4 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On the 4th of February International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) attended the replanting of 50 olive trees on the hillsides above the village of Burin, outside of Nablus. The planting went without disturbances from the surrounding illegal settlements of Bracha and Yitzhar.
Replanting livelihood and resistance – Click here for more images
During 2011 around 3700 olive trees were destroyed in the hills around the village of Burin, most of them due to attacks from the illegal settlement Yitzhar. The 50 olive trees replanted today on the hill slopes facing the illegal settlement of Bracha will not bear fruit for many years but serve as a long term investment for the villagers of Burin. Small as it may be, this initiative marks the relentless struggle to go on with their lives despite of Israeli occupation.
Since the campaign began to raise money for trees, donations were sent nearly daily from Australia, Italy, France, the US, Canada, Sweden, and Finland for example. According to the Trees of Resistance campaign, they “have received support from past volunteers, hopeful future volunteers, refugees, tree lovers and just fantastical lovely generous people.”
The Bilal al Najjar youth center in Burin has also received considerable support and volunteered its members to partake in the tree planting.
After the planting volunteers were shown the ongoing construction of a new community center in the center of Burin. Some proud, young men showed volunteers the re-plastered insides of an old stone building about to be transformed by the efforts of the Bilal al Najjar center.
An international organizer of the All for Burin campaign stated that while “the center provides projects that need to be kept alive… it also gives the youth of Burin a sanctuary. A place that is theirs, where they can work, learn, plan communal activities and unite. These activities have an overwhelming importance within community. To bring children and adults together, to feel united and most of all to have and create new happy memories to be taken with everyone in the future.”
Support the further planting of trees destroyed by Zionists and help Burin’s youth center for continued peace and livelihood for Palestinian villagers that continue to face mounting threats by price tag campaign extremists and the Israeli military which defends them.
Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
3 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Burqin and Kufr Ad-Dik face daily obstructions in justice as nearby illegal Zionist settlements encroach on the livelihood of local Palestinians. The villages are surrounded by several hilltop illegal settlements and industrial sites with polluting factories and an army base.
“This is a microcosm of Palestinian suffering” stated a resident upon the arrival of International Solidarity Movement volunteers.
Burqin and Kufr Ad-Dik are under siege by settlers and soldiers. The villages are situated in Areas B and C as stipulated by the Oslo Agreement and sit dangerously close to the 1948 Green Line. Burqin has approximately 4000 residents which include many refugees from Al Nakba, or the Catastrophe, known to Palestinians when they faced exile from their villages in 1948 at the creation of Israel.
Kufr ad-Dik face to face with their oppressor - Click here for more images
The village relies on small scale agriculture for its existence. The Israelis from the illegal settlements know this and routinely destroy Palestinian crops often by burning olive trees as part of the extremist “Price Tag Campaign.” They have also released wild boars from their settlements which eat Palestinian crops and are very dangerous, especially to the young of the villages. In an act of callousness the settlers destroyed a newly bought piece of farm machinery about two weeks ago. During this attack they also burned a car and unsuccessfully firebombed the local mosque, leaving threatening graffiti that they will be back.
While a local place of worship, graffiti, and vandalism seem like small offenses, one must keep in mind that these are systematically done to pressure the villages into abandoning what is left of their homes.
As with many of the Palestinian villages who have suffered the injustice of having their lands stolen by Israel in order to build illegal settlements, which continue to expand, Burqin and Kufr Ad-Dik are forced to endure regular attacks from the illegal occupants of their land as well as harassment by the Israeli military. The settlers, soldiers and Israeli government, which is benefiting from and funding the existence of these illegal settlements work cooperatively to forcibly remove Palestinians from their land.
There is an industrial estate, situated on top of a hill, which houses several severely polluting factories. These factories could not gain a license to be constructed inside of Israel due to the pollution that will be created, but they were granted permission by the Israeli government to be built within the West Bank illegally under international law. The waste from these factories is channeled in an open sewer through the villages.
