ISM digest 30th of November: Gate forced open in Ni'lin's separation barrier-eight demonstrators wounded and one arrested

[ISM Media Group]

1. Gate forced open in Ni’lin’s separation barrier – eight
demonstrators wounded and one arrested
2. Palestinian woman suffers a stroke after settlers invade her
family’s house in Sheikh Jarrah
3. Military violence increases in Jayyous: elderly man arrested during
a night invasion
4. Palestinians from Bir Idd continue reclaiming their land in spite
of army harassment
5. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Plight
6. Settler harassment and land theft continues in Yanoun
7. Let’s Talk About Resistance
8. Eid al-Adha highlights a Gaza family’s struggle to survive
9. Residents of Sheikh Jarrah hold Eid al-Adha prayers and
demonstrations against ethnic cleansing and house evictions
10. South Africa: Israeli policy reminiscent of apartheid
____________________

1. Gate forced open in Ni’lin’s separation barrier – eight
demonstrators wounded and one arrested

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

28 November 2009

For immediate release:

This morning, a group of demonstrators in the West Bank village of
Ni’lin managed to surprise the Israeli army and, using bolt cutters,
cut open one of the gates in the fence built on the village’s lands.
Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene and fired rubber-coated steel
bullets as well as tear gas canisters at the demonstrators, followed
by the use of live ammunition.

Eight people were wounded during the action. Seven demonstrators were
injured by rubber-coated steel bullets, and a one and a half year-old
baby was evacuated to a Ramallah hospital suffering from tear gas
inhalation, caused by soldiers firing a tear gas canister into her
house.

Today marks the first time Israeli soldiers invade the residential
parts of Ni’lin in an attempt to suppress a demonstration, since
Palestinian demonstrator Aqel Sadeq Srour was shot dead by sniper fire
approximately six months ago (5 June 2009), during a protest at the
village. Srour’s brother was arrested today in the village center.

Today’s response by the Israeli army illustrates the ongoing policy of
escalation which the army has been implementing in Ni’ilin for the
past three weeks. This policy includes reintroducing the use of 0.22
caliber live ammunition as a means of crowd dispersal – in direct
contradiction to the Chief Military Attorney’s orders.

Since June 2008, five Palestinian demonstrators have been killed by
soldiers’ fire during protests in Ni’ilin, including two minors – 10
year-old Ahmed Mousa and 17 year-old Yussef Amirah. A further 34
demonstrators have been injured by live ammunition, and 87 have been
arrested.

As a result of the separation barrier’s construction, 3,920 dunams of
Ni’lin’s lands (30% of all accessible lands) have been de-facto
confiscated; this is in addition to the 1,973 dunams on which Israeli
settlements have been built since 1967.
____________________

2. Palestinian woman suffers a stroke after settlers invade her
family’s house in Sheikh Jarrah

26 November 2009

On Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:00am, five settlers and settler
security, who are currently occupying the Gawi family house in Sheikh
Jarrah, attempted to take over a section of a house belonging to the
Palestinian al-Kurd family.

The Israeli police were alerted immediately, however, before they
managed to arrive, the settlers started attacking the Palestinians
living in the house. One settler violently pushed a member of the al-
Kurd family, Maysa, against a wall and thereafter grabbed her son,
Munjad, by the lapel. After their arrival and a long discussion with
the al-Kurd family concerning the legal status of the house, the
Israeli police reluctantly escorted the settlers out.

This is the third settler incursion into the al-Kurd family house in
the last three weeks. Both the border police, equipped with automatic
weapons, and the Israeli police who arrived at the scene, seemed to
have been convinced about the settlers’ right to enter the house and
determined to allow them to remain on the premises. After a long
discussion with the family and the settlers, who claimed to have legal
documents giving them the right to enter the house, the Israeli forces
ordered the settlers to leave. These documents do not grant any
explicit right to the settlers to enter and remain in the al-Kurd
property.

As the Israeli police escorted the intruders back to the house of the
Palestinian Gawi family, occupied by the settlers since the forceful
take-over in August, the heated exchange that ensued agitated Refka
Kurd who then suffered a stroke confirmed by a CT scan.

The recent escalation of violent settler incursions has created an
unbearable and dangerous situation for the Palestinian family and, as
result, forced the al-Kurd children to sleep at their grandmother’s
house, outside of Sheikh Jarrah.

Following the incursion, the settler who assaulted the two family
members filed a complaint at a local police station, claiming that it
was the al-Kurds, who attacked him. In contrast, Maysa and Munjad were
not allowed to file a complaint concerning the violence inflicted upon
them. “The settler filed a complaint claiming that I attacked him. I
went to the police station to file a complaint, but was unable to,
because they would not allow my lawyer to accompany me,” said Munjad.

The al-Kurds have become the fourth Sheikh Jarrah family whose house
(or part of it) has been occupied by settlers in the last year. So
far, 60 people have been left homeless. In total, 28 families living
in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located
directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their
homes.

