Tag: Settlers

Israeli organizations call on Norway to divest from the Israeli Occupation

Twenty different Israeli organizations send an appeal to the Norwegian people to withdraw Norwegian national pension fund’s investments in all Israeli and international corporations which are involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

“We, Israeli organizations …, call upon the Norwegian people to join us in our efforts and to stop investing in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.”

In an unprecedented way, a wide array of Israeli civil society and grassroots organizations has sent a letter to the Norwegian Pension Fund, addressed to its Council on Ethics, urging it to support their efforts for a just peace and equality in Israel/Palestine by divesting from all companies involved in the Israeli occupation.

These Israeli organizations include feminist organizations and community centers, peace and human rights organizations, organizations concerned with civil rights and equality within the state of Israel and organizations dedicated to ending the occupation of Palestinian territories, to the benefit of all people living in Israel/ Palestine.

This appeal follows and expands a previous call on the Norwegian fund, by two Palestinian West Bank villages and eleven other organizations from around the world to divest from Africa-Israel, an Israeli corporation involved in building Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

But Africa-Israel is not the only settlement-builder on the fund’s investment portfolio. As shown by a recent report by Who Profits from the Occupation research, at least 30 other companies have a continuous involvement in the occupation: some build illegal Israeli settlements or provide vital services to them; some provide specifically designed equipment for the surveillance and repression of Palestinian population through restrictions of movement and collective punishments; some exploit Palestinian labor and natural resources.

The examples listed also include international corporations such as the Belgian Bank Dexia, which finances Israeli illegal settlements’ municipalities by long term loans, or the Mexican Cemex and the German HeidelbergCement, both giant construction materials’ suppliers that own and operate Israeli plants and quarries on occupied land, and thus both contribute to the Israeli illegal colonization of Palestinian lands, and exploit the Palestinian nonrenewable natural resources, for the needs of the Israeli economy and in violation of international law.

The letter is framed as a general appeal to the Norwegian people, mentioning the Norwegians’ “long-standing commitment to peace, justice and democracy” in Israel/Palestine, and presenting the current investment in corporations that “support and maintain the Israeli occupation” as contradicting the Norwegian governments’ own policies, as well as the pension fund’s own ethical guidelines, which preclude investments in companies involved in gross violations of human rights or humanitarian principles. Copies have been sent to Norwegian civil society organizations, ministers and parliamentarians.

Israeli forces prevent Beit Ommar farmers from working their lands

Palestine Solidarity Project

9th of May 2009

On Saturday, May 9th, farmers from Beit Ommar with lands in Saffa, close to the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit Ayn, were prevented from working their fields after Israeli forces declared the area a closed military zone.  At around 9am, about six farmers and their families went to their lands accompanied by a dozen Israeli and international solidarity activists.  After they were only in the fields for about ten minutes, a jeep of Israeli border police arrived.  The police used a bullhorn to declare the lands a closed military zone and all of the farmers and solidarity activists were ordered to leave.

The farmers initially ignored the order and continued to work their lands.  Three more jeeps with soldiers and border police arrived, and the soldiers approached the farmers in the fields.  Israeli forces displayed an order from a military court that designated the lands off limits to their Palestinian owners.  The farmers then decided to leave their fields and return to the village.  As the farmers were leaving, several dozen Israeli settlers, most of them children, gathered at the top of the hill and repeatedly chanted, “death to all Arabs.”  One settler was heard shouting, “I will go get a basket for your head,” in an apparent threat against one of the farmers.

For the past month and a half, the Israeli military has repeatedly declared village farmland close to the settlement to be a closed military zone.  In addition to harassment from Israeli forces, the Palestinian farmers also face settler violence on these lands.  On the April 26th, two elderly Palestinian farmers from Beit Ommar were beaten by thirty masked settlers on the farmers’ agricultural fields close to the settlement.  Abdullah Soleiby, aged 80, sustained two hair-line fractures and received ten stitches to the top of his head after three settlers held him down and repeatedly smashed his head with stones.

Israel has secret plan to thwart division of Jerusalem

Akiva Eldar | Ha’aretz

10 May 2009

The government and settler organizations are working to surround the Old City of Jerusalem with nine national parks, pathways and sites, drastically altering the status quo in the city. The secret plan was assigned to the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA).

In a report presented to former prime minister Ehud Olmert on September 11 last year, the JDA described the purpose of the project as “to create a sequence of parks surrounding the Old City,” all in the aspiration “to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.”

The program, sponsored by the Prime Minister’s Office and the mayor of Jerusalem, is secret and did not engage in any form of public discussion.

According to an analysis by Ir Amim, a non-profit organization dedicated to Jerusalem issues that impact on Israeli and Palestinians which exposed this detailed, confidential government plan, the motivation is to create Israeli hegemony over the area around the Old City, “inspired by extreme right-wing ideology.”

“This program integrates with statutory program 11555, approved by the Jerusalem municipality in November 2007, designed to accelerate development [to six housing units per dunam, or some 24 units per acre] in one of the most important archaeological sites in Israel. The array of escalators, cable cars and tunnels included in the plan portend blatant signs of a biblical playground populated by settler organizations,” which the organization says will be carried out by ousting Palestinian residents.

Ir Amim charges that by exposing the existence of the program the public is granted, “for the first time, a comprehensive view of how the government and settlers, working as one body, are creating a “biblical” territorial reign which connects Armon Hanatziv and Silwan in the south, Ras al-Amud and the Mount of Olives in the east, and Sheikh Jarra in the north, by connecting all of the land east of E-1.”

