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Israel detains Palestinian cartoonist, family says

Ma’an – 16/02/2013

204892_345x230JENIN – Israeli authorities on Saturday detained a Palestinian cartoonist on his way back to the West Bank from Jordan, according to his family.

Muhammad Abdul-Ghani Sabanah, 30, was detained at the Allenby Bridge crossing between Jordan and the West Bank, his brother Tamir told Ma’an, adding that Sabanah was in Jordan for a meeting.

He said that on his way back, Israeli troops detained Sabanah, who is from the Jenin town of Qabatia, without giving any explanation.

Sabanah’s cartoons are widespread in the Arab world. He is well-known for his criticism through his cartoons, which focus mainly on the Palestinian people’s problems and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

He works as a public information officer at the Arab American University in Jenin.

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February 16, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians’ Life in the Shadow of the Barrier Wall

By Hasan Afif El-Hasan | Palestine Chronicle | February 12, 2013

Since 1967 Israeli-Arab war, the Palestinians in the occupied lands have to contend in their daily lives with Jewish-only settlements, settler-only highways, check points and roadblocks, earth mounds and trenches, land confiscation, house demolition, raids, detention, extrajudicial assassinations, and daily attacks on besieged Gaza. And in 2002, Israel started building the barrier wall in and around the West Bank delineating unilaterally a de facto Israeli border. The wall delivered settlements and land for their growth on the Israeli side of the wall. The Arab League managed to bring the subject to the attention of the UN Security Council, but the US vetoed a resolution condemning the construction of the wall as a violation of international law. The wall, many observers refer to as the ‘Apartheid wall’, was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in a 2004 advisory opinion because it was built in the West Bank Palestinians’ land.

The Israelis call the wall ‘a fence’ arguing that ‘good fences make good neighbors’, but unlike this structure, fences are not built in the neighbor’s land. Even the infamous Cold War Berlin Wall that was constructed by the East German Communist regime was built on East Germany’s territory. The Israeli barrier wall is made of precast concrete slabs, twenty-five feet high capped with surveillance towers and cameras. It has been erected in the West Bank lands mostly three to five miles to the east of the defunct Green Line (the border of Israel proper), creating many Palestinian enclaves and cutting off access to Palestinians’ agricultural land and water resources in closed areas on the other side of the barrier.

The wall created enclaves in Greater Jerusalem area, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Tulkarm hinterlands where families are divided and communities are denied access to schools, health services and workplaces. ‘More than 49,000 Palestinians have been trapped between the wall and the Green Line’; their human rights are being violated by restricting their liberty of movement. Palestinians wishing to visit friends or families on the other side of the wall require permits to go through guarded gates, and they need special permits to stay overnight. 200,000 Palestinians are enclosed by the wall in East Jerusalem area that had been annexed by Israel immediately after the 1967 war.

The oppressive structure that snakes around large population and urban centers carves more than 450-mile path through the West Bank creating economic hardship and inhumane conditions on the Palestinian population. Building the wall in Palestinian lands is part of Israel’s master-plan of annexing major settlement blocks and security zones and dividing the Palestinian-populated parts of the West Bank into non-contiguous cantons. According to the Israel’s human rights organization, B’Tselem, ‘major parts of the wall route were set with the [settlements] expansion plans in mind.’ The wall was described by Yedioth Ahronoth daily newspaper on May 26, 2003 as the largest infrastructure project in Israel’s history.

In the area of Qalqilya town, the path of the wall was planned to expropriate thousands more acres of Palestinian land for nearby Alfei Zahran settlement and its satellites. Qalqilya, home for 45,000 Palestinians, is located in the north of the West Bank on rich lands and water reserves. After the 1948 war and the border adjustment of the Jordanian-Israeli truce agreement, Qalqilya lost most of its best farmland to Israel including thousands of acres of citrus groves, and the town became home for thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from the territories that became Israel.

The people of Qalqilya proved their resilience and survival spirit by starting from scratch, clearing their remaining land for cultivation and extracting water from underground Western Aquifer; and through hard work, they re-established their town as a major agriculture producer in the West Bank and services center for the thirty villages in its district. Its citrus fruits and vegetable products were sold in the West Bank markets and exported to Jordan and the Gulf States.

