Tag: Settlers - Page 130 - International Solidarity Movement

Burin celebrates successful olive harvest, despite numerous settler attacks

18 November 2009

On Wednesday 18 November, the village of Burin (south of Nablus) celebrated the successful conclusion of its olive harvest. More than 400 villagers came together to hear speeches by locals and nationally renowned politicians (including member of Knesset Mohammed Baraka, general secretary of Hadash), as well as to see the young men of the village dance the Dabke, the traditional dance of Palestine.

A large stage with sound system had been set up outside the local boys’ school and the festivities commenced at around 11am. Braving weather that seemed to change every 5 minutes from pleasantly warm to freezing cold, the villagers listened to speeches and music in clear view from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar, one that has caused its fair share of problems for the village during the harvest.

Only 6 days before the event, settlers from Yitzhar attacked the fields of Burin, cutting down 97 trees. On 16 October, farmers as well as internationals were threatened by armed settlers while attempting to harvest the olives and on 28 September 150 olive trees, covering 4 dunams of land, were destroyed by settlers armed with chainsaws. It was therefore not only the end of harvesting that the residents of Burin celebrated that day, but also their success in continuing to work their fields despite persecution from their extreme-Zionist ‘neighbours’.

International activists from the ISM and Michigan Peace Team took part in the event, and a member of the ISM gave a brief speech on behalf of the internationals, thanking Burin for welcoming them and vowing that Palestine would never stand alone in its struggle against the occupation.

Peace activists say beaten by settlers

Tal Rabinovsky | YNet News

18 November 2009

Two foreign peace activists say they were assaulted by settlers Tuesday in South Mount Hebron while accompanying a Palestinian family to the village of Tuba. One of the activists was reportedly kicked in the stomach and needed medical attention. The two women, who filed a complaint with the police, had their cameras stolen as well.

“My colleague and I were with a family that was on its way home when we were harassed and assaulted by settlers,” Sarah MacDonald, one of the activists, told Ynet.

MacDonald, who is hear as part of her activities with the Christian Peace Group,” advised the family to travel on a different route because, according to her, many settlers travel on that route.

“They chose to take the long way home, and we went with them. We crossed the hills south of Havat Maon when we saw four settlers on the ridge above us, about 50 meters (yards) away. They stood between the outpost and us. When we kept walking, they started to run after us.”

“The Palestinian man said to them, ‘We just want to go home.’ Then the settler pushed him, and the Palestinian boy started to cry. My friend, Laura Chigi, tried to separate the settler and the Palestinian, but the settler pushed her,” added MacDonald.

“They kicked Laura’s ribs after she had fallen to the ground, and they injured her. They also managed to steal our cameras that were in action throughout the entire incident. They moment they did this, they left in the direction of Havat Maon.”

Laura needed stitches and was evacuated to a Palestinian hospital for medical attention.

When the two activists arrived in Tuba, they called the Judea and Samaria Police. The police came to take their testimonies.

According to MacDonald, the incident only reinforced the reason she came to the territories in the first place. “We walk with Palestinian families, get involved in certain incidents, and try to prevent violence. In addition, we document the events. This is why we had cameras,” she explained.

MacDonald added that the residents of Maon and Havat Maon regularly exercise violence of this sort.

MacDonald and Chigi are slated to arrive at the police station Wednesday in order to identify pictures of the suspects. Judea and Samaria Police reported that testimonies were taken from the two peace activists and that they are conducting searches for the suspects.

Settlers cut olive trees south of Nablus

12 November 2009

A group of 25 settlers from Yitzhar settlement, south of Nablus, cut down 97 olive trees in the village of Burin this morning. The attack comes on the heels of a similar attack made 5 weeks ago, and a continued campaign of intimidation and harrassment of Burin’s residents from nearby settlements Yitzhar and Bracha.

