IPSC NEWS BULLETIN 17/7/05

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Sunday July 17, 2005 15:02 by Palestine Solidarity

IPSC NEWS BULLETIN 17/7/05

IPSC NEWS BULLETIN 17/7/05

IPSC NEWS BULLETIN 17/7/05
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ANNIVERSARY OF ICJ RULING
1. Entire Palestinian civil society marks first anniversary of ICJ ruling with
historic call to international civil society for Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions
2. Boycott of Israel needed to stop the wall by Raymond Deane, Chair of IPSC,
(Irish Times)
3. Limerick Branch out in force on July 9th (Indymedia)
4. Irish Anti-War Movement endorses Palestinian Call for Boycott at its AGM in
Dublin
5. Israeli anti-Occupation groups write open letter to Kofi Annan and world
leaders calling for implementation of ICJ ruling

6. IPSC to have stall at National Ploughing Championships – seeks volunteers and
ideas
7. Palestine Day at the Feile in Belfast, 2nd of August
8. What I Saw in Palestine by Tony Gregory TD
9. Welcome to Costa del Gaza by Eoin Murray, Irish human rights worker with
Frontline
10. Help us stop Israel's wall peacefully (insight into non-violent resistance
in Palestine) by Mohammed Khatib (International Herald Tribune)
11. As the world watches Gaza, an entire village is demolished in the West Bank
(ISM)
12. Life under constant harassment (insight into settler violence and army
complicity in Hebron) by Eve Sabbagh (Palestine Report)
13. There is a settler in every Israeli by Amira Hass (Haaretz)
14. "The safer and more Jewish Jerusalem will be, it can serve as a true capital
of the state of Israel." – Israeli minister confirms that wall’s purpose is to
ensure a racial majority (Washington Post)
15. Israeli ministers reject Blair's linkage of London bombings to Middle East
conflict (Haaretz)

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1. Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against
Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of
Human Rights

July 9th, 2005

One year after the historic Advisory Opinion of the International Court of
Justice (ICJ), which found Israel's Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory
to be illegal, Israel continues its construction of the colonial Wall with total
disregard to the Court's decision.

Thirty eight years into Israel's occupation of the Palestinian West Bank
(including East Jerusalem), Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights, Israel
continues to expand Jewish colonies. It has unilaterally annexed occupied East
Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and is now de facto annexing large parts of the
West Bank by means of the Wall.

Israel is also preparing - in the shadow of its planned redeployment from the
Gaza Strip - to build and expand colonies in the West Bank. Fifty seven years
after the state of Israel was built mainly on land ethnically cleansed of its
Palestinian owners, a majority of Palestinians are refugees, most of whom are
stateless. Moreover, Israel's entrenched system of racial discrimination
against its own Arab- Palestinian citizens remains intact.

In light of Israel's persistent violations of international law, and….

Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel's
colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate,
adequate and effective remedies, and…

Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until
now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to
respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the
people of Palestine, and…

In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community
have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as
exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse
forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions…

Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit
of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and
oppression…

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil
society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose
broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to
those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to
pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against
Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the
sake of justice and genuine peace.

These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its
obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to
self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling
the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of
Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to
return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Endorsed by: The Palestinian political parties, unions, associations, coalitions
and organizations representing the three integral parts of the people of
Palestine: Palestinian refugees, Palestinians under occupation and Palestinian
citizens of Israel. (over 170 organisations and rising)

For a complete list of all co-signers, please go to:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3981.shtml

ALSO: "The Socialist Organization in Israel - MATZPEN" (P.O.B. 28061, Tel Aviv
61280, Israel) has decided to endorse the call of Palestinian Civil Society for
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with
International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights.

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2. Boycott of Israel needed to stop the wall

09 July 2005 Irish Times

A year ago Israel's West Bank wall was deemed illegal, but to little effect,
writes Raymond Deane

On July 9th, 2004 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its advisory
opinion on the status of the wall being built by Israel in the occupied
Palestinian West Bank. It found that its construction was illegal, that it must
be dismantled, and that Palestinians must be compensated for losses sustained
due to its construction. Under paragraph 159 it asserted that: "All states are
under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the
construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the
situation created by such construction" and must "ensure compliance by Israel
with international humanitarian law as embodied in [the fourth Geneva]
Convention".

Even if the advisory opinion per se - although cemented 11 days later by a UN
General Assembly resolution - is non-binding, the unequivocal legal stipulations
in paragraph 159 are not, and are binding on the EU as well as the US and
others.

The advisory opinion was regarded as a historic breakthrough by the
Palestinians. European solidarity groups and NGOs also believed that it would
facilitate their task. Hitherto, they had relied on the "human rights clause" of
the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement between the EU and Israel to push
for suspension of Israel's trading privileges - as twice demanded without effect
by the European Parliament - in the light of Israel's continuing violations of
Palestinian rights. Now, it appeared, the world's highest judicial body had
provided a more effective tool to compel Israeli compliance with international
law, and indeed to force suspension of the association agreement by putting its
very legality in question.

One year later, there is a universal sense of betrayal. While Israel garners
unearned credit for its projected unilateral "disengagement" from Gaza, whereby
colonial occupation is replaced by permanent siege, the construction of the wall
continues apace, as does the ongoing annexation of Palestinian land required for
its construction.

Much is also made of the "disengagement" from four tiny West Bank settlements,
leaving a total of 116 illegal settlements there, many of which are being
ruthlessly expanded. Ariel Sharon has made no secret of the fact that these
token "disengagements" are designed simply and solely to forestall any
meaningful compliance by Israel with the requirements of international law.