In a strategic plan, settlers have been utilizing discriminatory laws
to expand their presence in Occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinians, who
face difficulties in acquiring building permits from the municipality,
are often left with no legal recourse for extending their homes to
accompany their growing families. The Israeli authorities exercise
their abilities to demolish and evict Palestinian residents, while
ignoring building violations from the Israeli population in East
Jerusalem.

For photos, see: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/11/9481
____________________

3. Military violence increases in Jayyous: elderly man arrested during
a night invasion

27 November 2009

Israeli Occupation Forces arrested an elderly resident of Jayyous this
week, a Palestinian village located in the Qalqilya region, that has
maintained an active campaign against the terrorisation of its people
and the annexation of its land by the illegal Apartheid Wall.

Mohammad Salim, a 63 year old resident of Jayyous was taken from his
home in the middle of the night by Israeli Occupation Forces this
week. Salim, an elderly man, was just a few short hours away from
leaving for Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to make the holy pilgrimage of the
Hajj when he was taken by the military. Residents – even his own
family – are dumbfounded as to why he would be targeted.

This is not atypical of the military’s strategy in Jayyous – what
appears a haphazard campaign of unpredictable – seemingly random –
arrests and violent invasions is a methodical attempt of the army to
sow the seeds of internal discontent and provocation within the
village.

“They want to create problems inside the community,” says Jayyous
activist Abu Azam. “They always give the excuse that people are
throwing stones at the Wall, but really they just want to make us
fight with each other.”

And the sheer brute force exhibited by the army must surely take its
toll. Invasions occur any time during the day or night, accompanied by
the sound of sirens, tear gas grenades, sound bombs and bullets –
plastic, rubber-coated steel or live ammunition – announcing the
arrival of Israeli jeeps inside the village. Curfew was imposed three
days consecutively during the last month. Parts of the village now
have only 2 days of running water a week after dozens of water tanks
were damaged by bullets, while farmers have reported the death of 8
lambs and over 600 chickens from tear gas suffocation.

The danger of military violence is only one of Jayyous’ many problems.
Construction of the Apartheid Wall began in Jayyous in 2002,
prohibiting access of farmers to 8,600 dunums of their land.
Demonstrations began almost immediately, and the Palestinian Land
Defense Committee launched a case in the Israeli Supreme Court against
the government. They succeeded in a 2006 ruling to re-route the Wall,
returning a meager 750 dunums to the village. Almost 8,000 dunums
stand on the other side, including 3 water wells. The Israeli
government has refused requests for permission of residents of Jayyous
to pump the water from these wells to their side of the wall. This
affects not only the village itself but the surrounding region, such
as the larger town of Azzoun that relies on Jayyous’ small supply of
water as well, after the nearby settlement of Qarne Shomron annexed
all but two of the towns’ supplying wells.

When it comes to accessing the land, the Israeli government employs
bureaucracy itself as a weapon, in the form of a labyrinthine system
of permit applications for farmers hoping to reach their fields.
Although well over 600 families from Jayyous own farmland on the other
side of the wall, only 300 permits farming permits were issued in
October for farmers hoping to gain access to their crops for the
yearly olive harvest. The permits issued rarely meet the needs of the
farmers – such as only one or two family members being permitted
access to the land, or access restricted to a few short days, entirely
disproportionate to the necessary amount of time to collect crops. The
situation is even worse during the rest of the year, as the number of
permits issued shrinks to 120, for farmers hoping to plough, prune and
work their land. Due to this, thousands of dunums of crops become
unharvestable, and agriculture becomes an impossibility for many
families.

Jayyous has been a prominent village in Palestinian resistance, as one
of the first villages to begin demonstrating against the wall and the
continued legal campaign for its removal. The recent imprisonment of
Jayyous activist Mohammad Othman has brought the village’s struggle
into focus. Othman was arrested at the Jordanian border to the West
Bank by Israeli military as he returned from a trip to Norway to
promote the BDS campaign. He has now been placed under administrative
detention, the detention of an individual by the state without trial –
in Othman’s case, for a minimum of three months with the possibility
for a renewed term. This clear violation of human rights works in
conjunction with Israel’s continued repression of popular resistance
such as Jayyous’ fight against the illegal Apartheid Wall and the
Israeli occupation.
____________________

4. Palestinians from Bir Idd continue reclaiming their land in spite
of army harassment

27 November 2009

For the last 3 weeks, ISM activists have stayed with a community of
cave-dwellers in Bir Idd, south east of Hebron, on the very border to
the Negev desert. The villagers, who live off raising sheep and goats
as well as seasonal farming, moved in recently, after a court order
gave them permission to do so following 10 years in exile. In 1999,
the Israeli army forcibly evicted 700 people living in the area,
destroying stone houses and blowing up caves. Until now, attempts by
the villagers to reclaim their land have been quashed by violence
perpetrated by settlers from the three nearby settlements of Mezadot
Yehuda, Susiya and Mitzpe Yair, all of which are illegal under
international law.

