Tag: Settlers

Israeli forces arrest 6 solidarity activists in Beit Ommar

Palestine Solidarity Project

7 July 2009

On July 7, 2009 at approximately 5pm, an Israeli military official called the mayor of Beit Ommar/ Saffa, Nasri Sabarneh, and informed him that settlers had set fire to some trees in the Abu Jabber Soleiby land in Saffa, just under the illegal Bat ‘Ayn settlement. A group of internationals, including one who also holds Israeli ID, went down into the valley to investigate and document the destruction. When they arrived, a group of Israeli soldiers was already present. While the group of internationals quickly began surveying the area, one soldier, Phillip, crossed the valley to a group of 4 activists and told them to leave. The group, who did not find evidence of a new fire (other than the old destruction of June 19, 2009 and June 22, 2009) began leaving the area, accompanied by the one soldier. Meanwhile, two internationals who were further up the valley with the owner of the land and his family, were also told to leave, and they began to do so. At one point Phillip threw a sound grenade at the group of 4 activists as they were walking away, but the group continued. Half-way up the valley, however, the trap was sprung. Soldiers ran up from behind the group of 4, grabbing two men by the neck and one women by the arm, screaming at them to sit down, that they were being arrested. One activist managed to get away, going further up to the village from which they had come and ostensibly where the soldiers wanted everyone to go. She, along with the other two internationals and the farmers were then surrounded by soldiers at the entrance to the village, preventing the tractor from leaving the area. The three internationals were then attacked by soldiers. One was hit in the face with a gun, another kicked in the leg, and a third wrestled into handcuffs and dragged into an army jeep, in total contradiction to Israeli law that states only police can arrest foreign nationals. All three were brought to the police station in the illegal settlement of Etzion. They were never shown a paper declaring the area a Closed Military Zone, another Israeli law.

The other three internationals further down the valley, were held on the ground until a commander could run up and show them a paper, insisting it was a closed military zone order, though no one was allowed to look at it closely and the group was already detained and not allowed to leave, also in violation of military procedures. Phillip then said to Bekah Wolf, co-founder of Palestine Solidarity Project and married to Palestinian co-founder Mousa Abu Maria, “your father didn’t teach you what to do with your pussy so you went and f*cked Arabs.” Phillip also indicated that he knew Wolf from previous actions in Saffa, and that she was “famous” with that particular unit and the police of Etzion. What followed was clearly a series of planned harassment of Wolf and the other internationals, even though the arrest itself was totally illegitimate.

Police finally arrived and officially arrested the group of three, and began to transport them to the Etzion police station. The group with Wolf were paraded through the Bat ‘Ayn settlement. At one point soldiers transporting one of the men alone stopped the jeep in the settlement and opened the back doors in front of a group of settler youth. The two groups of three were then reunited at the police station.

While 5 of the internationals (all excluding Wolf) were first offered release on conditions to stay out of the area for 2 weeks, and then were eventually released without any conditions, Wolf was to be held over night and taken to court. A commander, who was not present until after the arrests, filed a complaint stating that Wolf had slapped one of his soldiers, though the soldier himself said he wasn’t sure if it was intentional or if he’d been hit while trying to grab Wolf during her illegal arrest.

After 23.5 hours (Israeli citizens can only be held for 24 hours before being brought in front of a judge), Wolf was taken to a court and after reviewing the evidence presented by the prosecution, including the assertion that “settlers have never entered the valley”, she was released only on the condition that she obey any closed military zone orders (which is already law) and sign a guarantee of 5,000 shekels.
Not pleased with the results, police, in collusion with the prosecution, refused to process her release, causing her to be put back into the Jerusalem prison for more than three additional hours. The attempt to prevent “left-wing activists” (as they were described in the police reports) from entering the area in the end was totally rejected. The next day, however, when farmers attempted to enter the land, which has been ordered open to them for the last 10 days, they were refused by the Israeli military, without cause or paperwork.

The blue velvet hills of my youth have been destroyed

Raja Shehadeh | The Guardian

5 July 2009

I can remember the appearance of the hills around Ramallah in 1979, before any Jewish settlement came to be established there. In the spring of that year I walked north from Ramallah, where I live, to the nearby village of A’yn Qenya and up the pine-forested hill. A gazelle leapt ahead of me. When I reached the top I could see hills spread below me like crumpled blue velvet, with the hamlets of Janiya and Deir Ammar huddled between its folds. On top of the highest hill in the distance stood the village of Ras Karkar with its centuries-old citadel that dominated the area during Ottoman times. I had been following the worrying developments of extensive settlement-building elsewhere in the West Bank and wondered how long it would be before these hills came under the merciless blades of the Israeli bulldozers. I didn’t have to wait long. A year later the top of the hill was lopped off and the settlement of Dolev, then a cluster of red-tiled Swiss-style chalets, was established.