Meanwhile, the Israeli foreign ministry has announced plans to build high-tech
terminals to solidify its grasp on the West Bank under the guise of easing the
movement of Palestinian peoples and goods. These terminals will be at some 34
crossing points along the route of the wall, and will be funded by $50 million
from the US, in clear defiance of the court and UN.

The World Bank is contributing to the construction of "massive industrial zones.
. . to be built on Palestinian land annexed by the wall, where ghettoised
Palestinian labour will work in the dirtiest and most toxic industries", in the
words of Jamal Juma, co-ordinator of the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall
Campaign. Furthermore, Mr Juma claims that
Germany has participated in funding these sweatshops.

Apart from this instance of direct collaboration with the occupation, which may
be read as another example of Germany buying absolution for the Holocaust at the
Palestinians' expense, the EU is indirectly in violation of the court's
judgment. Continuing and deepening EU economic co-operation with Israel serves
to facilitate Israel's diversion of financial resources to the construction of
the wall and the maintenance of illegal settlements.

In the fields of research and development, as well as in entertainment and
sport, Israel continues to be treated, to all intents and purposes, as a
European country. Far from "ensuring compliance by Israel with international
humanitarian law" as demanded by the International Court of Justice, such
privileges combine to enhance Israel's lofty conviction of its impunity. The
outcome of this arrogance is the ongoing brutalisation and humiliation of the
subject Palestinian population that is reported daily by such Israeli
organisations as B'tselem and Gush Shalom, but rarely finds its way into our
media with their indefensible insistence that "life is better for the
Palestinians since Arafat's death".

When governments fail to act, civil society feels compelled to step into the
breach. Pro-Palestinian campaigners worldwide are increasingly united in their
belief that only a massive boycott campaign, modelled on that which brought
South African apartheid to its knees, can "initiate a process that will make
Israel pay a price for its crimes", to quote
Mr Juma once again.

This campaign is gathering pace. The initially successful attempt by the UK
Association of University Teachers to institute a boycott of two Israeli
universities struck terror through the Israeli establishment, which contrived to
have the decision reversed by a massively-funded campaign of intimidation.

However, last year the US Presbyterian Church voted to institute "selective
divestment" from Israel, a decision endorsed by the World Council of Churches,
and last month the Anglican Consultative Council voted unanimously in favour of
a divestment motion.

If civil society is goaded by government inaction into taking such drastic
steps, then only government action can render such steps superfluous.
Specifically, EU governments - including our own - can "ensure Israel's
compliance with international humanitarian law" by withholding their direct or
indirect support for the construction of Israel's illegal wall and the apartheid
infrastructure associated with it. They can cease arms exports to Israel, and
suspend the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement as well as all co-operation
on research and development.

The Irish Government, traditionally supportive of the inalienable rights of the
Palestinian people, should be to the forefront of pressing for such action. The
consequences of continuing inaction will be disastrous.

Raymond Deane is chairman of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

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3. Limerick protest against Israel's Apartheid Wall

by Sean Clinton - Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign

First aniversary of ICJ ruling

Members of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign yesterday staged a protest
against the continued construction of the apartheid wall in Palestine in
defiance of the International Court of Justice ruling.

Members of the Limerick branch of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
yesterday marked the first anniversary of the International Court of Justice's
(ICJ) ruling on the legality of the wall being built by Israel to colonize even
larger areas of Palestine and to further restrict and control Palestinian
freedom of movement in the West Bank.

The ICJ ruled:
"construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its
associated régime, are contrary to international law;

Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it
is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall
being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East
Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated, and to repeal
or render ineffective forthwith all legislative and regulatory acts relating
thereto, in accordance with paragraph 151 of This Opinion;

Israel is under an obligation to make reparation for all damage caused by the
construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and
around East Jerusalem;

All States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation
resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance
in maintaining the situation created by such construction and to ensure
compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law"

IPSC members draped large posters, banners and a large Palestinian flag from a
bridge over the city's new ring road for three hours yesterday. This was
followed by a city centre public information stall, leafleting and petition
signing in O'Connell Street, Limerick.

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4. The Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM), at its AGM in Dublin on Saturday 17th of
July, fully endorsed the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israel.

The following motion, put forward by the IPSC, was passed without any votes
against:

“Recognising that the Israeli State continues to negate the right of the
Palestinian people to self-determination enshrined in numerous UN resolutions,
and in view of Israel's continued construction of its Apartheid Wall on
Palestinian territory despite last July's advisory opinion of the International
Court of Justice and its subsequent confirmation by the UN General Assembly, the
Irish Anti-War Movement endorses the Palestinian call for a comprehensive
boycott of Israel and pledges to work towards its implementation.”

The IAWM are organising a Peace Concert to be held in Shannon on September 24th
and IPSC members are urged to attend to protest against the continuing use of
Shannon Airport by the US military.

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5. Israeli groups write open letter to Kofi Annan and world leaders
13/7/2005

To: His Excellency Kofi Annan
Secretary-General of the United Nations
United Nations, New York


Your Excellency:

A year has passed since the recommendations of the International Court of
Justice in The Hague were made and a resolution was adopted by the General
Assembly regarding the illegality of the Annexation Wall being erected by the
Israeli government. This Wall is being built on a route the significance of
which is not only the de facto annexation of large parcels of Palestinian
territory, but also the disruption of life and unimaginable
suffering for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people whose lands are being
stolen.

