Israel plows farms paving way for apartheid wall extension in Bethlehem village
Palestine Information Center – 26/07/2011
BETHLEHEM — Israeli bulldozers began plowing through ”vast” Palestinian farmlands and uprooting olive trees to pave the way for an extension of the apartheid wall in Al-Walaja village in western Bethlehem province early Tuesday morning.
Tensions envelop the village as Israeli soldiers have suppressed locals, reporters, and dozens of outside supporters who emerged to help stop the operation, locals said.
Protests managed to foil the operation for a few hours until heavy back-up arrived at the scene.
Locals said over sixty olive and pine trees were torn down in the excavations.
Palestinian sources reported spotting Israeli forces closing off one area of the village after attacking reporters covering the incident and activists from Spain who arrived to support the locals.
Elsewhere, an Israeli planning committee has notified locals in the Malih area of northern Jordan Valley that it would tear down dozens of local structures, including shacks and nomadic tents.
The structures were built allegedly without permits on what the Israeli army has declared a military zone.
The committee officials handed out a total of 35 notices, a local has told our correspondent.
”The occupation (Israel) aims at evacuating the Jordan Valley of its indigenous population for the sake of expanding settlements in the area,” said local activist Mohammed Daraghema.
Israel Extends Family Unification Ban For A Year
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | July 26, 2011
The Israeli Knesset approved a request by the government of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to extend the ban on family reunification for an additional year prohibiting granting Israeli citizenship, or even residency, to Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis or Syrians married to Israeli citizens.
The Israeli Radio reported that the Kadima opposition block at the Knesset voted for the ban extension, while Legislator Meir Sheetrit of the Kadima party said that he approves of this legislation as Israel does not have a comprehensive legislation that deals with immigration issues.
Meanwhile, member of Knesset of the Yisrael Beitenu fundamentalist party, member of the Knesset Constitution Law and Justice Committee, David Rotem, said that granting Israeli citizenship to Arab spouses of Israeli citizens is not a guaranteed right.
Furthermore, MK Nissim Ze’ev of the Shas fundamentalist Jewish party, said that “Israel cannot ignore the fact that some of those who received Israeli citizenship after being married to Israelis where behind attacks in Israel”.
The ban was initially instated in 2003, and the Israeli Supreme court criticized it; consecutive Israeli governments kept reinstating it. The last extension before this one was approved by the Knesset on January 2nd, 2011.
The law does not apply to family reunification for Israeli Jews married to foreign spouses, and Israeli Arabs married to citizens of foreign countries, excluding Arab states.
Israeli occupation authority decides to raze mosque in Bruqin
Palestine Information Center – 25/07/2011
SALFIT, — The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) ordered for the second time the demolition of Ali Bin Abu Talib Mosque in Bruqin town, west of Salfit city, at the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Head of the municipal council in Bruqin Ikrimah Samara said he had received a similar order earlier last month, affirming that the IOA still refuses to approve its suggested structural layout of the town.
Samara appealed to international human rights organization active in the occupied Palestinian lands to pressure the IOA to endorse the new layout to save dozens of homes from demolition.
Two months ago in the same town, the IOA demolished a school for girls whose construction was funded by USAID, although it was licensed and legal.
Israel is hunting down International Solidarity supporters
PNN – 23.07.11
Bethlehem – Sami Awad, director of Holy Land Trust, a local NGO that works in developing nonviolent resistance in Palestine, warned on Saturday that Israel is targeting international supporters of Palestinians and is attempting to illegalize their work.
Awad’s statement came after Israel deported five French solidarity activists to Jordan on Friday. A group of French activists were crossing an Israeli military checkpoint between Jenin and Tulkarem, soldiers then detained the five and arrested them. The French activists were later taken to a military detention facility before they were deported to Jordan.
