CRUNCH YEAR RAGBAG – PART II

Racism
Top Israel Rabbis: Don't Sell Property To Non-Jews Ami Teibel
Rabbis' wives urge Israeli women: Stay away from Arab men
Chaim Levinson
Binyamin Netanyahu, inciter-in-chief Yossi Gurvitz
Make no mistake - Israelis have always been racist Merav
Michaeli
Ban on Arabic in Jaffa classroom sparks protests Ilan Lior
Al Araqib Residents Expelled To Make Way for Trees Tarabut
Israel to Sue Bedouin Residents of Demolished Village for
Demolition Costs AIC
The EU and the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel (Recommendations) –
Adalah
Silencing Dissent
A Message From Abdullah Abu Rahmah on International Human
Rights Day
Judge Accepts Military Prosecution's appeal to Harshen Bil'in's Abu
Rahmah's Sentence
Protester death shows IDF may be using most dangerous type of tear
gas Avi Issacharoff/Anshel Pfeffer
IDF on Bil’in: spins, half-truths and lies Noam Sheizaf
101: How to make a martyr, from al-Durrah to Abu Rahmah Dahlia
Scheindlin
Israel’s assault on political dissent in full swing Mairav
Zonszein
Israeli activist sentenced to 3 months in prison for protesting Gaza
blockade Joseph Dana
Israeli activist to judge: “I won’t ask for leniency or express
remorse”
Shin Bet puts Israeli 'anarchists' in crosshairs Amira Hass
Human Rights Defender Nuri Al-Okbi Sentenced to Seven
Months Imprisonment
Breaking the Silence member: ‘Gov’t doesn’t determine legitimacy of
my voice’ Mikhael Manekin
Unsettled – Breaking the Silence Michelle Goldberg
Israeli NGOs are entrenching the occupation Yagil Levy
Government protects the people, not the other way around Zeev
Sternhell
Itijah General Director Ameer Makhoul sentenced to 9 years in prison:
Addameer calls for an end to arbitrary detention and the release of all
human rights defenders
The struggle for al-Araqib is the struggle for Palestine Ameer Makhoul
Jerusalem Prize speech Ian McEwan
Rattling the Cage : Tips for Information Warriors Larry Derfner
Netanyahu: Shoot to Kill (Maariv 1987) Noam Sheizaf
Why the Jewish Right is Terrified of J Street Dan Fleshler
The Dissenters David Remnick (about Haaretz)
East Jerusalem
1,500 Arrested in a Year: Israel's War on Children Jonathan
Cook
Palestinian Women Suffer Specific Consequences of Forced Evictions In East
Jerusalem - WCLAC
First step for the joint struggle in Silwan, E. Jerusalem Mairav
Zonszein
Israel applies the “price tag” strategy in East Jerusalem Ir Amim
Netanyahu warned against using private guards at East Jerusalem
settler compound Akiva Eldar
Dr. Erakat on the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem
EU officials propose help for arrested Palestinians Donald
Macintyre
EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem and the Peace Process
(2010)
No Man's Land in East Jerusalem Elior Levy
A New Tunnel in Silwan Hagit Ofran (Peace Now Settlement Watch)
UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk’s Statement about Home
Demolitions (March 2011)
Residents of Jerusalem-area village fight battle against
separation fence Amira Hass
Invitation to PA, EC and UNRWA Event at Wallaja on March 21,
2011
West Bank
Labour is concerned Amira Hass
The Children's Judge Aya Kaniuk and Tamar Goldschmidt
New state budget gives settlements NIS 2 billion – and more
Akiva Eldar
Demolition of Palestinian homes in West Bank's Area C tripled in
2010 Amira Hass
Shin Bet tortures prisoners and denies access to lawyers Amira
Hass
Shin Bet: Disclosing number of detainees who haven't seen
lawyer compromises security Amira Hass
Beinisch doesn't understand Amira Hass
The Israeli supreme court rejects petition against secret detention
facility Yossi Wolfson
B'Tselem’s 2010 summary of human rights in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip
When killing an Old Man is “Returning Fire” Yossi Gurvitz
No demotion for officer who ordered soldier to shoot bound
protester with rubber bullet Anshel Pfeffer
IDF officer’s career torpedoed over corruption, but not over alleged
war crimes Roi Maor
Bil’in Annual Conference in April
Settler Violence you won’t hear about Yousef Munayyer
Netanyahu’s Exploitation of the Murders at Itamar Nehemia Shtrasler
Three Megilla Segments Doron Rosenblum
BDS
Tear down this Israeli Wall Roger Waters
BDS 2010: More Powerful Than The Sword Eric Walberg
Israel Prize laureates join academic boycott of settlement
university Or Kashti
Weekly advert in Haaretz by Gush Shalom as to BDS law going
through Knesset
Gaza
WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of
collapse Haaretz editorial
'Our lives became something we'd never dreamt': The former
Israeli soldiers who have testified against army abuses
Donald Macintyre
IDF soldier charged with killing Gaza civilian: My commander
told me I was 'cold-blooded murderer'
'Good hit. Alpha.' Amira Hass
Illegal Closure of the Gaza Strip: Collective Punishment of the Civilian
Population - PCHR
Reconstructing the Closure - Gisha
"Lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy" -
Gisha
Prof. Dogan speaks for his son, Furkan, killed on the Mavi
Marmara
Amnesty International – Conclusions and Recommendations in
Amnesty International’s updated assessment of Israeli and
Palestinian investigations into the Gaza conflict
Amnesty International - Petition urges Human Rights Council to
act for international justice for Gaza conflict victims
“Is the Goldstone Report Dead, High Commissioner?” – Open
letter from HR organisations
Gaza ‘March 15′ protests continue amidst ongoing crackdown
Links and Videos:
The Humanitarian Monitor - OCHA
BBC: Fears over African migrants held by Sinai Bedouin,
31.12.10
BBC Bias - The Gaza Freedom Flotilla
Israeli bulldozers spread dispair
Wael Ghonim's Dream Interview
The UltraZionists – Louis Theroux for BBC
Article about Louis Theroux’ video for BBC
Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) on The Riz Khan Show, Al Jazeera
English (espousing BDS etc.)
Michael Morpurgo flies kites in Gaza – BBC Newsnight
J Street Conference (incl. Mona Eltahawy, Peter Beinart, Daniel Levy,
Daniel Ben Simon, Roger Cohen, Robert Serry & Monday Keynote by
Dennis Ross: The US-Israel Relationship)
Demolition Summary of Displacement Working Group, 2010
EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem, 2010
Al Haq – Construction in East Jerusalem
Al Haq - Memory of the Cactus (trailer)
London & Kirschenbaum re Nablus after Itamar attack (Shlomi Eldar)

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 After murders in Itamar: “Quick, while everyone’s busy with
Japan”

Top Israel Rabbis: Don't Sell Property To Non-Jews

By Ami Teibel, Associated Press, 7 December 2010
JERUSALEM — Three dozen top Israeli rabbis threw their support
Tuesday behind a religious ruling barring Jews from selling or renting
homes to non-Jews – an indication of growing radicalism within the
rabbinical community at a time of mounting friction between Israeli
Arabs and Jews.
The action by the clerics – chief rabbis in some of Israel's largest cities
and influential among the devout – fueled charges of racism. The
religious opinion first became a focus of controversy last year when the
chief rabbi of Safed – a town in northern Israel that has a large
concentration of devout Jews – urged that it be applied specifically to
Arabs.
Nitai Morgenstern, an aide to Safed's chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliahu, said the
town has "a problem of a lot of people renting and selling to Arabs, and
that destroys the city's social fabric."
Recently, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews asked other chief rabbis to
express their support for the ruling to prove it has widespread backing,
Morgenstern said Tuesday. Thirty-seven rabbis signed it. The Associated
Press obtained a copy of the ruling with their signatures attached on
Tuesday.
Mordechai Nagari, chief rabbi of Maaleh Adumim, a large West Bank
settlement outside Jerusalem, defended the letter, which he signed.
"The rabbinical ruling is that you cannot sell houses to gentiles, and its
purpose is to protect the Jewish identity of the state of Israel," he told AP
Television News.
Morgenstern said he understood how this attitude could cause friction
with the Arab minority, which accounts for one-fifth of Israel's population
of 7.6 million.
"But people have to see the other side," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the initiative.
"Israel categorically rejects these words" against its Arab citizens,
Netanyahu said in a speech Tuesday evening in Jerusalem. "This must
not happen in any democratic nation, and certainly not in the Jewish and
democratic state" of Israel.
Amit Cohen said he and other Safed residents led the campaign to win
other rabbis' support because clerics are "simply fed up with the fact
that rabbis have to fear issuing or discussing religious rulings."
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel called on Netanyahu to take
disciplinary action against the rabbis, who are employed by the state.
Taxpayers pay the salaries of Israel's 126 municipal chief rabbis.
Arab Israeli lawmaker Ahmad Tibi said the rabbis should be fired and
brought up on criminal charges "because we are talking about
incitement or racism according even to Israeli law."
Israeli Jews have increasingly been questioning the loyalty of Arab
citizens, who legally enjoy the same rights but tend to be poorer and
discriminated against in state funding and job opportunities.
Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, led his
Yisrael Beitenu party to large gains in last year's parliamentary elections
by playing on the perceived disloyalty of Israel's Arabs.
Meanwhile, some members of the Arab minority have become
radicalized by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and are openly speaking
about turning the Jewish state into part of a binational state that would
be home to Israelis and Palestinians both.
Salah Mohsen, spokesman of Adalah, an advocacy group for Arabs in
Israel, said the rabbis' action was "not surprising" and blamed
Lieberman's party, which wants to redraw Israel's borders to exclude
large Arab communities.
Rabbi David Rosen, the interfaith adviser to Israel's chief rabbinate,
described the rabbis' action as "disturbing" but said he did not think that
the majority of the country's rabbis would agree and called it a product
of the lingering conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
"The rabbinate as a whole isn't xenophobic or hostile to Arabs," Rosen
said. "As long as the conflict goes on here, it's logical to assume that the
attitudes of all sides will harden, which is deeply regrettable."
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Rabbis' wives urge Israeli women: Stay away from Arab
men
A new letter signed by 30 women suggests that girls who date
non-Jews will be cut off from their 'holy race'.
By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz , 28 December 2010
A letter urging Jewish women not to date non-Jewish men has been
published by a group of rabbis' wives. The letter comes on the heels of a
rabbis' letter published earlier this month urging Jews not to sell or rent
properties to non-Jews.
The new letter, signed by 30 rabbis' wives, says, "For your sake, for the
sake of future generations, and so you don't undergo horrible suffering,
we turn to you with a request, a plea, a prayer. Don't date non-Jews,
don't work at places that non-Jews frequent, and don't do national
service with non-Jews."
Anti-Arab demonstration in Bat
Yam, December 20, 2010
Photo by: Daniel Bar-On
The letter was organized by the
organization Lehava, which claims
to "save daughters of Israel" from
what it calls assimilation. Lehava
also took part in the recent
demonstrations against selling or
renting homes to non-Jews.
The group operates a shelter for women who leave their Arab partners
and educate the public on what it calls the dangers that arise from
contact between Jews and Arabs. The organization also called for the
boycott of the Gush Etzion branch of the supermarket Rami Levi, where
Arab and Jewish workers are on shift side-by-side.
In the last few weeks, Bentzi Gopstein of Kiryat Arba, the director of
Lehava, convinced the wives of important rabbis in the religious Zionist
movement to sign on to the letter. Among the signatories were Netzhiya
Yosef, wife of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, Esther Lior, wife of Rabbi Dov Lior,
Shulamit Melamed of Beit Alon and Starna Druckman of Kiryat Motzkin.
The rabbis' wives letter claims to alert its readers to the phenomenon of
Arabs who go by Jewish nicknames, claiming that they are kind and
gentle until they can isolate a Jewish woman, whereupon they beat and
humiliate her and do not allow her to escape.
In its attempt to appeal to Jewish women, the letter states that they
descend from a noble race of kings, and that dating a non-Jew would
thereby cut her off from her Jewish family.

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Binyamin Netanyahu, inciter-in-chief
By Yossi Gurvitz, +972Mag, 24 December 2010
The Prime Minister returns to his hate-mongering roots
A strange dialogue took this place between grassroots rightwing
activists and the government. A demonstration was held in Bat Yam
under the slogan of fighting the Arabs, with an emphasis on the fear of
“assimilation”, or, to use the more accurate and less laundered term,
defilement of blood. One of the participants called for the killing of
Jewish women who date Arabs. Even the Nazis didn’t go that far.
A significant number of the Bat Yam demonstrators appeared, one day
later, in southern Tel Aviv. They even (Hebrew) carried the same
placards: “Jews, Let’s win! The Daughters of Israel to the People of
Israel”. There is no difference between the hate of the African refugees,
against whom the demo in Tel Aviv was intended, and the hatred of
Arabs; it’s the same hatred of non-Jews. While the southern Tel Aviv
demo was officially against “foreign workers”, it was in southern Tel Aviv
that five Israeli citizens, one of them an IDF veteran, were forced to
evacuate their apartment, under threat of it being set on fire while they
were inside (Hebrew). Their crime? Having the wrong blood. This was no
idle threat, by the way: Jewish terrorists of the Hatikva neighborhood –
part of southern Tel Aviv – firebombed two apartments in 2008, because
Arabs were residing there (Hebrew). This week, as the hate was on full
burner, someone threw a burning tyre full of incendiaries into an Ashdod
apartment, where five Sudanese refugees lived; they barely survived it
(Hebrew).
As far as both the inciters and the crowd they gather care, there is no
difference between the refugees and the Arbas: both of them foreigners,
and both of them are considered to be a threat – psychologically if not
actually. Roi Maor has the quotes to prove it.
"Infiltrator, call your grandmother". Refugees march in Tel Aviv. (Yossi
Gurvitz)
The vitriol against the refugees comes from above, from the
government. There’s no point in wasting words on that son of African
emigrants, Eli Yishai; he may be the worst of the lot – quite possibly
because his voters relish this sort of bile – but he’s definitely not alone.
The police commissioner, Inspector General Dudi Cohen, informed us a
couple of days ago that he is worried about the crime levels among the
refugees, blatantly ignoring research by the Knesset which showed
(Hebrew PDF) that crime among them is lower than among native
Israelis. Given what’s going on in the last week, Cohen’s statement is
criminal incitement, derived either from ignorance or malice.
And above it all, stands the inciter-in-chief. Binyamin Netanyahu’s entire
career is seeped in incitement, from trotting to scenes of terror attacks
during the Rabin government, through that Zion Square rally when he
pretended not to hear the cries of “Rabin is a traitor”, through the “the
left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish” moment, through the
unforgettable “they’re a f r a i d” chant at the media during the 1999
elections, through his attacks on Israeli Arabs during that great artillery
drill, Cast Lead.
This week, Netanyahu went one step forward. In response to the wave of
racist attacks, he informed the nation that their intent is good, but
they’re actions are questionable. He called Israelis to “avoid taking the
law into their own hands”, as if setting apartments on fire and death
threats are legal measured, unfortunately employed by unauthorized
personnel. He kept speaking of “observing the laws”, and told the
rightwing grassroots time and time again he understood their message,
that the government is on their side, that they’re building a fence. He
said nothing of the hate-mongering against Arab citizens, not to mention
the juxtaposition of incitement against them and against the refugees.
He spoke of a wall; he omitted any mention of the concentration camp
the government is building in the south, intended to deal with people
who’ll manage to avoid the fence. No disorderly violence, please; the
bureaucracy will take of “the problem” – Netanyahu’s words – in its own
way.
Why did Netanyahu ride this particular wave? Perhaps because it is in
his nature to ride them. That is. After all, how he built his career: by
playing to the fears of Israelis. Perhaps he is afraid that letting this wave
pass will help others depict him as a wuss, who lacks the spine the
population craves. Perhaps, comes the disquieting suspicion, because he
knows that by setting bonfires of hatred, he will distract people from the
Carmel fire and the way he and his government managed to avoid
taking any responsibility for it. Perhaps, he reasons, if he stands with the
hate-mongers, his myriad of failures may be forgotten.
So far, alas, it seems to work just fine.
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Make no mistake - Israelis have always been racist