The response from human rights groups has been tremendous. Tayush
makes frequent expeditions to the village, the International Red Cross
has supplied the villagers with tents, mattresses and cookware, among
other things, and Breaking the Silence brought 30 people on a tour of
the area to raise awareness of the plight of the people living there.
Already, several tents have been raised and sheep pens restored, and 3
families are now living in Bir Idd, hopefully only the first of many.

The success so far, however, has been met by harassment from the army.
They continue to intimidate the Palestinians when they use the road
that they themselves had built at great expense, instead directing
them to use a dirt track that has barely been prepared at all. On
Wednesday, 25 November, the village ran out of drinking water due to a
miscommunication, and when Tayush attempted to bring water the next
day, soldiers delayed the transport for several hours. The local DCO
(District Coordinating Office) chief visited the village on the that
day, reprimanding the Palestinians for using the road, saying that it
bothered the local settlers. When the Palestinians referred to the
court order saying that they had the right to use the road, the DCO
officer said simply “I don’t care about the courts, I’m military”.

It is this blatant arrogance toward not only International, but even
Israeli, law, that composes one of the main problem for Palestinians
trying to live their lives in the occupied West Bank. The army takes
its orders from fanatical settlers living on stolen land, not from the
courts. But the villagers of Bir Idd are ready to face this injustice
and repression, insisting to live their lives on the land that is
legally theirs.

For photos, see: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/11/9522
____________________

5. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Plight

Bianca Zammit and Fadi Skaik

29 November 2009

There are currently approximately 11,000 Palestinian prisoners being
held captive in Israeli jails across Israel. Whilst their imprisonment
is of itself in direct contravention of international law, the whole
arrest, judiciary and imprisonment process compromises their basic
human rights. In Gaza, the families of prisoners in Israeli jails meet
every Monday at the premises of the International Committee of the Red
Cross to hold a weekly vigil asking for the release of Palestinian
prisoners. The demonstration also takes place at the ICRC building in
order to send out a message to the international community, asking it
to uphold international law and put pressure on Israel for the release
of all prisoners.

Palestinians taken captive are held in one of the 24 prisons across
Israel. The Fourth Geneva Convention through Article 76 prohibits an
occupying power, in this case Israel, from imprisoning prisoners
outside the territory it occupies and Article 47 of the same
Convention clearly outlines that convicted prisoners should serve
their sentence within the occupied territory.

Since September 2000 Palestinian citizens living in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip require special permits to travel within the 1967 borders
of Israel, yet these permits are very hard to come by. For these last
three years all permits have stopped being issued and Palestinians
from West Bank and Gaza are prohibited from entering 1948 land1.

The use of telephone is controlled and only in rare exceptions are
Palestinian prisoners allowed to call their families. Without family
visits and telephone calls the only ways of communicating is through
letters and greetings families send through radio stations. Letters
are received sparingly by both sides, months after they were written
and sent2.

Hazem Shubair was imprisoned in an Israeli jail in 1993. His brother
Tayseer has been denied the permit to visit his brother for the past
15 years. Hazem’ parents were allowed to visit him until 2002 and for
the last 7 years they were forbidden access. All forms of
communication between Hazem and his family have been severed. Hazem
was sentenced to life imprisonment and the prospects of him being
released in the near future are bleak. “I just want to see him, to
have the opportunity of talking with him once more and to know how he
is doing. These 17 years have been horrible” Tayseer states. Hazem has
another 6 siblings anxiously awaiting his news and to be able of
seeing him.

In terms of the judiciary system, Palestinians are tried within
Israeli military courts located within Israeli military centers. These
military tribunals are conducted by a panel of three judges appointed
by the military, two of whom often do not have any legal training or
background. This juxtaposes the impartiality and reliability of the
legal apparatus since the judges are also soldiers who work on orders
they receive from their supervisors and are dependent on the latter
for promotion.3 These tribunals rarely fall within the required
international standards of a fair trial.

Many Palestinian prisoners are either wounded or ill. Many prisoners
were taken captive after having been shot at with live ammunition.
According to Addameer Centre for Human Rights based in Gaza, “prison
clinics tend to offer aspirin as a remedy for all health treatments
and physicians within the clinics are all soldiers. Health
examinations are conducted through a fence, and any necessary surgery
or transfer to hospital for additional medical treatment is usually
postponed for long periods of time”.

In 1999 the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that it does not
forbid the use of torture but rather allows interrogation methods
deemed as torture to be used in situations of national defense. The
victim of torture can only submit a complaint in that case that
torture can be clearly proven. Israel interrogators are able to use
methods of torture without impunity. Legalized torture includes sleep
deprivation, denial of food and water, denial of access to toilets and
shackling4. A Palestinian detainee can be interrogated for up to 180
days, during which access to a lawyer may be denied for 60 days.

