On the eve of Land Day: Al Quds anticipates the Global March
29 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
March 30 is Land Day in Palestine. The events of the day annually commemorate the events of 1976, when Israeli authorities seized massive quantities of land from Palestinian owners, and then killed several and injured dozens to crack down on the general strike called to protest the theft.
This year on Land Day, March 30, people from around Palestine and the world will march towards Al Quds (Jerusalem) to protest the theft in progress today: the isolation and ethnic cleansing taking place in Al Quds, as well as throughout occupied Palestine through illegal settlement activity. Marches are planned towards Al Quds from multiple points in the West Bank, Gaza, inside the Green Line, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria, as well as in Asia, North America, and Europe. The global march aims to highlight the colonization of Al Quds by Zionists and the refusal of access for Palestinians to the holy city.
According to multiple treaties and UN resolutions, Al Quds is recognized as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Israel seized control of the city in 1967. Al Quds has long been the center of religious, cultural, health, and commercial life for Palestinians, and an estimated 270,000 Palestinians reside in the eastern parts of the city (OCHA 2011).
The Palestinian population and presence in Al Quds is currently under extreme pressure from Israeli authorities and illegal settlers as the Zionist state seeks to take complete control of the city, drive out the Palestinian inhabitants, and eliminate any hope of its future as a Palestinian capital. This pressure is manifested in various ways:
Isolation
Fadwa Khader, an Al Quds resident and organizer of the Global March on Jerusalem remembers a time when Al Quds was “the most important place in Palestine.” Now, the apartheid wall and associated military closures prevent the majority of Palestinians from traveling to Al Quds for any reason. The city’s status as a center of Palestinian life is fading, due to its isolation from the rest of the West Bank. But material realities will not erase Al Quds’s place in the hearts of the Palestinian people. One needs only to view the multitude of images of Al Aqsa mosque in Palestinian homes, businesses, and streets to understand this.
Removal and Denial of Residency
In a systematic effort aimed at reducing the number of Palestinian residents of Al Quds, Israeli authorities seize any opportunity to rescind the residency permits of individuals, even those who are born and have lived their entire lives in the city. If Palestinian residents are known to have lived in the West Bank or abroad, even temporarily, they risk the withdrawal of their residency rights and may never be allowed into Al Quds again, even to visit family.
Fadi, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is a Palestinian who resided in Jordan for example, has retained his Jerusalem IDs. Yet his children who were born in Jordan and whose mother is a Palestinian refugee, have been unable to attain their Jerusalem IDs. “My family’s history is in this city,” said Faid. “The lack of jobs, and the bleak future of Palestinians here forced me to seek these elsewhere. Now that I have returned and have brought my children with me, my children are unable to maneuver throughout the city as they are undocumented in their own father’s hometown. Israel refuses to recognize them as the children of a Jerusalemite, but we will remain here, even if that means that my children and wife live without an ID or any rights.” Fadi continued after a long silence and the evident hurt in his eyes. “This is our resistance to Zionism.”
This policy has the effect over time of reducing the Palestinian population in Al Quds and preventing residents from traveling or living elsewhere for fear of losing residency.
Pressure on existing residents
Fadwa Khader noted another component of Israel’s campaign for the complete colonization and ethnic cleansing of Al Quds: the application of pressure to Palestinian residents in order to drive them out of the city. One way this is manifested is in the denial of municipal services in the eastern parts of the city inhabited by Palestinians.
The residents here pay the same taxes as the Jewish residents of West Al Quds. Despite this, the municipality of Jerusalem does not provide adequate services to the Palestinian neighborhoods of the city. Ninety percent of the municipality’s sewer lines and paved roads and sidewalks are in West Al Quds (B’tselem). In some neighborhoods, cleaning services come only once every three days as opposed to three times a day in West Al Quds. n February the Wadi Hilweh Information Center reported the Jerusalem Municipality created a dump at the door of Palestinian neighborhoods.
Khader notes the dual nature of this denial of services: First, to make life in Al Quds miserable and untenable in an effort to convince existing residents to leave. Second, to demonstrate to the internationals that visit Al Quds that the Palestinian residents “don’t care about their neighborhoods” and live in filth.