By Merav Michaeli, Haaretz, 28 December 2010
The racist, extreme right wing gets in and fills the vacuum left by
the negligent social left
Among those shocked at the "spread of racism" are people who claim
that the residents of the neighborhoods protesting against foreigners
are not racist but merely afraid, merely in distress. Indeed, the chief
activist in the neighborhood of Kiryat Shalom, Eli Mizrahi, said, "There is
no hatred .... We know they are suffering .... I don't understand: Why is it
necessary to make it harder for us, in a place with a weak population? ...
Why pile weakness on weakness?"
It's true; the neighborhoods are weak, with weak residents who have a
hard time making a living and getting ahead. One can just read the
reports on increasing poverty, declining wages and growing nutritional
insecurity to know how tangible the distress is; a struggle for survival.
Israel neglected these people and communities, and in recent years is
only increasing their number.
But the distress does not contradict the racism, it goes hand in hand
with it. In its early days, when Israel's character was taking shape, it
determined that the white race was superior. When the people who
would eventually become "Mizrahim" arrived and were brought here
from North Africa, it wasn't suggested or made possible for them to take
part in the government, the land, the systems of power and the media.
Very quickly they became citizens, but second-class citizens subject to
humiliation and inferior conditions. They were excluded from public life
and official cultural life, living with the knowledge and experience of
inferiority. And separation: They were put in separate housing projects
and separate neighborhoods.
People who grow up with this experience of inferiority, when racism is
directed at them, internalize that racism. When a landlord, the master,
determines that white is good and black is inferior, you internalize that
standard and hate yourself because you are not white. The standard of
white superiority and the racism that comes with it become part of you,
even when you are its victim.
And then you project your racism onward, to anyone who is darker and
more inferior than you. Add to that the existential distress and the
inflaming of baser instincts by types like extreme right-wing activist
Itamar Ben-Gvir, who don't miss an opportunity to gather new believers,
and you get the recent racist demonstrations.
After all, this is always how it works: The racist, extreme right wing gets
in and fills the vacuum left by the negligent social left. But make no
mistake - the hatred and racism were always here; now they are
emerging more loudly.
The white upper classes sublimate their racism: They employ the people
they perceive as inferior; they have the money to pay them (not much )
to clean for them and take care of them. Once it was the Arabs and the
Mizrahim, now it's the "infiltrators" and the foreigners (in fact, upper-
class women are the employers, the men don't even have any contact
with them ).
And so this class does just what the white and racist prime minister is
doing, inciting against the very things that step on the weakest points of
the weak: "a concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of
the country," and a "wave threatening Israeli workplaces". And
immediately thereafter, warning Israelis "not to take the law into their
own hands and not to hurt the illegal infiltrators" so he can wash his
hands of the matter: They are the racists, those baboons, not him.
That's the way this class is, part of which belongs to the good old "left,"
disappointed with the peace process and party to the building of the
separation fence, the roads for Jews only and acceptance committees to
communities. And in the same breath, they frame the others with the
charge of racism, those others from the Hatikva neighborhood and Bat
Yam.
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Ban on Arabic in Jaffa classroom sparks protests

By Ilan Lior, Haaretz, 29 December 2010
Students question why teachers stop them from speaking
Arabic, but don't do so when immigrant students speak
Russian between themselves.
Dozens of students, parents and Jaffa residents staged a demonstration
on Tuesday in front of Jaffa's Ironi Zayin high school, protesting a ruling
from the principal that no Arabic be spoken in classrooms. They
demanded that the principal, David Ben Zohar, rescind the order, and
allow each pupil to speak the language of their choice.
Lessons in the secondary school's classes are conducted in Hebrew, but
half of the pupils are Arabs. Pupils report that recently teachers have not
allowed them to speak Arabic among themselves, and chastise them
whenever they are heard doing so.
"It is very hard. There are things you don't understand in class, and you
want to understand them, so you ask somebody," said one female pupil
from the school. "But if your friend tells you in Arabic, the teacher yells
at you."
Other students questioned why teachers were stopping them from
speaking Arabic, but do not say anything when immigrant students
speak Russian between themselves.
Ahmad Masharawi, a Tel Aviv-Jaffa council member who organized
Tuesday's protest, called on the Education Ministry to update its rules
and clarify that the principal's decision is impermissible.
Education Ministry officials said Tuesday that the situation with the Jaffa
school is being reviewed, and that "there is no regulation barring the use
of other languages in lessons."
The principal's response could not be obtained Tuesday.

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Al Araqib Residents Expelled To Make Way for Trees

Tarabut, 17 January 2011
On Sunday, January 16th, 2011, the Israel Lands Administration (ILA)
accompanied by a heavy police presence destroyed the Bedouin village
of Al Araqib for the 9th time since its total destruction in July 2010.
During the village's destruction the police forces used large amounts of
violent force, including sponge bullets (a police method of crowd
dispersal) which injured eleven of the residents, one of them in his eye.
This time it seems that the ILA has decided to expel the residents once
and for all. This is corroborated by statements made by Shlomo Zeiser,
the ILA officer in charge of inspection, in an interview with the "Walla"
news website: "In addition to the ongoing work, we cleared away the
debris from the previous demolitions, which were an environmental and
safety hazard. At the same time, we started to prepare the place for
planting, in order to protect the land there."
Throughout the demolitions the police forces arrested a number of
residents who were protesting the destruction of their homes. Parallel to
the demolition, ILA personnel began to clear away the remains of the
eight previous demolitions, and started construction works to level the
land in order to prepare it for planting trees. Activists who arrived at the
village this morning (Monday, 1.17) in order to observe and document
the events were stopped by police forces, and one of them, Professor
Gadi AlGazi, a historian from Tel Aviv University and activist in the
Hithabrut-Taraabut movement, was arrested by the police.
The village of Al Araqib has existed for 80 years. In the early 1950's the
new Israeli state requested of the residents to leave their village
temporarily, promising that they will be allowed to return to the village
in six months. This promise was never fulfilled. In the beginning of the
1990's the village residents and their descendants decided to return to
their lands and to make good on the promise that was made to them.
Since then the Israeli government has been using different means to try
to expel them again. Among the more outrageous attempts included
sending airplanes to blanket the residents' wheat fields with toxic
pesticides meant for weeds. After the High Court of Justice ruled that
this method comprises a risk to health and human life, the government
ceased using this method and began using tractors to uproot the young
wheat sprouts. After the authorities realized that the Al Araqib residents
were holding steadfast to their land and are not giving up, the
government sent hundreds of heavily armed police and bulldozers to
destroy the village and expel the residents by force. The first demolition
was committed on the 27th of July, 2010, in which an entire fully
populated village, including its houses, barns, orchards, and animal
houses, was destroyed.
The residents returned and built dwellings for themselves, and the
authorities returned and destroyed these eight times. After the second
demolition Sheikh Siyakh A-Turi, the leader of the village, was exiled
from the village and was forbidden from entering its lands. Al Turi was
forced to dwell in the village's cemetery. From this cemetery Sheikh A-
Turi sent a message of peace and reconciliation to the residents of
Israel, where he explained why the Bedouins are not invaders, and
called on the government to cease the demolitions.
The ongoing demolitions are not a coincidence. They are part of The 30
Day Plan, which is the plan to rid the Negev of its Bedouin residents. The
last demolition is also a part of this plan. What is happening at this very
moment in Al Araqib is nothing new in the history of the State of Israel.
Cleansing the land, of its original residents as well as of any remnant of
their existence—structures, agricultural lands, trees, and more—and
then covering the land with trees. This is a practice that has been put
into place in many other places in Israel. For instance, after the 1967
war, the Arab villages of Yalo and Imwaas in the Latrun area were
completely destroyed and the trees of "Canada Park" planted on their
ruins. And so on and so forth, in dozens of different cases. And now it
seems that the state is trying to erase any trace of the existence of the
residents of Al Araqib and deny any connection they have to this place.
At this very moment, the residents of the village have been assembled
in their village's cemetery overlooking the village, the same cemetery
that they have used for 80 years. They are forbidden to approach what
is left of their village. From the cemetery they can observe the
bulldozers and other heavy machinery busy leveling their village,
erasing any vestige of the human history of that place. Jewish National
Fund (Keren Kayemet Le'Israel) employees are already preparing the
ground for planting, and if we don't stop them before it's too late, the
village's land will be covered with green saplings starting this Thursday,
in anticipation of Tu BiShvat, the Festival of the Trees.
We cannot allow that to happen. This is ethnic cleansing, plain and
simple. They expel human beings, destroy their homes, and try to erase
any trace of their existence. This is an attempt to rewrite the history of
Zionism, to retroactively prove the known Zionist motto: "A land without
a people, for a people without a land." But this land was occupied. The
residents of Al Araqib are living testimony of this, and for this reason,
perhaps, the authorities are so determined and violent in their attempts
to expel them from their lands.
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Israel to Sue Bedouin Residents of Demolished Village

for Demolition Costs
Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Israeli forces hauling away the remains of the village of El Araqib,
demolished 18 times

Israel’s State Attorney’s Office is currently preparing a legal petition for

more than NIS 1 million against the residents of El Araqib, a Bedouin
village in the Negev Desert under increasing attack.
The State’s Attorney’s Office is demanding that residents cover the
costs incurred to evict them and demolish their village, which to date
Israel has done 18 times.
According to the right-wing affiliated news source Arutz 7, the State
Attorney’s Office is currently gathering information on the costs related
to evicting the Bedouin-Palestinian residents of El Araqib in order to
calculate an exact sum for the petition. Expenses to be reviewed include
working hours of police officers who evicted the El Araqib residents,
costs of helicopters and/or airplanes and the trucks employed in hauling
away the demolished village.
The many demolitions of El Araqib are part of the aggressive attempts of
the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and Israel Land Authority (ILA) attempt to
claim their historic land and use it for forestation and future Jewish
settlement.
More than 150,000 Bedouin, the indigenous inhabitants of the Negev
region, live in informal shanty towns, or "unrecognized villages," in the
south of Israel. They account for around 12% of the Palestinian
population of the country, and yet discriminatory land and planning
policies have made it virtually impossible for Bedouin to build legally
where they live.
Despite being unrecognized by Israel, the village of El Araqib has existed
since before the creation of Israel in 1948. Bedouin residents were
evicted by the newly declared Israeli state in 1951, but returned to the
land on which they live and where they cultivate. Ownership of the land
is has been the subject of proceedings in the Be'er Sheva District Court.
The first of the 18 demolitions occurred on 27 July 2010, when Israel
demolished 40 homes. At 4:30 a.m., 1500 police officers carrying
firearms and stun grenades, followed by a special patrol unit, helicopter,
mounted horsemen and bulldozers, entered el Araqib and began
demolishing everything in the village.
The more than 300 Bedouin village residents, mainly children, were
forcefully removed from their village as they watched the Israeli police
destroy their homes and property.
Israel has yet to decide against whom to submit the petition. It has yet
to be decided against who specifically to present petition, but apparently
it will be against those suing for ownership over the land and specifically
head of the Al Turi Tribe.
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The EU and the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel –

Adalah Report Recommendations
This report argues that EU-Israel bilateral relationship and the policy
instruments within it provide an adequate policy framework for the EU to
address the situation of the minority. The following recommendations
are tailored to mainstream the Palestinian Arab minority within the EU-
Israel bilateral relationship as part of a comprehensive EU strategy
towards Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
1. Declarations:
The European Council, the Council of Ministers, the EU High
Representative and the European Parliament should make use of EU’s
declaratory diplomacy to take position on principle issues to prevent
human rights violations and to protect and support the full and equal
citizenship rights and minority rights for the Palestinian Arab minority.
Among others, they should condemn all expressions of racism by Israeli
officials against Arab citizens of Israel, and deplore recent political
trends and legislative bills which threaten the most basic political and
civil rights of members of the minority, including attacks on their elected
political representatives163.
Given Israel’s insistence on recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state”, the
EU could follow the lead of international bodies such as the UN
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) which has
stated that the definition of Israel as a Jewish nation state should not
“result in any systemic distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference
based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin in the
enjoyment of human rights”.164
In relation to the MEPP, the EU should state that the citizenship and
minority rights of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel should be fully
guaranteed and protected as part and parcel of any agreement reached
between Israel and the Palestinians and that their citizenship is
nonnegotiable.
The EU should continue to promote Israeli democracy and withhold its
support from any proposal that undermines the democratic character of
Israel as a state for all its citizens and legal residents.
2. Dialogue:
a - Technical human rights dialogue and civil society participation
• The establishment of the human rights subcommittee: The EU should
continue to insist on the establishment of a human rights sub-
committee, de-linking the issue from the overall upgrade process.
• Human rights working group: In the interim, the EU should continue
and strengthen its human rights dialogue with Israel on the rights of the
Palestinian Arab minority in the context of the human rights working
group. Meetings should be extended to a full day, as recommended by
the EU Guidelines on human rights dialogues.165 The meetings should
produce clear commitments for Israel, and in between these meetings,
regular follow-up meetings should be held to ensure implementation of
Israel’s commitments, especially recommendations made by UN human
rights treaty bodies as they relate to the Palestinian Arab minority in
Israel.166
• Involvement of civil society organisations: For the discussions of the
human rights working group and the prospective subcommittee to be
effective, the EU must ensure close cooperation and consultation on key
issues of concern with relevant civil society actors, particularly human
rights organisations, in a consistent and transparent manner.
The agenda, the protocol and the minutes of these meetings must be
made publicly accessible.
• Expert meeting: As suggested by the EU Guidelines on human rights
dialogues, the EU should also consider setting up an expert meeting on
anti-discrimination and affirmative action measures to address this issue
in depth with civil society organisations, and consider inviting Israeli
authorities, including Arab representatives, to encourage a real debate
on this issue in Israel.
b - Political coherence
Concerns about violations of the rights of the Palestinian Arab minority
should be raised by the EU at the highest political level, including during
EU-Israel Association Council and political subcommittee meetings,
meetings of EU and EU member states’ representatives with Israeli
officials, and bilateral meeting between members of the European and
national parliaments and their Israeli counterparts.
c - Human rights mainstreaming
In accordance with the EU Guidelines on human rights dialogues which
call on the EU ‘to intensify the process of integrating human rights and
democratisation objectives (“mainstreaming”) into all aspects of its
external policies’, the EU should ensure that relevant EU-Israel
subcommittees address discrimination against the Palestinian Arab
minority. The relevant subcommittees include, among others, Social and
Migration Affairs;167 Research, Innovation, Information Society, Education
and Culture168; Transport, Energy and Environment169. The same should
apply to the high level seminars organised on education and training 170
and other fields. Links should be established between these
subcommittees and the human rights working group/subcommittee.
d - ENP Progress reports
• While successive European Commission progress reports on the
implementation by Israel of its Action Plan have consistently raised
concern regarding the rights of the Palestinian Arab minority, the
European Commission should recognise a deterioration of their rights in
its next progress report covering 2010. The European Commission
should highlight the flood of discriminatory legislation that has been
introduced and/or enacted by the Knesset in 2009 and 2010; the
criminal indictments and other punitive measures pursued against Arab
members of the Knesset in 2010; the lack of accountability for the
October 2000 killings (2010 marked the 10th anniversary of the events);
the displacement and dispossession of lands from the Arab Bedouin in
the unrecognized villages in the Naqab (Negev), among other concerns.
• In general, the progress report should include clear recommendations
to Israel, and conclusions on measures to be taken by Israel in the
absence of progress on human rights or any further deterioration in their
protection.
e - Visibility
The EU should increase the international visibility and domestic status of
the Palestinian Arab minority by engaging, in Israel and in Europe, with
their representatives, including civil society, the political leadership and
businessmen. The EU could regularly invite civil, political and business
representatives to Brussels, including to the European Parliament, to
member-state parliaments, foreign ministries and chancelleries. EU and
member-state governmental and parliamentary delegations visiting
Israel should ensure regular meetings with representatives of the
minority, including in the Galilee, the Triangle and the Naqab (Negev).
3. Cooperation:
a - Research and education:
• In order to promote the “full access on an equal footing for all
students, researchers, other individuals, companies and organisations
based in Israel to projects under Community programmes”171, and
remedy “the relatively low level of interconnectedness between Arab
scholars and their European counterparts, and the lack of information of
EU programmes in Arab”172, the EU Delegation in Israel should provide
more information regarding the seventh and upcoming Framework
Programmes (particularly calls such as REGPOT designed for
convergence regions173) to Arab researchers and scientists. It should
organise or sponsor training sessions in colleges and universities to
enhance Arab participation in the European research area. In this
respect, although not part of FP7, the Mediptikar workshop in Kfar Kara
in 2009 is a positive case to build on174.
• Beyond the EU level and given the lack of “ethnic quotas” in the FP,
Erasmus Mundus, Tempus and similar research and study programmes,
member states should adopt affirmative action measures to assist Arab
citizens of Israel in obtaining scholarships to study in their respective
countries and participate in bilateral research projects.
b - Assistance
• Twinning projects financed under the ENPI
1 - The EU should avoid patterns of discrimination in Israel from being
replicated in EU twinning projects:
- The EU should build on the example of the Equal Employment
Opportunities Commission (EEOC) project by establishing regular civil
society dialogue with Jewish and Arab organisations to identify projects
aimed at tackling disparities in Israel.
- The EU should specify, as part of the project requirements, the need
for projects to ensure that civil society has an effective and ongoing
consultative role in these projects. The European Commission should
take this recommendation into account in the context of the revision of
its financial instruments for external relations.175
- The EU should encourage Israel to ensure, when relevant, that the
project benefits the Palestinian Arab minority inside the state.
- Once projects are proposed by the Israeli project partner, the EU
should recommend tasks within the project fiches that expressly tackle
the problems of the Palestinian Arab minority.
2 - The EU should encourage Israel to submit a twinning project aimed
at bringing Israel’s anti-discrimination legislation into conformity with EU
Acquis in this field (Article 13 of the TEU; Council Directive 2000/43;
Council Directive 2000/78; Council Decision 27/11/2000, Article 21 of the
Charter on Fundamental Rights of the European Union).
• Project financed under budget lines related to peace, democracy,
human rights and human development within the ENPI and the EIDHR:
The European Commission should ensure that appropriate funds are
devoted to the Palestinian Arab minority. To do so, it should at least
continue, or possibly further develop, its good practice of devoting a
share of approximately 30 percent of the funds to this issue, either
directly or indirectly.
4. Conditionality:
a - Conditioning the upgrade
• The EU-Israel upgrade process is formally frozen although in practice
the EU’s cooperation with Israel has been enhanced since June 2009 in
several sectors. The EU’s “business as usual” approach disregards a
range of discriminatory Israeli policies and human rights violations in
Israel proper and in the OPT, signalling EU acquiesce or non-objection to
these policies. The EU should condition the upgrade of its relations with
Israel, including any new bilateral agreement, to tangible improvements
in the human rights situation in Israel and the OPT, including the rights
of the Palestinian Arab minority.
• The European Parliament could also make use of its voting powers to
express its disagreement with Israeli policies, and condition its approval
of any new EU-Israel cooperation agreements to tangible improvements
in the human rights situation in Israel and the OPT. Among others, the
EP should also continue to condition its assent vote on the conclusion of
a protocol to the EU-Israel Association Agreement on a framework
Agreement between the European Community and the State of Israel on
the general principles governing Israel’s participation in Community
programmes.
b - Future EU-Israel Action Plan
• Were the upgrade process to formally resume through the adoption of
a new EU-Israel Action Plan, the EU should ensure that the chapter on
“shared values” is substantially strengthened, in particular the objective
to “promote and protect the rights of minorities, including enhancing
political, economic, social and cultural opportunities for all citizens and
lawful residents”. What in the current Action Plan reads as a general
objective, should be translated into concrete, detailed and sequenced
priorities for action, including priorities tailored to the protection of the
rights of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. These priorities should
include benchmarks referring to international standards. The EU should
also encourage Israel to mainstream the rights of the Palestinian Arab
minority in other fields of cooperation covered by the Action Plan,
including in the fields of social cooperation (social situation, employment
and poverty reduction) education and transport.
Under the objective to “promote and protect the rights of minorities”,
the EU should insist on the inclusion of the following action points176:
• Guarantee to persons belonging to national minorities the right to
equality under the law and equal protection of the law, and prohibit any
discrimination based on national belonging;
• Adopt adequate special measures, including the just and fair allocation
of state budgets, land and other resources, in order to promote, in all
areas of economic, social, political and cultural life, full and effective
equality between persons belonging to national minorities and those
belonging to the majority.
• Provide effective mechanisms for the prevention of and redress for any
action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing persons belonging to
national minorities from their lands.
• Ensure that Israel’s domestic legislation is in line with the international
legal covenants that Israel has ratified, including the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International
Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on
Eliminating all forms of Discrimination against Women; and encourage
Israel to ratify the Optional Protocols to these conventions.
• Implement the recommendations of UN human rights treaty bodies as
they relate to the rights of the Palestinian Arab minority.177
162 Ibid.
163 For more information see http://www.adalah.org/newsletter/ara/sep10/EU-Israel
%20Informal%20Human%20Rights%20Working%20Group.pdf
164 CERD (2007), Concluding Observations on Israel, available at http://daccess-dds-
ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G07/424/79/PDF/G0742479.pdf
165 For further information please refer to pages 27-30 and 42-43 of the present
report.
166 This would include, for example, the Concluding Observations of the Human Rights
Committee – Israel, CCPR/C/ISR/CO/3, 29 July 2010; the Concluding Observations of the
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) – Israel,
CERD/C/ISR/CO/13, 14 June 2007; the Concluding Observations of the Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, expected 2011; and the Concluding
Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expected
2011.
167 EU-Israel Action Plan, op. cit., p. 8
168 Ibid., p. 22.
169 Ibid., p. 17.
170 These seminars are based on the Joint Declaration of Mr. Jan Figel, Commissioner
for Education, Training, Culture and Youth European Commission and Prof. Yuli Tamir,
Minister of Education State of Israel of July 2008 (available at
http://ec.europa.eu/education/external-relation-programmes/doc/jointisrael_en.pdf).
Such seminars took place in 2009 and in November 2010. At this last meeting, the EU
delegation raised concerns on the specific issue of the participation of the Arab
minority in exchange programs (Erasmus Mundus and Tempus). Information from EU
official, January 2011.
171 European Parliament (2008), Motion for a Resolution on the conclusion of a
protocol to the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing an association between the
European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the State of
Israel, of the other part, on a framework Agreement between the European Community
and the State of Israel on the general principles governing the State of Israel’s
participation in Community programmes, available at
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+MOTION+B6-
2008-0616+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN
172 Interview with Dr. Sharon Pardo, Ben-Gurion University, October 2010.
173 For more information see pages 34-35 of this report.
174 A joint Israeli-Palestinian (including Arab citizens of Israel) workshop on research
and innovation was organised in Kfar Kara under the Mediptikar programme in 2009.
Interview with EU Delegation in Israel, Tel Aviv, October 2010.
175 Specific reference is made to the public consultation titled “What funding for EU
external action after 2013?”, available at
http://ec.europa.eu/development/how/consultation/index.cfm?
action=viewcons&id=5240&lng=en.
176 For further recommendations regarding action points (or items) on other human
rights issues, see EMHRN-FIDH Note in view of the EU-Israel Political Subcommittee
Meeting – 28 October 2008, available at http://www.euromedrights.org/files.php?
force&file=Palestine-Israel-
wg/2008_10__EMHRN___FIDH_note_for_EU_IL_pol_subcommittee_494115228.pdf.
177 See footnote number 166.

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A Message From Abdullah Abu Rahmah on International

Human Rights Day
10 December 2010
A year ago tonight, on International Human Rights Day, our apartment in
Ramallah was broken into by the Israeli military in the middle of the
night and I was torn away from my wife Majida, my daughters Luma and
Layan, and my son Laith, who at the time was only nine months old.
As the coordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee against the Wall and
Settlements I was convicted of "organizing illegal demonstrations" and
"incitement." The "illegal demonstrations" refer to the nonviolent
resistance campaign that my village has been waging for the last six
years against Israel's Apartheid Wall that is being built on our
land.
I find it strange that the military judges could call our demonstrations
illegal and charge me for participating in and organizing them after the
world's highest legal body, the
International Court of Justice in The Hague, has ruled that Israel's wall
within the occupied territories is illegal and must be dismantled. Even
the Israeli supreme court ruled that the Wall's route in Bil'in is illegal.
I have been accused of inciting violence: this charge is also puzzling. If
the check points, closures, ongoing land theft, wall and settlements,
night raids into our homes and violent oppression of our protests does
not incite violence, what does?
Despite the occupation’s constant and intense incitement to violence in
Bil'in, we have chosen another way. We have chosen to protest
nonviolently together with Israeli and International supporters. We have
chosen to carry a message of hope and real partnership between
Palestinians and Israelis in the face of oppression and injustice. It
is this message that the Occupation is attempting to crush through its
various institutions including the military courts. An official from the
Israeli Military Prosecution shamelessly told my Attorney, Gaby Lasky,
that the objective of the military in my prosecution is to "put an end" to
these demonstrations.
The crime of incitement that I have been convicted of is defined under
Israeli military decree 101 regarding the prohibition of hostile action of
propaganda and incitement as "The attempt, verbally or otherwise, to
influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may disturb the public
peace or public order" and carries a 10 year maximal sentence. This
definition is so broad and vague that it can be applied to almost any
action or statement. Actually, these words could be considered
incitement if they were spoken in the occupied territories.
On the 11th of October of this year I was sentenced to 12 months in
prison, plus 6 months suspended sentence for 3 years, and a fine. My
family and I, especially my daughters, were counting the days to my
release. The military prosecution waited until just a few days before the
end of my sentence before appealing against my release, arguing that I
should be imprisoned longer. I have completed my sentence but remain
in prison. Though international law considers myself and other activists
as human rights defenders, the occupation authorities consider us
criminals whose freedom and other rights must be denied. In the year
that I have spent in prison, the demonstrations in Bil'in, Naalin, Al
Maasara, and Beit Omar have continued. Nabi Saleh and other villages
have taken up the popular struggle. Within this year, the International
campaign calling for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions of Israel until it
complies with International law has grown considerably, as have legal
actions against Israeli war crimes. I hope that soon Israel will no longer
be able to ignore the clear condemnation of its policies coming from
around the world.
In the year that I have spent in prison, my son Laith has taken his first
steps and said his first words, and Luma and Layan have been growing
from children to beautiful young girls. I have not been able to be with
them, to walk holding their hands, to take them to school as they and I
are used to. Laith does not know me now. And my wife Majida has had
to care for our family alone.
In 2010 children in Bil'in and throughout the West bank are still being
awakened in the middle of the night to find guns pointed at their heads.
In the year that I have spent in prison, the military has carried out
dozens of night raids in Bil'in with the purpose of removing those
involved in the popular struggle against the occupation.
Imagine if heavily armed men forced their way into your home in the
middle of the night. If your children were forced to watch as their father
or brother was blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken away. Or if you as a
parent were forced to watch this being done to your child.
This week the door of our cell was opened and a sixteen year boy was
pushed inside. My friend Adeeb Abu Rahmeh was shocked to recognize
his son, Mohammed, whom Adeeb had not seen since he himself was
arrested during a nonviolent demonstration 16 months ago.
Mohammad smiled when he saw his Father, but his face was red and
swollen and it was clear that he was in pain. He told us that he had been
taken from his home two nights previously. He spent the first night
blindfolded and shackled, being moved from one place to another. The
next day after a terrifying, disoriented, and sleepless night he was taken
to an interrogation room, his blindfold was removed and an interrogator
showed him pictures of people from the village. When questioned about
the first picture he told the interrogator that he did not recognize the
person. The interrogator slapped him hard across the face. This
continued with every question that Mohammad was asked: when he did
not give the answer that the interrogator wanted, he was slapped,
punched and threatened. Mohammad's treatment is not unusual.
Young boys from our village have been taken from their homes violently
and report being denied sleep, food, and water and being kept in
Isolation and threatened and often beaten during interrogation.
What was unusual about Mohammad is that he did not satisfy his
interrogator and with competent representation was released within a
few days. Usually children, just because they are children, will say
whatever the interrogator wants them to say to make such treatment
stop. Adeeb, myself, and thousands of other prisoners are being held in
prison based on testimonies forced or coerced out of these children. No
child should ever receive such treatment.
When the children who had testified against me retracted what they said
in interrogation and told the military judge that their testimonies where
given under duress, the judge declared them hostile witnesses.
Adeeb Abu Rahmah and I are the first to be convicted with incitement
and participation in illegal demonstrations since the first Intifada but,
unfortunately, it does not seem that we will be the last.
I often wonder what Israeli leaders think they will achieve if they
succeed in their goal of suppressing the Palestinian popular struggle? Is
it possible that they believe that our people can sit quietly and watch as
our land is taken from us? Do they think that we can face our children
and tell them that, like us, they will never experience freedom? Or do
they actually prefer violence and killing to our form of nonviolent
struggle because it camouflages their ongoing theft and gives them an
excuse to continue using us as guinea pigs for their weapons?
My eldest daughter Luma was nine years old when I was arrested. She is
now ten. After my arrest she began going to the Friday demonstrations
in our village. She always carries a picture of me in her arms. The adults
try to look after her but I still worry for my little girl. I wish that she could
enjoy her childhood like other children, that she could be studying and
playing with her friends. But through the walls and barbed wire that
separates us I hear my daughter's message to me, saying: "Baba, they
cannot stop us. If they take you away, we will take your place and
continue to struggle for justice." This is the message that I want to bring
you today. From beyond the walls, the barbed wire, and the prison bars
that separate Palestinians and Israelis.
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Judge Accepts Military Prosecution's appeal to Harshen

