Tag: Settlers

Settlers burn ISM tent in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah

14 September 2011 | The Alternative Information Center

At about 2am on Monday, 11 September, settlers in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah burnt to the ground an International Solidarity Movement tent that had been established to monitor and prevent settler violence in the neighborhood.

The tent, which thankfully was empty at the time it was torched, had been located in the front yard of the al-Kurd family home since March 2011. The Al-Kurd family, who have  lived on the property since 1956, reside in the back section of their home while a constantly rotating cast of Orthodox Jewish young men occupy the front extension of their home. This is due to an Israeli court ruling that forbids the Al-Kurd family from living in their home extension, which they built with their own hands in 2000. Since it was occupied with settlers in 2008, the al-Kurd family has been forced to endure an uneasy, tense and potentially violent co-existence with settlers in their own home. The ISM has maintained a constant presence outside the al-Kurd home to monitor this situation and demonstrate international solidarity.

“I was in the house,” says Nabil al-Kurd, “and at 1.30 a.m. I heard something. I went outside, I saw firemen and I saw the policemen.” Mohammed Sawbag, resident of the neighborhood, adds that “the police asked for proof, photos or something, pictures that we took- we have our cameras around the site, and computer screens inside Nabil’s house. We will send a disc of what happened to the police.”

Settler violence is nothing new for this area of East Jerusalem accustomed to political, civil and ideological conflict. In 1956, 28 Palestinian refugee families were allocated the land by UNRWA and the Jordanian government, the latter controlling East Jerusalem after the 1948 Middle East War. The Promised property deeds to the land were never delivered  to the families, and after the 1967 Middle East War the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesset Israel Committee produced Ottomon-era title deeds alleging Jewish ownership of the land from the late 1800s. Despite the dubious authenticity of the documents (a trip to the Ottoman archives in Turkey in the late 1990s revealed that the alleged documents do not exist in their records, and the documents themselves lack essential specifying features characteristic of the era, such as detailed descriptions of the property), and despite the fact that ownership guaranteed by the documents is merely a primary registration of ownership that does not allow for the uprooting of third parties who inhabit the land, the Committees quickly began demanding rent payments from, and seeking to evict, the 28 families of Sheikh Jarrah.

The vicious legal battle which has plagued the community since the mid-1970s took a drastic turn in 2009, when four families were forcibly evicted by Israel from their homes. Now, numerous settler families live side-by-side with the 23 remaining Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, who are embroiled in court battles and live suspended in a precarious state of uncertainty.

Why does Israel want this land? The Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem, in its December 2009 report ‘Dispossession and Eviction in Jerusalem: The Stories of Sheikh Jarrah’, writes that “Sheikh Jarrah’s…strategic importance is based on the fact that Israeli control over this area…will form a Jewish ring or buffer between what Israel intends to keep, Jerusalem with a Jewish majority, under its direct control”[1]. The report continues that “collectively the various development initiatives in Sheikh Jarrah are intended to advance the creation of Israeli strongholds in the historic basin surrounding the Old City- with Sheikh Jarrah to the north, Silwan to the south, and the Mount of Olives to the east. Sheikh Jarrah is situated between the Old City and Mount Scopus which is home to the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital. In order to establish continuity through this valued corridor linking West Jerusalem with locations of strategic, historical, and religious significance to the Jewish population, a succession of Israeli neighborhoods were built to link West Jerusalem and Mount Scopus”[2].

The battle of Sheikh Jarrah residents against the Israeli Commissions is thus simultaneously a battle against the Israeli occupation, annexation and colonization of East Jerusalem.  Standing in front of the charred ruins of the ISM tent, Sheikh Jarrah resident Mohammed Sawbag relates how “from the beginning they don’t want this kind of protest. It makes them nervous….they don’t like the tent, with or without [people in it]…they don’t like this kind of symbol”.