We, the undersigned, Israeli organizations and movements acting for peace,
justice and human rights, turn to you and ask that you implement the
recommendations via a binding resolution by the Security Council to stop the
continued construction of the Separation Wall, to take down the parts that have
been built on Palestinian land and to compensate the landowners for the damage
caused to their lands in the wake of the building of the Wall.

The Israeli Government is ignoring the recommendations of the Court and the
Resolution of the General Assembly and continues to build the Wall at full speed
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, creating encircled enclaves cut off
from one another throughout the West Bank. A special effort is being dedicated
to the completion of a Wall surrounding Jerusalem, for the Judaization" of the
eastern part of the city and the isolation of East Jerusalem, cutting it off
from its natural hinterland in the West Bank.

The building of the Wall enables the Israeli Government to expand construction
in the settlements and to prepare an infrastructure for new Israeli settlements
and projects, especially in areas west of the Wall, up to the “Green Line.”

These lands are the primary source of sustenance and livelihood for tens of
thousands of Palestinian residents of the region and are atrophying as a result
of the tendentious obstacles the army places on farmers during passage to their
lands on the other side of the Wall. This policy has already severely hurt the
social and economic fabric of Palestinian society and the continuation of this
policy is liable to endanger not only the welfare of Palestinian society but
also the chance to establish peace between the Palestinians and us, and ensure
the security of the entire region.

Israeli peace activists have participated in the civil protests of Palestinian
residents of villages whose lands are being stolen because of the route of the
Fence or Wall. During the course of these protests we have experienced the
violent suppression by the army and police directed at unarmed protestors
demanding their rights. The mechanisms of the Occupation exert pressure and
issue sanctions against Palestinian activists leading
non-violent civil protest. We warn that this violent behavior towards our
Palestinian partners, which is attempting to choke the life out of the civil
Palestinian movement, is likely to produce additional cycles of violence.

For the sake of peace between our Palestinian neighbors and us, for the security
of the entire region, we call for the implementation without delay of the
recommendations of the International Court of Justice and the Resolution of the
General Assembly.

Signed by:

Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority in Israel
Bat-Shalom (National Feminist Grassroots Peace Organisation)
Ha'Kampus Lo Shotek (The Campus is not Silent)
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
MachsomWatch (Women for Human Rights)
New Profile
Ta'ayush: Arab-Jewish Partnership
The Other Israel
Women’s Coalition for Peace
Zochrot

Cc: H.E. Moshe Katsav, President of Israel
All countries represented at the United Nations

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6. The IPSC will have a stall in the Education and Business arcade at the
National Ploughing Championships (NPC) near Midleton Co. Cork between September
27th and 29th.

The NPC attracts the largest crowds of any event in the country over the three
days and is a great opportunity for us to get our message across to the general
public and the farming community in particular. We are going to need as many
volunteers as possible to help setting up the stall and manning it over the
three days.

We also need people to come up with ideas and suggestions about the best means
of attracting people to our stall and how to engage them and get them to
support IPSC financially and otherwise.

If you feel you can help out at the NPC, or if you have any ideas or thoughts on
how best to appeal to people at the Ploughing Championships, please get in touch
with Sean at: sac1@iol.ie

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7. Palestine Day at Feile an Phobail in Belfats – 2 Aug 2005

From 11.00am in St Mary's University College, Falls Road, Belfast

Palestine Day at the Internationally acclaimed Féile an Phobail in West Belfast,
takes place this year on Tuesday 2nd August.

Starting at 11.00am in St Mary's University College, Falls Road, Belfast, it
will include a range of films and talks on Palestine and a photographic
exhibition.

In the evening, 7.30pm, a special guest speaker from Palestine will talk on the
theme, 'Palestine; The Peace Process - Hope for the Future?'

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8. What I saw in Palestine by Tony Gregory, TD

June 2005

This was my second visit to the occupied territories in Palestine.

My earlier visit was at the beginning of the first Intifada - in the late 1980s.

Things have not improved since then; if anything, they are worse.

It's only when you go there and see at first hand the deliberate policy of
suppression and impoverishment of the Palestinian people that you fully
appreciate the enormity of this crime against humanity.

We now see the creation of apartheid regions and structures by the Israelis
where settlers move in, occupy the most dominant part of an area, and build
their fortified settlements, often cutting off the most arable land from the
Palestinian villages and homes. Road access is blocked off in an attempt to make
continued existence for the Palestinians unsustainable.

A further ingredient is the construction of motorways and tunnels linking the
settlements - motorways which are exclusive to the Israeli settlers with the
Palestinians excluded.

All of this continues regardless of peace initiatives.

World bodies have taken no effective action against this apartheid policy. Even
the E.U. continues with its preferential trade agreement with Israel. U.N.
Sanctions against Israel are not even considered since Israel is a puppet of the
U.S.

This is clearly one of the great injustices of the world today, perpetrated
against a largely defenceless people.

I raised our visit with the Minister for Foreign Affairs at a meeting of the
Foreign Affairs Committee and I will continue to raise the plight of the
Palestinian People at every opportunity.

Tony Gregory is a TD for Dublin Central. He was one of 6 Irish politicians who
visited Palestine in early June 2005.

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9. Welcome to Costa-del-Gaza

By Eoin Murray

The Electronic Intifada
5 July 2005

When Alexander the Great reached the southeast Mediterranean he encountered
resistance along the coast of what is now Israel. To deter any other rebellious
towns he crucified 2,000 men, and from that point town after town surrendered to
him unconditionally.

Then he reached Gaza. The local population made it clear that he was unwelcome
and began an intense military campaign against him. Eventually, as many people
in Gaza will happily remind you, Alexander left having contracted the disease
that would eventually
kill him.