In a letter sent in the fall of 2006 by David Barry, founder and director of the Elad organization, to state officials and bodies involved in the project such as the Israel Nature and National Parks Authority and the Israel Antiquities Authority, he explains that he cannot detail the project because “we still cannot talk about them,” but hopes that the results will be evident in the near future.

In the letter Barry also writes that “… the widespread tourist activity, at whose center is the creation of the “Ancient Jerusalem” campus connecting the three sites – the City of David, Mount of Olives and Armon Hanatziv – in each of the three sites we are holding tourist activity on a daily basis.”

The map of Elad’s “Ancient Jerusalem” is, as Ir Amim explains, very similar to the map of the current historic basin project of the Old City.

Attorney Danny Seidemann of Ir Amim says that if the historic basin surrounding the Old City is transformed in the spirit of extreme rightist organizations, “there is a dangerous interface between the program and settler projects whose goal is the prevention of a future political solution in the heart of the conflict.”

Palestinians protest land confiscation in Hebron

9 May 2009

The Youth Against Settlements group, with participation from international and Israeli solidarity activists, organized a protest in Bwaireh north east of Hebron on Friday. The protesters built a small booth in response to the recent construction of a settler outpost. A month ago, local settlers created a structure to de facto annex Palestinian land with a colonial outpost in the area.

The Israeli settlers trespassed on to the Palestinian land owned by Issa Abu Karsh Jaber a month ago and built an illegal structure. Israeli army and police, who were present, did not interfere despite the illegality of the structure.

Israeli forces arrived to the place of the protest to protect the settlers who began attacking the protesters and their booth violently, under the leadership of their fundamentalist leader Baroukh Marzel, using stones, tools, and fire lit cloths causing many injuries to the Palestinians and solidarity activists.

The Israeli army proceeded to arrest 8 activists and the Palestinian Wael Azaatari. Then, a Closed Military Zone was declared, and the demonstrators were forcefully removed from the sight while the settlers remained.

The spokesperson of the Youth Against Settlements group said that “the carelessness towards settlers’ violations on Palestinian lands is dangerous and is a major cause for land loss and confiscation, the settlers ambitions should be countered immediately and any slowness will cost the Palestinians high price of property loss and settlers’ attacks and violence.”

Settlers often create structures as primary steps for de facto annexation of Palestinian land.

New York protesters call for Mother’s Day boycott of Leviev diamonds over Israeli settlements

Adalah-NY

9 May 2009

On the day before Mother’s Day, 40 New York human rights advocates gathered at the Leviev jewelry store on Madison Avenue and called on throngs of weekend Madison Avenue shoppers to boycott Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in West Bank villages including Bil’in and Jayyous. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest jewelry shopping periods in the US annually. The New York protest came as controversy is growing in Norway over Norwegian government investments in Leviev’s company Africa-Israel. The New York protesters also commemorated Bassem Abu Rahma from Bil’in who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers last month during a peaceful protest against the construction on Bil’in’s land of Israel’s wall and of the Mattityahu East settlement by a Leviev company.

http://blip.tv/play/8zyBgMAoiep1

Riham Barghouti of Adalah-NY explained, “Thousands of New Yorkers heard our message today that Leviev should not be allowed to exploit this holiday honouring mothers while his companies are ruining the lives of Palestinian mothers by stealing their land for Israeli settlements.” Alexis Stern from Adalah-NY added, “The government of the United Kingdom, UNICEF and Oxfam are all now boycotting Leviev. We’re calling on New Yorkers, and the government of Norway to join them.”

The Norwegian government is under increasing pressure to divest from its pension holdings in Leviev’s Africa-Israel. An April 28 article in the UK’s Guardian by Abe Hayeem of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine urged Norway to follow the UK’s example and sever its relationship with Leviev’s companies. The villages of Bil’in and Jayyous then wrote to Norwegian officials asking them to divest from Leviev’s companies, citing the devastating impacts of settlement construction on their villages’ agricultural land. This was followed by a May 5th letter from Adalah-NY and ten national and international organizations and networks from Europe, Palestine, Israel and the US calling on Norway to comply with its ethical guidelines for investment and divest.

During the New York Mother’s Day protest, the terrible impacts of Leviev’s settlement construction were brought home in a commemoration of Bassem Abu Rahma from Bil’in. Video from April 17th shows that Abu Rahma, a dedicated nonviolent activist, was participating in a peaceful protest in Bil’in against the settlement and the wall when he was suddenly shot directly in the chest with a teargas canister from a short distance by an Israeli soldier. One New York activist read aloud a tribute to Bassem written by his friend and colleague from Bil’in Mohammed Khatib. Two Jewish-Americans who have protested in Bil’in with Bassem then spoke of the courage of Bassem, of the people of Bil’in and of the millions of Palestinians confronting Israeli repression daily, and urged people in New York and around the world to stand with them.

Inspired by Bil’in’s four-year nonviolent campaign, that continues despite Bassem’s death and the injuring of 1,300 civilians, New York protesters chanted, “Your mama didn’t raise you that way, don’t buy from Leviev on Mother’s Day!” They passed out hundreds of copies of the cartoon flyer, Who Is Lev Leviev?, and carried signs saying, “Embrace moms, don’t displace moms.” Customers sitting outside at an upscale restaurant near Leviev’s store listened as protesters sang, “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to build settlements,” and, to the tune of “Mama Said” by The Shirelles:

Mama said don’t build settlements,

don’t build on other people’s lands,

Mama said don’t buy diamonds,

from a guy with blood on his hands.

Leviev has also been criticized for human rights abuses in Angola where his companies mine diamonds.