Qalqilya’s location only fifteen miles from the Mediterranean and its proximity to Israel’s narrow ‘waist’ has been a liability. In 1967 Israeli-Arab war, seventy percent of the Qalqilya town was destroyed by Israel’s tanks and air-force bombardment as an attempt to cleanse the city. The Israeli military rounded thousands of its residents and bussed them to the border with Jordan. The Israeli occupation authorities confiscated Qalqilya’s land as they did everywhere in the occupied lands, built Jews-only settlements, imposed quotas on the town’s existing water wells and restricted drilling for agricultural use. At the same time, drilling of underground water for the Jewish settlements has been limitless. Nineteen settlements have been built in Qalqilya district cultivated farmland today. And in 2003, the town people were horrified when the Israeli military revealed that their town would be encircled by the barrier wall.

The wall cuts Qalqilya city off from neighboring villages and isolates it from the land and water resources on which the town’s people livelihood depends. Like many communities in the wall path, Qalqilya has become a town caged in by concrete slabs and electronic fences linked to depleted hinterlands via underpasses and tunnels while the settlers travel without restrictions on Jews-only roads. Farmers have to travel miles to reach their land across the wall causing decline in cultivation and productivity. The wall and the land confiscation deprived Qalqilya of its role as a regional commercial center, made life in the town and surrounding villages too difficult, and work opportunities hard to get. The once vibrant commercial area workshops and stores in Qalqilya are closed down due to the declining economic conditions. The role of agriculture as an earner diminished, thousands of families whose bread-winners cannot find work in agriculture or commerce anymore depend on social assistance for survival today. The brutality of the occupation and the deteriorating economic conditions must have taken their toll on civil life with families splitting and children traumatized.

‘More than 4000 of Qalqilya’s citizens had migrated [after the wall has been built]’, writes Ray Dolphin in his book ‘Unmaking Palestine’. The effect of the wall on Qalqilya Town is no different from its impact on many West Bank communities. Many youth from communities impacted by the wall had to leave to other West Bank cities or to neighboring Arab countries, thus the wall might have accomplished cleansing much of its path, something Israel tried and failed to achieve in the 1967 war.

– Hasan Afif El-Hasan is a political analyst. His latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead? (Algora Publishing, New York), now available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

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February 13, 2013 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish settler’s ‘bio-war’ against the ancient city of Sabastiya

International Solidarity Movement | February 12, 2013

Sabastiya, Occupied Palestine – Sabastiya is an ancient city located just 10 km north of Nablus, West Bank. It contains Canaanite, Israelite, Hellenistic, Herodian, Roman and Byzantine ruins as well as the tomb of John the Baptiste. The winding city streets along with its history make Sabastiya an ideal place to visit. Yet, as charming and beautiful as the old city is, the nearby Israeli settlement of Shafi Shamrom is making lives of Sabastiya’s residents very difficult: settlers uprooted olive trees, introduced wild boars into the environment to damage the land, and most recently, sewage has started leaking from the settlement flooding Palestinian fields.

In 2001 settlers uprooted and destroyed around 1000 olive trees, substantially damaging the land of several families. In 2006 the army put up a fence in an attempt to confiscate the land where the trees had originally been. Sabastiya’s farmers acted: they pulled the fence down in a defiant act of resistance and since that time there have been no further attempts to install it again.

The most recent and disturbing action on the part of illegal settlers of Shafi Shamron is pumping their raw, untreated sewage directly onto Palestinian fields. As the sewage is absorbed into the land, olive and apricot trees are rendered diseased and, according to the residents, “poisoned”. The flow of human waste begins from a pipe on the perimeter of the settlement, creating a sort of reservoir which then runs through the adjacent Palestinian fields, compelling each subsequent land owner to create a canal in order to drain the sewage water on to his neighbors land and further away.