This recent act of violence is the most extreme in a string of assaults over the last month. “It’s not the first time they tried to burn it”, relates one ISM activist. “In July settlers tried to destroy it, they ripped the side, entered the tent, and were urinating on the mattresses, we had to get new blankets. Then they urinated and defacated on the sofa” outside the tent. The most horrific incident occurred in late July. “We were sitting outside, it was 2 a.m. and from the small window next to the tent they threw all this shit in the tent, it went on the mattress, on the floor, inside, everywhere. We cleaned and then an hour later, shit again. Then we cleaned again and the settlers went out, pretending they didn’t do it.”

The blaze in the front yard of the al-Kurd family home came as a shock to the close-knit Palestinian community of Sheikh Jarrah. Says Nabil al-Kurd, “nobody does anything like this except for the settlers, because nobody in the [neighborhood] can do anything to my house, because they are good. If I am good with you, I don’t do anything bad.”

The settlers have left visible signs of their animosity throughout the property. The front door and surrounding courtyard of the Al-Kurd family’s home extension, which settlers have occupied since 2008, is adorned with layers of Israeli flags and Stars of David, a display that oversteps the boundaries of religious-cultural pride and enters the terrain of sheer brazenness and stubborn self-assertion. This display pales, however, in comparison to the occupied house across the street, which, in addition to being draped with Israeli flags, is crowned with an enormous 10-foot tall menorah on the roof. The walls of the Al-Kurd courtyard are emblazoned with graffiti like ‘Fuck Palestine’ and the logo of the Jewish Defense League, and most of the colorful drawings on the walls, painted by activists along with the children of the Al-Kurd home and the Sheikh Jarrah community, have been scrawled over with black spray paint. Slogans like ‘Free Paly’ and images of Palestinian flags wrapped in barbed wire, however, still remain on the courtyard walls as testaments to resistance and solidarity.

As ISM will continue its presence in Sheikh Jarrah, Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity is developing new tactics to raise awareness and combat the occupation throughout East Jerusalem. Says Sarah- “Sheikh Jarrah isn’t an isolated incident, you can’t isolate the incident in Sheikh Jarrah from what’s going on in all of East Jerusalem. So through the past year we’ve been demonstrating in other places, and the objective now is to bring this situation to new audiences, that maybe may not come to a demonstration because they’re scared, or don’t like to demonstrate. So we will do this by way of tours and by founding an information center which will be a base in Sheikh Jarrah, and not something which will just be on a weekly basis, and raising the situation there as related to the rest of East Jerusalem…. the point is we are working out of very basic human rights…it’s about fighting for equality and justice. And obviously what’s going on in East Jerusalem is that Palestinians are being discriminated against- that’s why it’s easier for Jewish settlers to take over the land, because the law favors them.”

For now, the police are investigating the al-Kurd family footage, and searching for the suspect(s). Meanwhile, ISMers maintain a nightly presence in Sheikh Jarrah, sitting out under the stars until a new tent is constructed. Says Mohammed Sawbag, “they [the settlers] will not try to do anything for the next few days, because the situation is bad for them. We have pictures of who did it. They are afraid. A settler told me he was not responsible, that he doesn’t know who did it. I told him you are lying! He tried to tell me that during the last month there were no insults and nothing bad has happened. He is lying!”

Nabil al-Kurd said it best as he stood in his front yard, next to the charred remnants of the ISM tent, three feet away from the words ‘Fuck Palestine’ scrawled on his courtyard wall, beside the home extension which legally is not his, though he built it with his bare hands- “This is democracy in Israel!”

– – –

[1]http://www.civiccoalition-jerusalem.org/ccdprj.ps/new/pdfs/Sheikh%20Jarrah%20Report%20(2).pdf. page 9

[2]page 19

[3]http://www.en.justjlm.org/584

Sheikh Jarrah in need of more international presence

13 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In the early hours of September 12th, local illegal settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, torched and destroyed a protest tent frequented and inhabited by locals and international volunteers and observers in the midst of increased Israeli settler violence and aggression.

The tent sat between an extension of the Palestinian-owned building, half of which is now illegally occupied by Israeli settlers, while the rest of the building is still inhabited by the Palestinian Al-Kurd family. All that remains of the protest tent after the recent attack are books, sheets, mattresses and tent components that are completely singed by fire.