During an interview with PNN, Awad said that Israel is taking advantage of the silence policy some countries implement towards Israel’s crimes against those international activists. Awad warned that the Israeli targeted deportation and denied entry campaign will soon include international human rights and aid NGOs working in the region.
According to Awad Israel’s crackdown on international solidarity activists comes due to the fact that military leaders in Israel have realized the impact solidarity campaigns have on the political situation.
Awad added that the best way to counter the Israeli policies is legal actions. He wondered how legal deporting five internationals without trail is.
Israeli Soldiers Uproot 100 Olive Trees in Jerusalem Area Village
WAFA – July 23, 2011
JERUSALEM – Israeli soldiers Saturday uprooted over 100 fully grown olive trees in Beit Iksa, a village northwest of Jerusalem, and took them to an unidentified destination, according to local residents.
Nabil Hababeh, a local activist, said that Israeli soldiers leveled the land after uprooting the trees to hide what it had done.
He said army bulldozers were also razing large areas of the village farm land under the pretext of digging for water wells and building a barrier between the village and the nearby Jewish settlement of Ramot.
He said that Israeli soldiers arrested Mohammad Hababeh, 21, when he protested against Israeli bulldozers uprooting 42 olive trees that belong to his family and which were their only source of livelihood.
Israeli soldiers also battered Palestinians who attempted to stop the bulldozers from uprooting more olive trees.
Afghanistan: ISAF kills lady doctor along with two relatives
By Mirwais Himat | PAN | July 23, 2011
GHAZNI CITY: NATO-led troops killed a lady doctor along with two family members in the Syedabad district of central Wardak province, the Ghazni Civil Hospital director alleged on Saturday.
Dr. Ismayee Ibrahimzai told Pajhwok Afghan News that Dr. Aqila Hekmat, in charge of the maternity ward, her 18-year-old son and nephew were killed late on Friday, when ISAF soldiers fired at their vehicle.
The doctor’s husband was injured in the shooting near the Sheikhabad area on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, Ibrahimzai said, adding the incident happened after an ISAF convoy struck a roadside bomb.
Aqila Hekmat’s vehicle came under fire from ISAF while moving from the main road to a subway. Ibrahimzai said Public Health Directorate staff and Ghazni-based doctors, saddened by her death, had urged an investigation into the incident.
Col. Zarawar Zahid, Ghazni police chief, denounced the incident as shocking, saying they would jointly investigate the murder with Maidan Wardak officials.
Shahidullah Shahid, the governor’s spokesman, also condemned the killing of Dr. Hekmat and her relatives. He quoted unnamed ISAF officials as saying that they came under fire from the Taliban after their vehicle struck the roadside bomb.
Aqila was killed in the exchange of fire, the spokesman said, adding that it was not yet clear who had killed the lady doctor.
But a statement from the NATO-led force said the incident caused no civilian casualties. An ISAF combat outpost observed a car moving in its direction and the soldiers signalled it to stop.
“When it continued travelling towards the combat outpost, the gunner fired one bullet into the engine block. The vehicle stopped and the incident resulted in one civilian wounded, who was immediately treated at ISAF medical facilities.”
A member of the family, Syed Abdullah Walizai, said the incident occurred in the Zirni area of Shneez Valley. ISAF forces started indiscriminate fire on passengers after the explosion, killing three of a family and wounding two others, he claimed.
On Democracy and Slave Owners
By Seraj Assi | Palestine Chronicle | July 22, 2011
This month the Knesset in Israel approved the final reading of the Boycott Prohibition Law, which imposes severe punishments on any person or organization that calls, directly or indirectly, for boycotting Israel, including the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The Boycott Law is by no means surprising. For it joins a series of fascist laws that were recently approved by Knesset starting from the “Nakba Law” through the Loyalty Law, along with a list of new law bills under preparation.