Many prisoners receive administrative detention where charges are
based on secret evidence. In this case both the lawyer and the
detainee are not aware of the reason for arrest and cannot practice
their right of defense. The detainee and lawyer are also not informed
about the date of release. In administrative detention the army hands
over the detainee to the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) who
interrogates the prisoner. After interrogation, ISA can either file
for indictment or release detainee. If none of these two paths are
chosen the military commander can choose administrative detention.
Administrative detention can be extended indefinitely. This usage of
administrative detention as a tool to imprison civilians violates
International Law and Human Rights Charters but is legal according to
Israeli legislation5.

Nayef Abu Azra, a 23 year old from Beit Hannoun, was arrested in 2007.
Since then he has never been brought before a court. To Nayef’ mother
there is no consolation. Asia Abu Azra stated “A group of Israeli
infantry soldiers invaded our home and took Nayef. We do not know why
he was arrested or when he shall be released. Nobody is giving us any
information. Nayef was hard working and well respected in the
community. My only hope is to see him again”.

Nowhere can the discriminatory laws within Israeli judiciary be
clearer than in terms of Palestinian imprisonment which is reminiscent
of apartheid South Africa. A Palestinian can be held in custody for 18
days before being brought before a judge. An Israeli citizen, however,
can be held in custody for only a maximum of 48 hours before being
brought before a judge. A Palestinian can be held without charge, by
order of a judge for a period from one to 6 months. An Israeli citizen
can be held without indictment for 15 days and can only be extended to
15 days. Lawyer visits can be prohibited for up to 3 months for a
Palestinian detainee. The meeting between an Israeli detainee and his
attorney can be delayed for 15 days6. In addition, when Palestinian
detainees are arrested, the army is not obliged to inform the
detainee’s family of their arrest or the location of their detention.

38 year old Ashraf Al-Balouji from Al-Sahaba area in Gaza was detained
in Ramallah on December 14, 1990. He was ordained in the Israel
military court and sentenced to 320 years imprisonment. His father
Hassan Al-Balouji states “there is a different policy for Palestinians
and Israelis in Israel. If my son were Israeli then his sentence would
be very different. We all know that. Three years ago my wife passed
away and Ashraf was not allowed to visit her or attend her funeral.
His 7 children are also prohibited from visiting him.”

These discriminatory laws also affect children. There are now 337
Palestinian children in Israeli jails.7 Like the majority of other
Palestinian prisoners, Palestinian child prisoners routinely face
violations of their human rights during arrest, interrogation and
imprisonment. They are exposed to physical and psychological abuse,
amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and sometimes
torture. They are denied prompt access to a lawyer and often denied
contact with their families and the outside world. This is a clear
breach of international law, which makes special provisions for the
prisoners, specifically forbidding the use of physical and
psychological torture8.

Nedal Mohammed Al-Soufi was just 17 years old when he was arrested. In
2007 during an army incursion, Israeli soldiers entered their home in
Rafah and took him. Jana Al-Soufi, Nedal’ mother does not know the
reason for his arrest. Nedal was sentenced to 9 years. The lack of
communication sources between Nedal and his family concerns his
mother. “I worry for his health and mental state. I have not received
his news for many months”.

The imprisonment of Palestinians has been used routinely by Israeli
authorities as one of the main tools to enforce the apartheid regime
and ensure the ongoing success of the occupation. Israel has violated
and is still violating a number of basic human rights in the way it
kidnaps Palestinians, holds them captive without access to a lawyer
and eventually tries them in a mock court which itself falls short of
internationally agreed upon minimum standards. The injustices being
perpetuated upon the 11,000 Palestinians prisoners must not be
overlooked.

Bianca Zammit is a human rights activist and a member of the
International Solidarity Movement “ISM” in Gaza.

Fadi N. Skaik is a BDS activist and an independent author based in
Gaza

[1] Amnesty International (2009) Israel and Occupied Palestinian
Territories

[2] Addameer – http://www.addameer.org/index_eng.html

[3] UN Human Rights Committee (2007) Article 14: Right to equality
before courts and tribunals and to a fair trial, UN Doc: CCPR/C/GC/32,
23 August 2007, page 6, paragraph 22.

[4] Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (2008) No Defense:
Soldier Violence against Palestinian Detainees, page 3 –
http://www.stoptorture.org.il/en/node/1136

[5] Hamoked and B’Tselem (2009) Without Trial -Administrative
detention of Palestinians by Israel and the Internment of Unlawful
Combatants Law, page 9.

[6] Addameer – http://www.addameer.org/index_eng.html

[7] Save the Children (2009) Fact Sheet – Palestinian Child Detainees
at http://mena.savethechildren.se/Documents/Resources/Fact%20Sheet_oPt_detainees.pdf

[8]Defense for Children International (2009) Palestinian Child
Prisoners- The systematic and institutionalized ill-treatment and
torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities, DCI Palestine:
Jerusalem.
____________________

6. Settler harassment and land theft continues in Yanoun

27 November 2009

Israeli settlers have annexed a further 40 dunums of what remains of
the endangered Palestinian village of Yanoun, east of Nablus. Settlers
from the illegal settlement Itamar were witnessed ploughing the land
in question yesterday, effectively laying claim to it and furthering
their annexation of Yanoun’s land, already entirely encircled by
outposts of Itamar.

