Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Not business as usual: colonial settlers in al-Khalil for Jewish festival

International Solidarity Movement | November 27, 2016

Hebron, occupied Palestine – The Jewish holiday/celebration of Chayei Sarah and the reading of the Torah regarding Sarah took place in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) on 25th and 26th November 2016.

Beginning of Friday hundreds of Jews from illegal colonial settlements within the West Bank as well as Jews from Israel began arriving. It was estimated there may be as many as 1500 coming for their festivities. Huge tents and designated camping areas were set up (some in areas owned by Palestinians). They were also staying with families and friends in the existing illegal settlements here in al-Khalil.

This lot was the play area for the Palestinian elementary and secondary school. Now it's being used for The Sarah event.

This lot was the play area for the Palestinian elementary and secondary school. Now it’s being used for The Sarah event.

This automatically meant more Israeli occupation forces, more border police, much more “security” at checkpoints that Palestinians need to pass through on a regular basis as part of their normal daily routines (going to work, shopping, etc.) It also meant a complete closure of many of the checkpoints, not allowing anyone who was not here for the festival (that is a colonial settler) to go through.

Young soldiers leading the event

Israeli Occupation Forces preparing for the "Settler Tour" with their guns and dogs

Israeli Occupation Forces preparing for the “Settler Tour” with their guns and dogs

On Saturday “security” was at its peak. Every Saturday afternoon there is a tour of the Palestinian Old City by settlers from the illegal settlements. This usually consists of around 20 to 150 settlers. With about as many Israeli occupation force soldiers to “protect” them. This weekend the tour consisted of nearly 2700 settlers. This obviously meant more soldiers, on roof tops, police dogs sniffing out the route before the tour began, soldiers positioned approximately every 50 meters along the entire route and at the beginning and end of the group. Many shop owners closed early for fear of trouble by the settlers parading through the Old City.

Sniffing for bombs on the parade route before it starts.

Sniffing for bombs on the parade route before it starts

Soldiers and settlers parading through the Palestinian market where some shops closed early

Soldiers and settlers parading through the Palestinian market where some shops closed early

The settlers who participated were singing, dancing, acting provocatively aggressive towards the Palestinians and internationals who were trying to mind their own business or observing the events. There were many “shouts of “welcome to Israel” by the settlers as well as “f*ck you’s” and “this is our home not yours, we will never leave” at the Palestinians. An observer witnessed a number of incidents of harassment by the settlers toward anyone who was not Jewish and part of the group.

An obvious "welcome" from one of the settler youth

An obvious “welcome” from one of the settler youth

One Palestinian family in the Tel Rumeida area had their home invaded for approximately 10 hours by soldiers who set up observation on the roof and using their bathroom and kitchen as if it were their own place to do as they wished. An international who was invited to the home by the family to observe the goings on was forced to leave after an hour by the soldiers. The family was frightened by these events, but to the best of this writers knowledge there was no real damage done in the home by the soldiers.

An observer witnessed at least two Palestinian youth who were detained by the Israeli occupation forces for one reason or another. A third Palestinian was detained for trying to defend himself after a settler spit on him.

This is life in illegally settler occupied al-Khalil. The Israelis pretty much do as they wish and the Palestinian residents pay the consequences.

November 27, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Photo essay of Israel not innocent

MEMO | November 26, 2016

Journalist Ilanit Chernick’s feature piece celebrating Sukkot in Israel is not innocuous, and is redolent of White South Africa’s attempt to display scenic Cape Town, the glitter of Sun City or the enchanting Kruger Park game reserve to hide Apartheid’s ugly face and its crimes against humanity.

Photos of the ancient seaport city of occupied Majdal, now called Ashkelon, was one of the 540 Palestinian villages and towns ethnically cleansed by Zionist brutality in 1948. In 1918, it became part of the British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration and in 1920 became part of Mandatory Palestine.