Residents of Sabastiya are currently bringing legal action against Shafi Shamron in order to stop the settlement from dumping its sewage on Palestinian lands. The malodorous sewage running through the fields must remind a regular visitor of non-violent protests of a very effective strategy used by the army; the “skunk” water, which is chemical liquid smelling of excrement commonly sprayed on protesters. Settlers are evidently using a similar technique to make local residents’ lives even more difficult.

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February 13, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces arrest Hamas-affiliates across West Bank

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Ma’an – 12/02/2013

BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces launched multiple arrest raids overnight Monday against Hamas affiliates in the West Bank, Hamas sources and locals said.

Hamas leader Rafat Jamil Nasif, 45, was detained in Tulkarem in an arrest raid on his home, sources in the Islamist movement said. Nasif’s family were forced to stand outside in the cold while sniffer dogs searched his home.

Musab al-Ashqar, Abdullah Ismail al-Khalil and Ammar Jihad Ameir, students at al-Khadouri university, were also arrested in Tulkarem, together with the local Imam’s son Qitad Amar Bidawi.

In Nablus, Israeli forces detained a local Islamist student leader Muthanna Jamil Eshtayeh and students Osama Khalid Yamin and Walid Jamal Asida from An-Najah university, locals said.

Mousa Ahmad Yamin and Abed al-Ghani Ayesh Samara were also detained in nearby villages.

Four people were arrested in Qalandia refugee camp in Ramallah, including two ex-prisoners, and in Hebron two other students were detained.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said that 13 people were detained overnight, including four in Nablus, five in Tulkarem, three in Bethlehem and one in Hebron.

Another military spokesman said nine people arrested were affiliated with Hamas.

The latest detentions follow a sweep of arrests of Hamas-affiliated officials in the West Bank over the past week.

Last Tuesday, Israeli forces arrested 12 people including at least three Hamas-affiliates.

A day earlier, Israeli soldiers arrested 23 members of Hamas, including three lawmakers — Ahmed Attoun in al-Bireh, Hatem Qafisha in Hebron and Mohammed al-Tal in al-Dhahiriyya.

Hamas condemned the arrests as a “criminal act.”

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February 12, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel greenlights construction of hundreds of settlement homes

Al-Akhbar | February 11, 2013

Israel has given final approval for 90 new homes in Beit El settlement near Ramallah and greenlighted the construction of 346 settlement homes in the southern West Bank, officials and an NGO said Monday.

Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now settlement watchdog said the plans had been published for validation in an Israeli newspaper in what was the “final stage of approval”, meaning construction of the new homes could begin “within a few days.”

The plans were signed off by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in August but received the final rubber stamp on Sunday by the Civil Administration’s planning committee, she said.

The Beit El construction plans were hurriedly put together as a compensatory measure for settlers who were evicted last year from Ulpana, an unauthorized settlement outpost on the outskirts of Beit El which was evacuated following a High Court ruling.

A civil administration spokesman confirmed the approval for the 90 units, saying they had been signed off by the political establishment.

Ofran said it meant the bulldozers could now get to work immediately.

“They can start building within a few days,” she said.

The Yesha Council – an umbrella organization of settlement councils – said that they welcomed any development in the West Bank, the Jerusalem Post reported. The group led the 2005 movement against Israel’s disengagement plan.

On Sunday, the defense ministry confirmed it had given the green light for the construction of 346 new settler homes in two settlements in the southern West Bank: 200 housing units in Tekoa and 146 in Nokdim.

The approval was pushed through despite the fact that Israel is currently between governments following last month’s general elections, with coalition talks likely to continue for several more weeks.

“Even though there is not yet a new government in place they are still allowing settlement procedures to continue instead of putting them on hold which is a telling sign about this new government,” Ofran said.

The move comes just days after the White House announced that Obama would make his first-ever visit to Israel as president on a trip expected to take place in late March.

According to Peace Now data for 2012, at least 1,747 new settlement housing units were built in the past year, and plans were approved for the construction of 6,676 more homes.

