‘I am strong. We resist’: An interview in the village of Jeb al Theeb
By The volunteers of the Harvesting Peace Project | Mondoweiss | November 18, 2010
Sitting in one of the houses of Jeb al Theeb, a small village south of Bethlehem, a Palestinian woman describes the living conditions. She is a teacher but in the darkness it is difficult to determine her age. Her home, just as the entire village, is without electricity. The only light that arrives comes from the mega-illumination of the adjacent settlements of El David, Nokdim, and Sde bar.
Can you tell us more about life here in the village?
Jeb al Theeb is a simple Palestinian village inhabited by 150 people, most of whom are young. We don’t have many older people here. The village lacks all types of basic infrastructure and the only roads are unsuitable for cars, forcing the people to travel on foot. There is no school, the children must walk a long way to the nearest one, even in winter with the rains. We no longer have access to our land, shepherds cannot graze their sheep in the pastures and children cannot play in the fields. We have no electricity and therefore cannot use computers or television. The children are unable to study after school, and, as you can see, at 5pm it is already dark. Studying by candlelight creates problems with their eyesight.
A settler and the village of Jeb al Theeb in the background
We’re staying in a house nearby and we have electricity, as do other homes in the area. Why don’t you have it here?
The houses a little further away from the settlements are supplied with electricity simply because they do not represent a direct threat. Our village, on the other hand, is located right next to the Israeli settlements, whose strategy is clearly to deny us electricity as well as other basic necessities.
In addition to electricity, what other basic necessities are you denied?
They often shut off the water and also damage the pipes, which creates many difficulties for us. Water is already scarce here, then we are forced to ration what little we have stored in tanks.
Who do you call when there are problems with the water?
We are located in Area C, so we have no choice but to call the Israelis. They come but they do nothing, nothing ever changes. We have no faith in the Israeli authorities.
In recent months there has been much talk of construction and expansion of the settlements. Are you allowed to build?
Absolutely not. In addition to not being allowed to build or even complete work already begun, houses are demolished by the Israeli authorities. My brother’s house was destroyed.
The other day we saw a settler in a pickup truck enter the village. Do they come here often?
It is as if they live here. They do what they want, when they want.
Do they come to intimidate you? To scare you? To provoke you?
They come for all these reasons. Just the other day, as I walked to work early in the morning, I saw a settler turn a hundred of his goats on the olive trees belonging to a man near the village. The day before, that same man had defended his right to access his lands. The goats damaged both the trees and the olives.
Abu Yassir, a villager in Jeb al Theeb who was attacked by a settler.
We’ve noticed that the settlers are armed. Do they ever attack people in the village?
Unfortunately, yes. One of the most serious cases was that of this elderly man beside me who was beaten with a stick and hit with stones for nothing more than attempting to graze his sheep on his land. As you can see, he suffered a deep wound to the head. He received no immediate treatment due to the isolation of the village. It was only later that he was taken to the hospital in Ramallah where he underwent surgery. Fortunately, he recovered fully.
Was the settler who attacked him prosecuted?
We called the Israeli authorities. They came and wrote a report of the incident, but they did not take any action. It is clear that there is collaboration between the settlers and the Israeli forces.
When was it that your village began to have problems?
More or less 15 years ago when they started to build settlements. As a child I remember playing in the fields, there were flowers in the spring.
How exactly were you informed that you could no longer access your land?
They came to us presenting an official government document, according to which, from that moment on, we were not allowed to enter our lands. The same document gave the settlers the right to shoot anyone who tried. They communicated this to us in person.
Who brought you the document? The IDF soldiers?
No.
The Israeli civil authorities?
No, it was the settlers themselves. As you know, they receive orders from above. The government also provides them with a series of incentives that help them economically. They have sheep, tractors, horses and camels, they have everything.
Now that you can no longer access your land, what is its current status?
I think the settlers go there to take our olives. They certainly take their sheep there to graze, and they eat the leaves and the olives off the trees.
What is that large metal building we see a few hundred meters from here?
It is a plant producing fertilizer that was built two years ago. As you may have noticed it also produces a horrible smell not to mention the fumes coming from its smokestacks. We shut the windows and doors to our houses but the smoke still gets in. Furthermore, it is dealing with chemical substances that cause serious health problems, especially for our children.
Do you think is was located here on purpose?
Maybe. One thing is certain, they don’t not care about us. They just want us to leave and will be happy when we do so.
And have people left the village?