What is unique about these laws is that they render unnecessary any effort to explain what make them fascist. Yet it seems that all these laws represent a state of denial and political disconnect on the side of Israel. The Boycott Law in its turn misses the point because the campaign for boycotting the Israeli products primarily includes the Israeli law itself. For the boycotters’ main message to the State of Israel is that its existence on Palestinian lands is completely illegal.
This takes us directly to the question of Israel’s democracy as a whole. We should remember here that the Constitutional Law of 1985, which was passed by the vast majority of the Knesset, bans the participation in the Knesset elections of any party that opposes the principle of the “Jewish State”.
The Law makes it clear that the Israeli democracy is an exclusively ethnic democracy fashioned for the exclusive interests of the Jewish community. This kind of democracy can therefore be seen as a modern colonial version of the slave-owners’ democracy in ancient Greek society. At bottom of the whole structure are the natives, namely the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have been made into a class of “free servants” of this hegemonic democracy.
Israel’s democracy thus functions as the political rule designed by the Zionist institution to maintain the repression of Arab-Palestinian citizens and Palestinians everywhere through legal manipulations. The idea is to reduce all forms of resistance against Zionist hegemony in the region to the narrow official circles and state courtrooms and turn all political struggles into civil struggles.
It is thus a democracy goaded into the service of the Zionist colonial enterprise. For any voice that is not directly aligned with the Zionist interests is immediately silenced- hence the abundance of this kind of fascist legislations. Perhaps this examines why the supremacy of the so-called Israeli democracy is stated in such a violent way so that any critique of its core principles and foundations is met with fanatic nationalist hysteria.
Statements flooding from Israeli official circulations to defend Israel’s democracy by all means clearly testify to the strategic role democracy plays in service of the Zionist agenda. For Zionist statesmen know very well that without this kind of democracy, it will be almost impossible to carry out Israel’s ethnic hegemony in the region while effectively reducing all forms of resistance to peaceful and gentlemanly legal struggles. This is the winning formula of liberal Zionism.
The irony is that Israel’s democracy has long been propagated worldwide as a witness to an Israeli multicultural and hybrid space where Arab citizens can vote and Arab Knesset members can enjoy full parliament privileges. Here precisely lies the bitter irony of the practice of this kind of democracy. For according to this democracy, Arabs in Israel are allowed, once every few years, to decide which particular representatives of the Zionist gang should be in the Knesset to oppress them!
Hypothetically speaking, Israel could become the greatest democracy in the world- a haven of human rights and social justice and a dreamland of multiculturalism and hybridity. To be sure, however, it will always remain a colonial state whose existence was founded on the dispossession of another people. The combination of democracy with the multicultural space, whether real or fictional, should not hide the deep hegemonic structures of this hybridity and the historical conditions that created it, namely, the Zionist occupation of Palestine.
Unfortunately, one now has to undertake excavations in order to reveal this truth and bring it to the knowledge of the masses and intellectuals alike. It now requires an enormous intellectual effort to remind liberal activists, academics, politicians and intellectuals that any critique of Israel and its institutions must begin with its colonial foundations instead of its contemporary political hypocrisy and undemocratic pitfalls.
Seraj Assi is a PhD Student in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC.
French peace activists detained, expelled to Jordan
Palestine Information Center – 23/07/2011
JENIN — The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) deported on Friday five French activists to Jordan after they were taken prisoner at a military checkpoint between Jenin and Tulkarem cities.
The youth movement in France condemned the arrest of its five members and stated that Israeli troops at this checkpoint arbitrarily detained them, confiscated their passports, and used force to drive them to a nearby military camp where they were held for hours.
An Israeli intelligence officer told the five activists during their interrogation that they would be expelled from Israel and would not be allowed to come back again at the pretext of helping Palestinian resistance organizations he described as terrorist, the youth movement said.
It added that its members were humiliated during their detention and prevented from contacting their families and the official authorities in France.
After spending their night in detention, they were banished to Jordan through Allenby bridge.
The group said it would file a complaint with the French foreign ministry against the IOA for the illegal measures it took against them.