Majdal had 10,000 Palestinian inhabitants and in October 1948, the city accommodated thousands more refugees from nearby villages. They are now part of the 7 million Palestinian refugees and displaced people in the Palestinian diaspora who have been denied their basic human rights.

The picture of the Al-Buraq Plaza, or what some Jews call the Western Wall, is an integral part of the western boundary wall of the Al-Aqsa Sanctuary. After a two-year study, a League of Nations Commission reported in 1931 that Muslims would have the sole ownership of, and the sole propriety right to, the Western Wall as it forms an integral part of the Al-Aqsa Sanctuary. The commission also specified the pavement in front of the Wall and of the adjacent Maghribi Quarter opposite the Wall to be under Muslim control.

This was recently confirmed by UNESCO’s Executive Board in Paris who adopted a resolution that called Israel “the occupying power” and demanded that Israel not restrict Muslim access to the Temple Mount, condemning Israel for “illegal measures against the freedom of worship” at the “Muslim holy site of worship.” It also accused Israel of installing fake Jewish graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries located in the Al-Aqsa area.

The fate of Al-Quds, Jerusalem, and its holy sites cannot be understood separately from the fate of Palestine. The daily struggle of Palestinian Muslims and Christians in that city is a representation of the struggle of Palestinians everywhere. In 1980, Israel passed a law that explicitly annexed the illegally occupied city to become part of the State of Israel. Since then, Jerusalem has been a major point of strife, political conflict and controversy.

The Zionists have concentrated much of their efforts on the “Judaisation” of Jerusalem. They confiscated 86 per cent of the city and filled it with Jewish immigrants. In the area of East Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located, about 200,000 Jews were settled there after they had encircled it with a wall of settlements, isolating it from its Arab and Islamic surroundings.

Jerusalemite Palestinians feel the burden of Israeli discrimination on a daily basis. While they represent 37 per cent of the total population in the city, the poverty rate among them has reached 75 per cent, a third of their youth drops out before finishing high school and 39 per cent of their houses are built without permits. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are not Israeli citizens, but rather possess permanent residency status that can be revoked at any time.

The ban on the Islamic call to prayer, the Athan, in a bid to silence the mosques, is but the latest in a succession of steps taken by all Israeli governments from the moment Israel occupied and annexed East Jerusalem, to Judaise the city in every respect.

Palestinian MK Haneen Zoabi stated: “The issue is not about noise in their ears but about the noise in their minds. What disturbs them so much is the noise of the Palestinians’ presence in their own homeland.”

The Athan has been sounding over the city five times a day for the past millennium and a half, and this is an attempt to change the multi-confessional complexion of the holy city characterised by the mingling sounds of the Athan and church bells ringing.

Chernick’s images are divorced from reality, with perhaps the exception of the poignant photo of the black Ethiopian beggar on the restaurant sidewalk. The pathetic plight of the Falashas languishing in slums on the outskirts of the cities; the grotesque wall that separates the Palestinians from their livelihood; the cages that choke non-Jews desperate for work or treatment at checkpoints; and the plight of the Africans confined in hovels awaiting expulsion are pictures waiting to be taken for Chernick’s next assignment that will depict Israel’s true reality.

Related:

UNESCO vote: No link between Al-Aqsa and Judaism

November 26, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian university student sentenced to eight months for student activities

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – November 24, 2016

noor-darwishPalestinian student Noor Darwish, 22, a student at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, was sentenced to eight months in Israeli prison and a fine of 2000 NIS (approximately $500) on Wednesday, 23 November.

From the village of Deir Abu Mashal near Ramallah, Darwish was arrested with two other female students, Hala Bitar, 19, and Salam Abu Sharar, 21, on 19 April. The three were arrested among an escalated series of arrests targeting Palestinian students around the time of annual student council elections at Palestinian universities. All three were charged with participation in the public student activities of the Islamic Bloc at the university, including organizing a book fair.