As you can see, there are many houses that have been abandoned by their owners who were tired of the continual harassment and hardships they endured. Life here is impossible. How can it be that in the 21st century we are forced to live without electricity? We don’t have internet, we cannot send email, children cannot watch cartoons on TV.
But I’m not leaving. I could certainly have a more comfortable life elsewhere, but this is where my family is, this is my land. I remain also to keep hope alive.
I am strong. We resist.
Interview by the volunteers of the Harvesting Peace Project
Harvesting Peace is an Italian civilian peace intervention project in Palestine to support the olive harvest and the work of Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (www.popularstruggle.org). The project is promoted by Service Civil International – Italy, Association for Peace and Un Ponte Per. Volunteers provide international accompaniment for four weeks in the village of Jeb al Theeb near Bethlehem, under threat from the nearby illegal settlements and settlers.
http://raccogliendolapace.wordpress.com/
13 activists detained during volunteer work
Ma’an – 18/11/2010
Israeli soldiers scuffle with human rights activists on the outskirts of the West Bank
village of Beit Ummar near Hebron on July 18, 2009 [MaanImages/Mamoun Wazwaz]
HEBRON — Thirteen activists from a group of 30 were detained by Israeli forces Thursday afternoon while aiding local farmers whose land is set for confiscation by an adjacent settlement, locals from the village of Saffa reported.
Early Thursday morning officials said the activists were escorted to lands belonging to Sheik Mohammad Aady, reportedly slated for annexation the Bat Ayin settlement.
A statement by event organizers said that after half an hour of work, soldiers surrounded the group of volunteers and detained several, including seven Israeli activists.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the arrests, but said she could not comment on the reasons for the detentions.
Protesting the Hebron Fund, I remember a long afternoon at a segregated swimming hole
By Seán O’Neill | Mondoweiss | November 18, 2010
(Protesters in New York. Photo: Vanissa W. Chan)
Hebron Fund held its annual fundraiser in New York Tuesday night. A report from O’Neill, a former member of Christian Peacemaker Teams in the South Hebron Hills, who attended the protest:
I was just leaving Hebron’s Old City one day in August 2009 when a friend of mine, Hamzi, invited me to go swimming.
He and a few other guys were going for a dip in Abraham’s Well, an ancient spring located in Tel Rumeida, essentially the only neighborhood in the West Bank city where Palestinians and Israeli settlers physically encounter one another on a daily basis.
Whereas in the Old City a complex system of barricades, roadblocks, and checkpoints keeps Palestinians caged in and under the settlement pockets, in Tel Rumeida there is some level of mutual access, albeit unequal and under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers.
It was a hot, sticky day, and the thought of taking a dip in the cool undeground waters of Abraham’s Well sounded superb. After a long circuitous route, unable to cross Shuhada St., Hebron’s main thoroughfare banned from use by Palestinians, we reached an olive grove just above the well. In our enthusiasm, we didn’t notice the four Israeli soldiers sitting above it until they came running, screaming at us, rifles aimed in our direction. Hamzi explained that we were just on our way down to swim. The soldiers replied that there were a couple Jewish girls there swimming, so we’d have to wait. We began to sit down in the shade of the olive tree next to the soldiers when a soldier began yelling again, shooing us with his free hand, indicating that we were too close.
“He acts like were dogs,” Hamzi muttered to himself as we moved back a few trees.
Occasionally we would crane our necks over the terraced rocks to see if the girls were leaving yet. Noticing this, the soldier berated us again, instructing us to face the other direction, so as not to offend the young women, who by now, done swimming, were having a picnic next to the well. Hamzi and the others stared for a moment, absorbing this latest humiliation, before turning away, powerless. We sat there for about an hour in the midday heat, sweating profusely, debating whether it was worth the wait. Finally one of us, sneaking a look, noticed the girls leaving. We jumped up happily and asked the soldiers if we could now swim.
“No,” one said. “There’s someone else coming.” Indeed, two young Jewish boys had now approached the well and began to disrobe.
“But we’ve been here over an hour,” Hamzi protested. “It’s a hot day. If we have to wait for every Jew in Hebron to swim we’ll never get a turn.”
“Maybe not,” the soldier said, matter-of-factly.
And so we left, hot and irritated. There wasn’t a physical attack or a home bulldozed. No one was arrested or tear gassed. Just another of the thousand daily humiliations that is apartheid Hebron. That was the last day I was in Hebron, and the last time I saw Hamzi, although I didn’t realize it at the time. Shortly thereafter I flew home for a visit and returning a month later discovered I had been banned from re-entry.