The grumpy diplomats of the rogue state
By Ilan Pappe | The Electronic Intifada | 22 July 2011
The Israeli ambassador to Spain, Raphael Schutz, has just finished his term in Madrid. In an op-ed in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition he summarized what he termed as a very dismal stay and seemed genuinely relieved to leave.
This kind of complaint now seems to be the standard farewell letter of all Israeli ambassadors in Western Europe. Schutz was preceded by the Israeli ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, on his way to his new posting at the United Nations in New York, complaining very much in the same tone about his inability to speak in campuses in the United Kingdom and whining about the overall hostile atmosphere. Before him the ambassador in Dublin expressed similar relief when he ended his term in office in Ireland.
All three grumblers were pathetic but the last one from Spain topped them all. Like his colleagues in Dublin and in London he blamed his dismal time on local and ancient anti-Semitism. His two friends in the other capitals were very vague about the source of the new anti-Semitism as both in British and Irish history it is difficult to single out, after medieval times, a particular period of anti-Semitism.
But the ambassador in Madrid without any hesitation laid the blame for his trials and tribulations on the fifteenth century Spanish Inquisition. Thus the people of Spain (his article was entitled “Why the Spanish hate us”) are anti-Israeli because they are either unable to accept their responsibility for the Inquisition or they still endorse it by other means in our times.
This idea that young Spaniards should be moved by atrocities committed more than 500 years ago and not by criminal policies that take place today, or the notion that one could single out the Spanish Inquisition as sole explanation for the wide public support for the Palestinian cause in Spain, can only be articulated by desperate Israeli diplomats who have long ago lost the moral battle in Europe.
But this new complaint — and I am confident that there are more to come — exposes something far more important. The civil society struggle in support of Palestinian rights in key European countries has been successful. With few resources, sometimes dependent on the work of very small groups of committed individuals, and aided lately by its biggest asset — the present government of Israel – this campaign has indeed made life quite hellish for every Israeli diplomat in that part of the world.
So when we come and assess what is ahead of us, we who have been active in the West are entitled to a short moment of satisfaction at a job well done.
The three grumpy ambassadors are also right in sensing that not only has Israeli policy in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip come under attack, but also the very racist nature of the Jewish state has galvanized decent and conscientious citizens — many of them Jewish — around the campaign for peace and justice in Palestine.
Outside the realm of occupation and the daily reality of oppression all over Israel and Palestine, one can see more clearly that history’s greatest lesson will eventually reveal itself in Palestine as well: evil regimes do not survive forever and democracy, equality and peace will reach the Holy Land, as it will the rest of the Arab world.
But before this happens we have to extricate ourselves from the politicians’ grip on our lives. In particular we should not be misled by the power game of politicians. The move to declare Palestine, within 22 percent of its original being, as an independent state at the UN is a charade whether it succeeds or not.
A voluntary Palestinian appeal to the international community to recognize Palestine as a West Bank enclave and with a fraction of the Palestinian people in it, may intimidate a Likud-led Israeli government, but it does not constitute a defining moment in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. It would either be a non-event or merely provide the Israelis a pretext for further annexation and dispossession.
This is another gambit in the power game politicians play which has led us nowhere. When Palestinians solve the issue of representation and the international community exposes Israel for what it is — namely the only racist country in the Middle East — then politics and reality can fuse again.
Slowly and surely we will be able to put back the pieces and create the jigsaw of reconciliation and truth. This must be based on the twofold recognition that a solution has to include all the Palestinians (in the occupied territories, in exile and inside Israel) and has to be based on the construction of a new regime for the whole land of historical Palestine, offering equality and prosperity for all the people who live there now or were expelled from it by force in the last 63 years of Israel’s existence.
The obvious discomfort the three diplomats felt and expressed is not due to any cold shoulder shown to them in local foreign ministries or governments. And therefore while many Europeans can make their lives miserable, their respective governments can still look the other way.