There have been many subsequent invasions - Napoleon, the Ottomans, the British
- in this narrow strip of territory into which 1.4 million Palestinians and
8,000 Israeli settlers are now squeezed.

The two sides of present-day Gaza are the poverty-stricken Palestinian
population and the Israeli settlers who control about 45% of the land. But
neither population is united; the divisions within each are as real as those
between them. And the Israeli soldiers present in numbers to protect the
settlers are now charged with overseeing their withdrawal - and if necessary,
eviction – by August.

The settlers have initiated an effective grassroots campaign across Israel to
protest against the withdrawal plan of their prime minister, Ariel Sharon. They
have widely distributed their orange ribbon symbol, and plastered the highways
and byways of Israel with posters labelling Sharon a traitor. Some of their more
virulent tactics have come in for heavy criticism; nine Israeli generals, whose
parents survived the Nazi holocaust, expressed their disgust at attempts by some
settlers to link the removal of settlements with that catastrophe.

The settlers are far from homogeneous. They include religious Zionists from
Hebron, growing in numbers in the southern part of the Gaza settlement blocs,
who believe that disengagement is a denial of the will of God; but there are
also social-welfare recipients with their bags packed, who are ready to go upon
payment of substantial compensation packages.

The scenes of settlers attacking Israeli soldiers and stoning Palestinian
civilians have shocked official Israel. Israeli commentators have been quick to
state that this uncovers the truth of settler behaviour inside the West Bank and
Gaza strip for years. Even hardcore settlers in the Gush Katif bloc of
settlements southern Gaza publicly question why the Israeli military allowed
these even more right-wing settlers into the strip.

Two polarised peoples

The Palestinian civilian population exist around, but subjugated to, these
settlers, in Gaza's dense and decayed refugee camps. Among them there also
exists a huge variety of opinions and attitudes to disengagement. Armed groups
such as Hamas are keen to prove that this is an Israeli withdrawal under fire;
when the moment comes they may be unable to resist the opportunity to fire their
crude home-made rockets into the settlements - perhaps when they are likely to
inflict maximum casualties for maximum publicity.

Alongside them are Palestinian NGOs who agree with Ephraim Sneh, member of the
Knesset (Israeli parliament) and chief Sharon adviser, that disengagement will
be "formaldehyde" for a Palestinian state - "liquid in which dead bodies are
preserved." Somewhere in the shadows is the shaken Palestinian National
Authority - a body with little political or institutional authority after the
years of destruction following the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000.

Amidst this diversity, there is a rare unity between groups like Hamas and the
Israeli settlement movement over the disengagement plan. Each side insists,
albeit in the terms of their own language, that Israel is retreating because of
military failure. Palestinian civil society's views coincide remarkably with
those of Dov Weisglass in believing that disengagement is a momentous setback
for Israel.

But such surface agreement belies the substantial divisions between Israelis and
Palestinians that are being cemented by physical separation (it is illegal for
Israeli citizens to enter the "occupied territories" and virtually impossible
for Palestinians to enter Israel). The polarisation between the two peoples is
being institutionalised, making communication with and understanding of the
"other" an even more remote prospect.

Palestine by the sea

One of the few certainties of the plan is that as a result of an agreement
brokered by the United States, the institutional fabric of the settlements will
be destroyed by the Israeli military. The fate of the settlements causes alarm
on both sides: the Israelis worry about a public-relations disaster if it
demolishes homes the Palestinians badly need, while the Palestinian National
Authority fear that the settlements' well-appointed homes would be seized by
unruly elements in a way that would tarnish its fading authority and do little
to alleviate Gaza's extraordinarily acute housing crisis.

But what will come next? A long-term suggestion floated in the international
community is to build a tourist-friendly "Costa-del-Gaza". The rumour that the
special envoy James Wolfensohn may secure a deal to build a port connecting Gaza
and Egypt, and even an underground trench linking Gaza to the West Bank, may
support this. But even if the reality that such construction is about
institutionalising war rather then constructing peace is ignored, it is not
clear that such plans will meet Gaza's essential needs: for economic investment,
work, and - more then anything - housing.

The sheer lack of horizontal space to build on, a growth rate that on current
trends will double Gaza's population every eighteen years, and an Israeli
military policy of house demolitions (1,200 homes in 2004 alone, according to
the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights) contribute to this severe crisis.

The value of land in Gaza, in financial and status terms, is colossal. Land is
the prize of the wealthy, the powerful and the connected. Most refugees in Gaza,
who are financially and socially excluded, feel a sense of dislocation from
land. Some are reluctant
to own land because of national sentiment; they believe they will one day return
to their family lands inside what became (after the 1948 nakba) the established
state of Israel. Most others are simply too poor to own land and will benefit
substantially if the land inside the former settlement blocs can be converted
into high-rise, low-cost housing.

The symbolic opportunity for thousands of Palestinians to reclaim land, parts of
which they have had no access to since 1967, and to live on this land, is highly
significant. The land where the settlements lie stretches along much of Gaza's
magnificent coastline; Israeli surfers have prized it for years for its
hospitable waves and sandy beaches.

But Palestinian civilians living in Gaza heard all this talk of "Costa-del-Gaza"
and newfound freedoms during the Oslo process. The European Union and other
donors poured money into the Gaza strip to the extent that it become the most
aid-funded place per capita in the world. Yet only a few years later the Oslo
process, now almost completely exhausted, erupted into the second, al-Aqsa
intifada. The clear failure to end the Israeli occupation and to include
essential and basic human rights into the peace process can be attributed to
Oslo's failure and the violence that ensued.