Tuesday night in New York was windy, cold and dark, a far cry from that blistering day in August. Strange in a way to think that the men and women in suits and gowns at Chelsea Piers making their way to a dinner cruise on the Hudson River had any connection at all to that conflicted place thousands of miles away. Hamzi and some 160,000 Palestinians in Hebron settled down to bed after celebrating another Eid al Adha in the grip of a suffocating occupation.
Here in New York husbands and wives and their families parked their cars and walked breezily past the indoor soccer fields to a feast of their own, making tax-exempt donations to bankroll Hamzi’s oppression. Tuesday night was the annual dinner of the Hebron Fund, founded in 1979 to raise money for the Hebron settlements. According to the Washington Post, the Hebron Fund and similar organizations have donated $33.4 million since 2004 to the settlement enterprise. Settlements, keep in mind, are illegal according to international law.
This year’s dinner, held on a boat, was styled as the Hebron Aid Flotilla, a perverse celebration of the murder of nine human rights activists by Israeli commandos on the flotilla to Gaza this past May.
The event, however, did not go unnoticed. A couple hundred people gathered at the piers’ entrance in not one, but two protests. On the one hand was a coalition of Palestinian, Jewish, and anti-occupation groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Veterans for Peace, Women in Black, Code Pink, and Adalah NY, among others. They stood in a mostly silent vigil with signs reading “End the Siege of Hebron”, “Remove the Settlers”, and “Free Gaza”.
On the other, about 40 feet away, was a protest staged by J Street U, the college branch of the advocacy group which styles itself as pro-Israel, pro-peace. They held Israeli flags and lamented the settlements as an obstacle to a two-state solution. A participant in the J Street protest, Moriel Rothman said of the two protests, “I think that we’re working in parallel. Ultimately we probably want similar things but have different tactics in how to get there.”
An attendee of the fundraiser, who chose to remain anonymous, brushed the protests off, saying, “If you look at the amount of energy that goes into protesting Jewish misconduct, it is disproportionate. The world holds Jews to a higher standard.” He added, referring to the Jewish protesters, “They are introspective. You very seldom see that amongst the Palestinians.”
My first thought at seeing the two different protests was one of dismay. Had the ideology of separation reared its ugly head even here, among the dissenters? On second thought however, in a context in which meaningful dissent has been muffled for so long, a bit of pluralism may not be bad. The groups didn’t agree on tactics, or symbols, or what a solution to the conflict will look like. However, if there is an emerging consensus that the Hebron settlements, at least, are beyond the pale, that on a hot summer day Palestinian residents shouldn’t have to navigate around Jew-only roads to find that the well is closed to Arabs, that just might be progress.
British Defense Chief: 30 to 40 Years of Afghanistan Occupation Ahead
The New American | November 17, 2010
The foreign policy bait-and-switch continues. First, President Barack Obama declared the end of combat in Iraq, withdrawing some U.S. troops but leaving many others behind, possibly for decades, and redefining their role as “advise and assist” — whereupon they continued engaging in combat. Now, with Obama having publicly stated his intent to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next July, both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus are arguing for a long-term, if not permanent, U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
On top of that, British Defense Chief Gen. Sir David Richards, echoing their sentiments, has stated that “Nato now needs to plan for a 30 or 40 year role to help the Afghan armed forces hold their country against the militants,” according to the Daily Mail, though he “stuck to the government’s plans to withdraw combat troops by 2014 but made clear that thousands of troops will be needed long after that date.”
In an interview on November 14, Richards said, “Everyone is clear that we will have to remains [sic] a lot longer than” four to five years. “The plans,” he added, “are now in place to do that” and will be made “rather clearer” at the upcoming NATO summit in Lisbon.
Richards correctly argued that the Taliban and al-Qaeda cannot be defeated militarily and that victory cannot be declared by “marching into another nation’s capital,” as in conventional warfare. These organizations, after all, are loosely organized and have no command center that can be neutralized. However, he contended, victory over Islamic terrorism in the traditional sense “is unnecessary and would never be achieved. But we can [sic] contain it to the point that our lives and our children’s lives are led securely? I think we can.”
The problem is that Richards, along with most other members of the government and media elite, believes that continued intervention in Afghanistan by foreign countries is the best way to go about containing terrorism. Therefore, in his opinion, U.S. and British forces must remain in Afghanistan for “generations,” albeit under the rubric of assistance rather than combat. Richards, writes the Mail, “said that there would need to be more support for the military from political, diplomatic and international aid efforts if the effort is to succeed.” (He did allow for the possibility of negotiating with some Taliban members, an option that the Obama administration has opposed.)