Two settlers were sighted driving their plough on to land that had
previously remained accessible to Yanoun farmers yesterday morning.
Noticing the audience they had gained, one settler approached Rashid,
mayor of Yanoun, and villagers and the activists assembled to inform
them that he had legal claim to the land as it had not been worked by
farmers from the village in over five years (despite the 40 dunums in
question having been used by Yanoun farmers as recently as 2 years
ago). Land that stands unused for this time period becomes property of
the state by Israeli law, the means by which settlers have managed to
claim much of Yanoun’s land, under the continued campaign of
intimidation and harassment wrecked on farmers that stray too close to
the settlement and its outposts. An argument ensued between the
settler and villagers over who had rights to the land, which was
effectively ended as a second settler arrived on the scene brandishing
an M-16 rifle.

Activists were told of how just the day before, the same settler had
led a tour group of 60 Israeli settlers through the village itself,
frightening the villagers and forcing them to withdraw to a state of
effective curfew inside their houses, an all-too-common event in
Yanoun. Settlers proceeded to strip naked and bathe in two of Yanoun’s
wells (few of which have not been taken by the settlement),
contaminating their drinking water.

Residents of Yanoun have suffered many years of terrifying violence at
the hands of Itamar settlements – the murder of villagers, slaughter
of their livestock, desecration of crops, property destruction and
daily invasions and intimidation by armed settlers. The increasing
brutality climaxed in 2002, as settlers rampaged the village, cutting
down over 1000 olive trees, killing dozens of sheep, beating
Palestinians in their home with rifle butts and gouging out one man’s
eye. The settlers left promising to return the following Saturday,
with the threat to spare no witnesses next time. Unable to stand the
fear – and indeed reality – of terrorism any longer, the entire
village evacuated, most families fleeing to the nearby village of
Aqraba.

An international and Israeli activist campaign was launched
immediately to allow the residents of Yanoun to return to their lands.
A permanent international presence was established in the village by
EAPPI which has assisted in encouraging people of Yanoun to return
home, and has remained instrumental in what little peace of mind
Yanounis have salvaged since they were uprooted from their land and
one by one, have boldly returned to.

Over the 2002-06 period the entirety of the village’s families
eventually came back to their homes and attempted to start their life
over in the shadow of Itamar’s ever-increasing outposts, that dot the
hills surrounding the village. This number has once again begun to
dwindle however, as the younger generations of Yanounis mature and
seek a life of career, education, urbanisation – a life outside of
daily harassment and torment at the hands of those who have stolen
their land, and what, in a more peaceful Palestine, could be a means
of livelihood for them. Approximately 100 people remain in the village
– 40 in “lower Yanoun” in the valley, and 60 in “upper Yanoun”, whose
houses ascend the hill to where just a few hundred meters away lie
dozens of settlement houses and agricultural complexes.

Although the entire village is located in Area C – under full Israeli
civilian and military control – and stands at risk of being slated for
demolition, residents believe that the settlement’s – and Israeli
government’s – strategy is what may already be underway – a gradual
exodus of families and individuals as they are confined to an ever-
shrinking amount of land, engulfed by the expanding settlement and its
violent inhabitants.

There are some who remain though, who are determined to stay – many
families steadfastly refusing to relinquish the connection to the land
that is rightfully theirs. The very existence of Yanoun today bespeaks
its fighting spirit, one that will hopefully continue despite the
collective punishment waged on the village.
____________________

7. Let’s Talk About Resistance

Natalie abu Shakra

27 November 2009

The choice of civil resistance in challenging the Israeli occupation
is considered by some as a form of “surrender.” In an interview [in
Arabic] on Al Aqsa, Palestinian activists Mazen Qumsiyeh and comrade
Haidar Eid answer these questions.

Eid was asked about the meaning of civil resistance of which he spoke
about the numerous terms coined to non-violent resistance, civil
resistance, non-violent struggle and therefore multiple definitions to
each term. There is, he says, the Gandhian non-violent struggle,
Satyagraha, which is to depend totally on people power and the
strength of economic boycott of the occupier’s products. “What
happened in South Africa was that this concept was further developed
to include multiple and different forms of struggle, of which complete
one another. And there was an emphasis in the later part of Apartheid,
during the eighties, on Boycott [in all its forms].” Eid emphasized
that the four pillars of struggle in South Africa should be taken as a
model to learn from in the Palestinian struggle.

In the Palestinian context, the word “peace” has come to have a
negative connotation, and Eid explains that this is due to the
“industry of peace” processes that the Palestinians had to face
constantly, and particularly from 1993 till now, where peace as a
process was not linked to the attainment of justice for the
Palestinian people, and the right of return of the refugees with
reparation of the decades of suffering, estrangement, refugeehood and
exile. “When we speak of peace, we will speak only of peace that leads
to the implementation of Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.” What
the settler colonial policies and direct military occupation of the WB
and GS since 1967 require, says Eid, is an amalgam of the different
forms of struggle. And, as such, the Palestinian call for Boycott,
which brings together and is a common ground to all Palestinian
national and Islamic factions, was initiated and appeals to the
official and unofficial international community to boycott Israel. As
a result of this initiative, the BNC [BDS National Committee] was
formed in 2005 of which held the participation of all Palestinian
national and Islamic factions.