Whether it is financial desperation and external Israeli and American pressure that bought Greece’s collaboration against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla or it is the power of intimidation that silences even progressive newspapers like the Guardian in the West, Israel’s immunity is still granted despite its diplomats’ misery.
This is why we should ensure that not only Israeli ambassadors feel uncomfortable in European capitals, but also all those who support them or are too afraid to confront Israel and hold it to account.
Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (Pluto Press, 2010).
Denying Palestinian Children Education
By Stephen Lendman | July 20, 2011
In July 2011, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) issued a new report titled, “Education Denied: Israel’s Systematic Violation of Palestinian Children’s Right to Education,” even though it’s a fundamental human right.
It involves progressively developing children as individuals and responsible citizens. It’s key in helping them “raise their standard of living, and (be able to further their) economic, social and cultural development and growth of society.”
PCHR’s report addresses Israeli policies that affect primary education achievement for all Palestinians by 2015.
International law recognizes the right to education for everyone, including Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) stating:
“The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education….(It) shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups,” as well as advance activities for peace.
Fourth Geneva’s Article 50 states:
“The Occupying Power shall, with the cooperation of the national and local authorities, facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the education of children.”
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) calls it an indispensable human right, essential to include the following features:
— Availability in proper, well-functioning, educational institutions;
— Accessibility to everyone without discrimination or unaffordability;
— Acceptability in terms of substance and quality; and
— Adaptability to reflect the needs of changing societies.
“The best interests of (students) must always be the primary consideration.”
Various other core international law provisions affirm that “basic learning needs of all children….be satisfied.” Primary responsibility falls on State Parties, obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill “positive measures to enable and assist individuals and communities to enjoy the right to education.”
As an occupying power, Israel is obligated by law to provide and encourage proper education for everyone. Nonetheless, it systematically denies Palestinian children the right to primary (and secondary) education. Its quality and accessibility are hampered by:
— military operations;
— physical safety issues;
— home demolitions and forced displacements;
— school overcrowding;
— too few facilities;
— many in disrepair;
— lack of teaching materials; and
— deteriorating children’s mental health, living in a violent environment.
In addition, basic rights for all besieged Gazans are denied or severely restricted, including for school children to be properly educated. Earlier from 2000 – 2004, Israeli attacks destroyed 73 educational institutions. During Cast Lead, public and private schools were deliberately targeted, damaged or destroyed.
Afterwards, Israel banned construction materials to prevent rebuilding, a policy still largely in force. As a result, “82 per cent of (damaged) Gaza schools (haven’t) been repaired due to the lack of reconstruction materials.” As a result, quality and accessibility of education to all students have been severely compromised.
Frequent Israeli incursions also jeopardize children’s safety. Moreover, they and schools are “consistently targeted by Israeli forces….Instances of killing and wounding of children at school have been recorded,” as well as educational facilities closed following military attacks.
In fact, schools in Gaza’s “buffer zone” near Israel face frequent sniper and other attacks, targeting Palestinians (including children) in so-called restricted areas. In 2010, five children were killed, another 44 wounded. As of April 2011, three children were killed, another 10 injured.
As a result, trauma, anxiety, and lack of concentration affect student performance, worried more about safety than learning. Isolation, an electricity crisis, unsafe water, and lack of basic necessities exacerbate conditions further.
East Jerusalem also faces a chronic classroom shortage at all levels. As a result, a February 8, 2010 memo from Deputy Attorney General Yehudit Karp to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said Israel’s failure to fulfill its legal obligations causes “disastrous consequences for the education system in East Jerusalem.”
Overall, around 5,300 students aren’t enrolled in any educational institution. Israel has done nothing to alleviate the problem or reduce the high dropout rate, “notably in the post-elementary educational cycle.”