Pressure is also applied to Palestinian resident through settlement of East Al Quds neighborhoods by extremist Israelis, evictions of Palestinian families, and demolitions of Palestinian homes. The neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan have been particularly affected by this strategy. The goal of the Israeli authorities and Zionist activists is to forcibly settle Jews in East Al Quds through the seizure of land and homes and settlement of Israelis in these areas. In addition, home demolitions make life increasingly untenable for affected residents.
The Global March this Land Day will seek to highlight these issues and call for an end to Israeli Zionist settlement policy, access restrictions, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Al Quds and throughout occupied Palestine.
Khader has a message for the international Palestine solidarity movement:
“We want to live in peace and liberty and to feel free. Can you imagine how we suffer and sacrifice for this dream?”
She noted that there can never be a real Palestinian state as long as the Israelis continue to steal land and water, to control borders, and to separate cities and villages of Palestine from each other.
Still, she is hopeful.
“We won’t give up hope. We believe in you (international solidarity activists). You are our voice outside of Palestine, calling for dignity, liberation, and an end to the occupation.”
Related articles
- PRESS RELEASE: Israel’s Criminal Policy in Al Quds (Jerusalem) (altahrir.wordpress.com)
ISRAEL: Water being used to coerce Bedouin villagers, says NGO
IRIN | March 29, 2012

Photo: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IRIN
The Bedouins in Umm al-Hieran village live several kilometers away from a source of clean water and rely on trucks to get their supply
UMM AL-HIERAN, NEGEV DESERT – Salim Abu al-Qi’an’s family live in Israel’s Negev desert in the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Umm al-Hieran, 9km from the nearest source of clean water.
“There is no water in the village. We truck it in. It costs about 50 shekels [US$13.4] per cubic metre of water,” explained the 53-year-old village leader. “There is a pipe that’s about 8km long, but it’s too old, and the planning authorities don’t allow us to put a new one under the ground. We are asking for better access to water, a new pipe that should be close to the village.”
The Israeli authorities forced Umm al-Hieran residents to move to the area where the village now sits in 1956, shortly after the military had evicted them from their original homes in the Wadi Zuballa area of the Negev desert.
In 2004, the villagers faced a new threat of expulsion, as the Southern District Planning Committee unveiled a master plan which involves once again displacing Umm al-Hieran, and building the Jewish community of Hiran in its place. According to the Israeli government, the 500 residents of Umm al-Hieran are trespassers who are illegally squatting on state land.
Some 80-90,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel live in unrecognized villages in the southern Negev, according to a report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. As a result of their unrecognized status, nearly every structure in these communities can be demolished at any time, and residents do not receive basic services from the state, including electricity, paved roads, healthcare facilities, schools, and water.
Constitutional right
In June 2011, however, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the right to water was a constitutional right, and that the state must guarantee a “minimum access to water” for the residents of the unrecognized villages. Still, the court did not specify what constituted a fair minimum.
Shortly thereafter, a Haifa court, acting as a water tribunal, rejected Umm al-Hieran’s application to be connected to the local water network. The court argued that the villagers had minimum access to water, and suggested they buy water from private citizens in towns connected to the water network, or move into nearby government-planned Bedouin townships.
According to Sawsan Zaher, an attorney at Adalah, the Legal Center from Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has represented al-Qi’an’s family and the residents of Umm al-Hieran in their legal struggle, the water tribunal’s decision means that “a constitutional right, which is the right to water as part of the right to a minimal standard of living, [will] be provided by private actors and not by the state. This is in contradiction to constitutional law. The duty is on the state to fulfil this right and protect it even.”
Adalah has filed an appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court, asking that “minimum access to water” be explicitly defined, and challenging the constitutionality of forcing Umm al-Hieran residents to purchase water from non-state actors.
“Despite the fact that they are citizens, they are not entitled to the same level of rights as other citizens of Israel. Why? Because they are living in unrecognized villages,” Zaher told IRIN.
“We want you to move out”
“The purpose is not hidden any more. It is revealed and it’s very official: we are not connecting you to water because we want you to move out. This is the policy. It’s a kind of punishment. This is in huge contradiction with human rights and logic and humanity – to come and punish people by not giving them water for political purposes,” Zaher said.