Approximately 25 settlers began hacking the trees to pieces at 3am this morning. Although cutting manually, the noise awoke a Palestinian resident, whose house is located close to the scene on the Yitzhar ‘side’ of Burin. After alerting the village, the Palestinians arrived in the olive grove as it became light to survey the damage, amongst them the owner of the land, Burin farmer Akram Brahim Embran. They counted 97 trees destroyed.

It is not the first time this year that Burin’s olive trees have been caught in the middle of territorial violence, for which Yitzhar settlers are notorious. On 4 October, a neighbouring grove was wiped out when 25 settlers took to the trees with axes in the early hours of the morning, just one day before the village’s olive harvest was due to commence. Previous years have seen fields burnt and crops stolen, in addition to continual settler harrassment and intimidation. The havoc it wreaks on Burin’s economy is obvious, agriculture its main source of income – and identity.

The village of Burin and its surrounding neighbours have been subject to numerous violent attacks from the two illegal settlements of Bracha and Yitzhar that sandwich the local Palestinian villages. Burin village as also lost thousands of dunams of land from annexation by settler construction or proximity, in addition to the repeated attacks on its remaining farmland. In 2006 settlers from the settlement of Bracha fired homemade rockets on the village, burning a house down.

Settlements are illegal under international law and both settlements have numerous outposts that continue to annex further Palestinian land in violation of both Israeli and international law.

Baseball team urged to cut ties with Israeli group

Eli Clifton | IPS News

14 November 2009

A coalition of 11 U.S., Israeli and Palestinian groups are calling on the New York Mets baseball team to cancel a fundraiser by the “violent and racist” Israeli Hebron Fund which is scheduled to be held at the Mets’ stadium, Citi Field, on Nov. 21.

The Hebron Fund participates in “the raising of capital for the improvement of daily life for the residents of Hebron, Israel”, a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to its website, but the Fund has been accused of encouraging violence towards Palestinians and participating in illegal settlement expansion.

The coalition urges the Mets to reconsider their decision to rent space at the Casesar’s Club, an event space in Citi Field, on the basis that, “The New York Mets will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law and the [Barack] Obama administration’s call for a freeze in settlement construction, and that actively promote racial discrimination, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes in Hebron.”

“By allowing the Hebron Fund to fundraise on its premises, the New York Mets will be directly aiding Hebron’s Jewish settlers, who are regularly described, both worldwide and among Israelis, as violent racists,” said a letter from Adalah-NY, on behalf of the coalition.

It was addressed to Fred Wilpon, chair of the board of the New York Mets and copied to Bud Selig, commissioner of Major League Baseball; U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Special Envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell; and Rachel Robinson, chair of the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Adalah-NY has also been involved in the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanction” campaign to bring indirect pressure on Israel to work towards a viable Palestinian state.

“[The Mets] can do the right thing very easily. I’m not blaming them for where they are now,” Sydney Levy, director of campaigns and chapters at Jewish Voice For Peace, one of the members of the coalition, told IPS. “[The Mets’] situation is totally reversible but this is not an issue which is going to die quietly.”

“Citi Field hosts a wide range of events that reflect the diversity of our hometown and the differing views and opinions of New Yorkers. The beliefs of organizations holding events at Citi Field do not necessarily reflect those of the New York Mets,” the Mets said in a prepared statement.

The occupation of Hebron has been an ongoing source of concern for human rights groups as the Israeli military has taken increasingly aggressive actions to secure the 700 Jewish settlers living among 150,000 Palestinians.

The U.S. State Department called for a freeze in settlement expansion but has recently made clear that it should not be a precondition for a resumption of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Statements made by Hebron Fund Executive Director Yossi Baumol suggest the group supports the expansion of settlements even in areas where the Israeli government has evacuated settlers in accordance with international law.

In a December radio interview, Baumol said, “In the end we will come back to this building,” in reaction to the Israeli army’s evacuation of settlers from the Hebron settlement of Beit Hashalom.

Shortly after the evacuation, settlers went on a violent rampage in Hebron, leading to the shooting of three Palestinians and damaging and burning Palestinian property.