West Bank performance also is unsatisfactory. In 2009, PA Ministry of Education and Higher Education standardized tests showed:
— only 43% of fourth-graders passed math;
— 66.7% passed Arabic; and
— 45.8% passed science.
PCHR noted that today’s tragic situation is easily reversed and preventable. Only the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable prevents it. “This is not acceptable….Palestinian children’s fundamental right to education (must be) ensured, and their future(s) protected.”
A Final Comment
A new B’Tselem report titled, “No Minor Matter: Violation of the Rights of Palestinian Minors by Israel on Suspicion of Stone-Throwing” discusses another issue affecting hundreds of persecuted children.
From 2005 through 2010, “at least 835 Palestinian minors were arrested and tried in military courts – not for vandalism, arson, robbery, rape or murder, for alleged stone-throwing. Thirty-four were aged 12 – 13, 255 aged 14 – 15, and 546 aged 16 -17.
All except one were convicted. Due process and judicial fairness are nonstarters. Children are illegally treated like adults in violation of international law, including:
Article 37(b) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stating:
“The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child…shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”
However, Israeli military orders systematically violate international law provisions, norms and standards, operating extrajudicially with regard to arrests, interrogations, detentions, treatment, family member visitation rights, and legal representation, even for minors aged 10 or younger.
Even though Israel established a West Bank Military Youth Court in November 2009, serious violations of children’s rights continue.
B’Tselem interviewed 50 minors for its report, obtaining information from their arrest to release. Numerous rights violations were revealed, including:
— soldiers arrested 30 minors at home in the middle of the night;
— parents weren’t allowed to accompany them or know details of their detention;
— three were interrogated the same night; 19 the next morning; three that afternoon; and two five days later;
— only three got enough sleep prior to questioning; five said soldiers woke them if they dozed off;
— 19 said they were threatened and treated violently;
— 23 were denied basic functions, including going to the bathroom, eating and drinking;
— most children arrested were detained without bail until proceedings against them concluded; as a result, most (like adults) accept a plea bargain, pleading guilty to lesser charges (whether or not culpable for any) for shorter sentences; otherwise, they could be kept in jails or prison for long periods pre-trial, exacting a terrible toll;
— military courts impose incarceration in lieu of alternative punishments, in violation of international law.
In fact, 93% of minors convicted of stone-throwing were imprisoned for a few days to 20 months. Nineteen were 13 or younger even though Israeli law prohibits incarceration of children under age 14. Their only relief was shorter sentences when, in fact, stone-throwing, at most, is a misdemeanor, warranting nothing more than a reprimand, regardless of age.
Israel, however, convicted them lawlessly for being Muslims in a Jewish state. Most were denied family visitations, telephone privileges, and availability of educational services other than a few subjects inadequately, denying their ability to learn and be promoted.
Few Israeli officials involved in security and judicial procedures called for reforming brazen practices, infringing the rights of minors, even though Israel is obligated under international law to do so.
In fact, Principle 1 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child states:
“Every child, without exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to (fundamental human and civil) rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his (or her) family.”
Israel, however, spurns all international laws, norms and standards, doing what it damn pleases extrajudicially because world leaders don’t hold it accountable. As a result, Palestinians chafe grievously under the yoke of its repression.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
UN: Marked increase in forced displacement of Palestinians
Ma’an – 21/07/2011
BETHLEHEM — The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released a report Thursday documenting alarming trends in the forced displacement of Palestinians in Area C.
The OCHA report found that more demolitions have taken place so far in 2011 than in all of 2009 and 2010 combined.
The Khan Al-Ahmar village near Jerusalem received four stop work orders last week, the report said, and there are ongoing demolition orders against another two hundred and fifty structures in surrounding communities.
Around twenty Bedouin communities with a population of 2,353 people live in the Jerusalem periphery with over 80 percent of them at risk of displacement due to the expansion of the Maale Adumin settlement and the separation wall.