Bil'in's Abdallah Abu Rahmah's Sentence
Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, 11 January 2011
The court has accepted the military prosecution's appeal to harshen
Abdallah Abu Rahmah's sentence to a total of 16 months. Abu Rahmah
was supposed to be released on November 18th 2010, but was kept in
detention by the military prosecution's request, despite having finished
serving his term. He will now serve an additional 3 months in prison.
After ordering to keep Abdallah Abu Rahmah in detention past his
release date on the 18th of November 2010, the Military Court of Appeals
sided with the prosecution's appeal demanding to aggravate the one-
year sentence imposed on Abu Rahmah. The prosecution asked the
court to harshen the sentence so that it exceeds two years
imprisonment. However, the judge gave a sentence of a total of sixteen
months. He has been in jail for exactly thirteen months and one day. He
will now serve three more months to complete the sixteen month
sentence.
The judge sided with the military prosecution in front of a packed
courtroom, which included the German and Spanish heads of consul in
East Jerusalem, as well as diplomatic representatives from France,
Malta, Sweden, Austria, United Kingdom, and the European Commission.
Despite international outrage, the prosecution openly argued that the
sentence should be extended for political reasons, namely "to serve as a
deterrence not only to [Abu Rahmah] himself, but also to others who
may follow in his footsteps." Abdallah Abu Rahmah served as the
coordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee Against the Wall and
Settlements until his arrest last year. Such arguments by the
prosecution expose the real motivation behind the countless recent
arrests of anti-Wall organizers and activists, which is to squash the
popular struggle movement in the West Bank.
Adv. Gabi Lasky, Abdallah Abu Rahmah's lawyer: “Israel has tried
violent means to hinder and stop the popular unarmed demonstrations
in the West Bank. Military courts are an instrument of the occupation
and their verdicts are devised to help the occupation continue. This
decision makes a mockery of the law and justice itself.”
On October 11th 2010, Abu Rahmah was sentenced to twelve months
imprisonment for his prominent role in his village's successful campaign
against the construction of Israel's Separation Barrier on its lands. Abu
Rahmah was convicted of two Freedom of Expression charges -
incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations, but was cleared of all
charges connecting him with direct violence.
Abu Rahmah was to be released from prison on November 18th, when
the prison term he was sentenced to ended, but was kept in jail on the
order of the Military Court of Appeals. The controversial decision directly
conflicts with the jurisprudence of the Israeli Hight Court on the issue,
instructing that a prisoner should only be kept under arrest after his
term was over in the most extenuating of circumstances.
Abu Rahmah was declared a human rights defender by the European
Union, and his conviction and sentence generated international outrage,
and was denounced by human rights organizations and the international
community alike, including EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.
Background
Abu Rahmah, the coordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee Against
the Wall and Settlements, was arrested last year by soldiers who raided
his home at the middle of the night and was subsequently indicted
before an Israeli military court on unsubstantiated charges that included
stone-throwing and arms possession. Abu Rahmah was cleared of both
the stone-throwing and arms possession charges, but convicted of
organizing illegal demonstrations and incitement.
An exemplary case of mal-use of the Israeli military legal system in the
West Bank for the purpose of silencing legitimate political dissent, Abu
Rahmah's conviction was subject to harsh international criticism. The EU
foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, expressed her deep concern "that
the possible imprisonment of Mr Abu Rahma is intended to prevent him
and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to
protest[...]", after EU diplomats attended all hearings in Abu Rahmah's
case. Ashton's statement was followed by one from the Spanish
Parliament.
Renowned South African human right activist, Archbishop Desmond
Tutu, called on Israel to overturn Abu Rahmah's conviction on behalf of
the Elders, a group of international public figures noted as elder
statesmen, peace activists, and human rights advocates, brought
together by Nelson Mandela. Members of the Elders, including Tutu,
have met with Abu Rahmah on their visit to Bil'in prior to his arrest.
International human rights organization Amnesty International
condemned Abu Rahmah's conviction as an assault on the right to
freedom of expression. Human Rights Watch denounced the conviction,
pronouncing the whole process "an unfair trial".
Israeli organizations also distributed statements against the conviction –
including a statement by B’Tselem which raises the issue of
questionable testimonies by minors used to convict Abu Rahme, and The
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) which highlights the
impossibility of organizing legal demonstrations for Palestinians in the
West Bank.
Legal Background
Abu Rahmah, the coordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee Against
the Wall and Settlements, was acquitted of two out of the four charges
brought against him in the indictment - stone-throwing and a ridiculous
and vindictive arms possession charge. According to the indictment, Abu
Rahmah collected used tear-gas projectiles and bullet casings shot at
demonstrators, with the intention of exhibiting them to show the
violence used against demonstrators. This absurd charge is a clear
example of how eager the military prosecution is to use legal procedures
as a tool to silence and smear unarmed dissent.
The court did, however, find Abu Rahmah guilty of two of the most
draconian anti-free speech articles in military legislation: incitement,
and organizing and participating in illegal demonstrations. It did so
based only on testimonies of minors who were arrested in the middle of
the night and denied their right to legal counsel, and despite
acknowledging significant ills in their questioning.
The court was also undeterred by the fact that the prosecution failed to
provide any concrete evidence implicating Abu Rahmah in any way,
despite the fact that all demonstrations in Bil'in are systematically
filmed by the army.
Under military law, incitement is defined as "The attempt, verbally or
otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may
disturb the public peace or public order" (section 7(a) of the Order
Concerning Prohibition of Activities of Incitement and Hostile
Propaganda (no.101), 1967), and carries a 10 years maximal sentence.

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Protester death shows IDF may be using most

dangerous type of tear gas
By Avi Issacharoff and Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, 3 January 2011
Jawaher Abu Rahmah died Saturday as a result of tear gas shot
by IDF soldiers during demonstrations against the
separation fence on Friday.
Questions are surfacing about Israel's use of tear-gas grenades, as
security officials investigate the recent death of a protester at the
weekly demonstration near the separation fence at the West Bank
village of Bil'in. A 36-year-old woman, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, died on
Saturday morning.
The medical report filed in the Ramallah hospital where Abu Rahmah
was taken shows that her death was caused by respiratory failure
resulting from the inhalation of tear gas.
Haaretz obtained the medical report on Sunday from Jawaher's brother,
Ahmed Abu Rahmah.
Jawaher Abu Rahmah was the sister of Bassem Abu Rahmah, who was
killed in April 2009 when Israeli soldiers fired a tear-gas grenade at his
chest at a demonstration at the fence in Bil'in. Ahmed Abu Rahmah has
three surviving brothers; their father died five years ago.
"My entire family is ruined," he said on Sunday. "The whole house feels a
sense of catastrophe." He said he bears no hatred toward Israelis. "They
are people just like myself. We don't seek vengeance against Israel. We
want the return of our lands, and the struggle won't end until our
property is restored."
The Israel Defense Forces uses crowd-dispersal tear gas known as CS,
which was developed half a century ago in Britain and the United States.
It is used by armies and police forces around the world. In recent years,
a number of studies have cast doubts about this type of gas; there have
been reports of several deaths caused by the inhalation CS tear gas.
"One of the main factors influencing the extent of damage caused by CS
gas is the amount of particles in the air," said Daniel Argo, an Israeli
doctor who regularly takes part in the demonstrations against the
separation fence. He also trains activists to tend to injuries caused by
police and soldiers using crowd-dispersal techniques.
Eye and lung injuries from gas
Argo says recent eye and lung injuries, as well as skin diseases, can be
associated with the use of CS tear gas.
"There are other types of tear gas that are not as dangerous as CS; why
the defense establishment insists on continuing its use is not clear,"
Argo said. "In addition, since no studies have been conducted to identify
the long-term effects of the gas, security personnel who use it frequently
should be worrying about their own health."
An Israeli security official said Sunday that "many Western countries use
this type of gas."

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IDF on Bil’in: spins, half-truths and lies

By Noam Sheizaf, +972Mag 4 January 2011
Jawahar Abu-Rahmah of Bil’in was rushed to Ramallah hospital last
Friday during an unarmed protest against the fence in her village. She
passed away Saturday morning. Her death gained relatively wide
publicity, and the IDF scramble to pushing its own version of the story,
first claiming that Abu-Rahamh took part in a violent riot, and later
saying she wasn’t even there, and the whole thing was a Palestinian
hoax.
As it happens, I was in Bil’in on Friday, so I got the opportunity to
compare the IDF’s version with what I saw with my own eyes, and with
what I know. The IDF spokesperson, and even anonymous IDF sources,
are seen by Israeli and international journalists as a credible source of
information. This story, I believe, shows why Israeli and Foreign
journalists should be more careful before repeating the army’s version
of events. They should certainly make an effort to bring other sides of
the story, and to put things in a wider context.
Here is my take on the version the IDF has been pushing regarding the
death of Bil’in’s Jawaher Abu-Rahmah.
1. The event: “a violent riot”
On Friday, the army treated the protest in Bil’in as a usual one. An army
spokesperson’s tweet didn’t mention a higher level of violence than in
previous weeks, or in other villages:
~250 rioters in Bil’in now hurling rocks @ IDF forces-area declared
closed military zone to prevent escalation but open to village residents
Only after the death of Jawahar Abu-Rahmah was reported, the need to
justify the killing came (check out this tweet by Peter Lerner,
Spokesman of the Central Command). The IDF Spokesperson released
photos of a few kids throwing stones and one unidentified glowing
object, later described by the army as a fire bomb. The pictures were
clearly taken from a great distance, but that was all the army had for
its attempt to create the impression that the soldiers were defending
their lives against a violent mob.
The truth couldn’t have been further – as those who have actually been
to the Bil’in know. The protest in Bil’in takes place on a road leading to
the fence. Usually, most protesters simply try to march towards the
fence, until the army decides to disperse them with tear gas and rubber-
coated bullets. When stone-throwing does occur, it usually begins after
the army disperses the march. Very few people throw stones – and it’s
usually some Palestinian kids, the “Shabab”. As for the soldiers, they are
standing on the hill, heavily protected, and the stones normally pose no
real danger for them.
Last Friday, the march was larger then usual. Even PM Salam Fayyad
was there, though he didn’t venture outside the village. The march was
completely peaceful – there was even a brass band present. From what I
could see, the tear gas was fired by the IDF well before the march got
even close to the fence – and it was fired directly at the unarmed
protesters walking on the main road. I remember feeling surprised,
because the soldiers usually let the march go a bit further before they
shoot.
You could see it all very clearly on the following video, taken on last
Friday’s protest. You can see how far the soldiers are from the protest
when they start shooting tear gas. The stones are thrown [min: 3:20] off
the road. An effort by the protesters (including a brave sax player) to
march again to the fence is met with more gas – this time, the canisters
are shot directly at the protesters [min 4:00], in the illegal way that led
to the death of Bassam Abu-Rahmah last year.
In my own army service I faced real riots in the West Bank, when
hundreds of people were hurling stones at us in a small city alley. Scary
as it was, we didn’t use as much fire power as the army now does in
Bil’in and in other villages I visited. Not only that the death of Bassam
and Jawahar Abu-Rahmah is not surprising, I actually think we are lucky
more people weren’t injured or killed in those unarmed protests.
2. The context: “The fence will be removed anyway”
Facing a PR meltdown, the army held a “special briefing” on Monday for
bloggers (all of them from the rightwing, pro-IDF side), in which it put
forward its own narrative. This sort of unofficial briefing took place with
military reporters in all of Israel’s major news organizations. One of the
interesting points in the briefing referred to the context of the
demonstration. This is from a report by one those bloggers:
Israel’s High Court ruled that the IDF must change the path of the
security fence to go outside of Bil’in, thereby agreeing to the Palestinian
claims. The new fence is under construction and should be completed
within a few months. The IDF will remove the older fence once the new
one is complete — therefore the current riots are completely
propaganda.
But here are the facts: The huge Israeli settlement Matityahu-East was
built on private Palestinian land, taken from farmers in five villages,
including Bil’in (this is not surprising: every story in the West Bank ends
up being about a settlement). According to a Supreme Court ruling from
2007, the route of the “Security Barrier” was planned with the intention
of annexing even more land to that settlement. The Court ordered the
fence to be re-built on a different route – one that returns some of the
land to the village.
More than three years after the verdict, the army still hasn’t moved the
fence. Only recently, when it was about to be charged with contempt of
court, did the work on the new route begin. And again – even with the
fence moved, much of the village’s land won’t be returned, so Bil’in’s
farmers have every right to continue their protest, both morally and
according to international law.
3. The Death: Maybe it was a Palestinian who killed her
The unofficial briefings were part of the army’s counter-attack, initiated
in Central Command [UPDATE: Yossi Gurvitz reveals that it was Central
Command CO himself, Gen Avi Mizrachi, who led the briefing], which is
in charge of Bil’in and its surrounding areas (and not in the IDF
spokesperson unit). It was meant to discredit the Palestinian version,
cast doubt, and more than anything else, move the burden of proof to
the other side. This last fact is important: While the Palestinians
presented a medical report on the death of Jawahar Abu-Rahmah as well
as a few testimonies, the army never investigated the event. The IDF
spokesperson didn’t release an official statement, and all the army’s
comments were released through anonymous sources and in informal
briefings.
Among other things, the army claimed (through proxies) that Jawahar
Abu-Rahmah died of cancer, that she wasn’t present at the demo, and
that only after her death (from natural causes), the Palestinians decided
to claim she died of tear-gas poisoning.
The army went as far as spreading a rumor that Jawahar was killed by a
family member:
IDF has heard about the honor killing theory, that Abu Rahma was
stabbed to death for being pregnant as a family “honor killing”, however
they cannot confirm this and the direction they currently are
investigating is death from a chronic illness.
As I said, I was present at the demo and I saw an ambulance leave the
site twice. I don’t know who was in the ambulance, but this tweet by
Jewish Voice for Peace director (who was present in Bil’in) mentions
Jawahar by her name:
One eye injury and Jawahar – sister of bassem who was killed last year
at a demo -was taken to the hospital for gas inhalation.
The tweet was posted on 2:36PM, while the protest was still ongoing (I
left Bil’in shortly before 4 pm) and long before anyone knew of the
deterioration in Jawahar’s condition.
Numerous eyewitnesses – all going on record – account for Jawahar’s
presence on the hill at the edge of the village, overlooking the demo.
The long-range gas grenades were landing nearby, and the western
wind carried the gas to the hill and onto the edge of the village. I was
standing on a hillside and felt it myself. People around me were
constantly coughing, and we all had red eyes.
Those witnesses also describe, in detail, Jawahar’s evacuation to the
hospital.
Islam Abu Rahmah: “I was standing with Jawahar, her mother and my
grandmother in order to watch the confrontation that was going on just
in front of us, in the area of the fence. The wind moved the gas in our
direction, making our eyes itch and tear up. After that she (Jawahar)
began to cough and foam at the mouth. Soon after that she became
weak and lay down on the ground. I managed to carry her as far as the
Abu Khamis home, about 40 meters in the direction of her house, but
then she became terribly weak, vomited violently and foamed at the
mouth. She was having difficult breathing and lost her sense of
direction. We got a few women to help her by waving a paper fan over
her face in order to provide some oxygen. After that she was taken to
the hospital.”
Saher Bisharat, the ambulance who evacuated Jawahar: “We
received Jawahar near the entrance that is parallel to the fence, which is
where the demonstration was taking place. She was still partially
conscious, answered questions, and said that she had choked on gas. I
took her straight to the hospital.” (Click here to view the Red Crescent
report).
During the infamous bloggers’ briefing, the IDF rejected claims that the
tear gas it uses can be lethal:
We have never heard of anyone dying from inhaling tear gas (5 years of
experience with this particular tear gas). There were hundreds of other
rioters in the same open air location, in broad daylight and yet she was
the only one “allegedly” affected by the gas.
This is a lie. There have been numerous reports on people hurt by
inhaling IDF tear gas, including a number of fatalities. +972 Magazine
reported on the death of a Jerusalem toddler from tear gas in Silwan just
a few months ago. But when you only call your supporters to the
special briefing, such details are not likely to be mentioned.
One last point on that: Israel has released – through anonymous
sources, of course – personal medical details from the file of Jawahar
Abu-Rahmah (no privacy for Palestinians). An Israeli journalist told me
yesterday that it was the Shabak (Israel’s internal security service) that
was sent to Ramallah to obtain the dead woman’s file from the local
hospital. Today’s Haaretz article confirmed this: It states [Hebrew] that
there was an “intelligence effort” to obtain details on the case. I, for
once, find it incredible that this is what our secret service does: help the
PR effort and the cover up of what seems like an unlawful killing. But
maybe I’m too naive.
4. Controlling the media
One of the key elements for Israel’s partial success in spinning the
flotilla incident last May in its favor was its ability to control the
information. Some 60 journalists on board the Mavi Marmara were
detained by Israel, and all their media and equipment was confiscated.
Later, IDF spokesperson released only the footage that served its
narrative. That’s how we got to see several soldiers attacked – but we
never saw how nine passengers died, and dozens more were wounded.
On Friday, the army blocked the main entrance to Bil’in. While it didn’t
stop Israeli and international protesters from joining the demonstrations
(they marched through the hills to the village), I know of at least one
international press crew that was turned away.
Without coverage from western media organizations, whatever happens
during a protest becomes a matter of different versions – the army’s vs.
the Palestinians’. In such events, the local press, and some of the
international reporters as well, tend to prefer the IDF’s story.
Today, the IDF’s version on the death of Jawahar Abu-Rahmah is a front
page story on the daily tabloid Maariv (the headline: “Bil’in
conspiracy?”). Yedioth gives the army’s claims a full two-page spread,
with an op-ed stating that this is another A-Durah-style fabrication.
Haaretz and Yisrael Hayom also mention the IDF claims on their
headlines, and one should separately note the clear words of Haaretz’s
editorial on the affair today.
The bottom line is that the army didn’t present one piece of evidence in
its effort to avoid responsibility for the death of Jawahar Abu-Rahmah
and to discredit the unarmed protest, the people of Bil’in and their
supporters in Israel. To this moment, the army didn’t even release an
official statement, but instead spread doubts, rumors and lies.
Unfortunately, for much of the Israeli public, this seems to have been
enough.