Bitar was earlier sentenced to four months in prison, while Abu Sharar was sentenced to 10 months in Israeli prison. Darwish has been held in Damon prison, which requires a three-day trip to the Ofer military court, which pronounced her sentence. Her case involved six hearings, each accompanied by the lengthy “bosta” travel from the prison to the military court and back.

November 25, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Burning Bush

By Gilad Atzmon – December 2, 2010

Israel’s rural landscape is saturated with pine trees. These trees are new to the region. The pine trees were introduced to the Palestinian’s landscape in the early 1930s by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in an attempt to ‘reclaim the land’. By 1935, JNF had planted 1.7 million trees over a total area of 1,750 acres. Over fifty years, the JNF planted over 260 million trees largely on confiscated Palestinian land. It did it all in a desperate attempt to hide the ruins of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages and their history.

Along the years the JNF performed a crude attempt to eliminate Palestinian civilisation and past but it also tried to make Palestine look like Europe. The Palestinian natural forest was eradicated. Similarly the olive trees were uprooted. The pine trees took their place. On the southern part of mount Carmel the Israelis named an area as ‘Little Switzerland’. By now, there is no much left of “Little Switzerland.”

However, the facts on the ground were pretty devastating for the JNF. The pine tree didn’t adapt to the Israeli climate as much as the Israelis failed to adapt to the Middle East. According to JNF statistics, six out of every 10 saplings planted did not survive. Those few trees that did survive formed nothing but a firetrap. By the end of each Israeli summer each of the Israeli pine forests become a potential deadly zone.

In spite of its nuclear ability, its criminal army, the occupation, the Mossad and its lobbies all over the world, Israel seems to be vulnerable. It is devastatingly alienated from the land it claims to own and care for. Like the pine tree, Zionism, Israel and the Israeli are foreign to the region.

November 25, 2016 Posted by | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Photo-Story: Mini walking tour of occupied Hebron

International Solidarity Movement | November 24, 2016

Hebron, Occupied Palestine – After our afternoon school run today, two of us took a walk around a small part of Al Khalil.

The photos are sort of a mini-walking tour of some of the stolen Palestinian land, streets, homes and shops, roadblocks and checkpoints.

Note the diagonal iron bars on the shops. These are welded in place to keep their Palestinian owners from re-entering their own shops and businesses. Above the shops are now illegal colonial Zionist settlers living in the once owned homes of Palestinians.

On some of the streets Palestinians are prohibited from walking. And no Palestinian vehicles allowed.

Al Khalil is unique in that the illegal colonial settlers live right in the city among the Palestinians (of course with colonial Zionist Israeli Occupation Forces and walls and fences to “protect” them and many of these Zionists carry their automatic weapons with them as well.

Most illegal colonial settlements are separated or outside of the Palestinian villages, town, and cities (and generally an army base within or next to it. Currently there are over 600,000 living in these settlements in the West Bank and construction of new and expansion of existing ones continues!

Gate locking access to the Abu Haykal family land, now deemed an 'archaelogical site' by Israeli forces

Gate locking access to the Abu Haykal family land, now deemed an ‘archaeological site’ by Israeli forces

 

A typical road-block

A typical road-block

Ghost Street - in the process of ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian residents

Ghost Street – in the process of ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian residents

Diagnol metal bar is welded to doors in order to keep shops and homes permanently closed

Diagonal metal bar is welded to doors in order to keep shops and homes permanently closed

Entrance to a typical checkpoint

Entrance to a typical checkpoint

Left side of the fence for illegal colonial settlers, right side for Palestinians - often littered with trash by the settlers

Left side of the fence for illegal colonial settlers, right side for Palestinians – often littered with trash by the settlers

Another road-block preventing Palestinian freedom of movement

Another road-block preventing Palestinian freedom of movement

November 24, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Academic among 7 Palestinians from West Bank kidnapped by Israeli forces

Palestine Information Center – November 24, 2106

kidnap_jerusalem-e1477217156569WEST BANK – The Israeli occupation army (IOF) kidnapped seven Palestinians, including an academic, from West Bank provinces at dawn Thursday.