“As a Jew, I was ashamed at the scenes of Jews opening fire at innocent Arabs in Hebron. There is no other definition than the term ‘pogrom’ [a riot organised against a specific group] to describe what I have seen,” said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after the violence erupted.

And in 2006 the Hebron Fund and the Jewish Community of Hebron called for the reestablishment of a settlement in the centrally located Palestinian market in Hebron from which the Israeli army had previously removed settlers.

“Help us move families back into the Shuk [market] and into other new areas!” said the Hebron Fund in a report.”

“Please redouble your support of the Hebron Fund at this crucial time so you can be a partner in…The purchase and renovation of ancient Jewish homes, Construction of new housing,” the report went on to say.

“The Hebron Fund should not be eligible for tax-exempt status in the U.S. because it is not organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes, but rather promotes the anti-charitable values of violence, racism, and opposition to human rights. The settlement activity that the Hebron Fund supports is racially exclusive, discriminatory, contrary to United States policy and contrary to international law,” read the letter from the coalition calling for the Mets to cancel the event at Citi Field.

The letter goes on to document numerous other cases of settlement expansion, settler violence and Israeli military violence and closures in the center of Hebron which have lead to the closure of 76.6-percent of businesses and 41.9-percent of homes to go vacant.

“There are certain red lines that have to do with racism and sponsoring violence that you do not cross,” said Levy.

“The Hebron fund is there to support Jewish only settlements in Hebron. When you sponsor organisations that are involved in these sorts of activities you have to question what’s going on. At the end of the day this is a matter of people being aware of what’s happening there and what’s our responsibility is here,” Levy concluded.

The campaign also emphasises that, “Allowing the Hebron Fund to fundraise at Citi Field contradicts New York Mets and Major League Baseball’s commitment to equal opportunity and non-discrimination, and is an insult to the legacy of Jackie Robinson.”

Jackie Robinson was the first African American Major League Baseball player and is honored at the Mets’ Citi Field stadium in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

The coalition of groups calling for the Mets to cancel the Hebron Fund event includes: Adalah-NY, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Brooklyn For Peace, Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel), CODEPINK Women for Peace, Gush Shalom (Israel), Jews Against the Occupation-NYC, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Jews Say No!, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (Palestine), U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the WESPAC Foundation.

Bilin’s legal struggle continues

10 November 2009

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours | The Electronic Intifada

In addition to its weekly confrontations with the Israeli army, the village of Bilin has taken its case to a Quebec court. (Silan Dallal/Activestills.org)

Abdullah Abu Rahme can no longer sleep in his own home. A member of the Bilin Popular Committee Against the Wall, Abu Rahme explained that since Bilin began its legal proceedings in Canada, Israeli soldiers have made life especially difficult for residents of the small West Bank village.

“[Israeli soldiers] came to my home and they tried to arrest me. They’re destroying my home. It’s not allowed to me to sleep in my home. I feel very bad about this. I’m suffering from this case until now,” he said. “I took my family to another place. It’s very difficult for me.”

Still, Abu Rahme and the villagers of Bilin are pushing forward in their nonviolent struggle against the Israeli occupation by appealing a Quebec Superior Court ruling in their case against two Canadian companies. The residents of Bilin are suing Green Park International and Green Mount International, two companies that, they argue, should be held legally accountable for illegally building residential homes and settlement infrastructure on the village’s land, and marketing these buildings for the purpose of transferring exclusively Israeli civilians therein.

Bilin is a small Palestinian village of approximately 1,800 residents located 12 kilometers west of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Since the early 1980s, about 56 percent of Bilin’s agricultural land has been designated by Israel as “State Land.” It has been used to build the Jewish-only settlement Modiin Illit, which holds the largest settler population in the occupied West Bank with more than 42,000 residents and plans to grow to up to 150,000.

Israel began building its wall in the occupied West Bank in 2003. The wall literally cuts the village of Bilin in half. Since 2005, the residents of Bilin have held weekly demonstrations every Friday against the wall, garnering international attention and support for their efforts. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the wall was illegal under international law in a 2004 advisory opinion. A year later, the Israeli high court also ruled that the wall’s route through Bilin was illegal and should be moved closer to the boundary of Modiin Illit. However, neither the ICJ nor the Israeli high court rulings were implemented.