The report, based on field visits to thirteen communities in Area C, found that in most cases Palestinian families are being forced to leave due to “restrictive policies and practices of the Israeli authorities, including movement and access restrictions, settlement activity and restrictions on Palestinian construction.”
Thousands are at risk of displacement, the report added.
Three hundred and forty two Palestinian owned structures were demolished by Israel in the first half of 2011 and 656 people, including 351 children, lost their homes in the first half of 2011, almost five times more than within the same period last year.
There are also over 3,000 demolition orders outstanding, including 18 targeting schools.
Over 60 percent of the West Bank is considered Area C where Israel retains control over security, planning and zoning.
Around 300,000 settlers live in Area C.
Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967.
No place for Muslims to pray in Beer Sheva
By Jillian Kestler-D’Amours | The Electronic Intifada | 20 July 2011
Encircled by a grey, metal fence, the Big Mosque in Beer Sheva is an impressive Ottoman-era structure with a towering minaret, white dome and intricate metal detailing on its many windows.
Closed off by the Israeli authorities since 1991, it is suffering from neglect. And after the Israeli high court ruled last month that it should be turned into a museum of Islamic culture instead of being open to prayer, the mosque is once again at the heart of a battle between the area’s Muslim residents and the municipality.
“All the Arab citizens in Beer Sheva don’t have a mosque or place to pray. They asked the city to renovate the mosque so that they can use it to pray and the city refused,” explained Jaber Abu Kaf, a resident of Umm Bateen, a Bedouin village just south of Beer Sheva and a representative of the Regional Council for Unrecognized Bedouin Villages (RCUV) in the Negev.
“As Muslims, we refuse for a mosque like this to be changed into a museum. We ask for the mosque to be used for people to pray,” Abu Kaf told The Electronic Intifada.
Ten years of deliberations
In August 2002, Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel — along with the Association for the Support and Protection of the Rights of the Bedouin in Israel, the Islamic Committee in the Naqab (Negev), and 23 Palestinian citizens of Israel from Beer Sheva — submitted a petition to the Israeli high court demanding that the Big Mosque of Beer Sheva be re-opened for prayer.
The Big Mosque was built in 1906 for the use of the Muslim residents of Beir al-Sabe — the original Arabic name of the town which has since been Hebraized to Beer Sheva. Residents and Bedouin communities throughout the Naqab used the mosque for worship until the State of Israel was created in 1948 and Beir al-Sabe ethnically cleansed. From 1948 until 1953, the mosque was used as a court and prison. Then, the structure was used as a museum until 1991, when its contents were finally emptied and the mosque was closed by the state.
In essence, thousands of Muslim residents of contemporary Beer Sheva — and more than 180,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel living in nearby communities — have been denied access to the mosque since 1948.
Latest chapter in a history of injustice
“The opening of the mosque in Beer Sheva is one of the rights that should be given to Beer Sheva’s Muslim citizens and one of the services that Beer Sheva should offer the people of the area,” explained Adel Badir, a lawyer from Adalah who has worked on the case since 2003, shortly after the ruling was delivered on 22 June.
Instead, the municipality of Beer Sheva argued to the high court that the Big Mosque should be used as a general museum. The mosque currently sits a few meters from the Negev Museum, which was built on mosque lands and is housed in an Ottoman-era building known as the Governor’s House. The museum houses pieces of contemporary Israeli art — including video installations, photographs and paintings — all related to the Negev region.
The municipality argued that opening the Big Mosque for prayer would lead to violence and disturb the peace in the community, but did not specify how or why this would be the case. Indeed, high court Justice Salim Jubran criticized the municipality’s argument and asked whether the municipality was saying “that religious ritual by their very nature led to fighting and conflict, or whether it claimed that it was specifically Muslim worship that involved something that could result in confrontations between groups that would otherwise enjoy normal relations with one another,” according to a statement released by Adalah on 24 June (“Israeli Supreme Court Rules to Turn Big Mosque in Beer el-Sabe into an ‘Islamic Museum’”).