“I believe that we in Gaza, unlike the WB, have not invested much in
other forms of resistance. I don’t believe that armed struggle, of
which I do not oppose and believe to go hand-in-hand with other forms
of resistance, is enough taking into consideration the absurd
imbalance of power between the Israeli state and the Palestinian
national and Islamic resistance-there is a need to turn to people
power as well.” Eid mentioned that if a minority involve themselves in
armed resistance, then the majority of the people “from farmers,
academics and intellectuals” need engage more in civil resistance
against occupation.

“Can we imagine the Palesitnian people without Edward Said, Ghassan
Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish?” Eid asks. “What makes those Palestinians
stand-out is their emphasis on the fact that the struggle against the
Israeli occupation is an ideological struggle: we must defeat the
Zionist mentality that this land is for the Jews, and that, we as
Palestinians, should prove to the world that we posses the higher
moral ground, that the Palestinian people in their resistance, whether
armed or civil, will re-humanize the Israeli, unlike the latter whom
strips the Palestinian off her humanity.”

Qumsiyeh, answering to “what is civil resistance,” mentioned that the
Palestinian struggle has, since the British mandate till this date,
involved resistance in all its forms: from civil to armed.

“Sumuud [endurance] by itself is resistance,” says Qumsiyeh. Simple
acts as “getting married, going to school, reading a book” become acts
of resistance. “When a student comes to my class at eight in the
morning after passing numerous checkpoints- that is resistance,”
Qumsiyeh notes.

Civil resistance is inclusive[at a time when exclusivity seems
dominant]: from a woman, to a child to an elderly – all can resist.
And that was what both academics and activists implied.

“We all need to look at Bil’in, ” says Qumsiyeh, “the demonstrations
against the wall occurring all those years, unhesitatingly and
consistently.” Not only in Bil’in does this civil resistance emerge
but, more recently, in Gaza, says Eid, when the Palestinians in the
Strip attempted to break the wall separating them from Egypt, twice,
in forming a human chain from the beginning till the end of the Strip.
Beit Sahour, the town of which Qumsiyeh is from, was exemplary in its
civil resistance and civil disobedience, during the First Intifada,
according to Eid. “When the Palestinians from Beit Sahour gave up
their IDs to the military officer there,” this, Eid says was an
example of civil resistance.

What about the use of bodies and human shield? Eid says that this is
one of the most sublime forms of civil resistance, using the body in
fighting off the bullets the bombs, in protection and defense of home
and land.

A question arises of whether or not this kind of resistance creates a
battle within the psyche of the occupier. This, Eid says, was
something Mandela wrote about in his diaries and something which Said
questioned a while before his death: “who possesses the higher moral
ground: the colonized or the colonizer; the occupied or the occupier?”
According to Eid, that as a civilian struggling for your moral and
legal rights possesses the higher moral ground and, therefore,
psychologically attacks the occupier. “This was what happened with the
Nazi German, this was what happened with the White South African
colonizer,” Eid says.

Eid mentions that “Israel is one of the societies of which domestic
violence is most encountered” and “that there is a direct relation
between domestic violence and suicide cases in the Israeli society and
between the occupation in the WB, GS and 1948 lands.” He continues, “I
think this is very important. For instance, there are many US soldiers
who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan who commit suicide shortly
after their return.” Thus the occupied possesses a moral and
psychological power that should be invested against the occupation
itself.

Eid re-emphasises that the obvious, huge imbalance of power in the
Israeli-Palestinian case requires the moving away from negotiations
that are but a waste of time:

“Israel has more than 450 nuclear heads, it has Apaches, it has F16s-
it has the most strategic alliance with the USA. I mean, how can we as
10 millions Palestinian, more than half living in the Diaspora and in
refugee camps living under horrendous conditions, fight that? People
power.”

This inclusivity which brings together and encourages Israeli Jews
against Israeli Apartheid and policies of colonization, with 1948
Palestinians, along with the farmer, the student, the fisherman, and
all supporters of these universalistic rights share together this
moral grounding, and can channel their suppression through civil
resistance, through boycott – which is but the simplest of forms of
resistance, and one of the most powerful simultaneously.