Since the factories began polluting there has been a sharp rise in health problems within the village including an anomaly in cancer cases. A German charity volunteered to pay for the sewer to be covered and managed.
Permission to build this cover was flatly denied by the Israelis. The pollution from the factories has severely affected the surrounding land causing trees to die, crops to fail, and the meat from animals grazed on the land cannot be sold due to fear of contamination.
According to an article published by the Baheth Center for Strategic and Palestinian Studies, information on the size and power of these factories is not available to local Palestinians. In an article published by the Baheth center, they describe the extent of the factory waste:
The waste water and solid waste these industries produce, provide important clues about the type and extent of industrial activity… Clear evidence that Israeli factories operating in the Occupied Territories do not follow pollution prevention measures is provided by the Barqan industrial zone, which houses factories producing aluminum, fiberglass, plastic, electroplating, and military items. Industrial waste water from this zone flows untreated to the nearby valley, damaging agricultural land belonging to the Palestinian villages of Sarta, Kufr Al-Deek, and Burqin, and polluting the groundwater with heavy metals.
Unemployment is now very high in the villages since much of the land has been taken by settlers and the military. To add insult to the pollution inflicted on the villages, the Palestinians are banned from working the factories surrounding them. With more land being taken away every day, unemployment and poverty continue to rise. Yesterday an army order was issued to take another 60 dunums (1000m squared = 1 dunum) for “military purposes.” Farmers are now collating deeds to their lands in an attempt to argue their case in court.
Burqin has lost over 8000 dunums to the illegal occupation, most of which was stolen in the last 10 years. The land theft is sharply on the increase. The farm land that is left is still extremely dangerous to farm due to settler attacks and the threat of wild boars.
Not satisfied with attacking the food production, the Israelis have destroyed several wells, which are vital to the well-being of the villagers. The illegal settlers have commandeered most of the water supply leaving the Palestinians with critically low access to clean water. A recent study found that the average settler uses 18 times that of one Palestinian villager.
In addition to the destruction of wells several homes have been demolished including a home that the owner worked for 30 years to save enough to build.
Leaving or reentering the villages is high risk as settlers will often throw rocks at Palestinian cars. If the villagers successfully run the gauntlet they then have to pass through harassing Israeli Army checkpoints.
The villages have just started a weekly protest against their oppression in Kufr Ad-Dik. This was met last week with tear gas and steel bullets thinly coated with rubber leaving 10 villagers wounded.
For a recap of this week’s demonstration, check out the following video:
The protest will continue every Friday.
Jonas Weber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
For twenty years now the international donor community has financially supported Palestinian institution-building, infrastructure development, the economy, public employees’ salaries, health and education, social welfare, the police, electricity production, private credit guarantees, and the bigger part of the civil society organizations with regards to democracy promotion, human rights, tolerance, women rights etc.
Peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state have been the declared goals of all the support. But actual results are the fragmentation and pacification of the Palestinian people.
This documentary film, directed by Mariam Shahin and George Azar, and funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, features Palestinian criticism of this externally funded “development”.
During the weekly non-violent protest in the village of an-Nabi Saleh on Friday several injuries were reported including that of a French citizen who was struck in the neck by an Israeli projectile.
The young woman, reported to be named Amessi, was struck in the neck, initially thought to be by a tear gas canister, but later reported to be a rubber coated steel bullet. As of yet reports remain conflicted.The young woman was cut by the shot and lead to bleeding from the wound.
Reports state that the young woman has been transfered to hospital where she is stable.
Israeli military major, Peter Lerner, has claimed via his Twitter account that the young woman was struck by Palestinians throwing stones.
Furthermore, it was reported by activists at the scene and by the Popular Struggle Co-ordination Committee that Nariman Tamimi attempted to film the young woman’s injuries, but was assaulted by Israeli soldiers.
In addition to the injury sustained by Amessi, another international activist was struck in the waist by a tear gas canister. The young man, reportedly, has extensive bruising to the area.