The tent was erected to accommodate international activists on a nightly basis as they observed and documented the behavior of the illegal settlers, while symbolically standing against the normalization of illegal settlers against Palestinian locals.

Due to a lack of volunteers, no internationals inhabited the tent on the night of the incident. Mohamed, a local, stated, “If there was somebody in the tent last night, it would not have happened. They would not dare. Maybe they try to insult, but they would not dare. They don’t like the tent, with or without volunteers. They hate this kind of symbol.”

The latest attack by settlers is no doubt a clear attempt to rid the presence of locals and international observers in Sheikh Jarrah.

“I was in the house…I heard something. I went outside, I saw firemen and I saw the policemen. I didn’t know anything until then,” said local resident Nabil Al-Kurd.

This is not the only case of harassment perpetrated by settlers in Sheikh Jarrah—abusive behavior typical of local settlers have included violent verbal incitement, sexual harassment, spitting, throwing rocks, provoking their dogs to attack, and throwing fecal matter into the protest tent.

Locals speculate when settlers will again attack the Palestinian neighborhood. “They will not try to do anything for the next few days, because the situation is bad for them,” said Mohamed. “We have pictures of who did it. A settler told me he was not responsible, that he doesn’t know who did it. I told him, ‘you are lying!’ He tried to tell me that during the last month there were no insults and nothing bad has happened. He is lying!’”

Locals and activists are yet to make complaints to the police about the incident.

Information is still being collected to be submitted to the police. However, very little has been done to protect the Palestinian family from the violence of the settlers in the past, and what remains to be seen is the action, or lack of, from the law, and the future of an international presence in Sheikh Jarrah.

Israeli settlers set fire to a house-tent in the Palestinian village of Susiya

10 September 2011 | Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

At-Tuwani – During the night between the 8th and the 9th of September settlers from the Israeli settlement of Suseya set fire to a house-tent in the Palestinian village of Susiya.

Around 1:00 AM the settlers took a tire that was inserted in a nearby wall, set fire to it, and threw it against the outside wall of the house. The plastic tent covering the house took fire immediately. The owner, awakened by the smoke, was able to move out a of the tent. A gas cylinder that was near the fire. Once out of the burning tent the man saw some torch lights in the valley below the village heading toward the settlement of Suseya.

When Israeli army and police arrived, called by the villagers, the lights were still in sight but neither the soldiers nor the policemen followed or stopped the people carrying them.

The fire was extinguished with the water of a nearby villagers’ tank. The house owner was taken to the hospital for breathing diseases caused by the smoke.

According to Palestinians, the Israeli army did not let Palestinian firemen, coming from the nearby city of Yatta,  reach the fire  by threatening them.

The house owner told us the next morning: “They (the Israelis, ed) never help Palestinian people. Despite it all there were human  beings in danger, someone had to stop the fire, someone had to help us. But this is the occupation.”

Situated in the South Hebron Hills, the Palestinian village of Susiya is exactly between the old, archeological site of Suseya and the outpost of the Israeli settlement Suseya. This is the last of several acts of violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against the village. On December 28th 2010 took place a similar incident: settlers set fire to another house-tent. The settlers’ goal is to push Palestinians out of their own land in order to enlarge the settlement.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Pictures of the incident: http://goo.gl/Z3yXn ;  http://goo.gl/w7yPW  (EAPPI)
Video of the incident: http://goo.gl/iOWUv

For further information:
Operation Dove, 054 99 25 773
EAPPI  SHH, 022 27 42 94

Settlers and Israeli military team up to intimidate Kufr Qaddoum

6 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On the 5th and 6th of September, settlers from the illegal settlement of Qadumim entered Kufr Qaddum in an act of blatant provocation. The settlers were encouraged to leave by a spontaneous demonstration from the villagers who left their houses and rallied in the centre of Kufr Qaddoum.