In a 9 March report, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination raised concerns about Bedouin communities in Israel, particularly with regard to Bedouin home demolitions, and inequalities between Bedouin and Jewish citizens’ access to land, housing, education, employment and public health.
Israel’s proposed Law for the Regulation of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, which would forcibly displace 30,000-60,000 of the 80,000-90,000 Bedouins living in unrecognized villages, should be shelved, the UN Committee found, since it legalizes “the ongoing policy of home demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities”.
According to Salim Abu al-Qi’an, forcibly displacing residents of Umm al-Hieran to the nearby government-planned Bedouin township of Hura is indeed the motivation behind denying them direct access to high-quality water.
“They want to push us to leave the village and to displace us,” he told IRIN. “Even though we are an unrecognized village, this is nicer than to live in Hura. There are no services there. Sewage and garbage is in the street. There’s not enough space. It’s another refugee camp.”
Related articles
- Stop the JNF campaign makes steady gains as Israel charity goes “on the retreat” in UK (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- 2,600 Bedouins threatened with displacement as Israeli settlements expand (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Professor of Hate: Israeli “scholar” urges ethnic cleansing of Bedouins (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Jewish Agency: goal of Israeli government plan to block Bedouin “incursion” (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israeli bulldozers destroy Palestinian wheat crops in Negev (altahrir.wordpress.com)
Calls on EU Parliament to press Israel into releasing Palestinian MP Hajj
Palestine Information Center – 29/03/2012
GAZA — The international campaign for freeing kidnapped Palestinian MPs informed the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Parliament about the deterioration of the health of detained MP Ahmad Ali Hajj who has been on hunger strike for 15 days.
The campaign called, in letters to both Mr. Martin Stchaulz President of the European Parliament and Mr. Anders Johnson Secretary-General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, to exert international parliamentary pressure on the occupation to release the MP Ali Al-Hajj, warning that his health is worsening by the day.
Hajj (74 years) is at risk of death at any moment because of his serious health condition. He has already lost 10 kg as a result of his hunger strike to protest administrative detention without charge or trial, in addition to losing 70% of his ability to hear and other ailments, the campaign added.
27 Palestinian MPs are still detained in the occupation jails in violation of the international law and their parliamentary immunity, the campaign said, pointing to the occupation’s arbitrary measures against the elected representatives, especially administrative detention for years on end. The campaign stated that the international silence toward this blatant violation of human rights gives the occupation a green light to commit more crimes towards people’s representatives.
Related articles
- Marwan Barghouti: A Decade of Defiance (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- European MPs call on Israel to release Palestinian lawmakers (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israel bars Palestinian MP from going to Geneva to attend UN conference (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Stop the JNF campaign makes steady gains as Israel charity goes “on the retreat” in UK (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- European Parliament Calls on Israel to Respect Signed Agreements (altahrir.wordpress.com)
Deal reached to free Hana Shalabi
Ma’an – 29/03/2012
BETHLEHEM — A deal to release Palestinian hunger-striker Hana Shalabi to the Gaza Strip temporarily was reached late Thursday, officials with knowledge of the negotiations told Ma’an.
The officials say Shalabi will be sent to Gaza for three years in exchange for giving up a 43-day strike against Israel’s policy of holding detainees without charge.
The Palestinian prisoners society confirmed the deal in a statement praising Shalabi’s resolve. It expressed its appreciation for her efforts to bring attention to Israel’s policies toward prisoners.
Qadoura Fares of the prisoners society said Shalabi agreed to the deal “in return for ending her strike and being freed. … We reject deportation, but this is her decision and her own life,” Fares said.
Shalabi’s lawyer, Jawwad Boulous, also confirmed the agreement.
According to a high-ranking Palestinian source, the deal was reached after Palestinian officials and Red Cross intervened to confirm that Shalabi approved.
The Palestinian Authority minister of civil affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh, said the leadership in Ramallah was not involved in the negotiations as it rejects Israel’s deportation policy.
The deal apparently followed talks between Shalabi and the Israeli government, he said.