The international community views all Israeli construction on occupied Palestinian land as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the Palestinians have refused to return to peace talks while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

February 11, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Canaan protest village

picture-skunk-water-hebronsmall-600x337 Canaan tent being skunk watered (Photo: ISM)
Beit Ommar Popular Movement | February 10, 2013

South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine – Today, the South West Popular Committee along with international activists embarked on a new effort to establish a village, Canaan, on Palestinian land in South Hebron Hills. The village’s name was not accidental. We wanted to declare that we are the indigenous people of Palestine. We are the descendants of the Canaanites and our ties to the land can never be broken or taken away. Early last night, various Palestinian activists from a wide array of villages in the South West Bank area along with international activists met in a home to discuss plans for the coming day.

Signs were prepared which stated ‘Our Land is Our Right’, ‘Canaan Village’ and a declaration of intent which stated that “we are the sons and daughters of the Cananites, we establish Canaan Village on endangered Palestinian land.” “We declare that it is our natural right to develop, reclaim, improve, use and live on all our lands free and without threat from occupiers/colonizers.”

In the early morning hours, following a night of planning, we established Canaan as our first attempt, in the south of Yatta (the entrance to Twani). Within less than a minute, while we barely managed to establish the tent, an occupation jeep arrived. The occupation soldiers encircled us and told us we must leave. We refused to obey such a racist demand. An officer of the occupation army then went on to demolish our tent, steal our additional tents and equipment and violently prevent us from reclaiming our land and our belongings.

Several hours later, we went on with a much larger group of activists, international supporters and an especially large number of journalists, to east Yatta, near Ein Mai’in, Hazawai, we established a large tent and began building a room from stones of the land. Within half an hour, we were heavily encircled by at least 6 jeeps of the occupation forces. A large military vehicle which fires skunk water was brought in. We were told that we have 10 minuets to leave the area and that the land was a ‘closed military zone’. We did not yield of course and were immediately showered upon by heavy skunk water.

Occupation soldiers then went on to attack journalists and arrest them. They beat an elderly woman and other activists. In several instances, activists jumped in and prevented with their bodies the arrest of two people. After several hours of struggling with the occupation soldiers which numbered more than 50, 4 journalists, 8 Palestinians and 2 international activists were arrested, our tent was destroyed and we were prevented from returning to our land. For many hours during the hot afternoon, hundreds of activists remained in the area and demanded the right to return to the Canaan Village.

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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Farming Injustice

International day of action – February 9th

Palestinian farmers organisations and campaigners in Europe are this weekend taking action to call for an end to trade with Israeli agricultural export companies over their role in Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights. Read the call to action here.

In Gaza, Palestinian fishermen held a press conference and rally on February 6 to draw attention to Israel’s attacks on fishermen. Farmers and activists will march towards the buffer zones near the border with Israel on February 9 to protest Israel’s destruction of farmland and attacks on farmers.

In the West Bank, a conference and other actions will be held in Salfit to discuss a boycott of Israeli goods and resistance to Israel’s colonisation and systematically implemented restrictions on Palestinian agriculture.

All of the major Palestinian agricultural organisations have marked the day of action by publishing an appeal for action for the launching of campaigns against Israeli agricultural companies and an accompanying briefing, which aims to shed light on the role of Israeli agricultural companies in the destruction of of Palestinian agriculture.

Solidarity campaigners, trade unionists and NGOs across Europe are holding actions and launching campaigns against Israeli agricultural export companies such as Mehadrin and Arava, who export fresh produce from illegal Israeli settlements and are among the primary beneficiaries of the destruction of Palestinian agriculture.

There will be events, flash mobs and protests in more than 40 cities across 9 European countries including France, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy.  Campaigners are calling on governments to ban settlement trade and on retailers to adopt the position of the Co-Operative supermarket in the UK, which refuses to trade with any Israeli company that operates in settlements.

You can follow the actions on Twitter using the hashtag #FarmingInjustice.

Actions taking place across the world

Palestine

Dozens of Palestinian farmers and fishermen rallied in the Gaza seaport this week, launching several days of actions across the Strip to support boycotts of Israeli agricultural corporations.

Upcoming events will include a march by farmers, ending with the planting of olive trees, near the “buffer zone” around Gaza’s boundary with Israel on Saturday.