According to Eid, “if you hit the occupation in the core of its
existence, through its strategic relations with the USA, through US
boycott of Israel in all its faces [...] if all the Islamic
Palestinian factions, for instance, from Islamic Jihad, to Hamas,
which all have a supportive stance from Islamic movements worldwide,
promote BDS in their discourse, when every leader of an Islamic
movement speaks and it was demanded to boycott US & Israeli products
till the implementation of every basic Palestinian right-” then we can
talk about the road to liberation.
____________________

8. Eid al-Adha highlights a Gaza family’s struggle to survive

Rami Almeghari | The Electronic Intifada

25 November 2009

Muslims around the world are about to celebrate Eid al-Adha (Feast of
the Sacrifice), one of the most important dates in the calendar,
marking the end of the annual pilgrimage season to Mecca.
Traditionally, Muslims slaughter a lamb (or offer money for one to be
slaughtered for a poorer family), as an act of faith, as the Prophet
Abraham did. In many Muslim countries, it is also a festive time of
year, marked by family visits, purchasing new clothing, presenting
gifts and offering sweets and candy to guests.

Daoud Suleiman Ahmad, 48, an unemployed construction worker, has been
unable to find work for almost three years due to the Israeli blockade
of the Gaza Strip. Life for Ahmad and his family in the al-Maghazi
refugee camp has been desperately difficult, something that is
particularly on his mind during the Eid.

“Over the past three years, I have felt a great deal of bitterness
inside me as I have been unable to follow the rituals of the Eid al-
Adha, as well as [meet] other daily basic expenses of my family,”
Ahmad said at his home, surrounded by two of his children, daughter
Rawan (11) and son Ahmad (9).

The house built by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, a few
years ago, consists of three rooms: one for Ahmad and his wife, and
the other two shared by all the children.

Before the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000, Ahmad
was among thousands of laborers who used to cross into Israel. But
Israel shut out workers from Gaza, and then imposed a siege that has
made it all but impossible for Ahmad to earn a living. Hours before
being interviewed, Ahmad said he had quarreled with one of his sons
who studies nursing. “I couldn’t afford to give him 10 shekels [three
dollars] for his transportation, can you imagine?”

These daily hardships make it difficult to fulfill the social
obligations of Eid. “I have two sisters who live 20 kilometers away in
southern Gaza,” Ahmad explained. “Even if I wanted to visit them for
Eid, I couldn’t because I cannot afford to bring with me some lamb
meat or other gifts.” Because he would not want to visit family
members empty-handed, Ahmad did not visit his sisters on Eid in recent
years and probably will not do so this year.

Ahmad’s small home has become a sort of a prison; he prefers to stay
inside rather than go outside and be confronted with the financial
obligations of Eid. “If I go outside,” he said, “I need to look for
things for my family and my children, things that I cannot afford for
the time being.” Ahmad says his family depends mainly on food
assistance provided by UNRWA.

In a corner of the home, Nadia al-Ustaz, Ahmad’s wife, prepared rice
for the family’s lunch using a small kerosene stove due to the lack of
cooking gas in Gaza over the past three weeks due to Israeli closure.

“What shall we do, as you can see, we can only afford food for the
children,” al-Ustaz said, “and I thank God that we can provide them
with it.” Reflecting on the Eid, she said, “It is a special time of
the year for us. I wish my husband could give me a gift, like many
other women, but I would never burden him with that, for our life is
hard enough and we cannot afford such things.”

For the children, too, holiday time is one of anticipating new toys to
play with. Rawan said she wished for a Barbie doll, but knew that her
father couldn’t afford it. Little Ahmad had been sorely disappointed
at the last Eid that he wasn’t able to have a football to play with
his friends.

Ahmad estimates that new clothes for each of his children would cost
over 200 shekels ($55), so buying new ones for Eid is out of the
question. So his next destination was to take old clothes to a local
tailor for repair and adjustment instead of buying new ones.

Ahmad handed a pair of his daughter Rawan’s trousers over to Muhammad
al-Rifai, who runs a small tailor shop in al-Maghazi refugee camp.
“More than a hundred households have brought clothes for repair to my
shop, just before Eid,” al-Rifai said, “and of course mine is not the
only shop in town.” According to al-Rifai, who used to own a larger
clothing factory before the Israeli siege, this number is sharply up
from previous years.

All over the Gaza Strip, families like that of Daoud Suleiman Ahmad
will be unable to mark Eid in the traditional way. According to local
and international estimates, the poverty rate in the Gaza Strip has
hit a high of more than 70 percent of the territory’s 1.5 million
residents, and the vast majority of households — like Ahmad’s —
receive UNRWA food aid.

“I saw in my dreams flowers, peace and safety.” Those are the lyrics
of a song that Rawan sang. Those wishes — as well as dignity — for
hundreds of thousands of refugees in Gaza, are likely to remain dreams
for some time to come.

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the
Gaza Strip.

For photos, see: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/11/9542
____________________

9. Residents of Sheikh Jarrah hold Eid al-Adha prayers and
demonstrations against ethnic cleansing and house evictions

27 November 2009

On Friday 27 November 2009, the Eid al-Adha celebration in Sheikh
Jarrah, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, was
marked by prayers and demonstrations.

In the night unto Eid, the sleep in the neighbourhood was disturbed at
2am by loud music coming from a street party attended by Jewish
settler youths, who gathered outside the Shimon HaTzadik Tomb, located
just behind the Palestinian houses. This is the same location from
which Jewish settlers threw stones at the Palestinian houses in the
middle of the night on Friday 6 November. The disturbing music was
played for 30 minutes until the police blue-lights drew near.