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101: How to make a martyr, from al-Durrah to Abu

Rahmah
By Dahlia Scheindlin +972Mag, 4 January 2011
Mohammed al-Durrah and Jawaher Abu Rahmah were both Palestinians
who lost their lives to the conflict. Both deaths – 12-year old al- Durrah
in 2000, and Jawaher Abu Rahmah this past Friday (31 December) –
came to symbolize the Palestinian struggle against occupation.
And in both cases, those who are desperate to prove Israel’s innocence
at all costs feverishly sought to discredit accounts of their deaths.
Mohammed al-Durrah’s death in a gun battle near Netzarim junction at
the start of the second Intifada was caught on film and broadcast by a
French television station. His death became such a powerful symbol that
pro-occupation figures (my new term for those defending Israel’s status
quo) could not stand it. The IDF investigated who fired the shots and
suggested it was Palestinians. A private French businessman accused
French Channel 2 of using footage that the local Palestinian cameraman
had faked, or “cooked.” The investigations took on the tone of the
Warren Commission. Debates raged for years about whose bullets
actually pierced the boy’s chest. Seven years after the event, Ynet
reported that the Israeli Prime Minister’s office released a document
officially denying Israel’s responsibility for the death and stating that the
footage was staged.
I never got the point. The boy died in the conflict and he was 12; his own
father could not save him. Thousands of other Palestinian civilians died
too and he symbolized their plight, just as the Dolphinarium bombing
came to symbolize the death of innocent Israelis. Was it an Israeli bullet
or a Palestinian bullet? Who cares? The boy has become the symbol of
the following reality: that Israel should not be occupying and controlling
the Palestinians, should not be using overwhelming force in an
asymmetrical, militarily unsolvable conflict and nobody should be killing
children.
The struggle over al-Durrah’s story became a lawsuit between France 2
television against Philippe Karsteny, the French businessman and media
analyst who accused the station of a hoax. The suit, verdicts and
appeals dragged on, which in my opinion desecrates the memory of the
dead. “Because I refused to be brainwashed,” said Karsteny with great
self-righteousness, I was sued for defamation” – as if the death of a
child, and the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is all about him.
Ten years later, Bil’in has become the symbol of non-violent, joint Israeli-
Palestinian struggle against the occupation and the separation wall that
has become its symbol.
The Israeli Army is trying very hard to make the non-violent protest
impossible. From the arrests and imprisonment of non-violent activists
on both sides to the policy of declaring protest areas “closed military
zones,” there seems to be some warped belief that spirit and
determination can be squelched by mere army orders, signs, barbed
wire, warning shots or tear gas. Jews who faced down the British Empire
should know better.
Instead, the bizarre response of the Army to the death of Jawareh Abu
Rahmah is like an old Jewish joke, except no one’s laughing. A man
confronts his friend who returned a pot the friend had borrowed, broken.
The friend replies: “First, it’s just a scratch. Second, it was broken when I
got it. Third, I never borrowed your damned pot!”
The Army has churned out excuse after excuse for Abu Rahmah’s death.
She had been to the doctor recently (so have I, in fact, and I’m not
dead). As Lisa Goldman documents here, claims about Abu Rahmah’s
health have become increasingly far-fetched, ranging from
cancer/leukemia to ear pressure to the remarkable claim that she was
stabbed in a family honor killing and then the ultimate assertion that she
wasn’t even at the demonstration. But overwhelming confirmation by
eyewitnesses shows that she was there, engulfed by a cloud of tear gas,
and carried off on a stretcher into an ambulance – events that were
“tweeted” in real time.
Further, the incident focused attention on the fact that the Army has
resumed using CS, a deadly strain of gas, that has been banned by the
IDF itself , and for good reason, as Noam Sheizaf writes here. Doesn’t
the IDF get it – that it no longer matters if she had a cold, because the
event has already incriminated the IDF and martyred Abu Rahmah?
The IDF seems blinded by the surreal belief that if it can prove Abu
Rahmah died by forces other than its own – this will somehow exonerate
Israel and salvage its global reputation after 43 years of indefensible
occupation.
No matter how she died, Jawaher Abu Rahmah is now becoming a
symbol, just like Mohammed al-Durrah. If he was the symbol of helpless
children crushed by the jaws of the conflict, she will symbolize
something else: the woman Israel killed and tried to pretend it didn’t,
because it doesn’t know any other way to deal with civil resistance – or
with the occupation and the conflict itself.
It’s so upsetting to watch Israel learn only one thing from its mistakes:
how to repeat them.
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Israel’s assault on political dissent in full swing

By Mairav Zonszein, +972Mag, 27 December 2010
What Adnan Gheith, Mohammad Abu Tir and Jonathan Pollack all
have in common
The case of Adnan Gheith is just one example of the systematic
subjugation and repression suffered by those who dare to speak out and
resist Israeli policies. Gheith, an activist against Israeli policies in
Silwan’s al-Bustan neighborhood, faces a four-month expulsion from his
city without being charged with anything, on the grounds of an
emergency defense regulation applied by the IDF’s Home Front
Command. Another recent example is the case of Mohammad Abu Tir
(best known for his red beard) who had his Jerusalem residency (blue
identity card) revoked in January 2006 after being elected into
Palestinian parliament on behalf of Hamas, considered a terrorist
organization by Israel and many other countries. Both these men are
natives of East Jerusalem whose residency status has been threatened
due to what Israel claims to be “illegal political activity” that presents a
“national security threat.”
Background
Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem have a unique and precarious
status that, I continue to discover, many Israelis are not entirely aware
of. East Jerusalem Palestinians are not citizens of Israel but rather
permanent residents. They cannot vote in national elections but they
pay all the same taxes as Israelis and are entitled by law to the same
national services, such as healthcare. They can travel freely throughout
Israel and are allowed to vote in municipal elections, however for the
last 43 years, the vast majority has boycotted these elections, reasoning
that it would amount to recognition of Israeli sovereignty in East
Jerusalem. (Today Palestinians make up 35% of the city’s population,
such that participating in municipal elections has enormous potential to
shake things up in Jerusalem.)
According to Israeli law, if a resident of East Jerusalem is absent from
Israel for 7 consecutive years, his residency is automatically revoked.
However, in practice, residents who make their life outside Israel for
even a few years experience the threat of having their residency
revoked every time they return to Israel and pay the mandatory visit to
the Interior Ministry. Even if they live ten minutes away in the West
Bank, they are considered outside of Israel (despite the Israeli settlers
just nearby) and their residency can be automatically revoked, meaning
that they are essentially prisoners in their own home. Moreover, if a
Palestinian naturalizes in another country, or even holds a green card,
he will lose his residency, and then it is entirely up to the whims of the
Ben-Gurion airport officials whether to allow him to enter his native land.
The Case of Mohammad Abu Tir
When Hamas won a majority of votes in Palestinian elections in 2006,
Abu Tir and three other Hamas officials from Jerusalem were told they
must renounce their membership in Hamas or be expelled. (This, despite
the fact that Israel and the US fully supported and encouraged
Palestinian elections.) They refused, insisting they represent the
Palestinian people, and not Hamas, and that they abide by all Israeli
laws. Nevertheless, their residency was instantly revoked and they were
ordered to leave Israel immediately. Abu Tir was arrested for failing to
comply, while the three others have for some reason been spared arrest
up till now, and reside in the International Committee of the Red Cross
offices in East Jerusalem.
Since his arrest in 2006, Abu-Tir has spent most of his time in Israeli
jails. He and the other three officials have appealed to the Israel High
Court in the matter, but the decision is still pending. In the meantime, a
local Israeli court took the matter into its own hands when, on December
8, it ruled that he can no longer be on Israeli soil. The police took him
out of prison, dropped him off at a checkpoint by Ramallah, and
instructed him never to set foot inside Israel again. (Read the LA Times
report here.) This story almost went unreported in Israel, and Haaretz’s
only report on it was taken from Reuters.
Dangerous precedent
The pretense for Abu Tir’s revocation of residency and expulsion is that
he engages in illegal political activity. This is essentially the same
pretense for Adnan’s four-month expulsion order, as a leader in the fight
against the Israeli occupation of Silwan. However, since Abu Tir is a
member of Hamas, his expulsion is less questioned and also less
covered in Israel. But both are victims of the same dangerous precedent
that has been set whereby Israel can expel any East Jerusalem resident
at its discretion based on what it deems to be unacceptable political
behavior. Since Israeli authorities make no secret about their agenda of
“Judaizing” East Jerusalem and of keeping it an integral part of the
state’s undivided eternal capital, there is no doubt that its course of
action is to expel (read: cleanse) as many Palestinian residents as
possible and not be held accountable for it.
Since Israel annexed East Jerusalem on June 28, 1967, thousands upon
thousands of Palestinians have been stripped of their residency,
constituting a forcible transfer of human beings. Since 2008 alone, over
4,000 residencies have been revoked from Palestinians in East
Jerusalem, a significant rise that can be attributed to the hard work of
Interior Minister Eli Yishai.
Whatever one may think about Hamas or Abu Tir, and no matter how
illegitimate they may be, taking away the only formal residency a
person has and expelling him from his home and family is a war crime,
according to international standards. There are legal procedures for
addressing illegal activity that is demonstrated to endanger national
security that does not include the stripping of residency and expulsion .
For a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who is already essentially
stateless, losing residency means adding the status of homeless refugee
to that title. Furthermore, on a practical level, it doesn’t dissuade that
person from engaging in political action from the outside or from
motivating those who still are residents – such as Adnan Gheith – to
protest from the inside.
Today, with the sentencing of Jonathan Pollak, we see that this
dangerous precedent has already become a full-on policy that has made
its way from East Jerusalem Hamas official, to East Jerusalem grassroots
leader, to Jewish Israeli activist. Pollak, who was charged with illegal
gathering for participating in a bicycle ride protesting the Gaza War, was
essentially sentenced to jail for engaging in civil disobedience that dares
to challenge Israeli policies. He, Abu Tir and Gheith are all victims of
Israel’s assault on freedom of speech and political dissent, dressed up as
law. This is tantamount to an authoritarian and tyrannical regime that
will stop at nothing to maintain its control. It looks like many more will
have to face expulsion and jail time before things get better.
For more information on the political persecution against Adnan Gheith
see:
Israeli Home Front Commander to Expel Member of Silwan Neighborhood Committee
from Jerusalem