In the West Bank, a conference and other actions will be held in Salfit to discuss a boycott of Israeli goods and resistance to Israel’s colonisation and systematically implemented restrictions on Palestinian agriculture.

Also in the West Bank, the villagers of Madama, the centre for the Martyr Billal Najar from Burin and International Solidarity Movement activists will plant Olive trees on the land of Madama village where illegal settlers cut down hundreds of olive trees.

France

Activists in Montpellier occupied the customs offices to protest the import of produce from Israeli agricultural companies that operate in settlements on Thursday. Actions are planned in 14 other French cities on Saturday.

UK

Protests and actions are planned in more than XX cities as part of a new campaign to pressure major supermarket Sainsbury’s to end trade with any Israeli company that from settlements.

Belgium

Creative ‘Boycott Carnival’ action and demonstration in central Brussels

Sweden

Pickets at Coop-stores in Stockholm and Hässleholm as part of the campaign to pressure the supermarket to end trade with complicit Israeli companies

Netherlands

A creative protest action in the ‘Black Market’ Bazar, Beverwijk, at which goods from Israeli companies such as Mehadrin and Arava are often present

Luxembourg

Actions at supermarkets in several cities.

Italy

Actions and demonstrations in Rome and Trento

Actions are also planned in Germany and Switzerland, with more details to follow.

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February 9, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Arad: Supplying water meters to Sussex while helping bleed Palestine dry

Corporate Watch | February 8, 2013

An Israeli company which supplies water infrastructure in Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank is gaining contracts to supply equipment to water companies in the UK. Israeli company Arad has gained a contract to provide Southern Water with £7.1 million worth of water meters annually for five years with the option to extend when the contract expires. The contract was signed in February 2010 and the meters are currently being installed. Arad is also providing pressure sensors to the Welsh water utility.

Arad has installed 3,200 water meters in the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel and the Barkan settlement industrial zone. The water system is managed by the Mei Ariel Water Corporation.

Arad also develops water meters for the Israeli state owned company Mekorot. Mekorot has a near monopoly on water supply in Israel and also operates and develops water infrastructure in Area C of the West Bank, where Palestinians are forbidden to develop even basic water infrastructure.

Palestinians living in Area C, unable to access piped water due to the restrictions on building imposed by the Israeli Civil Administration, are often forced to fill up water tanks, transported by tractor, at Mekorot’s water facilities. These fenced water facilities are often situated beside Palestinian communities and draw water from occupied Palestinian territory.

Water is also used as a tool in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities. Water is denied to these communities as a way to push them off the land on which they live and into urban centers so that their land can be expropriated by the settlements. For example Bedouin man from Khan Al Ahmar, where the entire community is currently under threat of home demolitions and relocation, told Corporate Watch, back in 2009, that he had to to drive a mobile water tank by tractor to Jericho and pay to have it filled up with water from Mekorot. This journey takes between half an hour and an hour. Despite the fact that the nearby settlement has several large water tanks, surrounded by strong fencing, the tents which the Bedouin live in have no access to running water and they are not allowed to use the water located right next to them. Corporate Watch visited Khan Al Ahmar in 2013 and this situation had not changed.

Arad has been awarded contracts in the US , Brazil and Canada and boasts that it has a large slice of the Spanish water ‘market’. However, the company is focussing its efforts on the UK. Arad’s website states that “The UK was targeted by Arad years ago as the preferred market for implementing its products and services including water management systems.” Arad’s efforts are being facilitated by the British-Israel Chamber of Commerce which named Arad Israeli company of the year in 2010.

The award of these contracts by Southern Water to a company which supplies water infrastructure in illegal settlements should never have occurred. It is of utmost importance that the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid, colonisation and militarism halts the expansion of this company which is profiting from one of the most fundamental facets of Israeli apartheid.

A first step towards this would be for people in Sussex to resist the introduction of Arad’s water meters in homes across the county.