Al-Sheikh added that Israel is responsible for the hunger-striker’s well-being and should instead release Shalabi unconditionally to her home and family in the West Bank, not to Gaza. … Full article
Related articles
- Palestinian hunger striker Hana Shalabi hospitalized (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Hana Shalabi to continue hunger strike despite sentence reduction (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Hana al-Shalabi on hunger strike against renewed administrative detention (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Lawyer: Hana Shalabi’s health is deteriorating (altahrir.wordpress.com)
- Palestinians protest Israeli detention of woman without charges (rt.com)
Israeli settlers storm into Palestinian home, occupy residence
Al Akhbar | March 29, 2012
Israeli settlers invaded a home in a Palestinian-owned building in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron and took up the apartment as their own, residents and Israeli security forces said on Thursday.
“At 1:30am we heard noises and it was the settlers,” Montasser Abu Rajab, who lives on the first floor of the building in Hebron’s Old City, said.
“They broke the main door and brought their furniture in, accompanied by the army, who locked us in our house,” he said.
Palestinian sources in Hebron said that the property belonged to the Abu Rajab family, who had sold the second floor of the house to another Palestinian family.
But the Israeli army – who confirmed the incident – claimed that “the title to the property is contested.”
“The area has been declared a closed military zone, and soldiers have been put in place to keep the calm,” a spokeswoman for the Israeli army said.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said “police have been dispatched to the scene to verify the legal status of the house and the property titles that are apparently the subject of litigation.”
The settlers also claimed that they had titles to the property, which is located near a prominent religious site for both Muslims and Jews.
Speaking to Israeli public radio, right-wing Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari, of the National Union party, said it was “time to recover all the Jewish homes in Hebron stolen by the enemy.”
Right-wing Israeli politicians and figures often incite violence against Arabs, with Palestinians frequently attacked and harassed by settlers as well as the Israeli military, often with impunity.
House demolitions and evictions are among the serious threats indigenous Palestinians face on their native land, as Israel continues to build Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, including in Hebron, in defiance of the international community.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, with the territory being only a fraction of historical Palestine on which the Israeli state is now situated.
Israel maintains a military occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, imposing harsh restrictions on native Palestinians while providing privileges to illegal Jewish settlers.
(Al-Akhbar, AFP)
Related articles
- Hebron teen ‘shot by Israeli settler’ (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Settlers Attack Two Towns Near Hebron (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Settler Violence: Broken Glass on Shuhada Street (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Settlers Install New Outpost Near Hebron (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- International Solidarity Movement volunteers encounter settler attack and sexual harassment in Hebron (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israeli demolition ‘displaces 120′ in Hebron village (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Soldiers raid community center, arrest local activist (alethonews.wordpress.com)
BRICS agree to local currency credits to ease dollar dependency
RT | March 29, 2012
The BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have agreed to provide credit to each other in local currencies. Officials say the deal will facilitate economic growth in times of crisis.
The currency swap deal is aimed at promoting trade and investment in local currencies as well as to cut transaction costs. It’s also seen as a step to replace the dollar as a reserve currency in trade between BRICS.
“The idea is in line with many interests and economic exigencies in the world economy,” Yaroslav Lissovolik, the chief economist at Deutsche Bank told RT. “The euro and dollar are no longer seen as unquestionable monopolies in the role of reserve currencies. Clearly the world needs more reserve currencies.”
The deal would also increase the BRICS influence on the international arena and will make their cooperation less sensitive to sanctions from the West, experts say.
“The BRICS countries are in the first rank to do the job that international financial system now needs. What the BRICS said was a very welcomed wake up call,” John Kirton, the Co-Director of the BRICS Research Group told RT.
Russia and China have been trading in the ruble and yuan for several years, now Russia plans to expand local currency settlement with India.
“With China it took us three years to (evolve) from initial conversations to trading in local currencies,” Vladimir Dmitriev, the chairman of Russia’ s VEB told reporters. “I think we will meet similar terms with India”.
Meanwhile the swap requires a lot of technical work by each country such as the synchronization of national banking legislation, according to Mr. Dmitriev.
The BRICS countries are also going to announce plans on a joint development bank which is considered a possible rival to the World Bank and the IMF. If established, it would function as a lending agency and would provide finance for joint BRICS projects.
“They made it very clear it would be built to benefit not only BRICS countries themselves, but developing countries more broadly,” said KIrton. “But the big message was to give the World Bank more resources, only then would they see how the BRICS bank would fit in the supplement what they’ve already got.”