According to Badir, the idea that the mosque would create problems in Beer Sheva is wholly unfounded.
“The Beer Sheva municipality’s claim that the opening of the Beer Sheva mosque will cause problems is a weak and mistaken one. There are many mosques in mixed cities. In Herzliya, Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Haifa there are mosques and there isn’t any problem,” Badir said.
According to the same Adalah statement, Justice Ayala Procaccia stated in her ruling that “concerning the stated moral considerations, I doubt that the municipality has given any consideration whatsoever to the legitimate expectations of Muslims to restore their religious connection to the mosque.”
Converting the mosque into a museum of Islamic culture and religion, she added, would “achieve the objectives of the petition, if partially, by restoring the link between the Muslim community and the Big Mosque, as a site that is connected to the cultural values and history of this community.”
Destruction, neglect of holy places since 1948
In December 2004, the Nazareth-based Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) released a report on the destruction and abuse of Muslim and Christian holy places in Israel. According to the report, not only has the Israeli government not fulfilled its obligations to protect the religious rights of Palestinian citizens of the state — which number approximately 1.6 million, or 20 percent of the total population — it has also actively denied their right to practice their religions freely and maintain their places of worship (“Sanctity Denied: The Destruction and Abuse of Muslim and Christian Holy Places in Israel”).
“The destruction of Christian and Muslim holy places should be seen in the context of the wide-scale destruction of more than 400 Palestinian villages inside the borders of the new Jewish state during and for many years after the 1948 war,” the report adds. HRA estimates that 249 Muslim and Christian places of worship located inside the boundary between the West Bank and Israel had been destroyed or made unusable since 1948.
The State of Israel has also denied Palestinians access to religious sites, thereby allowing them to deteriorate due to lack of care and neglect, and has allowed places of worship to be converted for other purposes by Jewish communities, the report adds.
The report mentions that Bedouin rights activist Nuri al-Okbi “was arrested for writing ‘This is a mosque’ on the museum sign that remains outside the mosque [in Beer Sheva], and a criminal file was opened against him by the police.”
“This accusation of vandalizing public property was unique,” the report adds. “No police action has been taken over the steady growth of graffiti that has accumulated inside and outside the mosque over the years of its closure and dereliction. In January 2004 the court ordered that he pay a 1,000 shekel [$290 US] fine or serve seven days in prison.”
Ultimately, the HRA finds that “Israel is reneging on its promises and duties under international law to protect the holy places of the two other major faiths in the Holy Land and instead allowing the destruction and mistreatment of sites sacred to Muslims and Christians.”
Such restrictions violate international law, such as Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include … freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”
Article 27 of the Covenant also states: “In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.”
Appeal to the planning authorities
According to Adalah attorney Adel Badir, the Israeli high court stated in its ruling that the petitioners in Beer Sheva could approach the planning authorities to request a change of purpose for the Big Mosque from a general museum to a place of worship. Should the planning authorities reject this request, the case can again be taken to the courts.
“This doesn’t finish here,” Badir said. “We will go to the planning authorities and make an application to open this mosque for prayer, not just as a museum.”
For Jaber Abu Kaf, from the Bedouin village of Umm Batin near Beer Sheva, the court’s decision to turn the Big Mosque into an Islamic museum doesn’t address the needs of the area’s Muslim residents and how they continue to lack a suitable place to pray.
“There is no mosque in Beer Sheva. People go to pray in the Arab villages around Beer Sheva, like Tel Sheva, Lakiah, Hura and Rahat. They travel far distances to pray on Friday. Why can’t they pray in the mosque in Beer Sheva?” Abu Kaf said.
“There should be justice and there is no reason not to give people the opportunity to pray [at the Big Mosque],” he added. “We request that the Israeli government and all those responsible allow Muslims to pray there.”
Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at http://jkdamours.com.
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From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
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