The case against the Canadian companies was heard in Montreal in June 2009. However, Judge Louis-Paul Cullen found that the Israeli high court, not the Quebec Superior Court, was the best venue to hear the case. This ruling was centered on the issue of forum non conveniens, the Latin term for “inappropriate forum.” According to Emily Schaeffer, an Israeli attorney representing Bilin, the term states that “if there’s a better forum for the case, for various reasons, then the case should not be held or heard in the court it’s being brought to but rather in another court.”

Schaeffer maintains that the Quebec court is the only legal forum that can possibly hear the case, since both companies are domiciled in the province. “Israeli courts have repeatedly refused to examine the issue of the legality of settlements. Because that’s the issue for the case in Canada, there’s no other forum than the home of the companies who are registered and domiciled in Montreal,” she said.

“The decision to appeal is because we believe we’re right. We believe that the judge made an error. Our position is that the Israeli courts cannot and will not hear this case. Legality of settlements is not an issue that can be brought to Israeli courts,” Schaeffer added.

The Canadian federal legal system has adopted the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court under the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Statute. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 bars an occupying power from transferring part of its civilian population to the territory it is occupying. To do so is considered a war crime under the Rome Statute.

Setting a precedent

While the overall decision was disappointing, the judge’s sub-rulings can be seen as minor victories, Schaeffer explained. “The village of Bilin prevailed in almost every single aspect, and in two of the three motions. Something that we took as a victory [was that] corporations do have liability under Canadian law for their actions and violations of international law abroad. That’s precedence-setting,” she added.

For Schaeffer, a positive ruling would mean setting a precedent to stop other international companies from abetting Israeli war crimes. “If Bilin succeeds in this appeal, it will make more waves [in Israel] and that’s a good thing because what we also want is to discourage other companies from taking similar actions and taking part in war crimes in the occupied territories,” she explained.

Schaeffer added that she was as of yet unsure whether the entire case will be open to appeal, or if only the issue of forum non conveniens would be examined, and that the appeal will likely take several months before being processed.

The struggle continues

According to Freda Guttman, a Montreal-based activist who recently spent three months in Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), being involved with the Bilin campaign in Canada felt like something she needed to do. “It’s a very important cause. If they win this, it will set a precedent not just in Canada but everywhere. It feels like something very important to be involved in,” Guttman said.

Spending time in Bilin demonstrated to Guttman just how strenuous it is for residents to keep fighting the occupation, and the immense burden it places on their daily lives. “My excitement about [the appeal] is sort of tempered by the fact that I see the toll it’s taking on peoples’ lives there. They never know when the army is going to come. It’s just constant,” she said.

For his part, Abdullah Abu Rahme explained that the ruling by the Canadian court left the villagers of Bilin feeling disheartened and upset, but they haven’t lost hope.

“We are very sad about the decision about refusing the case in Canada but we hope to have another decision. We hope to [be restored] our rights and to have justice in this court,” he said. Abu Rahme added that the outpouring of support from international activists has been a huge motivator for residents of Bilin, who are organizing the village’s biggest demonstration yet for the five-year anniversary of their weekly nonviolent demonstrations next February.

Guttman, describing the Canadian legal proceedings as “a roller coaster,” said she too is prepared for the long haul. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy and I don’t think it’s going to be quick. [Bilin is] a very important movement at the forefront of the struggle,” she said.

According to Abu Rahme, that struggle will continue until justice is achieved in Bilin, the West Bank and all of Palestine. “Every Friday we are there. We want to continue our struggle. Until now there is no justice, for the wall and the settlements. We will continue our nonviolent struggle with the support of the internationals and our faith to have justice and to remove the wall and the settlements and the occupation.”

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a student and freelance journalist based in Montreal. More of her work can be found at jkdamours.wordpress.com.