In total residents of the village have reported 13 injuries in an-Nabi Saleh, not including those suffering ill effects from tear gas inhalation.
On December 9th 2011 village resident, Mustafa Tamimi was killed when military personnel shot out of the back of their armed jeep, striking Tamimi in the face with a tear gas canister.
Tamimi succumbed to his wounds.
The firing of high velocity tear gas canisters directly at protestors violates both international law regulating the use of so called non lethal munitions, and Israeli domestic law, yet several activists, both Palestinian and international, have been killed and severely injured by direct shots from tear gas canisters.
In April 2009, Basem Abu Rahme was killed in the village of
Bil’in when shot in the chest with a tear gas canister, and U.S. citizen Tristen Anderson was left disabled when shot in the head by a canister in March 2009.
Anderson was taken to a hospital in Tel Aviv where he underwent brain surgery, having a portion of his frontal lobe and fragments of shattered bone removed.
Updated from:
BREAKING: Woman Shot in Head by Israeli Military in Nabi Saleh
Friday February 03, 2012 16:11 by Circarre Parrhesia – IMEMC News
Activists in the village of an-Nabi Saleh are reporting on Friday that a woman has been shot in the head by a tear gas canister fired by the Israeli military.
Resident of the village Linah al-Saafin stated on her Twitter account that a young woman was shot in the face by the Israeli military, which was followed by information from Deema al-Saafin that the young woman was shot by the military with a tear gas canister and then taken from the scene by the military.
Activists based in the villages that hold non-violent protests regularly update followers as to the events of the protest via their accounts on social networking platforms such as Twitter.
On December 9th 2011 village resident, Mustafa Tamimi was killed in a similar incident when military personnel shot out of the back of their armed jeep, striking Tamimi in the face with a tear gas canister.
Tamimi succumbed to his wounds.
The firing of high velocity tear gas canisters directly at protestors violates both international law regulating the use of so called non lethal munitions, and Israeli domestic law, yet several activists, both Palestinian and international, have been killed and severely injured by direct shots from tear gas canisters.
In April 2009, Basem Abu Rahme was killed in the village of Bil’in when shot in the chest with a tear gas canister, and U.S. citizen Tristen Anderson was left disabled when shot in the head by a canister in March 2009.
Anderson was taken to a hospital in Tel Aviv where he underwent brain surgery, and had to have a portion of his frontal lobe and fragments of shattered bone removed.
2 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement
The recent Arab uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa have proven that the Arab people are no longer willing to tolerate oppression and tyranny. They send a strong message to Western hegemonic powers and their oppressive regional allies that a new wave of nonviolent civil resistance will ultimately prevail over injustice and occupation. In addition, the Arab uprisings also send an important message to all people of the world that armed resistance is no longer the only option for pursuing change.
One must acknowledge that the recent successes of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions are a reminder that this inspirational movement for nonviolent civil resistance was actually born in Palestine. As American University of Beirut Professor Rami Zurayk notes, “The Arab uprisings have of course taken their inspiration from the Palestinian Intifada.” But as he further clarifies, the reverse is also true: there is “a constant feeding in from the Arab uprisings to Palestine and from Palestine to the Arab uprisings.”
Professor Zurayk is one of the Lebanese delegates for the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), a groundbreaking nonviolent civil resistance initiative scheduled for March 30, 2012 in Palestine and the four neighboring countries: Egypt, Lebanon Jordan and Syria. The GMJ is comprised of a diverse coalition of Palestinian, Arab and international activists who are united in the struggle to liberate the holy city of Jerusalem from illegal Zionist occupation. While the GMJ is made up of grassroots movements in each participating country, the march is also internationalized through a central coordinating committee with elected delegates from each region. More than thirty of these delegates met in Amman last December and in Beirut in January to discuss plans for hundreds of thousands of people to peacefully march to the holy city of Jerusalem, or to the nearest point possible according to the circumstances of each neighboring country, for not only Palestinian rights, but the rights of all humans.