Now, more than 25 years later, Dolev has expanded and taken over the hills to its north for vineyards. Numerous highways for the exclusive use of its Jewish settlers connect it to the many other settlements in the area and to Israel’s coastline. Those settlers travelling to and from Israeli cities where they work can only see road signs indicating other Jewish settlements. They encounter no Palestinian traffic on the roads nor do they see any Palestinian villages. No wonder then that I was once stopped by an armed settler and interrogated as to why I was taking a walk in his hills. When I asked him what right he had to be there, he answered: “I live here.” He then pointedly added: “Unlike you, I really live here.”

Not a single year has passed since Israel acquired the territories in 1967 in which Jewish settlements were not built. Had it pursued peace as assiduously, surely it would have achieved it by now. Instead, whenever the US pressed for a peace initiative, the “proper Zionist response” was the creation of new a settlement. The pattern of settling the Ramallah hills illustrates well the workings of this doomed policy. The Jewish settlement of Talmon was established in 1989 on the lands of the Palestinian village of Janiya, when the government of Yitzhak Shamir was being pressured to agree to start negotiations with the Palestinians. Talmon B was established, about two miles away, when the US secretary of state, James Baker, arrived in Israel two years later to broker the first ever peace conference between Israel and Arab countries.

At that time, Shamir dismissed the new settlement as “just a new neighbourhood”. The signing of the Oslo accords under a Rabin government in 1993 led to the building of a road connecting Dolev to Beit Eil, running through private Palestinian land. This winding road passed through the beautiful wadi linking Ramallah to A’yn Qenya, causing extensive destruction to the ancient rock formations and olive orchards along the way. One rockface that I particularly miss used to be studded with cyclamens during the late winter months, coming down all the way to the spring – which was also destroyed.

The Israeli policy of speeding up settlement construction in the face of US diplomatic pressure shows no sign of changing. Following the latest US administration declaration that Israel must impose a complete freeze on settlements, the country’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, declared last week the decision to establish 300 housing units in Givat Habrecha (Hebrew for hill of the blessing), one of the 12 outposts near the settlement of Talmon in the Ramallah hills. A few days later, on 29 June, he announced a further expansion of the illegal settlement of Adam, where 50 families are to move to a new neighbourhood located on a relatively large parcel of land outside the built–up area of the settlement. This also violates the Israeli commitment in the road map agreement not to expand the area of existing settlements.

This demand for a freeze on new settlements – which is not accepted by Israel even temporarily, as one Likud minister underlined today– falls short of what should happen if a viable peace is to be achieved: a complete evacuation of all the settlements built illegally in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. Some would say this cannot possibly happen, given that there are around half a million Israeli settlers living in the West Bank. But who would have thought in 1962 that it would be possible to evict a million French Algerians who had been living in the country for almost a century and who represented roughly 9% of the population ?

Until this happens, we will have a continuation of the present reality where there is a single apartheid Israeli state encompassing pre-1967 borders and the Palestinian occupied territories. The sad truth is that when Israeli illegal settlements come to an end, as they must, Palestinians will not be able to undo the damage caused to the landscape by this massive, politically motivated development.

Farmers harassed in Khiriat Salama

30 June 2009

On Monday the 30th of June some farmers of the Khiriat Salama, a village about 15 km south west of Hebron, were prevented from working their land. They were forced to leave their olive groves by Israeli soldiers and got delivered a paper with a decision of an Israeli court that stated that from this day on they need a license to work their land. 25 families have their olive groves near the settlement of Nahal Negohot in a ‘C’ declared area (the small village of Salama with its 400 inhabitants is subdivided into A, B and C zones). Since this settlement has been established, the inhabitants of Salama village had to defend their land against its enlargement. For example in 2003, around 600 olive trees were burnt down and on some parts of the burned groves are now being cultivated by settlers.

In addition there are 11 families in area B and C who are threatened with eviction and demolition of their houses due to the lack of licenses to live there. Quit obviously they never will get one; people requested for these permits two years ago without any response, even through today.

Furthermore one family was prevented to move into their newly built house and was told by the IDF about an already existing demolition order.

The families of Khiriat Salama are now waiting the decision of DCO (District Coordination Office which is negotiating the interests of Israelis and Palestinians within the West Bank). In the case they should receive an unfavorable decision from the DCO they will try to make an appeal for a final judgment of an Israeli high court.

A typical case of daily live in the occupied territories: In the name of the security of Israeli settlers, life of Palestinian families is just getting impossible. This is just one of the impacts of colonialism.

In the West Bank, suburb or settlement?

Howard Schneider | The Washington Post

29 June 2009

Chaim Hanfling knows a lot about this settlement’s population boom. Six of his 11 siblings have moved here from Jerusalem in recent years to take advantage of the lower land prices, and at age 29, he has added four children of his own.

Located just over the Green Line that marks the territory occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the booming ultra-Orthodox community, home to more than 41,000 people, shows why the settlement freeze demanded by the Obama administration is proving controversial for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and also why Palestinian officials are insisting on it.

Amid their gleaming, modern apartment buildings, with Tel Aviv visible on the horizon, residents say they have little in common with the people who have hauled mobile homes to hilltops in hopes of deepening Israel’s presence in the occupied West Bank. But they are having lots of babies — and they expect the bulldozers and cement mixers to keep supplying larger schools and more housing, a typically suburban demand that the country’s political leadership is finding hard to refuse.