Arad (www.arad.co.il) is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Arad’s listed addresses are:

ARAD Technologies Ltd.
HaCarmel 6, Industrial Area
Yokneam 20692
Israel
Tel:         972-4-9935222
Fax:        972-4-9935227
www.aradtec.com

Master Meter Inc.
101 Regency Parkway
Mansfield, TX 76063
USA
Tel:         817-842-8000
Fax:        817-842-8100
E-mail:info@mastermeter.com
www.mastermeter.com

Contazara S.A.
Ctra. Castellón A-68, km 5.5
50720 Zaragoza
Spain
Tel:   976-50-06-91
Fax:   976-50-06-54
www.contazara.es

Southern Water can be contacted here

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February 9, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report: Israeli Occupation Authorities established 482 outposts last year

Palestine Information Center – 04/02/2013

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RAMALLAH — The Israeli Occupation Authorities (IOA) demolished 465 Palestinian buildings and established 482 outposts in the West Bank and the occupied city of Jerusalem during the last year, a Palestinian official statistical report documented.

The PA Ministry for Settlement and Wall Affairs stated in its report issued on Sunday that the occupation authorities have set up over the past year 185 settlements and 175 outposts, in addition to another 29 settlement sites.

The report pointed out that the Israeli authorities completed 444 kilometers of a total 757 kilometers currently under construction of the Apartheid Wall that will isolate 10.2 per cent of the occupied West Bank.

The report documented that 465 Palestinian facilities were demolished during the last year concentrated mainly in al-Khalil, Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, pointing out to 728 demolition orders concentrated in al-Khalil and Jerusalem.

The report revealed new Israeli ways to confiscate Palestinian territories, where IOA began issuing decisions to confiscate isolated lands behind the separation wall such as those within the city of Jerusalem to the north of Bethlehem.

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February 4, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel arrests 22 Hamas members ahead of Fatah-Hamas talks

Al-Akhbar – February 4, 2013

Israeli forces led an arrest sweep of at least 22 Hamas members Sunday night and Monday morning, including 3 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

The Israeli military confirmed arrests were made but would not elaborate further.

The Palestinian Ma’an news agency identified two of the MPs as Hatim Qafisha of Hebron and Ahmad Attoun of Jerusalem. Qafisha has previously been detained six times by Israel, whereas Attoun was forcibly transferred from Jerusalem to the West Bank by Israeli forces.

The third MP was identified by WAFA news agency as Mohammad al-Tul from Dahrieh.

Israel has a history of arresting Palestinian politicians and legislators, mainly targeting members of the pro-Hamas Change and Reform bloc since 2006, when Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament.

According to prisoners’ rights NGO Addameer, nearly a third of all members of the Palestinian Legislative Council were held in Israeli prisons in 2009.

The recent upsurge in arrests is most likely a response to Friday’s planned talks between rival Palestinian parties Hamas and Fatah as a way to undermine attempts at Palestinian political unity, according to Murad Jadallah of Addameer.

“Israel wants to show it has the authority and the military power to decide whether reconciliation happens,” the activist told Al-Akhbar.

Addameer has recorded the arrests of at least 40 Palestinians in the past 48 hours.

As of January 1, Israel held 4,743 Palestinians in its prisons, including 12 Palestinian MPs and 178 held without charge, according to Addameer’s latest figures.

Citing security sources, AFP reported that Israel plans to step up arrests of “suspected militants” in the West Bank.

Extensive use of administrative detention is illegal according to international law, but is commonly practiced by Israel against Palestinians.

February 4, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Standing defiant. Khalid Daragmah’s family protect their land in a sea of settlements

By Amelia Smith | MEMO | February 1, 2013

Khalid Daragmah’s home dates back to the Ottoman times. Set on 22 dunams of green, arable land, it is sprinkled with trees, a spring and rolling hills to the back. It has been in his family for generations; his grandfather ran a business pressing olives from inside.

These days, the entrance has been fitted with solid iron doors; a preventative measure to keep out the groups of settlers who arrive at night with sticks and stones to harass his family. They mainly come from Ma’ale Levona, a settlement on the West side of his home, which has been built on the land of Al Libban village near Bablus. Across the valley, on the mountain in front of the house, the Naley and Shilo settlements stretch for miles from here until the green line.

When I spoke to Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots organisation, ‘Stop the Wall’ who are helping Khalid with his case, he explained that the family are protecting a very sensitive part of the West Bank. “The Israelis want it because it’s connecting the settlements together. In this area they are planning to cut off the West Bank from the north and the middle of the south. So from here, until the Armistice Line, there are over thirty kilometres of settlements continuously. There are gaps between the settlements, and one of the main gaps is this one, that’s why Khalid has been under heavy attack for years now.”

In August last year, Khalid’s wife and sons were beaten at their house. They have also been subject to arson attacks, and jailed for fighting with the aggressors. “I don’t count how many times I’ve been arrested because it’s been so many times,” Khalid tells me. “Last time I was arrested they even stole stones from the house, and the tools I inherited from my grandfather, which he was using for the land.” It was one of many tactics used by settlers, intent on scaring them out of their house.

The settlers attacked Khalid’s wife so badly that she had to be taken to hospital. They told her it was because the house was their synagogue and they wanted it back, though Khalid’s family insist that this is not the case. “Historically, this place has been inhabited by my ancestors, it was never empty and there is no sign of Jewish heritage here,” Khalid explains. “Inside the house, there is nothing to do with Jewish culture.”

To complement the violence, officially, in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2010, Khalid received eviction notices from the Israeli military asking him to vacate the property, but the family have refused. “This is our land, and they will not force us to leave” he told me defiantly. “They are trying to find any mistake they can to use against me, they’re searching all my files and records since I was born. Which law in the whole world can penalise somebody for staying in his home and his land?”

Officials have delivered a string of excuses to the family, pretexts for why they have to leave. “They give one reason after the other, like the road leading to my house.” Khalid tells me. “They want me to open it because it is an obstacle to the military or to visitors, i.e. the settlers. They want me to allow the settlers to visit and pray in the house. They want me to remove the fence from around the spring and remove the doors from the house to allow them to come in.”

At one point, military officers even came to tell him he must use his home as a supermarket, to open it and charge visitors money to enter the room and pray inside, or let them swim in the spring. “They are punishing me and destroying my life.” Khalid tells me. “What problems have I caused them for them to do this to me? My only crime is that I’m staying in my house and I don’t want to leave.”

Khalid has a strong case because the land is officially registered in his name, and he has documents to prove the house is privately owned. But this has not stopped the authorities from claiming it is state owned and belongs to them. “In all the time I have lived here, why have they come here in the last few years? They say this is state land, and I asked them officially if they have any proof that this is state owned land. My cousins and my extended family are living in the village and we have had houses here for more than 270 years,” Khalid says.

For this reason, it is not easy for them to evict him, which is why they’re using pressure, scare tactics and making his life impossible. “Abu Jamal [Khalid] is a very strong guy and despite all of this, he’s still standing here, he’s still staying in his land,” Juma’ adds. “They want to exploit him and make him totally disparate. They want to know how long he can survive under all these years of attack and targeting and they are gambling that he will get fed up and leave.”

Life is certainly hard. He rarely leaves his house without somebody staying inside; if he goes to the shop or to work they will occupy the house. He lives far from the nearest Palestinian village, so it’s not easy for people to come and help. A large source of the family’s income comes from their 22-year-old son, Jamal, who works as a mechanic nearby earning 1000 shekels a month. But such harsh tactics have meant the family have grown stronger. “They have tried so many aggressive tactics that now we’re not scared of anything” Khalid tells me. “Before, when my wife saw a mouse she got scared and started screaming. Now, when she sees a hyena, she will attack it.”

A large part of the problem is the Palestinian Authority, who don’t do anything to help them. Responsibility therefore falls on international organizations, which collect money to buy fruit trees to plant so he can earn money from his land, and individuals like Lubna Masarwa, a Palestinian activist, who is currently helping him find a lawyer. “Myself and Jamal Juma’ are really doing our best to try and keep him in the house,” Masarwa tells me, “but it’s impossible because someone always has to be here otherwise the settlers will use the chance occupy the house.”