The idea that Islamic terrorism is, in large measure, a response to foreign intervention in Muslim countries seems never to have crossed Richards’ mind; but then such thoughts are anathema to a political establishment with an enormously inflated opinion of its own benevolence and effectiveness. Rare indeed is the politician or pundit who suggests that his own government ought to maintain “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none,” as Thomas Jefferson counseled. When one does make such a suggestion, he can expect to be shouted down with charges of “isolationism.”
Thus, both British and American officials, regardless of political affiliation, are playing along with the charade of ending combat while continuing to station troops in volatile regions and of stamping out terrorism by prolonging the conditions that incite it. In Britain, Prime Minster David Cameron of the Conservative Party “has recently moderated [his] stance” toward withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next year in response to Richards’ and Petraeus’ assertions that “it may be 2012 before there can be any significant draw down of frontline forces,” says the Mail. Likewise, the paper reported that the Labor Party’s shadow defense secretary, Jim Murphy, “said Gen Richards was ‘right’ that there was no purely military solution and said there would be ‘no white flag surrender moment.’ He added: ‘It will be for the long haul.’ ”
On this side of the Atlantic, Obama himself “is going to make a public announcement of the US government’s official abandonment of the July 2011 date and the new 2014 ‘target’ for the war effort’s transition to Afghan control,” according to Antiwar.com’s Jason Ditz, who adds that “Obama will be vowing an ‘enduring presence’ in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 date.”
It appears, then, that Afghanistan (and Iraq) will be occupied by foreign troops for years to come, costing American and British taxpayers a hefty sum and increasing, rather than decreasing, the chances of terrorism against those same taxpayers. There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion; and just this summer CIA Director Leon Panetta estimated there were no more than 100 al-Qaeda militants in all of Afghanistan. At the same time, NATO is spending an estimated $50 million for every Taliban member it kills in that same country. Surely there are better uses for this increasingly scarce money, such as in paying down both governments’ astronomical debts. Bringing the troops home, cutting the defense budget down to what is needed strictly to defend our actual territory, and eliminating foreign aid and other intervention will do far more for our pocketbooks and our security than another 40 years’ worth of futile — and, from the American perspective, unconstitutional — intervention.
Israeli troops raid and loot house, commercial property of businessman
Palestine Information Center – 15/11/2010
TULKAREM — A large number of Israeli troops raided at dawn Monday the house of an imprisoned noted businessman called Ali Al-Dudu as well as his furniture showroom and stores in Tulkarem city and looted some contents of the house, all the merchandise and three of his vehicles.
Local sources said that a large number of troops aboard more than 30 military vehicles, bulldozers and big cargo trucks stormed Tulkarem at two o’clock this morning and confiscated lots of furniture from his home and everything stored in the showroom and its warehouses.
The invading Israeli troops also confiscated two cars and one truck owned by the businessman before withdrawing from the city with everything they stole. The things seized during this raid are worth millions of shekels.
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) kidnapped the businessman last June only two days after they detained his daughter Yasmine, a student at Birzeit university, and his son Ziya’a. Both of his children were interrogated in Jalama prison.
Security forces from the Palestinian authority kidnapped his son Ziya’a immediately after his release from Israeli jails and interrogated him, in full coordination with the Israeli side, about his father’s business activities and alleged financial ties with Hamas Movement.
In a separate incident, the IOF kidnapped on the same day at dawn 11 Palestinian citizens from different West Bank areas only one day before Eid Al-Adha vacation, according to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Local sources said the detainees were kidnapped during raids on homes in the cities of Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem and Al-Khalil.
Israeli Army Isolates the Village of Nabi Saleh to Prevent Commemorative Folk Festival
By Mays Al-Azza – IMEMC & Agencies – November 12, 2010
After the Fatah movement called the Palestinian people in Ramallah for a folk festival to commemorate late president Yasser Arafat, as a new step in escalating the popular resistance, the Israeli army imposed an intensive blockade upon the village of an-Nabi Saleh, northwest of Ramallah.
Israeli army personnel also erected military barriers to separate the villages of Beit Ramba and Kufr Aein, northwest Ramallah, and tightened measures and obstructed the passage of the vehicles through the Israeli checkpoint, Attara.