In many ways the GMJ has the potential to be a movement of epic proportions, and thus coordinating the march will not be easy. Up until now, most political solidarity movements at both the global and grassroots level have failed to include the majority of Palestinians living in Palestine as well as those countries that border Occupied Palestine. And yet now Palestinians themselves are taking a leading role in the GMJ. Considering the scope of the initiative, internal disagreements are bound to happen. However Ali Ayoub, a Palestinian activist with the Right to Return Committee in Lebanon, stresses that while “there are differences in politics between the many Palestinian parties, what unites them is Jerusalem and Palestine.” Furthermore, he says that the movement also takes strength from the fact that “all the free people of this world are suffering” from what is happening in Jerusalem and in Palestine.
It is very important that a strong contingent of American activists participate in the GMJ. In the United States, American tax dollars are endlessly being funneled into war, military occupation, and dictatorship throughout the Middle East. In addition to financing and arming oppressive regimes that have already been challenged by the Arab uprisings, U.S. tax dollars also continue to finance Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem and other such crimes against the Palestinian people. This is why it is essential for Americans to remain active in the push for a free Palestine through non-violent means, and they increasingly are. College campuses across the United States are organizing students to oppose Israeli oppression through non-violent campaigns such as the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement. Hundreds of Palestine solidarity activists from around the U.S. converged last October for a student conference at Columbia University to organize a national campaign. Palestine continues to be a priority for those in the U.S. who seek justice in the Middle East. So while the U.S. government continues to harass American solidarity activists, they must remain steadfast in their support for their Palestinian counterparts through initiatives such as GMJ-NA, the North American division of the Global March to Jerusalem.
The GMJ is focusing on the particular issue of Jerusalem because the holy city has come to embody the violence of an enduring occupation. As Professor Zurayk explains, “What is going on in Jerusalem today symbolizes everything that the Zionist movement has been doing for the past 65 years,” where the state of Israel has “been trying to take the land of Palestine by force as well as through more insidious strategies and tactics.” In this way “Jerusalem symbolizes the struggles of the Palestinian people in opposing the Zionist control and hegemony over their land.”
While the international community has been concentrating on the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood at the United Nations, and solidarity activists have been engaged in the struggle to end the siege of Gaza, the situation for Palestinians living in the holy city of Jerusalem has been deteriorating at an incredible rate. Over the last few years, Zionist efforts to “Judaize” the city have quickened pace, erasing Jerusalem’s physical, cultural and spiritual characteristics. According to a report released by the Middle East Monitor, this process of Judaization has involved the unrestricted expansion and funding of illegal Israeli settlements, the continued dispossession and demolition of Palestinian property, and the construction of a Separation Wall surrounding the city, all of which have changed the demographics of the holy city from a Palestinian to Jewish majority.
In response, Palestinians have now called upon the international community to join them in this peaceful march on March 30, Palestine Land Day, so that they can preserve the status of Jerusalem as a holy city for all humans. Ayoub says that Jerusalem “means a lot to me as I am Palestinian,” but he also adds that it means something to “all of the humans and free people of this world.”
Indeed, the GMJ principles of unity assert the importance of Jerusalem politically, culturally and religiously to the Palestinian people and to humanity as a whole. These principles of unity also require a commitment to nonviolent civil resistance in this struggle to liberate Jerusalem from Zionist occupation.
The international participants of the GMJ represent a diverse coalition of voices from various Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and other religious and non-religious communities. The GMJ now has endorsements from individuals including Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti, who speaks about the GMJ and its urgency:
Also joining these international participants is former US ambassador and counter-terrorism deputy chief Edward Peck, anti-war activist Medea Benjamin, international law professor Richard Falk, and public intellectual Tariq Ali.
As Indian solidarity activist and GMJ architect Feroze Mithiborwala says, “This year in Jerusalem.” We hope to see all of you there in spring.
Marusek and Gupta are both actively involved with GMJ-NA, an independent and autonomous coalition of North American groups planning to join this non-violent march. Details of this effort can be found at:www.gmj-na.org