There may be a repeat of this pattern in the coming years. Gaza may well be
transformed into an area packed with concrete towers housing desperate
Palestinian families with some select beach hotels and surfing facilities. This
is a prospect that many Palestinian and international civil-society activists
view with trepidation. Some families will welcome the housing, the access to the
sea, possible associated income and living-space; but once the euphoria wears
off most Palestinians will realise that what Israeli human rights organisations
B'tselem and Hamoked call "one big prison" will have become an even bigger
prison than before. For the security of Palestinians and Israelis alike this
would sow not the seeds of peace but the seeds of further tragedy.

Eoin Murray is an Irish Human Rights worker, based in Gaza City. He is
researching on the position of Human Rights Defenders in the occupied
territories for Front Line, the International Foundation for the protection of
Human Rights Defenders. This article was first published on openDemocracy on
July 4, 2005 and reprinted on EI with permission.

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10. Help us stop Israel's wall peacefully by Mohammed Khatib

International Herald Tribune

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2005

BILIN, West Bank: While the international media has been focusing on Israel's
planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, in my village of Bilin, near the West
Bank city of Ramallah, we are living an equally important but overlooked story.
Though Israeli forces plan to withdraw from Gaza, they are simultaneously
expanding their West Bank settlements. On our village's land, Israel is building
one new settlement and expanding five others. These settlements will form a city
called Modiin Illit, with tens of thousands of settlers, many times the number
to be evacuated from Gaza. These settlements consume most of our area's water.
Throughout the West Bank, settlement and
wall construction, arrests, killing and occupation continue.

One year ago, the International Court of Justice handed down an advisory ruling
that Israel's construction of a wall on Palestinian land violated international
law. Today, Palestinians in villages like ours are struggling to implement the
court's decision and stop construction using nonviolence, but the world has done
little to support us.

Bilin is being strangled by Israel's wall. Though our village sits two and a
half miles east of the Green Line, Israel is taking roughly 60 percent of our
1,000 acres of land in order to annex the six settlements and build the wall
around them. This land is also money to us - we work it. Bilin's 1,600 residents
depend on farming and harvesting our olives for our livelihood. The wall will
turn Bilin into an open-air prison, like Gaza.

After Israeli courts refused our appeals to prevent wall construction, we, along
with Israelis and people from around the world, began peacefully protesting the
confiscation of our land. We chose to resist non-violently because we are
peace-loving people who are victims of occupation. We have opened our homes to
the Israelis who have joined us. They have become our partners in struggle.
Together we send a strong message - that we can coexist in peace and security.
We welcome anyone who comes to us as a guest and who works for peace and justice
for both peoples, but we will resist anyone who comes as an occupier.

We have held more than 50 peaceful demonstrations since February. We learned
from the experience and advice of villages like Budrus and Biddu, which resisted
the wall nonviolently. Palestinians from other areas now call people from Bilin
"Palestinian Gandhis."

Our demonstrations aim to stop the bulldozers destroying our land, and to send a
message about the wall's impact. We've chained ourselves to olive trees that
were being bulldozed for the wall to show that taking trees' lives takes the
village's life. We've distributed letters asking the soldiers to think before
they shoot at us, explaining that we are not against the Israeli people, but
against the building of the wall on our land. We refuse to be strangled by the
wall in silence. In a famous Palestinian short story, "Men in the Sun,"
Palestinian workers suffocate inside a tanker truck. Upon discovering them, the
driver screams, "Why didn't you bang on the sides of the tank?" We are banging -
we are screaming.


In the face of our peaceful resistance, Israeli soldiers attack our peaceful
protests with teargas, clubs, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition,
and have injured over 100 villagers. They invade the village at night, entering
homes, pulling families out and arresting people. At a peaceful protest on June
17, soldiers arrested the brothers Abdullah and Rateb Abu Rahme, two village
leaders. Soldiers testified that Rateb was throwing stones. An Israeli military
judge recently ordered Rateb's release because videotapes
showed the soldiers' claims were false.

The Palestinian people have implemented a cease-fire and have sent a message of
peace through our newly elected leadership. But a year after the international
court's decision, wall building on Palestinian land continues. Behind the smoke
screen of the Gaza wwithdrawal, the real story is Israel's attempt to take
control of the West Bank by building the illegal wall and settlements that
threaten to destroy dozens of villages like Bilin and any hope for peace.

Bilin is banging, Bilin is screaming. Please stand with us so that we can
achieve our freedom by peaceful means.

(Mohammed Khatib is a leading member of Bilin's Popular Committee Against the
Wall and the secretary of its village council.)

******************************************************************************

11. Village Demolished (ISM)

Tuesday July 12

Khirbet Tana, near Beit Furik, Nablus

On July 5th, Israeli forces demolished the entire village of Tana, near Beit
Furik, Nablus. The residents had received one day's notice (via a piece of paper
left outside one of their dwellings) that their homes were to be demolished. The
villagers knew no-one to call; thus, the razing of their homes went ahead
unhindered. The UN estimates 170 persons have been "displaced", the villagers
say Tana was home to about 100 families. The villagers intend to protest this
destruction and reclaim their land this Thursday 14th July.

Tana is a small farming village in the Jordan valley in one of the longest
continually inhabited areas of the world. Residents say the area is mentioned in
the holy books and was known 3500 years ago. The village mosque, the only
structure not to be demolished, has stood for several hundred years.