The Israeli army punished the people of Kufr Qaddoum for exercising their rights by invading the village during the night. Over 500 soldiers entered the village shortly after midnight from all entry points and began making their way through the village. Three Palestinians, named Mouriya Mohammed, Kaib Kadumi and Khaber Juma were arrested. During the arrest of Kaib Kadumi, he was handcuffed, blindfolded and lead into the olive groves outside of the village. None of those who were arrested appear to have been charged with anything and their whereabouts are still unknown.

This was the first invasion into Kufr Qaddoum since the village began to demonstrate non violently against the closure of their road. The road closure, which happened in 2002, has claimed the lives of 3 villagers who were being taken in an ambulance towards the hospital in Nablus but were denied passage by the Israeli army. Their names are Fahmi Aquel (2003), Khadra Shtaiwi (2004) and Ammen Tayem (2004).

The arrests continued on the 6th of September when the army re-entered the village and carried arrested of Faris Nidel (age 19) and Nedar Ahmed (age 20). In this incursion the Israeli forces targeted houses in the village and damaged them.

Threats were also given to some of the leading members of the local Popular Committee during the invasion, stating that if the non violent demonstrations were to continue then the demonstrators would be met with live ammunition and the intent to kill. It is clear that these invasions are an act of intimidation and an attempt to suppress the growing enthusiasm, support and participation in the weekly demonstration.

Grazing on tragedy and the promises of scripture in South Hebron Hills

1 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The army is establishing two virtual lines for each of the settlements that are near a Palestinian village. The first line, if crossed by Palestinian demonstrators, will be met with tear gas and other means for dispersing crowds.

The second line is a “red line,” and if this one is crossed, the soldiers will be allowed to open fire at the legs of the demonstrators, as is also standard practice if the northern border is crossed.

Each map was approved by the regional brigade commander, and the IDF force that is deployed to the area will be ready to respond on the basis of the lines determined.—Haaretz

 

Shortly after dawn on August 29th, with the soft light spreading across the hills, eight armed soldiers climb out of their military vehicle to watch sheep.

Na’il is unperturbed. He makes a clicking noise with his tongue and drives his flock a little further up the slope. The soldiers are on the opposite hill, visible against the brightening sky. They guard an illegal settlement from us – two Palestinian shepherds, two international activists, and a small battalion of sheep and goats.

In these hills, sheep farming is political. Rights to this land are re-enacted daily by grazing flocks. The sheep kick back the dusty earth to find short grasses and sparse roots; goats strip the sharp thorns from the scrub. Some days, the shepherds will hang back in the low fields. Others, they will push a little higher, a little further, a little closer towards the boundary.

The sheep do not look up as they scour the earth. The grass is no different here from there; no wall stops their wandering. It matters little to the sheep that up there, the land is claimed by Zionist settlers, who guard it with sticks and stones and guns; nor that the Zionist settlers say this land will one day all be theirs, promised to them by God. As the sheep search onwards for fresh pasture, they do not notice the soldiers on the hilltop; they do not sense the cautious glances of the shepherds; they know nothing of the Oslo Agreement or UN resolutions or international law. They chew the earth, swallowing it in sandy mouthfuls with the roots and the shrubs. It is fine, dry, powdery, physical. But the boundary – that is entirely imagined.

The boundary is not a place; it is a ritual. It cannot be seen in itself, but only in the behaviour it creates. Stray too close to the settlement, and the shepherds know they will meet a response. Today, the army is here – an alien force in an occupied land, frightened young men who came to fight terrorists and find themselves supervising shepherds. They watch, but they do not intervene. The shepherds are permitted to come this far, but no further.

But it is not the army that Na’il and Khaled are worried about. Soldiers can be brutal, but they are by and large ordered, pragmatic, predictable. The illegal settlers, by contrast, are zealous, fanatical. They follow no commands, only Commandments; they recognize no law, only the Law, the Torah, the eternal and unalterable word of God. An army sergeant who used to serve in these hills describes it as the Wild West: ‘the Arabs can be beaten up, the settlers are untouchable.’