At 7am, the Palestinian families gathered in an open field in the
neighbourhood to hold the traditional Eid Friday prayer. The prayer
was led by Sheikh Raed Salah, an influential and well known imam, who
in his speech talked about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in
1948, 1967, and until present. The speech emphasized the current
evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem,
including the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and blasted the illegality
and immorality of these actions that are forcing Palestinians out of
East Jerusalem and replacing them with Jewish settler population. The
two-hour event was broadcasted live on Palestinian TV and ended with
games, music, and sweets for the children.

At 3pm, the second demonstration and march against the evictions and
demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem arrived in the
Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. The demonstration takes place every
Friday, and gathers Israeli, Palestinian, and international activists
at Zion Square in West Jerusalem at 1:30pm to subsequently march to
the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. An Israeli
samba drum band helps to make the demonstration vibrant and also fun
for the Palestinian children who towards the end of the demonstration
learn to play the drums together with the Israeli activists. In Sheikh
Jarrah, the demonstrators were, as usual, filmed and observed by
heavily armed Israeli occupation forces.

At 6pm, around 15 Jewish settlers gathered outside the Atiyeh family
home in Sheikh Jarrah and conducted a provocative prayer directed
towards the home; provocative because it manifests their desire to
evict the Palestinian family and replace them with Jewish settlers. 28
Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are threatened by eviction,
including the Kamel Kurd, Hannoun, and Gawi families that were made
homeless in the past year. This was the fourth provocative prayer in
the past five weeks, directed twice at the Gawi family house (23 and
30 October) and twice at the Atiyeh family house (20 and 27 November).
Each time, the provocation has been accompanied by heavily armed
Israeli occupation police. This time a friend of the Sheikh Jarrah
families protested against the provocation by standing close to the
settler group and performing a muslim prayer towards the Atiyeh family
house. Afterwards, the praying Palestinian was questioned by the
police while the settlers were not. During the prayers, the police
unnecessarily forced some Palestinian children to back well away from
the street.

Background

The Gawi and Hannoun families, consisting of 53 members including 20
children, have been left homeless after they were forcibly evicted
from their houses on 2 August 2009. The Israeli forces surrounded the
homes of the two families at 5.30am and, breaking in through the
windows, forcefully dragged all residents into the street. The police
also demolished the neighbourhood’s protest tent, set up by Um Kamel,
following the forced eviction of her family in November 2008.

At present, all three houses are occupied by settlers and the whole
area is patrolled by armed private settler security 24 hours a day.
Both Hannoun and Gawi families, who have been left without suitable
alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against
the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their
homes, facing regular attacks from the settlers and harassment from
the police.

The Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah is home to 28
Palestinian families, all refugees from 1948, who received their
houses from the UNRWA and Jordanian government in 1956. All face
losing their homes in the manner of the Hannoun, Gawi and al-Kurd
families.

The aim of the settlers is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish
settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut
off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods.
Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank
is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the
Fourth Geneva Convention.

The plight of the Gawi, al-Kurd and the Hannoun families is just a
small part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinian people from East Jerusalem.

For photos, see: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/11/9532
____________________

10. South Africa: Israeli policy reminiscent of apartheid

Ma’an News

26 November 2009

The South African government urged Israel on Tuesday to end practices
toward Palestinians that it said were reminiscent of its own history
of apartheid.

“We call upon the Israeli government to cease their activities that
are reminiscent of apartheid forced removals and resume negotiations
immediately,” the government said in a statement.

The unusually strong statement criticized the demolition of
Palestinian houses and the expansion of Jewish-only settlement on land
taken from Palestinians.

“We condemn the fact that Israeli settlement expansion in East
Jerusalem is coupled with Israel’s campaign to evict and displace the
original Palestinian residents from the City,” the statement read.

The statement also took note of US and European condemnations of
Israel’s latest plan to expand by 900 units the settlement of Gilo on
Palestinian land south of Jerusalem.

“South Africa maintains that these attempts by Israel to create facts
on the ground imperil attempts to achieve a negotiated solution to the
conflict, namely that of two states, Israel and Palestine existing
side by side in peace within internationally recognised borders,” the
statement also said.

While individual South Africans have made the apartheid comparison, it
is rare for the government to do so.

In August South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu drew parallels between
Israel and apartheid South Africa during an interview with Ma’an.

“It’s the same thing that happened in South Africa for a very long
time,” he said, referring to Israel’s refusal to negotiate with Hamas.
“The apartheid government said they wouldn’t negotiate with Nelson
Mandela, and so on – and they had to.”

In July academics released a report finding Israel in breach of
international legal prohibitions on apartheid and colonialism.

The report was written by British, Irish, South African and
Palestinian legal experts under the auspices of the South African
Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). The report finds Israel is
committing crimes against humanity, which should trigger legal
sanctions.