Muhammad Tamemi, an official in the media office in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlement Construction, stated that Israeli army personnel imposed a blockade upon the village and obstructed the passage of vehicles preventing international peace activists and journalists from entering the village. He pointed out that these measures had been carried out after the Israeli army entered the village at dawn threatening the villagers with harsh measures if the festival went ahead.
He added that Israeli army personnel closed all the entrances of the village and intensified the presence of the soldiers there in order to prevent the residents of the nearby villages from participating in the festival which is scheduled to be held at mid-day.
The Popular committee Against the Wall and Settlement Construction has called the Palestinians to go by foot to participate in the festival and face all the Israeli measures.
Major Dutch pension fund divests from occupation
Adri Nieuwhof and Guus Hoelen, The Electronic Intifada, 12 November 2010
The major Dutch pension fund Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn (PFZW), which has investments totaling 97 billion euros, has informed The Electronic Intifada that it has divested from almost all the Israeli companies in its portfolio.
PGGM, the manager of the major Dutch pension fund PFZW, has adopted a new guideline for socially responsible investment in companies which operate in conflict zones.
In addition, PFZM has also entered into discussions with Motorola, Veolia and Alstom to raise its concerns about human rights issues. All three companies have actively supported and profited from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip.
Over the past few years, activists in the Netherlands have questioned the two largest pension funds PFZW and ABP about their holdings in companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In September 2009, the Norwegian State Pension Fund decided that it would no longer invest in companies that directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law. By February 2010, ABP, the largest Dutch pension fund, informed The Electronic Intifada it had also divested from the Israeli company Elbit Systems. At the same time, PFZW confirmed that it held shares in Elbit Systems worth 1.6 million euros.
However, the pension fund was reevaluating its investments in Israeli companies. At the time, PFZW held shares in thirteen Israeli companies, including four banks, several telecommunication companies, construction companies and Elbit Systems. In November 2009, PGGM informed The Electronic Intifada that the fund would approach divestment decisions on “Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi and other [Israeli] companies” in a structural manner. This was based on a “new policy on how to deal with investments in companies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” That month, PGGM announced that PFZW was divesting from Africa-Israel for “technical reasons.” Owned by Lev Leviev, Africa-Israel has been involved in the building of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
On 8 November, PGGM spokeswoman Diana Abrahams confirmed in a telephone conversation PFZW’s divestment from almost all Israeli companies. Abrahams could give no further details and referred to PFZW’s 2010 annual report, which will be published next year.
During this period, PGGM has also contributed to the development of guidelines for the United Nations Global Compact. The Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to sustainability and responsible business practices which started in 2000. The initiative is endorsed by chief executives and seeks to align their operations and strategies with ten universally-accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Last year PGGM was involved in developing a guideline for business operations in combat zones.
The decision by the Dutch pension funds to divest from Israeli companies is yet another indicator for the success of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. It is likely only a matter of time before these funds and others divest from the international corporations which profit from Israel’s occupation.
Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.
Guus Hoelen, secretary of Werkgroep Keerpunt, involved in divestment campaigns in the Netherlands.
Jerusalem attorney discloses Israeli plan for full destruction of city
Palestine Information Center – 10/11/2010
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM– The Israeli government is “planning to completely destroy the city of Jerusalem and a erect a new Jerusalem with a Zionist vision amid a plan it prepared which it calls the Jerusalem 2020 plan,” Jerusalem attorney Ahmed Al-Ruwaidi said in a statement he released Wednesday.
The Jerusalem unit head said the wide-ranging plan envisions new settlements in the city and a complete transformation of Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Old City walls will dwindle down to a trace on the full parameters of biblical parks, bridges, and synagogues in an area covering the Silwan, Sheikh Jarah, Wadi Al-Jawz, and Al-Sawanah districts of the city, he added.
The plan alleges that Jerusalem is “the capital and spiritual center of Israel and the Jewish people and a world city which attracts the souls of millions of believers across the globe.”
Ruwaidi went on to say: “All of the settlement projects in Jerusalem during the past three years, some of which have been practically implemented, fall under the [plan’s] framework, including a decision to erect a thousand new settlement units in Jebel Abu Ghunaim aimed at completing the isolation of the city with a wall of settlements.”
“Israel announced previously it will build 50,000 new units in the city. The implementation of 20,000 of those units has been initiated practically under projects that have been approved from time to time for political objectives linked to political and international action.”
20,000 Palestinian housing units have been threatened with demolition.
Under the plan, Arab Jerusalem will make up 71,000 dunums of the eastern and western sides of the city’s total 126,000 dunum land area.