The paper announcing the demolition says that the villagers had built their
homes without Israeli permission. Their caves and stone constructions are
hundreds of years old. In recent years they have added steel and concrete
structures to the front of their caves. A school house was built six years ago
and, contrary to the UN report, this too was destroyed last week. When the army
destroyed the village they demolished not only the steel structures but the
caves themselves and even the villagers' cars.

In 1989 the villagers had a court case in Israel, after which they were told
they would be allowed to farm the western portion of their land. In recent years
the villagers have also been threatened by settlers from Itamar, who came and
swam in their water supply.

The villagers are not defeated and refuse to be intimidated. They intend to go
back to their land, rebuild their homes and continue farming. International and
Israeli activists supporting this action will assemble in Beit Furik at Beit
Furik Municpality at 10am, Thursday 14th July

For more information on Tana see Beit Furik Village's website
at:http://www.beitfurik.levillage.org/journal

*****************************************************************************

12. Life under constant harassment

By Eve Sabbagh

Palestine Report
6 July 2005

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3971.shtml

Perched on a south Hebron hill, at first glance Mufaqara seems like a small
quiet village sheltered from the troubles of its more famous neighboring city.
But the settlers in the region have transformed the shepherds' tranquil
agricultural life into a hellish struggle
against politics.

Woken up by the rooster's song long before the sun rises, Mahmood Hamandi
swallows a modest breakfast, home-made thick bread and olive oil, and gathers
his 120-sheep flock. Today seems like a normal day in the small village of
Mufaqara, south of Hebron. Women are already rushing around, shaking the milk
collected the night before to prepare the local cheese. And the Israeli army has
already sent a bulldozer to lay a mound of gravel on the main road connecting
the Palestinian villages of the area. Later on, Palestinians will come with
spades to clear out the area before the Israeli army blocks it
again in this cat-and-mouse game.

Hamandi speedily herds his livestock over the next two hills, in a zone close to
the illegal settlers' outpost of Havat Ma'on, a cluster of trailers hidden in a
wooded area. The land adjacent to the outpost has the greenest grass in the
whole dried-out region. The terrain belongs to Hamandi and he even possesses the
legal deed for it, but he barely walks over there with his herd as it has become
very dangerous over the past few years. Today, taking advantage of the very
early hour, he is hoping to finish grazing his flock before the settlers wake
up.

Moving borders

Since the Havat Ma'on outpost was erected in 1998, daily life in what used to be
an unknown and quiet fellahin village of the West Bank has become increasingly
nightmarish. Villagers have the feeling that the settlers' security forces, as
well as the Israeli army, are trying to "clear out" the area of Palestinian
villages. Settler and army jeeps regularly drive back and forth in the area to
intimidate the shepherds and make them move further from the settlement's
limits.

These limits have been constantly changing as is emphasized by Mary Yoder from
the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), an American organisation that defends
villagers' rights. "Settlers come at night to plant trees and move the barriers
a few meters down to expand their land. The settlements in the area are assumed
to have thus recorded a growth of land of 25 acres each year."

With a sense of irony, Yoder remarks that it is actually lucky when the
settlers' security forces arrive because when settlers come on their own they
are usually more violent. Hafez Hreini, who lives in Al Twani, the biggest
village in the area, recalls what has today become a normal scene in the life of
the villagers. "My old mother left one morning to graze the flock on one of our
pieces of land. The land is two hills further from here and we cannot see it
from the village."

He added, "Suddenly people ran to me and said my mother was in danger. I rushed
to the area and saw five young settlers beating up my mother and stealing the
sheep. When they saw me they started shooting in my direction, but my blood was
boiling and I didn't realize the danger. I kept running towards them and my
determination scared them away. When I reached my mother she was lying on the
ground, holding her stomach where they had thrashed her, and she was bleeding
[in the back of] the head."

Settlers resort to poison

Mahmood Hamandi thanks God that nobody in his family has been victim of the
settlers' violence. However, his family, as well as the whole village -- of
which Mahmood is the Mukhtar -- have been greatly affected by the settlers'
activities. In late March, goats and sheep began to mysteriously die. The
shepherds found out that blue seeds had been spread out in the fields where they
usually walk their herd. The seeds were sent to Birzeit University to be
analysed, where they were revealed to be fluoroacetamide-poisoned cereals.

This incident was the subject of a joint Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations/United Nations Environment Programme report that stated that
this poison is only produced in Israel and is illegal in many other countries
because of its acute toxicity to both man and animals. In Israel it can only be
obtained with a special permit and for specific uses. However, according to both
villagers and organizations based in the area, the shepherds' complaints have
not yet been followed up by the police.

Half of Mahmood's flock died the next month in another incidence of poisoning, a
loss that is estimated at NIS120,000, a devastating cost in this impoverished
community. In the village, most residents inhabit old caves or unsanitary tents
as all cement houses in the area have been subjected to demolition orders. The
villagers' livelihood comes from the harvesting of cereals and the raising of
their sheep. They have been recognised by the World Bank as being among the
poorest people in the West Bank.

Despite the scientists' warning to the contrary, villagers cannot afford to stop
eating the cheese produced from their flock's milk. Similarly, they have no
choice but to drink the contaminated well water as the village is not connected
to running water and electricity. Nor can they stop sending their children to
school, though this too has become a dangerous task.

Foreign volunteers as a target

The area only has one school, to which all the students must walk. Most of the
routes connecting the Palestinian villages border the recent illegal settlement
outposts. The Israeli army advised that the children follow another itinerary
that goes around the settlements. However, this alternative route is about 10
kilometers long each way, forcing the children to get up very early and return
home at night.