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Israeli activist sentenced to 3 months in prison for

protesting Gaza blockade
Joseph Dana, +972Mag, 27 December 2010
Of all the criminals involved with the 2008 Gaza war, an Israeli leftist will
be going to jail for riding his bike against the war in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv
Magistrates court judge Yitzhak Yitzhak convicted Israeli leftist Jonathan
Pollak of illegal assembly for his participation in a January 2008 Critical
Mass ride against the siege on Gaza and then sentenced him to three
months imprisonment that will begin on January 11th, 2011. Pollak was
the only one detained at the said protest, and was accused of doing
nothing other than riding his bicycle in the same manner as the rest of
the protesters. The conviction activates an older three-month suspended
sentence imposed on Pollak in a previous trial for protesting the
construction of the Separation Barrier. An additional three month prison
term was also imposed for the current conviction, which will be served
concurrently. His imprisonment is part of a clear strategy of silencing
dissent in the Israeli left.
Jonathan Pollak is one of the founders of the Israeli leftist group
“Anarchists Against the Wall“, which join weekly unarmed Palestinian
protests throughout the West Bank against the Separation Wall and the
Occupation. Since 2008, he has served the media coordinator of the
Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, an Palestinian umbrella
organization designed to garner media attention for the unarmed
struggle in the West Bank. On his conviction, Pollak argued for his
sentence, saying “I find myself unable to express remorse in this case …
If His Honor decides to go ahead and impose my suspended prison
sentence, I will go to prison wholeheartedly and with my head held high.
It will be the justice system itself, I believe, that ought to lower its eyes
in the face of the suffering inflicted on Gaza’s inhabitants, just like it
lowers its eyes and averts its vision each and every day when faced with
the realities of the occupation.”
On January 31, 2008, some thirty Israeli protesters participated in a
Critical Mass bicycle ride through the streets of Tel Aviv against the
siege on Gaza. During the protest, Pollak was arrested by plain-clothes
police who recognized him from previous protests and because, as
claimed in court, they assumed he was the organizer and figurehead of
the event. The protest was allowed to continue undisturbed after
Pollak’s arrest and ended with no further incidents or detentions.
The arrest and subsequent indictment appears to be the result of police
vindictiveness, rather than of Pollak’s behavior at the time of the event;
Pollak was but one in a group of protesters who behaved exactly like
him, yet he was the only one to be singled out. Moreover, environmental
Critical Mass events take place in Tel Aviv on a regular basis, but have
never been met with such a response. Other protests, which have
caused far more severe obstruction of traffic (e.g. the motorcade protest
of thousands of motorcycles) did not result in arrests, and surely did not
lead to the filing of criminal charges and imprisonment.
According to Pollak’s lawyer, Adv. Gaby Lasky, “The police not only
singled out Pollak from a crowd of people who all did exactly as he did,
but also singled out the entire protest for no reason other than its
political alignment. Similar events regularly take place in Tel Aviv
without police intervention, let alone arrests and indictments.”
During the trial, an Israeli supporter of Pollak was violently removed
from the courthouse for wearing a shirt that said “there is no pride in
occupation.” After the verdict was handed down, supporters began
chanting in the courtroom against Israeli fascism and the occupation.
They were forcibly removed one by one from the courthouse and
subsequently held a demonstration on the sidewalk.
Despite evidence of Israeli wrongdoing in the course of the Gaza war,
the only Israeli sentenced to jail so far is a leftist who choose to ride his
bike through Tel Aviv in non-violent protest. The state of Israel sent a
clear message with this verdict: that it will not tolerate dissent from the
left. In fact, the state persecutor asked for a severe sentence in order to
‘make an example out of Pollak and those who engage in similar anti-
occupation work.” Pollak said that he will continue to work with
Palestinians against the occupation and repeatedly cited the much
harsher verdicts given to Palestinians involved in non-violent protests.
The only remorse that he showed was that he did not do enough to
express dissent about the siege of Gaza. If peacefully riding a bike
against violent aggression is a crime, Pollak said that we will happily go
to jail. The fragility of Israeli democracy is on full display when one of its
privileged sons can’t even ride a bike in protest of an aggressive and
violent war on a besieged people.

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Israeli activist to judge: “I won’t ask for leniency or

express remorse”
Tel Aviv, 27 December 2010
Below is the speech that Jonathan Pollak read in front of the
court today.
Your Honor, once found guilty, it is then customary for the accused to
ask the court for leniency, and express remorse for having committed
the offense. However, I find myself unable to do so. From its very
beginning, this trial contained practically no disagreements over the
facts. As the indictment states, I indeed rode my bicycle, alongside
others, through the streets of Tel Aviv, to protest the siege on Gaza. And
indeed, while riding our bicycles, which are legal vehicles belonging on
the road, we may have slightly slowed down traffic. The sole and trivial
disagreement in this entire case revolves around testimonies heard from
police detectives, who claimed I played a leading role throughout the
protest bicycle ride, something I, as well as the rest of the Defense
witnesses, deny.
As said earlier, it is customary at this point of the proceedings to sound
remorseful, and I would indeed like to voice my regrets regarding one
particular aspect of that day’s events: if there is remorse in my heart, it
is that, just as I argued during the trial, I did not play a prominent role in
the protest that day, and thus did not fulfill my duty to do everything
within my power to change the unbearable situation of Gaza’s
inhabitants, and bring to an end Israel’s control over the Palestinians.
His Honor has stated during the court case, and will most likely state
again in the future, that a trial is not a matter of politics, but of law. To
this I reply that there is hardly anything to this trial except political
disagreement. This Court may have impeded the mounting of an
appropriate defense when it refused to hear arguments regarding
political selectiveness in the Police’s conduct, but even from the
testimonies which were admitted, it became clear such a selectiveness
exists.
The subject of my alleged offense, as well as the motivation behind it
were political. This is something that cannot be sidestepped. The State
of Israel maintains an illegitimate, inhuman and illegal siege on the Gaza
Strip, which still is occupied territory according to international law. This
siege, carried out in my name and in yours as well, sir, in fact in all of
our names, is a cruel collective punishment inflicted on ordinary citizens,
residents of the Gaza strip, subjects-without-rights under Israeli
occupation.
In the face of this reality, and as a stance against it, we chose on
January 31, 2008, to exercise the freedom of speech afforded to Jewish
citizens of Israel. However, it appears that here in our one-of-many-faux-
democracies in the Middle East, even this freedom is no longer freely
granted, even to society’s privileged sons.
I am not surprised by the Court’s decision to convict me despite having
no doubt in my mind that our actions on that day correspond to the
most basic, elementary definitions of a person’s right to protest.
Indeed, as the Prosecution pointed out, a suspended prison sentence
hung over my head at the time of the bicycle protest, having been
convicted before under an identical article of law. And, although I still
maintain I did not commit any offense whatsoever, I was aware of the
possibility that under Israeli justice, my suspended sentence would be
imposed.
I must add that, if His Honor decides to go ahead and impose my
suspended prison sentence, I will go to prison wholeheartedly and with
my head held high. It will be the justice system itself, I believe, that will
need to lower its eyes in the face of the suffering inflicted on Gaza’s
inhabitants, just like it lowers its eyes and averts its vision each and
every day when faced with the realities of the occupation.

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Shin Bet puts Israeli 'anarchists' in crosshairs

Amira Hass, Haaretz, 27 December 2010
Security forces' Jewish Department warns leftist activists that
they might be found to be violating the law.
The two security cadets at Ben-Gurion International Airport stood by the
plane's door. That Friday, December 17, they were waiting not for some
Mohammad, but rather for a Cohen. Matan Cohen.
He disembarked, and they followed him through passport control. From
there he was taken to a small interrogation room. The duty policeman
told Cohen, 22, a student at Hampshire College, that he was being
detained on suspicion of "hostile activity."
Cohen: "Was it you who decided to detain me?"
Policeman: "No, security elements did."
Cohen: "Meaning the Shin Bet security service?"
Policeman: "Yes, the Shin Bet's Jewish department."
Four more people in civilian clothes examined Cohen's possessions. It
took them two and a half hours. They asked some questions that
showed Cohen they did not know a thing about him. (He is an anarchist
activist and one of the coordinators of BDS - Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions on Israel - in the United States. ) They told him they did not
have the security clearance to gain access to his file.
"We merely were warned that you are suspected of terrorist activity,"
which means they have to go through his bags, they said. After the
examination, he was taken back to the policeman, who said, "If it were
up to me, I would let you go already. I'm waiting for a telephone call
from the head of the Jewish department."
Cohen: "[Am I] a suspect in something?"
Policeman: "You're not a suspect. You're suspected."
Cohen: "Your grammar is amazing."
Policeman: "It means that they think you're connected to something but
you are not suspected of anything concrete."
Cohen: "In other words, you can detain me whenever you wish."
Policeman: "These are the instructions I got from the Shin Bet and the
decision is theirs."
Eventually the policeman filed a detention report, writing: "Suspected of
hostile terror activity by Shin Bet." Cohen, who was home for a vacation
from his studies in political economy, philosophy and psychoanalysis,
left the airport for his parents' house.
He was not the only anarchist the Jewish department dealt with that
week. Five days earlier, Kobi Snitz was attending a conference when he
received a call from an unidentified number. The caller told him,
"Shalom, this is Rona from the Shin Bet. I'm sure you've heard about
me."
"She said she wanted to invite me for a friendly conversation and for us
to exchange thoughts," said Snitz, 39, an anarchist activist and a
mathematician. He asked whether he was being called in for an
interrogation and when she said no, he said, no thanks. In 2009, Snitz
served a 20-day sentence over an attempt a few years earlier to prevent
the demolition of a house in Kharbatha, a village west of Ramallah. Two
months ago, he was given another five-day sentence over a protest
against the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
"The Jewish department believes that every Arab is dangerous and that
they can take us, the naive activists, for a ride," says Snitz. "They call us
in in order to create a psychological profile, to know which of us they
can exploit, and who can be exploited by others. They are not looking
for information."
Assaf Kintzer received a call on December 9: "Shalom, this is Rona from
the Shin Bet. How are you?" After he said "okay," she said she wanted to
see him and asked him to come to the Dizengoff Street police station in
Tel Aviv. It's urgent, she added. Kintzer, 33, said he could not come
immediately. She said: "I'll call you again soon, and it's worth your while
to come." She then continued, as Kintzer recalled, "Listen, if you aren't
coming now, I'll tell you a bit by phone. I want you to know that we know
what you are doing and that it will have repercussions. At the moment,
what you are doing is on the borderline of the law and it is quite possible
that information on you will show your actions are illegal. We know
about all your files."
That same day, Kintzer was called to the police station to be
interrogated after being detained at two demonstrations against the
separation fence at Ma'asara.
Then Rona added: "In addition to your activity in the West Bank, we
know that you are involved in [a plan to demonstrate against] the
business conference. If you do anything violent, there will be
consequences. Why aren't you talking?"
I have no reason to answer, he said. So Rona, he recalls, said in parting:
"You should know that I'm not against you at all. I am on your side and
take part in demonstrations."
One person who did go to meet Rona two weeks ago, mainly out of
curiosity, was N., 30, another member of Anarchists against the Wall.
The entire meeting, including the security check with a magnometer and
the screening of his bag, took less than 20 minutes. Rona could not get
N. to respond to her questions, but N. said she had the following
message: "We know what you are doing. At the moment you are not
violating the law and we don't have any problem with you. The moment
you violate the law, we'll be there."
Haaretz asked the Shin Bet whether it was warning activists about
violating laws that the Knesset may pass in the future, thus making their
actions illegal. The newspaper also asked who was considered
"suspected," and whether members of the service could participate in
demonstrations against the government.
The Shin Bet responded, "The security service acts in keeping with the
authority granted it by law to fulfill its objective of protecting state
security, institutions and public order in a democratic regime from
threats of terror, damage, subversion, spying and revealing state
secrets, as stipulated in paragraph 7 (a ) of the Shin Bet security service
law from 2002. As for the extent to which Shin Bet employees may take
part in demonstrations, they are subject to the restrictions imposed on
all civil servants."
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Human Rights Defender Nuri Al-Okbi Sentenced to Seven

Months Imprisonment
Frontline – Protection of Human Rights Defenders, 6 January 2011

Human rights defender

Mr Nuri al-Okbi has
been sentenced to
seven months
imprisonment on
charges of "running a
business without a
license" by Ramla
Magistrate's Court in
Israel.
Further
Information
Nuri al-Okbi, born in
1942 and father of 8
children, is head of the
Association for Protection of the Rights of Bedouins in Israel and active
for the rights of the Arab residents of Lod, many of whom were originally
Negev Bedouins.
On 28 December 2010, Judge Zachariya Yemini of Ramla Magistrate's
court sentenced Nuri Al-Okbi to seven months imprisonment on charges
of “running a business without a license”. The business in question is a
garage which Nuri al-Okbi has been running since 1964 in Lod. Over the
years, the Municipality of Lod's policy has undergone various changes,
with the garage being granted a permit some years, while being denied
it in others.
It is reported that the Court originally appeared inclined to allow Nuri Al-
Okbi to perform community service in lieu of imprisonment. However,
the judge allegedly decided at the last moment to impose a seven
month prison sentence, rather than six months, which is the maximum
term which can be commuted to community service under Israeli law.
It is reported that in his verdict, the judge, specifically referring to Nuri
Al-Okbi's human rights work, noted that "treating the defendant
leniently would constitute a negative message to the public, and
especially to the Bedouins". In addition to the prison term, the court
imposed a fine of forty thousand shekels, failure to pay which would lead
to an additional 400 days being added to his prison sentence.
Nuri al-Okbi's lawyer reportedly asked the court to delay implementation
so as to facilitate the lodgement of an appeal; the judge conditioned
such a delay upon an immediate deposit of thirty thousand shekels at
the court's treasury. However, Nuri al-Okbi was unable to raise this sum,
and was thus immediately imprisoned. An appeal against the verdict has
been lodged.
It is further reported that Nuri al-Okbi was hospitalised following his
sentencing due to his heart condition. He was taken to Assaf Harofeh
Hospital, where he reportedly remains under police supervision with his
hands and feet handcuffed to the bed. It is alleged that the police also
prevented al-Okbi's son, who came to the hospital, from talking to him.
Following the verdict, Nuri al-Okbi stated: "I have become the target of
politically-motivated discrimination and intimidation, with the intention
of gagging me, putting an end to my speaking out against the
municipality's policies -- for example, the demolition of seven homes of
Arab residents about a week ago. The Police, Fire Department, the
Ministry of Interior and Ministry of the Environment all certified that my
garage conformed to all regulations. Nevertheless, the municipality had
deprived me of a business license, while granting one to people in my
neighborhood whose businesses were started after my garage. I am sure
that if I had been ready to toe the line dictated by the municipality, I
would have had no problem in obtaining a license. Their real problem is
not my garage, but my public activity."
Front Line believes that the sentencing of Nuri al-Okbi is directly related
to his legitimate and peaceful work in defence of human rights. Further
concern is expressed for the physical and psychological integrity of Nuri
al-Okbi.

Back to Top
Breaking the Silence member: ‘Government doesn’t
determine legitimacy of my voice’
Mikhael Manekin, 6 January 2011
The Knesset plenum voted Wednesday [January 4] to order the
House Committee to consider establishing a parliamentary
panel of inquiry into left-wing Israeli organizations that
allegedly participate in delegitimization campaigns against
Israel Defense Forces soldiers…MK Fania Kirshenbaum (Yisrael
Beiteinu ), who submitted the proposal, alleged during the
debate that the groups targeted for investigation were to blame
for foreign actions aimed at delegitimizing Israel and its
officials.
I know what I won’t tell them at the Kirshenbaum Committee. I won’t tell
them that I immigrated to Israel with my family as a child. I won’t tell
them that I served as an officer in the Golani Brigade. I also won’t tell
them that I did 35 days of reserve duty on emergency call-up orders in
the Second Lebanon War. I won’t tell them these things because I don’t
owe them anything. They don’t need to love us or tell us that we are
patriots. They are doing far more damage to this place than we are.
Because of them millions of Palestinians live under military occupation.
Because of them the regard toward foreign workers is shocking. Because
of them Palestinian-Israelis do not live in full equality in their own
country. And because of them our position in the world is deteriorating
day by day. An Israeli travelling abroad today is not ashamed because of
me, he is ashamed because of Lieberman. He is ashamed because of the
occupation. And because of them my friends are leaving the country –
to study abroad, to work abroad – they want to find a place that is
normal, a place that does not shame their existence. A place they can
live in.
And in any case, since when do I need permission from the government
to say something? Who are they to determine whether my voice is
legitimate or not? Obviously they do not like what I say – I speak against
them. And they should listen to me. Or turn their backs. But they do not
have the right to tell me when I can and cannot speak. And I don’t
intend to explain this to them.
Maybe I’ll tell them something anyway – maybe I’ll tell them about the
soldiers who arrest innocent Palestinians to practice real arrests. On
orders. Maybe I’ll tell them what a closure is, or a seal, or a curfew, and
how these words have destroyed the lives of millions – not for sake of
security, but for controlling another. Maybe I’ll tell them that today, just
today, I met a young man who was discharged from the army last week
and thinks only of Hebron and what he did there and wants to scream to
society of the deeds done in its name, but he’s scared …
I’m not going to apologize or pander to this committee. They do more to
harm me, my family and my surroundings than anybody else. But I’m
going to fight this committee, and every person or entity that tries to
silence me. And I will do this by breaking the silence and resisting the
occupation.