Ruwaidi added that planning projects for new settlement units, conferences held in Jerusalem, excavation projects in the holy city’s area, and revocation of Palestinian residencies that have recently appeared in the media are part of a decided Israeli program that the Israeli government and other parties have been working to materialize.
Ruwaidi met Wednesday with a legal team from the UK accompanied by political and cultural extensions from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. The delegation is currently developing a report about the situation in the city.
The Palestinian attorney presented a comprehensive report to the UK delegation relating to the city and the distress of its citizens, and the need to put the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and The Hague Convention of 1907 into action and to recognize Israel as an occupying force in Jerusalem that has no right to change the city’s landmarks.
He called for legal, political, and economic support for Palestinians in the holy city.
Israeli occupation forces detain eldest son of MP
Palestine Information Center – 10/11/2010
AL-KHALIL — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) broke into the house of MP Samira Al-Halaika and took away her eldest son Anas in a pre dawn raid on Wednesday, the MP said in a press release.
She said that an IOF unit in four military vehicles and a white civilian car stormed the Qafan Khamis suburb east of Al-Shuyukh town in Al-Khalil district at 0300 am Wednesday and kidnapped her son Anas, 24.
She said that the soldiers locked up all her family members in one room and summoned her along with her husband and told them that they will take away their son Anas.
The lawmaker noted that her son was supposed to meet an Israeli intelligence official on Wednesday in Eztion on Wednesday morning.
Halaika held the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) fully responsible for any repercussions that might befall her son, who was released from the jails of security militias loyal to de facto Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on 5/9/2010 after 45 days in solitary confinement, which had a very bad physiological impact on him due to the continued isolation and cruel treatment.
She appealed to all human rights groups to intervene and demand an end to the suffering of her family due to the practices of the IOA and Abbas’s militias.
The IOF had previously detained Anas in October 2005 and released him in November 2006 before Abbas’s militias repeatedly summoned him before holding him in custody on 16/9/2009 for one month and apprehended him again on 21/7/2010 before his release on 5/9/2010.
Anas is studying journalism in Al-Khalil University.
Israeli police interfere in repairs at Aqsa Mosque, detain three of its guards
Palestine Information Center – 10/11/2010
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli police detained three Palestinian guards of the Aqsa Mosque after they prevented a group of settlers from making what they called repairs in the Islamic Khatuniya School at the Aqsa Mosque.
The police also summoned for interrogation engineers of the Palestinian ministry of religious affairs who are members of the Mosque’s renovation committee.
The settlers resumed their work after Israeli policemen escorted them back to the School. The police deliberately intervene in renovation works at the Aqsa Mosque and still prevent the Palestinian ministry of religious affairs and its entitled Islamic institutions from carrying out repairs at the Aqsa Mosque’s premises including this School.
Al-Khatuniya School is located behind Al-Aqsa Mosque’s mihrab and there are a door and stairs leading to it behind this mihrab. It is part and extension of the old Aqsa Mosque and includes other sections and an Islamic library.
Sheikh Abdelazim Salhab, the head of the Islamic endowment council, condemned this Israeli act as an attack on the Aqsa Mosque and a violation of the jurisdiction of the ministry of religious affairs and its institutions, the only parties authorized to restore the Islamic holy sites in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Night raid in Bil’in
By Hamde Abu Rahme | Mondoweiss | November 9, 2010
(Photo: Hamde Abu Rahme)
Today, November 9 at about 3:00 in the morning, the Israeli army entered the village of Bil’in. About 50 soldiers entered the village by jeep and foot. When they arrived at the two targeted houses, they ran and took positions outside while a number of soldiers entered the house.
At first the soldiers were hammering on the door of one house, demanding to see 30-year old Ashraf al-Khatib. It turned out they went to the wrong house. They then went to another house – forcing one of Ashraf’s brothers to show them where Ashraf lives. Soldiers then entered that house, and his brother’s family’s house, and again they woke up the family, asking for Ashraf al-Khatib. His brother, Haytham al-Khatib, is a journalist from the human right’s group B’tselem and was of the ones woken up by the army. Even though they entered a house where their target didn’t live, they stayed there for about one and a half hours, searching all the rooms.
Haytham al-Khatib told me about his 6-year-old son’s reaction to waking up to see dozens of soldiers in his house, “he asked me to close the door, because he didn’t want to see them.” Haytham himself was prevented when he wanted to record the raid in his family’s houses – the soldiers simply locked him in a room for more than an hour, away from his children and wife. The children in the houses are ages 1,5 and 8 years old, and this is not the first time they have seen their homes raided at night.
However, after 1.5 hours of searching for the target in three houses, two of which he doesn’t reside in, Ashraf al-Khatib was not found. Five weeks ago Ashraf was shot in his leg with live ammunition by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration in Bil’in. The bullet went through his leg, breaking the bone. Even though he was heavily injured and in major pain, the soldiers tried to arrest him. Luckily he was brought to safety, and then taken to a hospital for surgery by fellow protesters. Tonight the army decided to come and take him in front of his wife and 1.5 year old daughter instead.
The soldiers finally retreated from the targeted houses by foot, walking toward the military road that follows the illegal segregation fence in Bil’in, at about 4.30 AM. The village of Bil’in has suffered from frequent night raids over the last few years, and a number of villagers have been taken for interrogation and imprisoned for their non-violent resistance to the occupation and segregation wall on Bil’in’s land.
Speaking out on Kashmir and Palestine in the US
Yasmin Qureshi, The Electronic Intifada, 9 November 2010
The United States has become a battleground for both the struggles of the peoples of Palestine and Kashmir, for freedom from military occupation and for justice. Awareness amongst the US public is broadened as the repression of both struggles grows ever more violent, and meanwhile those wishing to stifle debate on these issues in the US resort to harassment and intimidation.
The same day that renowned activist and writer Arundhati Roy commented that “Kashmir was never an integral part of India,” for which her home was later attacked, I was subjected to harassment here in the US while I spoke about the human rights situation in Kashmir. Though not threatened in the way that Roy was, what we both experienced were attempts to silence us. Forces sympathetic to the same right-wing ideology as those who attacked Roy mobilized their ranks by putting out an alert stating: “An Indian Muslim Woman is speaking about azadi [freedom] of Kashmiris and we should protest.”
After my presentation at the main public library in San Jose, California last month, I was told by one member of the audience that “You are the very reason why we Hindus hate Muslims,” and that comment was followed by many that were worse. I was called an extremist and told “Your presentation is a lie; this is India-bashing.” The abuse I received will be familiar to those who have been on the receiving end of the backlash when speaking about the Palestinian cause.
Indeed, a week earlier, Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa was called an extremist by Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz at the Boston Book Festival after she presented well-established facts about Palestine. He resorted to name calling and ad hominem attacks.
Israel and India are often represented in US media as bastions of democracy in the Middle East and South Asia, respectively. Supporters of the policies of both governments delegitimize any resistance or criticism and discourage revelation of the truth through intimidation and personal attacks.
Kashmir is the most militarized zone in the world with close to 700,000 Indian troops. According to Professor Angana Chatterji of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), between the years of 1989 and 2000, “In Kashmir, 70,000 are dead, over 8,000 have been disappeared and 250,000 have been displaced … India’s military governance penetrates every facet of life. … The hyper-presence of militarization forms a graphic shroud over Kashmir: detention and interrogation centers, army cantonments, abandoned buildings, bullet holes, bunkers and watchtowers, detour signs, deserted public squares, armed personnel, counter-insurgents and vehicular and electronic espionage” (“Kashmir: A Time For Freedom,” Greater Kashmir, 25 September 2010).
Because she has spoken out, Chatterji has become a target of right-wing Hindutva groups — those espousing an exclusivist Hindu nationalist ideology in India that often denigrates and denies the legitimacy of non-Hindus in India. Hindutva groups in the US and India have attacked her because of her work tracking funding to Hindutva groups from the US after the 2002 pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat and more recently as co-conveyor of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. Chatterji told me: “I was threatened with rape by Hindutva groups in 2005. Since announcing the Kashmir Tribunal in April 2008, each time I have entered or left India since, I have been stopped or detained at immigration.” Richard Shapiro, her partner and chair and associate professor at CIIS, was banned from entering India on 1 November 2010.
Hindutva groups try to scuttle any broader discussion about human rights violations in Kashmir, the conditional annexation by India in 1947 or right to self-determination by limiting it to the issue of the displacement and killings of the upper caste minority Kashmiri Hindu Pandits in the late 1980s and by insisting that Kashmir is not an international issue.
Similarly, Zionists seeking to draw attention away from Israel’s abuses of Palestinians’ human rights often focus exclusively on suicide bombings or the rule of Hamas. Their aim is to silence any discussion of the historic Palestinian demands for the implementation of the refugees’ right of return, an end to the military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and equality for Palestinian citizens in Israel.