A PIC news correspondent said the IOF rolled into the An-Najah Campus dormitory in al-Maajin neighborhood, in western Nablus, and wreaked havoc on the apartment of lecturer Issam Rashed al-Ashqar, 57, before they kidnapped him and seized his car.

Al-Ashqar, an ex-prisoner, is a lecturer at the Physics Department at An-Najah University. He had previously been sentenced to several prison-terms, mostly in administrative detention, without charge or trial. He has also been diagnosed with health disorders.

The Israeli occupation army further kidnapped the two Palestinian citizens Amjad Abu Sbeih and Yazen al-Basiti from their own family homes in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The IOF stormed Jenin’s western towns of Anin and Zabouba and cracked down on Palestinian drivers in the eastern outskirts of the city.

A PIC reporter quoted eyewitnesses as stating that the IOF kidnapped the citizen Abdul Nasser Mohamed Yassin, 42, from Anin village after they ravaged his home and subjected the family to intensive questioning.

A military checkpoint was pitched by the IOF near the main entrance to Zabouba town.

The campaign culminated in the abduction of other Palestinians from Nablus, al-Khalil, and Bethlehem’s town of Beit Fajjar.

November 24, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Canada’s Political Parties Enable Israel’s Oppression of Palestinians

“Canada is back” to isolating itself from world opinion on Palestinian rights

By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | November 22, 2016

How can you identify a Canadian Liberal? They talk to the left, but walk to the right.

Under Justin Trudeau “Canada is back” to isolating itself from world opinion on Palestinian rights.

On Monday Canada joined the US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau in opposing a UN Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee resolution in support of Palestinian self determination.

Two weeks ago Ottawa joined Israel, the US, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau in opposing motions titled “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan” and “persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 and subsequent hostilities.” One hundred and fifty-six countries voted in favour of the motions while seven abstained on the first and six on the second.

Two among numerous resolutions upholding Palestinian rights Canada opposed.  These votes follow on the heels of foreign minister Stéphane Dion attacking UNESCO for defending Palestinian rights. Last month the UN cultural body criticised Israel for restricting Muslim access to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound and recognised Israel as the occupying power. “Canada strongly rejects UNESCO World Heritage singling out Israel & denying Judaism’s link to the Old City + Western Wall,” Dion tweeted.

A few months earlier Trudeau’s minister criticized another arm of the UN. In March Dion denounced the UN Human Rights Council’s appointment of University of Western Ontario law professor Michael Lynk as “Special Rapporteur on Palestine”. Claiming the Canadian lawyer was hostile to Israel, Dion asked the UNHRC to review Lynk’s appointment.

In addition to isolating Canada internationally, the Trudeau government has pursued various pro-Israel moves. At the start of the month Governor General David Johnston visited a Jewish National Fund Forest. An owner of 13 per cent of Israel’s land, the JNF discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel (Arab Israelis) who make up a fifth of the population. According to a UN report, JNF lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.”

While the GG recently visited a racist Israeli institution, the PM attended the “Butcher of Qana’s” funeral at the end of September. In 1996 Shimon Peres ordered the shelling of a UN compound in the village of Qana, Lebanon, which killed 106 civilians — half of whom were children. Through his long political career, reports Patrick Martin, Peres “was deeply implicated in many of the foulest historical crimes associated with the establishment, expansion and militarization of the state of Israel.”

Peres’ role in dispossessing Palestinians didn’t stop the Trudeau government from gushing with praise after he passed away. “The whole country of Canada is supporting the whole country of Israel and the prime minister wanted that to be very clear,” Dion told the press.