Back to Top

Unsettled: An IDF vet with ‘a great sense of discomfort

about my own personal behavior’ when he patrolled the
Occupied Territories now leads a group called Breaking
the Silence dedicated to exposing the messy work of
occupation
By Michelle Goldberg, Tablet Magazine, 17th February, 2011

Mikhael Manekin, at left, in the Old City of Hebron. The balcony

belongs to an Arab resident and is surrounded by bars to protect her
from stone-throwing settlers. Michelle Goldberg

By now, the military police and the settlers in Hebron all know Mikhael
Manekin, the co-director of the Israeli anti-occupation organization
Breaking the Silence. Once or twice a week, the New York-born,
Baltimore-raised 31-year-old is there, leading small tour groups through
the eerie, desolate zone around the central settlement in Hebron’s old
city, where 800 ultra-rightist Jews are protected by about 500 Israeli
soldiers. As Manekin showed me and several other journalists around on
a walking tour last fall, an armored car trailed us. He said not to worry—
they were protecting us from the settlers, who have attacked him in the
past.
At first glance Manekin, with his trim black beard and kippa, could be
one of them. Indeed, part of what makes him such a formidable peace
activist is how much Zionist credibility he has. He’s an Orthodox Jew and
a veteran of the elite Golani battalion, where, among other things, he
protected settler roads and liaised with settler security. His last position
in the military was an instructor in an officer-training academy. Like
other members of Breaking the Silence, an organization of young Israeli
army veterans, he can discuss the occupation with authority, because
he was one of the people charged with carrying it out.
Other than the armored car, a few kids in knit skull caps, and some
Orthodox women pushing baby carriages, the streets of Hebron were
empty. They are, in IDF parlance, “completely sterilized,” meaning that
Palestinians aren’t allowed on them. Those who need to traverse the
area must cut through a nearby cemetery. Most of the Arabs who once
lived near the settlers’ encampment have since left. The few that have
remained mostly stay inside their apartments. Bars protect their
windows and balconies from the settlers’ stones. If they must go out,
they have to climb onto the roof and down a fire escape into a back
alley, because the concrete outside their front doors is reserved for
Jews. If they get seriously ill, they’re in trouble. “The Jewish subset of the
Red Cross doesn’t treat Palestinians here,” says Manekin. “What you see
a lot of times is Palestinians carrying people by foot to an area with an
ambulance.”
As he talks, our driver, a bluff man in his 50s who lives in Netanya and
speaks English with a heavy Israeli accent, shakes his head. “I didn’t
know,” he says. “People don’t know.”
Breaking the Silence was formed almost by accident in 2004. It started
as an exhibition of photographs and video testimonies by soldiers who
had served in Hebron and were anguished by their own behavior. The
IDF wasn’t happy—military police raided the Tel Aviv gallery where the
exhibit was mounted and confiscated one of the videos—but thousands
of Israelis attended. Many of them were soldiers who’d never discussed
their own shame. Among them was Manekin, who’s still dealing with
what he describes as a “great sense of discomfort about my own
personal behavior” during his army service. He agreed to give his own
testimony, and soon he was part of a nascent movement.
There was no single epiphany that radicalized Manekin, no moment
when he realized that much of what he’d taken for granted about Israeli
righteousness was wrong. The son of two professors—his mother
teaches modern Jewish history, his father medieval Jewish philosophy—
he grew up in a home that was religiously Orthodox and decidedly
Zionist, if also politically liberal. He had dual Israeli-American citizenship,
and he spent a lot of time going back and forth between the two
countries. When he was a teenager, Manekin’s family moved to Israel
full-time, and he was sent to an Orthodox high school where right-wing
politics predominated.
For Manekin, being accepted into the Golani battalion was like getting
into a good college. “You want to excel,” he says. He enlisted for four
years, one year more than required. He served first in Southern Lebanon
and then in the Nablus region in the West Bank. During that time, he did
things that he’s ashamed of, though they’re the sorts of things that any
soldier controlling a restive, angry population would do, such as shooting
stun grenades at Palestinians to intimidate them at checkpoints. Once,
when his unit was assigned to protect the route to a settlement, the
soldiers commandeered a house in a nearby village to serve as a
lookout, and then, suspecting others might be more suitable, they took
over those instead. Manekin was troubled by the soldiers’ cavalier
attitude toward Palestinian homes. When he voiced his concerns, he was
summoned to the battalion general, who asked if he was uncomfortable
serving in the territories.
At the time, he was indignant at the suggestion that he wasn’t ready to
do everything required by his military position. But in retrospect, he
realized the general was right. There is no way to maintain an
occupation without cruelty and moral squalor. That’s the message of
Breaking the Silence: The abuses its members document stem directly
from government policy. “On the whole, the military is actually fine,” he
says. “This is not about the settlers. It’s not about the military. It’s about
the state.”
A large part of Breaking the Silence’s work involves collecting and
disseminating soldiers’ stories about their experiences in the occupied
territories—to date, the organization has interviewed over 700
combatants, including members of every unit that has fought in the
territories in the last 10 years. The group has just published a harrowing
new book, Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldiers’ Testimonies
2000-2010. A selection of oral histories culled from interviews with more
than a hundred soldiers, it presents episodes of the daily, casual
degradation and brutality that occupation entails. Manekin’s own
testimony is among them, though, in keeping with the rest of them, it’s
anonymous.
Cumulatively, the testimonies describe a system intended to break the
Palestinians’ will by subjugating their lives to Israeli whims, a system in
which tyranny can always be justified with the rhetoric of security.
Where there is self-rule, it’s granted on sufferance and can be taken
away at will. The soldiers are not bad people, but, as one of them says,
“It’s the power that you have in your hands. At some point it fucks you
up, if you are a human being.” One soldier recounts detaining
Palestinians arbitrarily, shackling them for eight or nine hours at a time.
Another describes how harassing Palestinians became a form of
entertainment: “One of the goals was always: I got him to cry in front of
his kids, I got him to crap in his pants.”
A soldier in Hebron describes his shock at realizing how routinely settlers
attack Palestinians, including women and children, with utter impunity.
“And it exists here in the State of Israel, and no one knows about it, and
no wants to know, and no one reports about it,” he says. There are
numerous reports of soldiers smashing up Palestinian homes as a sort of
catharsis. “I think it’s really like when you see people on MTV smashing
their guitars on stage,” says one. “[O]ver there you have the power to
act it out, and these things are not your own things, and what’s more,
you’re at war.”
The book describes “mock arrests,” in which new soldiers arrest
innocent Palestinians for practice. “They would actually do intelligence
work to find out a Palestinian is innocent before arresting him, so as not
to endanger the troops,” Mikhael says. Soldiers, he said, have two
rationales for this. The first is training. Second, he says, it creates “a
feeling of lack of understanding on the Palestinian side. Suddenly, an
innocent person is being arrested. Nobody understands what’s
happening, and the sense of insecurity and fear among the Palestinian
population fits in very well with the overall strategy, which is instilling
that fear in the population.”
One might see all this as the regrettable but inevitable price of self-
defense. Palestinian terrorism, after all, is real, even if it has abated
significantly in recent years. Many Israelis would dearly love to end the
occupation if they didn’t believe doing so would put their own lives at
risk. Breaking the Silence is addressed to them as well: Those who
support Israeli policy have as much of a duty to understand what it
entails as those who oppose it.
The American Jewish mainstream doesn’t like to listen to the sorts of
stories that Breaking the Silence tells, but Manekin is more able to reach
them than most. He was recently in the United States, giving talks in
New York and Washington. When he spoke at Columbia with Peter
Beinart, the political writer, the event was co-sponsored by LionPac, a
campus pro-Israel group. In addition to briefing the State Department
and the United Nations, he met with AIPAC, and he found the group
impressively responsive.
Of course, in Israel, Manekin and his group have come under attack from
the right: It’s one of the targets of the Knesset investigation into left-
leaning NGOs. Manekin wrote a scathing response for the +972 blog,
writing that he wouldn’t pander to his persecutors by testifying about his
own Zionist bona fides before the committee. “I don’t owe them
anything,” he wrote. “They don’t need to love us or tell us that we are
patriots. They are doing far more damage to this place than we are.”
Still, he has a charming inability to muster much outrage on his own
behalf. The attacks “don’t really bother me,” he says. “We’re still part of
the ruling class. I’m still a liberal Israeli Jew, so I’m not that worried.”
For all his frustrations with Israel, Manekin has no plans to go anywhere.
Some of his friends are leaving—as he wrote in +972, “they want to find
a place that is normal, a place that does not shame their existence. A
place they can live in.” But he says, “I see my future in Israel. It’s just
my home.” His 3-year-old daughter knows no language besides Hebrew.
Besides, being there offers him the opportunity to put his ideals into
practice. “I like to be part of changing things,” he says. “Activists in
general don’t feel a sense of despair.”
Back to Top

Israeli NGOs are entrenching the occupation

By Yagil Levy, Haaretz, 11 January 2011
One may have expected Yisrael Beiteinu and parts of the Likud
to offer human rights groups state funding instead of
threatening their existence.
The Knesset's decision to probe the human rights' groups funding
sources, a move motivated by the right's desire to clamp down on the
organizations' activity, should be denounced on several accounts.
However, the right-wing parties should be interested in continuing these
organizations' activity, for the simple reason that they - albeit
unintentionally - are advancing those parties' long-term interest:
entrenching the occupation.
In the past decade organizations such as B'Tselem, Machsom Watch and
even Breaking the Silence have entered the vacuum in the
government's control over the army and in the senior command's
control over the field units. The center of gravity of conducting the
warfare in the midst of the Palestinian population has been diverted, as
is characteristic of this kind of policing-warfare, from the high command
to the lower field command, which frequently exercises unbridled force
on the population.
The army has difficulty effectively controlling the units, and so the task
taken up by the human rights' organizations.
It suffices to read military advocate general Avichai Mendelblit's
statements about those organizations in an interview with Haaretz in
2009: "The organizations are a channel for passing on information about
very important things, to make the IDF's activity normative...I strive to
reach the truth and they are really helping us with this."
In other the words, the organizations whose activity the Knesset wants
to restrict are part of the army's control system over its forces. Machsom
Watch supervises the roadblocks and B'Tselem documents, thus
monitoring soldiers' aberrant conduct while on duty. As for Breaking the
Silence, it has recently proved its documentation system is better than
the army's, whose first reaction to accusations of illegal conduct in
Operation Cast Lead was sweeping denial.
The army has good reason to cooperate and exchange information with
some of the organizations, as the MAG conceded.
Even if the leftist groups' intention is to ensure upholding Palestinian
rights, though, the unintentional result of their activity is preserving the
occupation. Moderating and restraining the army's activity gives it a
more human and legal facade. Reducing the pressure of international
organizations, alongside moderating the Palestinian population's
resistance potential, enable the army to continue to maintain this
control model over a prolonged period of time.
No wonder Machsom Watch activists have commented critically that the
group's activity is "improving the roadblocks" rather than helping to
remove them. Rather than acting against the IDF's presence in the midst
of dense Palestinian population, B'Tselem tries to make this presence
more moral.
In this spirit, Breaking the Silence opposes disobedience and does not
act against the occupation. Its documentation helps the army clean its
ranks, thus reducing the "moral price of dominating a civilian
population," as the organization puts it.
So one may have expected Yisrael Beiteinu and parts of the Likud to
offer human rights groups state funding instead of threatening their
existence. In the absence of these groups, the basis of Israel's
domination - whose legitimacy is unraveling - of the Palestinian
population will be further undermined, contrary to the Israeli right's
agenda.

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Government protects the people, not the other way

around
Zeev Sternhell, Haaretz, 14 January 2011
In a democracy, restrictions must be imposed on legislation,
because the purpose of a liberal democratic regime is to
protect human and civil rights and ensure equality. When
the legislature ignores these basic duties, it undermines
the very reason for democracy's existence.
The campaign of intimidation being waged by the right against left-wing
organizations - which ranges from arbitrarily arresting activists and
throwing them in prison, as in the case of Jonathan Pollak, to
establishing parliamentary committees of inquiry - has one clear
objective: to identify opposition to the government and its policies with
rejecting the legitimacy of the state. The right is trying with all its might
to inculcate the public consciousness with the idea that the government
is the state and the government's interests are identical to the aims of
Zionism.
It is a national duty to denounce this crude lie, both in Israel and abroad.
It is a national duty to recite and teach that not every Knesset decision
is legitimate. In a democracy, restrictions must be imposed on
legislation, because the purpose of a liberal democratic regime is to
protect human and civil rights and ensure equality.
When the legislature ignores these basic duties, it undermines the very
reason for democracy's existence. Since the 17th century, liberal
thought has recognized the right to oppose a government that infringes
on fundamental rights, and this is a basic tenet of any free regime.
Similarly, it is a duty to resist legislation that would prevent non-Jewish
Israeli citizens from living in Jewish communities. Now the old slogan
"Yesha ze kan" [the West Bank and Gaza are here] is coming true: The
settlements are taking over Israel. After all, for a regime of ethnic and
religious separation to be established within the Green Line would be
just a natural continuation of the apartheid regime that has been in
effect in the territories for more than 40 years. Once that happens, it will
be a mockery to continue to speak of Israeli democracy in the present
tense.
Therefore, those who collaborate with this creeping Lieberman-ism,
whether actively or passively, will bear responsibility for the real
delegitimization of Israel worldwide. And we should not be surprised, or
complain of anti-Semitism, when the European Parliament proposes
drastic changes in Europe's relations with Israel. In these difficult times,
it is only the human rights organizations that are saving Israel's honor.
One immediate conclusion is that when a parliamentary committee of
inquiry whose only purpose is to intimidate the left is set up, it would be
best to ignore its existence and refuse to appear before it. This
committee has neither the moral nor the legal authority to force any
citizen to attend its sessions.
If the committee wants to keep up an appearance of objectivity, it will
have to open probes into all foreign sources of funding for all Israeli
political bodies, including the sources that fund the Likud and Yisrael
Beiteinu election campaigns. An investigation of left-wing bodies only,
due to both its discriminatory, violent nature and the cheap
demagoguery that will accompany it, does not deserve any kind of
attention.
Finally, since there has been a great deal of talk recently about the
analogy to McCarthyism, it is worth stressing that the situation here is
worse than it was in the United States in the 1950s. On one hand, the
Israeli Supreme Court lacks an entrenched constitutional status and
contempt for it is only growing, while in the United States, it was the
Supreme Court that eventually put a stop to this phenomenon. On the
other hand, unlike McCarthy, Avigdor Lieberman is one of the pillars of
the government, and McCarthyism has gained control of the political
establishment itself.
Just as was true in Europe in the past, Lieberman-ism will most likely
gradually destroy the last vestiges of the liberal right. And Israeli society
will pay a heavy price for a political elite that has lost its way.
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Itijah General Director Ameer Makhoul sentenced to 9