The CPT and the Italian organization Operation Dove offered to accompany the
children to school following the straight path linking the Palestinian villages,
which is only one-kilometer long. However, three attacks have launched against
CPT and Operation Dove members. Young masked settlers, armed with chains and
baseball bats, have assaulted the foreign volunteers, stolen their cameras, and
severely beaten them. All three times, volunteers were severely injured and had
to be transferred to hospital.

"Half-an-hour before we got beaten up we had called the Israeli police to let
them know that settlers were causing problems and shooting at us. The police
came only long after we called them. So did the ambulance to evacuate the
volunteers that had been injured. Actually it is not really surprising that they
came late as the ambulance [belongs to] the near-by settlement Karmel, and the
driver is also a member of the settlers' security [forces],which comes regularly
to cause problems for the shepherds," says a member of
Operation Dove who prefers to stay anonymous.

However, despite these three serious incidents, CPT and Operation Dove actions
have brought real changes to the villagers' daily life. Naim Saalem Al Aadra
gratefully explains that since the foreign volunteers have been staying day and
night in the village for more than a year, their situation has improved. Because
the foreign volunteers are filming every single action directed against the
villagers by the army and the settlers, the latter are a little more restrained.

"Moreover, when our flocks were poisoned, we didn't receive the compensations
promised by the Palestinian Authority and we were only able to survive thanks to
foreign money that CPT and Operation Dove collected. They also carried our
voices to the Mqata'a and to the Knesset." Al Aadra, like the other villagers,
now hopes that actions will be taken by the authorities to recognize their
rights and condemn the offenses committed by the settlers and the army.

"We can't count on politicians' help"

These hopes seemed to solidify with the announcement of a visit by Ahmad
Majdalani, Minister of Settlements and Wall Affairs later in the day. People of
all ages from the surrounding villages gathered in the newly built clinic of Al
Twani to get a chance to talk to the minister. When he arrived to the clinic,
people overwhelmingly surrounded him and emphatically expressed the severity of
their situation.

Majdalani patiently listened, not showing any expression as villagers spilled
out their anger and sorrow. He concluded the meeting with a very short speech
stating that he would try to do as much as he can to help them. His small
official delegation jumped back in their cars and drove off to the village of
Susiya where a new section of the wall is being built. Or at least, they tried
to reach the village but were blocked by a flying Israeli checkpoint. The young
Israeli soldiers did not allow the minister to cross despite his claim that it
was only a half-an-hour visit to the village.

Mahmood Hamandi vented the villagers' general frustration: "The Palestinian
Authority cannot do anything against the settlers and the Israeli army. ... We
know that nothing will be done. A few months ago the health minister came to
visit the new clinic that we built with our own hands. He promised that he would
send doctors to help the population here, but we are still waiting. Here in the
village, most of us don't belong to any political party because we have been
deceived by all of them and we know that we shouldn't count on their help."

This article was first published on 15 June 2005 in Palestine Report Online, a
project of the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center in Jerusalem, and is
reprinted with permission. Palestine Report Online is a continuation of the
print Palestine Report, which was established over twelve years ago as a means
of informing English-speakers about Palestinians and their daily lives in the
context of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Also in this week's
edition: Also in this week's edition: PR reports on the plight of Al Muwasi and
the gains from non-violent protest against the wall in Budrus and Bil'in.

*******************************************************************************

13. There's a settler in every Israeli

By Amira Hass

Haaretz
6 July 2005

The hunting season is at its height, and the settlers are the prey. They have
become a target for criticism in the media to an extent whose like is hard to
remember. They are criticized for sending their children to block roads, for
hitting and cursing soldiers, for the disappearance of blue-and-white ribbons on
cars (and sometimes the antennas, as well), for occupying a Palestinian house in
Muasi and for throwing stones at a Palestinian youth.

The neighborhood's spoiled brat, who feels he should get it all, has suddenly
lost his temper, and the neighbors are losing patience. But the child is spoiled
because the entire neighborhood has spoiled him, and he is convinced he should
get it all because for years all the neighbors have proved through their actions
that this is so.

It began with the tolerance displayed by all Israeli governments, as well as the
legal establishment, for the settlers' behavior toward the Palestinians. It
reached a peak with Yitzhak Rabin's leniency in 1994, when instead of evacuating
the fundamentalist Hebron settlers in light of the general disgust for the
massacre perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein, he imposed a lengthy curfew on
Palestinian Hebron. He thereby gave a green light to incessant criminal acts of
persecution and expulsion, long before the lynching in Muasi.

It was Israel's governments, ever since 1967, that charted the policy of
colonizing the newly conquered territories, from the annexation of some 70
square kilometers of the West Bank to Jerusalem through the Nahal outposts that
eventually became cities. Messianic settlers forced the Mapai and Labor
governments to agree to the place they had chosen for their colony, and the
governments were happy to be forced. The difference is that the messianic
settlers also claimed divine authority for the collective Israeli appetite for
real estate, rather than relying solely on security doctrines. The settlers are
the product of an Israeli policy that enjoyed ever-increasing support from the
Jewish-Israeli public, especially after Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon turned
the settlements into a mass enterprise from 1977 onward. And throughout the
entire Oslo period, even under Rabin and Ehud Barak, it continued to be a mass
enterprise.

The generous compensation being paid the 8,000 settlers of the Gaza Strip has
not sparked mass social protests in Israel. After all, thousands of Israelis
know that Jews have been expelling Jews (and not just Palestinians) for a long
time: Families that do not meet their mortgage payments are removed from their
houses by good Jews, government officials. Tens of thousands of Israelis know
that successive Israeli governments also sent their parents on the national
mission of pioneering settlement in outlying areas, and they suffer from
discrimination, neglect and chronic unemployment to this day. Yet, this
knowledge has not sufficed to cause either the public discourse or government
action to deal with the explosive question of why settlers have more rights -
not only than Palestinians, but also than their fellow Jews who remained inside
the Green Line.

This question has been neutralized of its explosive power because the West Bank
settlement enterprise has become a means of socioeconomic advancement for many
Israelis. Some 400,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements. They have
hundreds of thousands of relatives and friends who visit them regularly, and for
whom the settlements are a natural and formative reality. They know that they,
too, can obtain houses in Gilo, Ma'aleh Adumim or Alon Shvut the likes of which
they could not obtain in Israel. For them, this is a way of dealing with the
gradual destruction of the welfare state.

Even those who do not intend to move to the settlements benefit from their
existence. The settlements ensure Israel's continued control over the West Bank
and its water sources, thereby ensuring the continued unfair distribution of the
land's water in a 7:1 ratio, to the Palestinians' detriment. Therefore we, the
Jews, can be wasteful, as if we lived in a land with abundant water. Major
highways are also built on lands stolen from the Palestinians – like the modern
ring road around Jerusalem, or Route 443, which provides an additional entrance
to Jerusalem, for Israelis only. These roads serve not only the settlers, but
also many others, whose developing middle-class consciousness requires
convenience, efficiency and time-saving. Contractors, construction companies and
architects; employees of the Israel Electric Corporation, the Public Works
Department and the Education Ministry; newspaper owners, who publish huge
advertisements about new neighborhoods five minutes from Jerusalem - all benefit
from the building boom. And that is without even mentioning the fact that the
settlements guarantee a continued security threat to their residents and
builders, and therefore necessitate the growth of the security industry.

In the heart of every Israeli lives a little settler. Therefore, today's
criticism is narrowly focused and completely misses the real point, which is the
illegal and immoral colonization policy. This policy ultimately benefits an
ever-growing portion of the Israeli public - which is therefore not troubled by
the question of what it is doing to the region's future.

******************************************************************************

14. Barrier Meant to Ensure Jewish Majority

By Mark Lavie

11 July 2005

JERUSALEM -- Israel's separation barrier in Jerusalem is meant to ensure a
Jewish majority in the city and not just serve as a buffer against bombers, an
Israeli Cabinet minister acknowledged Monday.

The statement by Haim Ramon, the minister in charge of Jerusalem, confirmed
Palestinian claims that demographics - and not only security - determined the
barrier route.

The plan would separate 55,000 Palestinians from the city both sides want as a
capital - bringing to the fore an explosive disagreement over who controls the
holy city and where its boundaries should be. The government approved its final
details Sunday.

The 40-mile Jerusalem segment is part of a complex of walls, trenches, fences
and electronic devices Israel is building along the entire West Bank, dipping
into the territory in some places to enclose main settlement blocs. Palestinians
see the project as a
land grab, not a security measure.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al Kidwa called Monday for stepped-up street
protests against the barrier. Marking a year since the world court in the Hague
handed down a nonbinding decision that deemed the barrier illegal and ordered it
torn down, he said Palestinians should organize for a "higher level of daily
confrontations against the wall."

Opponents and supporters demonstrate almost daily at West Bank sites where its
construction uproots orchards or cuts Palestinians off from their farmland or
services.

Israel began building the barrier more than two years ago at the height of a
wave of Palestinian suicide bombings. More than 100 bombing attacks took the
lives of nearly 500 Israelis during four years of conflict.

In Jerusalem, 170 people have been killed in 22 suicide bombings since 2000.

But Ramon said demography was also a main factor for the barrier route in
Jerusalem. It encloses Maaleh Adumim, a settlement with nearly 30,000 Jews,
while excluding four Arab sections, including a refugee camp, with 55,000
Palestinians altogether. Of Jerusalem's 700,000 residents, about a third are
Palestinian.

Besides keeping suicide bombers out, the route of the barrier "also makes
Jerusalem more Jewish," Ramon said. "The safer and more Jewish Jerusalem will
be, it can serve as a true capital of the state of Israel."

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat objected.

"The whole idea is to get as many Palestinians outside Jerusalem, and get as
many Israelis (as possible) inside," he said. "This is determining the fate of
Jerusalem before we begin negotiations."

Erekat said he would raise the issue with international envoys visiting the
region this week, including senior State Department official David Welch.

Zeev Boim, Israel's deputy defense minister, denied the barrier route was
dictated by demographic considerations.

"The fence was put up because of security needs, to stop terrorism," he told
Israel Army Radio.

Ramon said it was a "mistake" to enclose more than a dozen Arab villages in the
city limits drawn after the 1967 war, when Israel captured the Arab section of
Jerusalem along with the West Bank and Gaza.

No other nation recognized Israel's annexation, including the Old City, with key
sites holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews.

In peace talks in 2000, Israel offered to hand the Arab neighborhoods over to
Palestinian control while keeping the Jewish neighborhoods, but no agreement was
reached. After violence erupted in September 2000, Israel took the offer off the
table.

Visiting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana criticized the
Jerusalem barrier.

"We think that Israel has a right to defend itself, but we think that the fence,
when it is done outside the territory of Israel, is not legally proper and it
creates also humanitarian problems," he said after meeting with Israeli Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom.

In another development, Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Mond