At the start of the year the Liberals condemned Canadians seeking to hold Israel accountable to international law. The Prime Minister and most Liberal MPs supported a Conservative Party call for the House of Commons to “reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.” The February resolution also “condemned any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”

The Trudeau government’s efforts to undermine Palestinians’ liberation strengthens Canada’s multifaceted contribution to Israeli expansionism. Each year registered Canadian charities channel tens of millions of dollars to projects supporting Israel’s powerful military, racist institutions and illegal settlements. Over the past decade Ottawa has delivered over one hundred million dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority in an explicit bid to advance Israel’s interests by building a security apparatus to protect the corrupt Palestinian Authority from popular disgust over its compliance in the face of ongoing Israeli settlement building. Further legitimating its illegal occupation, Canada’s two-decade old free trade agreement with Israel allows settlement products to enter Canada duty-free.

The truth is, it’s hard to tell Canada’s political parties apart when it comes to enabling Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

Without a growing popular movement campaigning for Palestinian rights this country’s political elites will continue to isolate Canada from world opinion.


Yves Engler is the author of Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.

November 23, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Bid to Silence Mosque Prayer Calls Revived

Al-Manar | November 23, 2016

A controversial Israeli bill to silence the Muslim call to prayer is to go forward after it was amended so as not to affect the Jewish Shabbat siren, the speaker’s office said Wednesday.

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, had blocked the draft law in its original form for fear it would also force the toning down of the sirens that announce the start of the Jewish day of rest at sundown each Friday.

But he lifted his objections after it was amended to apply only between 11 pm and 7 am.

The bill will “probably” now be put to a preliminary vote in parliament “next week,” a spokesman for speaker Yuli Edelstein told AFP.

It will then require three further parliamentary votes before it becomes law but it has already sparked outrage around the Arab and wider Muslim world.

Even Israeli government watchdogs have slammed the proposed legislation, describing it as a threat to religious freedom and an unnecessary provocation.

Arab Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi has vowed to appeal to the High Court of Justice if the Shabbat siren is excluded from the scope of the bill on the grounds that it discriminates between Jews and Muslims.

The law would apply to mosques in annexed Arab east al-Quds (Jerusalem) as well as the occupied territories. But supersensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound — Islam’s third holiest site — will be exempted.

“No changes will be made on” al-Aqsa Mosque an Israeli official told AFP.

November 23, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Journalist Omar Nazzal, Shadi Jarrar among Palestinians ordered to additional imprisonment without charge

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – November 21, 2016

omarnazzalOmar Nazzal, prominent Palestinian journalist and member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, was ordered on Monday, 21 November to three additional months in administrative detention by the Israeli occupation military. One of dozens of imprisoned journalists, Nazzal was seized by occupation forces on 23 April 2016 as he attempted to cross the al-Karameh/Allenby bridge to Jordan to participate in the General Meeting of the European Federation of Journalists in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since that time, he was ordered first to four months in administrative detention without charge or trial, then again to another three months of arbitrary imprisonment before his detention was again renewed today. Nazzal’s case has drawn international condemnation at the targeting of a prominent Palestinian journalist without charge or trial on the basis of so-called “secret evidence.”

shadi-jarrarNazzal was not the only Palestinian political prisoner ordered to additional imprisonment without charge or trial. Palestinian prisoner Shadi Jarrar, 36, from Wadi Burkin west of Jenin, was ordered to four months in administrative detention for the third time consecutively. He has spent eight months in administrative detention since his seizure by Israeli occupation forces on 12 March as he passed a military checkpoint between Ramallah and Nablus. Jarrar is held in the Negev desert prison. He previously spent 13 years in Israeli jails before his release in 2014 as a Palestinian political prisoner.

louay-daoudAlso ordered once more to administrative detention was Louay Daoud, 41, of Qalqilya, for the fourth time, for four months. Arrested by Israeli occupation forces when they invaded his home on 9 December 2015, he has now been ordered to administrative detention four times consecutively, without charge or trial. Daoud is also a former prisoner who spent 12 years in Israeli prisons until his release in 2003.