“We don’t feel this is a settlement,” said Hanfling. “We’re in the middle of the country. It’s like Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan,” another Israeli city.

Across a nearby valley, residents of the Palestinian village of Bilin have watched in dismay as Modiin Illit has grown toward them and an Israeli barrier has snaked its way across their olive groves and pastureland. Two years ago, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the fence relocated, but nothing has happened. A weekly protest near the fence, joined by sympathetic Israelis and foreigners, has led to a steady stream of injuries, with protesters hit by Israeli fire and Israeli troops struck by rocks. One villager, Bassem Abu Rahmeh, died in April when a tear gas canister hit him in the chest.

“The court said, ‘Move the fence,’ so why is he dead?” villager Basel Mansour said as he surveyed the valley between Bilin and Modiin Illit from his rooftop. “Why hasn’t it been moved?”

Amid a dispute with the Obama administration over the future of West Bank settlements, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak left for the United States on Monday for talks with White House special envoy George J. Mitchell. Local news reports say he may propose a temporary construction freeze of perhaps three months, though Netanyahu’s office said it is committed to “normal life” proceeding.

Of the nearly 290,000 Israelis who live in West Bank settlements, nearly 40 percent reside in three areas — Modiin Illit, Betar Illit and Maale Adumim — where the impact of a settlement freeze would probably be felt most deeply.

Debate over West Bank settlements is separate from discussion of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their national capital. The Obama administration has also asked Israel to freeze construction in Jerusalem neighborhoods occupied after the 1967 war.

“The goal is to find common ground with the Americans,” said Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev. “Israel is willing to be creative and flexible.”

Palestinian officials said Monday that they will not restart peace talks with Israel until a full settlement freeze is declared.

A trip across the valley outside Modiin Illit shows why the settlements remain a central Palestinian concern.

When the Israeli barrier was built around Modiin Illit, it looped into Palestinian territory — too far, according to the Israeli Supreme Court, whose 2007 decision said that the route went farther than security needs required in order to make room for more building in the settlement.

Planned additions to the community have since been canceled by the Defense Ministry, which is in charge of construction in the West Bank. Israel Defense Forces Central Command spokesman Peter Lerner said the military has designed a new route for the fence that will return land to Bilin, but has not received funding.

The lack of an agreed-upon border, Palestinian officials and human rights groups said, figures into a variety of problems — such as the violence that flares regularly between Palestinians and settlers, as well as larger policy matters. The rights group B’Tselem said in a recent report that neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority is taking clear responsibility for wastewater treatment in settlements or Palestinian towns and villages — putting local drinking water at risk.

Facing U.S. demands, Israel has said it will take no more land for settlement and has agreed to remove more than 20 unauthorized outposts. But even that has proved slow going. The government recently proposed dismantling the outpost of Migron, a settlement of about 40 families that is under legal challenge for being built on private Palestinian land, by expanding another settlement nearby.

“The individuals in outposts shouldn’t be rewarded” for building illegally, said Michael Sfard, an attorney for the group Peace Now who helped prepare a lawsuit against Migron.

In the City Hall of Modiin Illit, such struggles seem part of a different world. Pointing from a hillside to bulldozers busy in one part of town and graded sites ready for building in another, Mayor Yaakov Guterman said the city has 1,000 apartments under construction but is running out of room.

Modiin Illit can’t expand to the west, back over the Green Line, he said, because that is a designated Israeli forest area. He said the community should be allowed to spread to the surrounding valley because, in his view, Modiin Illit “will be on the Israeli side” of the border under any final peace deal.

Meanwhile, he said, local families are having dozens of new babies every week, a boom that a construction freeze would “strangle.”

“It’d be a death sentence,” he said.

Special correspondent Samuel Sockol in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Israeli forces and settlers harass shepherd

29 June 2009

At 9am a group of 5 settlers from the Sussya settlement in the south Hebron hills, accompanied by a uniformed soldier, approached a young shepherd and his sheep. They came with a tractor and trailer and they divided the sheep into two groups and attempted to steal an estimated twenty sheep. The family of the boy saw what was happening and went to help, at this time they were verbally harassed and abused by the settlers.

They took photographs, shouted and swore at the Palestinians and internationals before separating from the tractor and trailer and walking back to the settlement and the tractor driving away as the army arrived. Two jeeps with 8-10 soldiers attended but made no attempt to stop the settlers from walking away despite being clearly visible and not far away. One further vehicle drove past the settlers on the road back to the settlement but did not stop.

The soldiers told the Palestinians that the shepherd had taken his animals to the settlement’s vineyard, however this was not true, the shepherd had stayed in the valley (on his land) the entire time. The road was blocked by the soldiers and their jeeps whilst the Palestinians and internationals were ordered to stay 2 metres away from the roadside. A local farmer phoned for the police and the young shepherd was taken to a police station whilst the two internationals were told they were under arrest and also taken to the same police station.