Like the original Wild West, the settlers – the cowboys – are violent, lawless, appropriating the land of the native inhabitants through theft and assault. And like the original Wild West, mythologized by Hollywood, their story is retold in the Zionist press, the illegal settlers as bold pioneers and the Palestinians as irrational savages.

The shepherds’ gaze oscillates between the sheep and the settlement, alert to any approach from the self-appointed sheriffs. We are right on the boundary now; the ritual has begun. For about an hour, nothing happens. The soldiers watch us, we watch the soldiers. The only sound is the grinding of ovine teeth and Na’il quietly reciting verses from the Qur’an. With the sun now high in the eastern sky, the shepherds start to drive their sheep back to the fold. As we turn to leave, we see the soldiers climb back into their jeep and disappear over the horizon.

But we have crossed the boundary, and that is enough. With the soldiers gone, we see a lone figure coming down the hill from the settlement. He is moving quickly; in his left hand he is carrying a stick. He moves with purpose, following the contours around the valley. He is some way out of the settlement now.

He is coming towards us. Na’il points: ‘Mustawtan.‘ Settler.

We are now half a kilometer away from the settlement, but the illegal settler continues to follow us. We lose sight of him for a moment, then suddenly he appears over the brow of a hill. He approaches Abu, an Italian activist, shouting with rage. I thought for a moment he might hit Abu with the stick, but instead he pushes him, hard, and screams

“Nazi, Nazi, go!” Abu walks backwards slowly, and responds that he is Italian.

“Italia, Mussolini, fascist” shouts the settler, continuing to push him, shouting now right into his face. For these illegal settlers, anyone who denies their right to this land is a fascist, an anti-Semite, supporting the Arabs who they say stole this land from the Jews two thousand years ago.

“Fascist, go, now, now!”

And so the promises of scripture and the tragedies of twentieth century Europe are thrown together in a sense of entitlement, of indignation, of rage, in this dusty field in Palestine.

A few meters away, I film what happens; Na’il films too, on a video camera provided by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. This is the only protection that these shepherds have – observation, recording, and the meticulous chronicling of truth. Rarely is justice served. But the knowledge that their actions may be known elsewhere sometimes gives the  illegal settlers pause. The worst violence takes place when cameras are not there. Today, the settler goes no further. Perhaps the presence of cameras makes a difference. After a few minutes he turns and storms off, marching in long strides across the stony ground. He shouts insults at the shepherds as he leaves, which they shout back in turn.

Back in Khaled’s tent we stretch out on thin mattresses and rest. He speaks no English and I only understand a few words of Arabic; we talk with our hands and our faces, in gestures. He pulls up his shirt to show a scar from a bullet wound on his belly – this is what can happen, sometimes, this is why the settlers are feared, this is why he brings cameras and foreigners to help him graze his sheep. Usually, he says, six illegal settlers come down, threatening and sometimes attacking the shepherds, guarding the land that is not theirs to guard. This is how the land is stolen; not in a grand historical moment, but in increments, dunam by dunam, hilltop by hilltop, the imagined boundary moving a little further each day.

Olive branches strike against the car window as we take the bumpy track back to Yatta. We take this detour through the olive groves because the main track has been blocked, a giant rock pushed across the route by illegal settlers. The straight, smooth illegal settler road bisects the landscape; it, too, is a kind of boundary. Palestinians near the settler road attract attention, Musa tells us, as he maneuvers his car across a stony field. The tarmac stretches away into the distance, a sign in Hebrew and English pointing the way to the Israeli town of Be’er Sheva. Cars and trucks with Israeli plates speed up this road in Palestine. The Promised Land turns beneath their wheels.

The rumble of the trucks can be heard from the tents, where the shepherds wait out the hot noon hours until it is time to take the sheep out again. As the sun drops in the West, and the women begin to prepare the iftar meal to break their Ramadan fasts, they will drive their sheep up the hill once more, towards the boundary. They will keep going back, because it is the only way to live like this, on their land, all of it their land. Like connoisseurs of the absurd, they wait for the invisible boundary to disappear, as Khaled mutters:

“Kul yom. Kul yom. Kul yom.”

Everyday, everyday, everyday.