ashraf-jibrilAshraf Jibril, 23, of Qalqilya, was also ordered imprisoned without charge or trial for an additional four months – the third consecutive administrative detention order against him. His home was raided on 10 November 2015 by Israeli occupation forces; he was twice ordered to six months in administrative detention and now an additional four months. The Israeli occupation authorities also renewed the administrative detention of Palestinian prisoner Qusai Hassan Khaliliya, 22, of Jaba village south of Jenin, for the second consecutive time for six months of imprisonment without charge or trial. Khaliliya was seized by occupation forces on 23 May in a pre-dawn raid on his Jaba home by occupation forces, who ransacked his belongings.

There are over 700 Palestinians held without charge or trial out of a total of 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Administrative detention orders can be issued for one to six months at a time and are indefinitely renewable. Many Palestinian prisoners have spent years at a time imprisoned under repeatedly-extending administrative detention orders. Administrative detention has been used to target political leaders, influential community members, members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and other prominent Palestinian figures. Ahmad Abu Fara and Anas Shadid are currently on hunger strike for the 57th day against their own imprisonment without charge or trial.

November 21, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu praises Sisi

MEMO | November 21, 2016

During yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s “courageous leadership”.

Netanyahu criticised PA President Mahmoud Abbas policies of inciting Palestinians through the idea of the right of return.

“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to come to direct negotiations without preconditions, continues to incite his people regarding the idea of a right of return and erasing the State of Israel, and is not taking the right steps to start calming things and preparing public opinion for reconciliation with the State of Israel,” he added.

During the meeting, he referred to the visit of the former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and his speech to the Knesset that launched the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal 39 years ago, describing the visit as “historic”.

“A peace agreement was achieved between Israel and Egypt through direct negotiations; this agreement has stood for almost 40 years, currently under the courageous leadership of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. I note this because here one can see the contrast with what is occurring vis-à-vis the Palestinians,” he said.

November 21, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook blocks Palestine Network for Dialogue’s page

Palestinian Information Center – November 18, 2016

cthx0pjxgaa7nyiGAZA – Facebook administration resumed its policy of targeting Palestinian media pages after blocking Palestine Network for Dialogue’s page for the third time Friday.

The Palestine Network for Dialogue, an online discussion board, was blocked without any prior notice although it has 70,000 followers.

Palestine Network for Dialogue specializes in publishing stories about the plight of Palestinians both in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in addition to those living in 1948 occupied Palestine.

Last September, several pro-Palestinian Facebook pages and accounts were removed including accounts of seven editors of the Palestinian Information Center.

In a controversial move, the Israeli government and Facebook reportedly agreed to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on social media, aimed primarily at Palestinians.

Not long after Facebook’s agreement, several Palestinian pages with millions of readers found themselves closed and administrators locked out, in a move believed to be directly connected to the agreement between Facebook and the Israeli government.

November 18, 2016 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Nothing is simple in Palestine

International Solidarity Movement | November 17, 2016

Umm al-Kheir, Occupied South Hebron Hills – Almost nothing in Palestine is what you expect for the most part. And, this is so true of the negative things you see. No matter how bad you think things are or expect them to be, you are almost always guaranteed that they will be worse (usually much worse) when you actually see them. And if you tell people the truth you may be thought to be making things up. But, this is Palestine and things are this unbelievable and this bad. This was true today for me (to put it mildly). Part of our team was invited by an “inspector” from the United Nations office based here in Al Khalil to go to a Bedouin village in the South Hebron Hills where a demolition took place yesterday.