“The settlers are well organised, they’re becoming very violent. And they don’t respect any laws. The rule of the army is to defend the settlers. When the settlers attack the Palestinian families, the army will be standing there; the soldiers are there to protect them, this is their work. In the West Bank you feel like you’re in a jungle, they’re beating the kids, they’re shooting, the kids don’t sleep at night. And they have nowhere to go with no one who can really protect them. In the last few years, the settlers are getting stronger,” Masarwa explains.

Khalid thinks that more people around the world should start pressuring governments and officials to hold Israel to account for this behaviour. Juma’ explains that in other cases this has helped a lot. “They [the Israeli authorities] try to do these things silently and in the dark, they don’t want anyone to know what they’re doing. The question is, how we can make his case well known, and how we can mobilise people to move, to talk about it, to ask them to question the Israelis about why they are doing this to him.”

Despite the hardship, Khalid and his wife are adamant that they’re not leaving. “I don’t have other option,” Khalid’s wife Um Jamal tells me “I can’t leave the house, my husband and the land; there is nothing I can do. Before they put in the iron doors it was scarier but now I feel a little bit safer. You can’t have a decent night sleeping when you can be attacked at any point.”

Yesterday, when the settlers came, one of her children stood in the window and asked them to go away. Um Jamal smiles as she tells me the story. “What do you expect? What can we do? This is our life and we have to show our power. If the settlers feel that we’re scared or weak, they will get stronger. The younger and the older kids have to show strength and have to stand up to them because this is the only thing that we have, we don’t have anything else.”

“This is our life and this is our struggle and we’re not going to give up. We’re not going to leave the house. I will never leave my home and my land.”

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February 2, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli ministry confirms Veolia still owns West Bank landfill

BDS | January 31, 2013

As Veolia has become the target of worldwide campaigns in protest of its complicity in Israel’s violations of international law, costing it public contracts in several countries, the company has tried to evade responsibility. However, Who Profits — a project of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Tel Aviv — received confirmation from the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection in response to an application under the Freedom of Information Act on 17 January that Veolia subsidiary TMM is the sole owner and operator of the Tovlan landfill in the occupied West Bank — despite Veolia’s claims that it divested from the landfill in 2011.

The Tovlan landfill is located in the Jordan Valley of the occupied West Bank near the Israeli settlement of Masua. The landfill serves mainly the needs of the Israeli population in Israel and in illegal settlements in the West Bank. Three Veolia subsidiaries in Israel hold permits to transfer waste from Israel to the Tovlan landfill — including TMM — according to Who Profits.

Moreover, international law prohibits Israel from using occupied land for the sole benefit of its own civilian population. In Resolution 63/201 of 28 January 2009, the UN General Assembly called on Israel to cease the dumping of all kinds of waste materials on occupied Palestinian land.

Contrary to the confirmation by the Israeli ministry, Veolia has claimed numerous times it had sold its interest in Tovlan landfill to the Israeli settlement of Masua. By selling off the Tovlan landfill to Masua, Veolia would be entering into a business deal with an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The US North Coast Coalition for Palestine has been campaigning for the exclusion of Veolia from a public transit contract in Sonoma County. The county’s Commission on Human Rights debated the issue on 24 July 2012. Ruth Otte, executive vice president, marketing and communications of Veolia Transportation North America, says the following about Tovlan landfill in the above video:

It was sold last year. I have no reason to doubt that. I have been told that by the top of our company. Now there is a required consultancy that Veolia has to do as the contract transitions. But the contract was sold. We do not have any ownership or interest as Veolia Environmental Services in that contract any more.

In a May 2012 letter, Antoine Frérot, CEO of Veolia Environnement, claimed the company sold its entire rights in the Tovlan landfill to Masua on 26 June 2011. At the same time, Robert Hunt, executive director of Veolia Environmental Services UK, made the same claim in a meeting with MP Julian Brazier.

In a June 2011 letter, James Good, president of Veolia Water North America, wrote that the agreement to sell the rights in Tovlan to Masua should be signed any day.

Israel’s recent confirmation that Veolia is the sole owner and operator of Tovlan landfill sheds a different light on the divestment claims by the Veolia bosses. Activists should therefore seriously question any information that Veolia provides for its defense.

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February 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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