And the front line in the battle to influence US public opinion towards both the Kashmir and Palestine struggles can be found at the university campus.
“There is a well-orchestrated and funded campaign of intimidation and harassment by Zionist and Hindutva groups on campuses to target academics,” says Sunaina Maira, Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis campus. Zionist academics tried to pressure the University of California, Berkeley to cancel an event last month titled “What Can American Academia Do to Realize Justice for Palestinians,” organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine. In a letter to the school’s chancellor, the groups urged him to withdraw official university sponsorship of the event and publicly condemn the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid at the school’s campus.
A similar attempt was made in 2006 by Indian American members of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, when they tried to cancel a panel titled “South Asian-Arab solidarity against Israeli apartheid” at Stanford University. The objective was to bring South Asians and Arabs together to take a unified stand against US imperialism and Israeli apartheid and speak up against the Zionist-Hindutva alliances. Despite the attempts by outside groups to stifle free speech, both these events eventually did take place on the campuses and were quite successful.
The attempts to silence those who speak out in the US are not the only thing that Kashmir and Palestine have in common. Both Kashmiris and Palestinians are struggling for justice and freedom against highly-militarized occupations. The recent protests by stone-throwing Kashmiri youth drew comparisons to the first intifada in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
And it is perhaps the linking of these struggles that those who stand in the way of freedom for oppressed peoples fear the most. Notably, Zionists and Hindutva advocates have adopted a similar Islamophobic language and worldview that considers any grievances or struggles by Muslims to be simply a cover for “jihadism” or “wahhabism” and thus justifies treating all such movements for justice — however they are conducted — as “terrorist.”
While the situations in Kashmir and Palestine are not completely analogous, in recent years India and Israel have fostered political and military links, including arms sales, joint intelligence, trade agreements and cultural exchanges.
Historically India has been supportive of the Palestinian struggle. But in 1992 India established diplomatic relations with Israel and ties were further strengthened in 2000 when India Home Minister L.K. Advani visited Israel; Advani is considered the architect of the rise of the Hindutva movement in the 1980s and ’90s. Today India is the largest buyer of Israel’s arms and Israel is training Indian military units in “counter-terrorist” tactics and urban warfare to be used against Kashmiris and resistance groups in northeast and central India.
The repressive governments of both India and Israel enjoy a warm relationship with the the US. Bilateral defense ties between US and India — based on the new strategic realities of Asia — is one of the objectives of US President Barack Obama’s current visit to India, according to the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), a Washington-based think tank. The US also gives $3 billion in military aid to Israel annually.
Such alliances between states, which aim to perpetuate injustice and maintain regimes that are rejected by those forced to live under them, underscore the need for education and solidarity among supporters of those long denied their freedom, equality and self-determination.
Those in the US who defend the status quo may resort to tactics of intimidation. But just as state repression in Kashmir and Palestine has failed to quell those struggles for freedom, those of us in the US concerned with justice in Palestine and Kashmir — and the US government’s role in each — will not be intimidated into silence.
Yasmin Qureshi is a San Francisco Bay Area professional and human rights activist involved in social justice movements in South Asia and Palestine. Her article on Kashmir, “Democracy Under the Barrel of a Gun,” was published in June 2010 by CounterPunch and ZCommunications.
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Iran UN ambassador calls for destruction of all nuclear weapons
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo
Press TV – March 29, 2017
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo has called for the total eradication of nuclear weapons.
Khoshroo reiterated Iran’s call during a UN conference aimed at creating a nuclear weapons ban treaty in New York on Tuesday.
“Iran, as a victim of chemical weapons, strongly feels the danger posed by the existence of weapons of mass destruction and is determined to engage actively in international diplomatic efforts to save humanity from the menace of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Khoshroo stressed that Iran is committed to its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, which include negotiations based on effective nuclear disarmament measures.
He added that several countries continue to ignore international calls and treaties for nuclear disarmament and even continue to increase their nuclear stockpiles. “They do not have political determination to abandon doctrines of nuclear deterrence and nuclear terror,” he went on to say.
Iran’s UN ambassador noted that boycotting the talks by many countries, including the US, shows that the world’s nuclear powers are by no means committed to the eradication of nuclear arms. Britain and France were also among the some 40 countries that did not join the talks.
“We note that prohibition of nuclear weapons must be accompanied by the elimination of such weapons. There can be no doubt that without complete abolition of nuclear weapons, there will be no absolute guarantee against the danger of nuclear war and the use of such weapons,” Khoshroo added.
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