The two demolished structures - with the illegal settlement in the background

The two demolished structures – with the illegal settlement in the background

Throughout my multiple trips here I’ve been to numerous house demolitions and even sat with families throughout the night waiting for the Israeli Occupation Forces to arrive to demolish a home. I was not ready for what I saw today. On our way to the village our U.N. inspector told us a bit of the history/story of the village. But, when we arrived I just wanted to vomit and I still have a knot in my stomach as I write this. The village of Umm Al Khair was established in 1952 on land the villagers purchased. They have the deed to prove ownership. The village is currently made up of approximately 140 Bedouin (registered) refugees, (approximately 28 families) who are mostly goat herders and farmers. They came here to the West Bank from “the 48” (Israel proper) after their home village was destroyed along with over 500 other Palestinian villages by Israeli Zionists, during the Nakba which created over 700,000 Palestinian refugees.

In 1982 the illegal colonial Zionist settlement of Carmel was established right next to them (less than 50 yards away) on land they stole from the village. Even though we couldn’t see inside the illegal settlement we were informed by the individual from the U.N. that the homes in the settlement were spacious, modern, had green grass lawns and gardens and even a small goldfish pond or two and all of the modern luxuries. In contrast, the village is made up of makeshift tents, crude metal and wood structures with dirt floors. There is no running water, no electricity, and a few crude toilet facilities.

Given that the villagers own the land, according to Israeli law, they cannot be legally evicted. However, the Zionists can make life so miserable that the villagers will give up and leave. This (in all probability) will never happen. They are strong, hopeful, and determined to stay here. This is their home. They will not leave. Even the children who have grown up here and gone off and got university degrees return here to their homes.

Rubble from the most recent demolition

Rubble from the most recent demolition

Israel uses the excuse that the villagers don’t have building permits. But Israel doesn’t grant but a few building permits per year (if any) to Palestinians.

Drones routinely fly over the village photographing, looking for any sign of new construction or rebuilding and the soldiers will return and demolish again and again. And if a demolition order is given for a particular home or building, it is permanent and nothing can be built on that spot again.

There have been 5 demolitions in the past year: October 27, 2015; 1 in April 2016; 2 this past August; and the most recent one yesterday where two structures were demolished. Their Community Center which housed the kindergarten, a computer center, an after school program to help kids with homework, and a library has been demolished several times. There are some international aid programs such as the International Red Cross, several U.N. programs, and from the European Union that have helped with building materials and /or small structures for living. None of these programs, however, can help with the Community Center because it does not provide shelter for people or animals. So it is the children who suffer the brunt of these losses.

Rubble from the demolition, with the luxurious houses in the illegal settlement in the background

Rubble from the demolition, with the luxurious houses in the illegal settlement in the background

While one of our team members was conducting a video interview I went outside and was swarmed by young children. All smiling, laughing and excited by my presence and attention to them. All eager to show me around the village, show me their goat herds, their small playground and have me push them on the swings, take their photographs with their goats. They all appeared to be happy and none the worse for wear. But what I am describing is and has been their life. They know nothing else. It doesn’t make how these villagers are treated any less excusable. And this is only one observation from one person visiting one of the scores of similar villages throughout the West Bank. An older woman whose home was demolished in August of this year stated before we left, “We just need the demolitions to stop. We are getting sick and tired of it.” Our U.N. person then said, everyone including most of the aid programs are feeling the same way as this woman and little by little pay a bit less attention as time goes on. Even the government, The Palestinian Authority was called this morning about yesterday’s demolition and they stated they couldn’t come to look they had other things to do today.

Residential dwelling of some of the families

Residential dwelling of some of the families

I’ve always thought (and said) that somewhere inside the Israeli Zionist must still have some small bit of humanity left in them. After what I witnessed today I cannot believe that there is even a shred of humanity left in any of them. Today was by far the most overwhelming and depressing day I’ve had in all of my trips here to Palestine, and I’ve seen quite a few depressing and overwhelming things during these trips.

What can you do? Join the Boycott movement in your country. Write to your elected government officials to stop funding the various degrees of genocide that Israel is committing here in Palestine. Write letters to the editor of your newspapers. Talk to your families, friends, neighbors and let them know the truth. Speak up. As long as our country continues to support the behavior of Israel with our tax dollars we are all responsible!

November 17, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment