investigate his detention by submitting an official letter of inquiry about his case and to petition for his deportation to be cancelled and Mr Olander to be immediately released from prison. I will continue to contact you about this important matter.
Sincerely,
Please copy us into your emails, or let us know when you call / fax the Embassy at free.ryan.sj@gmail.com
2. Contact the Israeli Ministry of the Interior to demand Ryan’s immediate and unconditional release. You can contact the Minister by emailing eyishay@knesset.gov.il, faxing 00972 2666 2909 or calling 00972 2640 8406 / 00972 2640 8407. Please feel free to use the following sample letter:
Dear Minister of Internal Affairs, Eliyahu Yishai
I have recently learned of the arrest of Ryan Olander. He was arrested while visiting a family in Sheikh Jarrah. Contrary to the claims of the officer who arrested him, Mr Olander was not taking part in an illegal demonstration and was subsequently released without charges the following day. I am particularly concerned about his illegal re-arrest by the immigration police, which occurred only a few moments after his release. Despite having valid visa, Mr Olander is now facing deportation and has already been held at Givon prison in Ramle for over a week.
As the Minister of Internal Affairs in Israel, I ask you to investigate his illegal arrest and detention and to undertake all necessary steps in order for his deportation to be cancelled and Mr Olander to be immediately released from prison. I will continue to contact you about this important matter.
Sincerely,
Please copy us into your emails, or let us know when you call / fax the Embassy at free.ryan.sj@gmail.com
3. Join our Facebook group to receive regular updates and help us spread the information about Ryan and Sheikh Jarrah.
4. Please consider making a donation towards Ryan’s legal costs and lawyer fees. If you would like to contribute to his defense fund you can do so via a PayPal account we have set up for this purpose.
Background on Sheikh Jarrah
Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes in the manner of the Hannoun and Gawi families, and the al-Kurd family before them. All 28 families are refugees from 1948, mostly from West Jerusalem and Haifa, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.
So far, settlers took over houses of four Palestinian families, displacing around 60 residents, including 20 children. At present, settlers occupy all these houses and the whole area is patrolled by armed private security 24 hours a day. The evicted Palestinian families, some of whom have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular violent attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.
The Gawi family, for example, had their only shelter, a small tent built near their house, destroyed by the police and all their belongings stolen five times. In addition, the al-Kurd family has been forced to live in an extremely difficult situation, sharing the entrance gate and the backyard of their house with extremist settlers, who occupied a part of the al-Kurd home in December 2009. The settlers subject the Palestinian family to regular violent attacks and harassment, making their life a living hell.
The ultimate goal of the settler organizations is to evict all Palestinians from the area and turn it into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. On 28 August 2008, Nahalat Shimon International filed a plan to build a series of five and six-story apartment blocks – Town Plan Scheme (TPS) 12705 – in the Jerusalem Local Planning Commission. If TPS 12705 comes to pass, the existing Palestinian houses in this key area would be demolished, about 500 Palestinians would be evicted, and 200 new settler units would be built for a new settlement: Shimon HaTzadik.
The creation of new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.