years in prison: Addameer calls for an end to arbitrary
detention and the release of all human rights
defenders
Addameer, 30 January 2011
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association condemns the
sentencing of human rights defender Ameer Makhoul to nine years in prison
and one year suspended sentence. The sentence was handed down on Sunday
30 January at the District Court in Haifa. Mr. Makhoul is a prominent political
activist and serves as the general director of Ittijah – The Union of Arab
Community-Based Associations and as the Chairman of the Public Committee
for the Defense of Political Freedom in the framework of the High Follow-up
Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel. He is currently detained at Gilboa
prison in northern Israel.
Mr. Makhoul was arrested at his home in the early morning hours of 6 May
2010, two weeks after a travel ban was imposed on him by the Israeli Ministry
of Interior. He was held incommunicado for two weeks whilst he was subjected
to intensive interrogation. On 27 May, Mr. Makhoul was charged with
espionage, assistance to the enemy in a time of war - which carries a
maximum sentence of life imprisonment - contact with a foreign agent, and
other security charges. Mr. Makhoul vehemently denies the charges against
him, and has stated before the Magistrate’s court in Petah Tikva that he made
a confession as a result of the harsh interrogation methods used against him.
On 27 October 2010, Mr. Makhoul accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to
espionage, aggravated espionage, contact with a foreign agent and conspiracy
to aid the enemy in time of war. In exchange, the prosecution dropped the
charges of assistance to the enemy in a time of war, the most serious charge
against Mr. Makhoul, which would have carried a life sentence. This highlights
the pressure he was under to enter into the plea bargain and have his
sentence reduced. In the event, the nine years of imprisonment imposed on
Mr. Makhoul almost reaches the maximum sentence normally given for plea
bargains - ten years - and rejects requests made by his legal defense for a
lesser sentence of seven years.
Addameer condemns the harsh sentence imposed on Mr. Makhoul, and views it
as part of a wider campaign by the Israeli authorities to silence all human
rights defenders who speak out against Israeli human rights violations. In
addition to arbitrary arrest and detention, Israeli authorities have met
Palestinian human rights activism in recent years with a variety of measures,
including raids, deportations, travel bans, visa denials and media attacks
against NGOs. Moreover, Palestinian communities involved in grassroots
human rights defense efforts are frequently levied with collective punishment
measures in the form of curfews, sieges, and destruction of property, threats to
individuals and the community as a whole, beatings, the use of lethal and
“non-lethal” ammunition, including 40mm high velocity tear gas canisters,
denial of permits, tear-gassing, army incursions and intentional injury and
killings.
Addameer views Mr. Makhoul’s imprisonment as a deliberate violation of his
fundamental freedoms and special protections provided under international
law for human rights defenders, particularly freedoms of movement,
expression, association and non-violent assembly. Furthermore, as the charges
against Mr. Makhoul and his subsequent sentencing are based on what he
maintains was a forced confession, Addameer considers the conduct of Mr.
Makhoul’s trial to be in violation of fundamental due process principles and
human rights standards.
Addameer thus urges foreign government officials, including members of
foreign representative offices to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and
foreign Consulates in East Jerusalem, as well as representatives of the
European Commission and the European Parliament, human rights
organizations and United Nations bodies to:
- Demand Mr. Makhoul’s immediate release and the removal of all charges
against him;
- Raise Mr. Makhoul’s case in their official meetings with Israeli officials;
- Pressure Israel to put an end to its policy of arbitrary detention and
deportation of human right defenders.

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The struggle for al-Araqib is the struggle for Palestine

By Ameer Makhoul, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2011

Al-Araqib village (ActiveStills)

Al-Araqib was the last village I visited before my arrest. Al-Araqib is not
just a village, but the very heart of a nation and a people. On 5 May
2010, I was there under the tent of Sheikh Sayah, a local leader. There
was a big crowd after the destruction and the reconstruction of the
village. We met there until late at night, taking advantage of the desert
darkness.
Al-Araqib is a small village in the southern part of historic Palestine
known as al-Naqab but which Israel calls the "Negev." Since mid-2010,
Israel has bulldozed the village more than a dozen times.
We had come at the request of Sheikh Raed Salah but especially in
answer to the call of our duty and our responsibility as a nation. Before
the evening gathering of the activists in al-Araqib, we had visited the
village of Houra where we met activist Nouri al-Uqbi, then Liqyeh and
activist Alayan Sane. Our delegation from the Popular Committee for the
Defense of Political Freedoms, in the framework of the High Follow up
Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel, included Abdel Hakim Moufid,
Raja Aghbariyeh, Qadri Abu Wassel, lawyer Abd al-Raouf Mouassi and
myself. Forgive me if I have left anyone out.
This was my last visit before police and security forces raided my home
and arrested me one hour after I arrived back in Haifa after midnight. I
can no longer follow the evolution of events except for the biased
information available here in prison.
At that meeting in al-Araqib, we knew that the eyes of the Israeli forces
of uprooting were upon us under the convenient cover of the desert,
hiding their criminal face and hands in its darkness. Just as the saying
goes, that the "people of Mecca know their territory better than anyone
else," so the people of al-Araqib know their territory and its night-time
environment better than anyone. However, the uprooters have usurped
the friendly obscurity of the desert. They invade the land and the night,
bringing with them injustice, blackness, uprooting, expulsion and forced
exile. The Zionist project has cast this darkness throughout its history.
The darkness of the plan has cast its dark shadow over al-Araqib, the
Naqab, the Galilee, the coast, the Triangle, Jerusalem, Gaza, West Bank
and has travelled across the ocean, preventing the light of liberty from
reaching Gaza, besieging it. The darkness has stretched out over those
in exile in a vain attempt to hide the homeland, cut it off from light and
hope, hidden from the option of return.
But the people in our homeland know what they are doing and know
who is watching them. They know their right to their homeland as well
as the rights due to them inside it.
Neither the Israeli eyes watching us nor the bulldozers of destruction
and ethnic cleansing can change our minds. They have been active
every minute for six decades. But we, the masses of the people inside,
have been growing in strength every day since the Nakba -- the ethnic
cleansing of historic Palestine in 1947-48 -- and during the ongoing
Nakba. We have become stronger in our resistance to oppression and
the system of ethnic cleansing, and our will has broken free.
At the meeting in al-Araqib, we prepared an emergency plan of action
and confrontation to resist and hold our ground. We divided up the tasks
and shared our concerns while planning how to face the imminent
destruction with our bodies by mobilizing people backed by efficient
local and international solidarity. We determined that every single house
destroyed would be rebuilt and every single tent torn down set up again,
no matter what the price. The reconstruction would take place
immediately after such crimes of destruction. Our visit was not the
beginning of our existential struggle. It was a planned additional step to
gain momentum in the knowledge that it is a decisive battle, not a local
problem, but a strategic stand. The battle for al-Araqib is a fundamental
event in defense of the nation and what is left of the land in order to
protect Arab existence in the Naqab and to recuperate as much stolen
land as possible. This is a battle for our homeland, a test of our
willpower and an expression of the direction our popular struggle has
taken over several decades.
If we see this battle as just one more incident, we will deliver al-Araqib
and all it represents into their hands. We cannot. Al-Araqib is an integral
part of the nation at a key moment when national duty and the spirit of
defiance and steadfastness call upon the people to resist, bearing in
mind the initial battle for land and home, on 30 March 1976: Land Day.
On that day, Israeli forces killed six Palestinian citizens of Israel
protesting against a government decision to confiscate thousands of
dunams of their land in the Galilee. Palestinians everywhere annually
commemorate Land Day as a protest against Israel's discriminatory
policies towards its 1.2 million Palestinian citizens and to underline their
collective and individual rights.
Today, we face a plan for ethnic cleansing from the same system, of the
same nature, but focusing on al-Araqib.
There is an intimate link between popular resistance in al-Araqib and in
Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Nilin, Bilin, in the Triangle and in al-Rawha, the
fight against house demolition and Judaization in the Galilee, the fight
for Umm Sahali and all the struggles of The Association of the Forty of
Ein Hod and the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages in the Naqab,
Nuri al-Uqbi's fight for the defense of his land and his right to live on it,
the Palestinian and international movement against the blockade of
Gaza, the fight to preserve the Arab character of Jerusalem and its holy
sites and other popular resistance movements.
The energy of these struggles, born of grassroots and local solidarity
movements and taken up by international supporters, is growing every
minute. This solidarity constitutes a powerful force of dissuasion against
those invading al-Araqib and elsewhere and acts as a protection for the
people of this country and its landowners whether living here at the
moment or refugees from here.
It is important to realize that Israel has now understood that the Arab
peoples are a strategic force of which, at this stage, the Palestinians are
the best organized. They are able to defend their rights, their existence
and all the rights due to their people. They are as capable of
recuperating rights they have been denied, such as their national
inheritance and their land, as they are of waging legal battles, where our
position is much stronger than Israel's. The system intent on uprooting
al-Araqib, like the entire process of uprooting and expulsion, must be
ever vigilant to justify its legitimacy, while we in turn need to question
its legitimacy every day in order to put a halt to all its illegal actions.
This system will stop at no crime unless we challenge its every move.
The dynamics of this confrontation prove that neither al-Araqib nor its
population needs any recognition from its oppressors and uprooters
since the land and its history acknowledges their presence: the nation
knows its own people and their legitimacy derives from this unbreakable
tie.
All honor to the High Follow up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel
for making the correct connection between the Jerusalem/al-Quds and
al-Aqsa uprisings in 2000 and the fight for al-Araqib and the defense of
the homeland by calling for major action in the Naqab and on the land of
al-Araqib in the Naqab on the eve of Land Day. They send a message to
us and to the world that our cause is indivisible, that our people stand
united for our cause.
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Jerusalem Prize Acceptance Speech by Ian McEwan

February 21, 2011
Ian McEwan recently accepted the Jerusalem prize for literature, an
honour awarded biennially to writers whose work deals with themes of
individual freedom in society. The first winner in 1963 was the
philosopher Bertrand Russell and other recipients include Simone de
Beauvoir, JM Coetzee and Mario Vargas Llosa.
On 20 February 2011, Ian McEwan gave an acceptance speech during
the award ceremony. The text of this speech is below:
Jerusalem Prize
Mayor of Jerusalem, distinguished members of the jury, Israeli and
Palestinian and citizens of this beautiful city, visitors to the International
Book fair, and Zev Birger, survivor of Dachau, human dynamo, friend to
literature and the force behind this fair, I am deeply touched to be
awarded this honour, the renowned Jerusalem Prize which recognises
writing that promotes the idea of ‘the freedom of the individual in
society’.
Ultimately, the quality of any prize can only be judged by the totality of
its recipients. The ‘backlist’ of this award is unequalled in the world.
Many of those writers you have honoured in the past have long been
part of my own mental furniture, have shaped my understanding of what
freedom is and what the imagination can achieve. I cannot believe for a
moment that I am worthy to stand alongside such figures as Isaiah
Berlin, Jorge Luis Borges, or Simone de Beauvoir. I am somewhat
overwhelmed that you believe I am.
Since accepting the invitation to Jerusalem, my time has not been
peaceful. Many groups and individuals, in different terms, with varying
degrees of civility, have urged me not to accept this prize. One
organisation wrote to a national newspaper saying that whatever I
believed about literature, its nobility and reach, I couldn’t escape the
politics of my decision. Reluctantly, sadly, I must concede that this is the
case. I come from a country of relative stability. We may have our
homeless, but we have a homeland. At the very least, the future of
Great Britain is not in question, unless it fragments by peaceful,
democratically agreed devolution. We are neither threatened by hostile
neighbours, nor have we been displaced. Novelists in my country have
the luxury of writing as much or as little about politics as they care to.
Here, for Israeli as for Palestinian novelists, the ‘situation’, ha matsav, is
always there, pressing in, as a duty, or a burden or a fruitful obsession.
It is a creative struggle to address it, and it is a creative struggle not to
address it. I would say as a general principle that when politics enters
every corner of existence, then something has gone profoundly wrong.
And no one can pretend here that all is well when the freedom of the
individual, that is to say, of all individuals, sits so awkwardly with the
current situation in Jerusalem.
Once I’d decided to come, I sought out the advice of an Israeli writer, a
man whom I deeply admire. He was very comforting. His opening
remark was, Next time get your literary prize from Denmark. Some of
the previous recipients of this prize have spoken their thoughts in a
gathering like this and have upset people. But everybody knows this
simple fact: once you’ve instituted a prize for philosophers and creative
writers, you have embraced freedom of thought and open discourse, and
I take the continued existence of the Jerusalem Prize as a tribute to the
precious tradition of a democracy of ideas in Israel.
I would like to share with you some thoughts about the form of the novel
and the idea of individual freedom, which you have chosen to be the
theme of your Prize.
The tradition of the novel that I work in has its roots in the secular
energies of the European Enlightenment, during which the private as
well as the social condition of the individual began to receive sustained
attention from philosophers. A growing and relatively privileged class of
readers emerged who had time to reflect not only on their society but on
their intimate relationships, and they found their concerns reflected and
extended in novels. In Swift and Defoe, individuals were morally tested,
and their societies satirised or judged by means of journeys that were
fantastical or based on real accounts; in Richardson we had perhaps the
first sustained, fine-grained account of individual consciousness; in
Fielding, individuals were granted panoptic visions of a society in the
spirit of a benign and inclusive comedy; finally, the crowning glory - in
Jane Austen, the fate of individuals were delivered though a new mode
of narration, handed down to succeeding generations of novelists – free
indirect style, which allowed an objective third person account to merge
with a subjective colouring – a technique that permitted the character,
the individual in the novel, more room to grow. Throughout the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in the works of masters like Charles
Dickens, George Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, the literary
illusion of character and the representation of consciousness were
refined, with the result that the novel has become our best, most
sensitive means of exploring the freedom of the individual – and such
explorations often depict what happens when that freedom is denied.
This tradition of the novel is fundamentally secular – coincidence or
human machinations, not God, order destinies. It is a form that is plural,
forgiving, profoundly curious about other minds, about what it is to be
someone else. On its central characters, high or low, rich or wretched, it
manages, by a sort of divine authorial attention and focus, to confer
respect on the individual.
The English tradition is just one among many, but it is intimately
connected with all others. We speak of a Jewish tradition in the novel – a
vast, complex tradition, but still bound by common themes: a
sometimes ironical attitude to a god; acceptance of an underlying
metaphysical comedy and above all, in a world of suffering and
oppression, deep sympathy for the individual as victim; finally,
determination to grant to the downtrodden the respect that fiction can
confer when it illuminates the inner life. We find the strands in the
existential allegories of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony and The Trial; in the
sadness and beauty of Bruno Schulz, in the work of Primo Levi as he
gave individual voice in the nightmare of the Shoah, that industrialised
cruelty which will remain always the ultimate measure of human
depravity, of how far we can fall; in IB Singer’s fiction, which conferred
dignity on the cramped lives of immigrants; in different terms we find a
parallel theme in Saul Bellow, whose agonised intellectual heroes
struggle ineffectually to flourish in a raucous, materialist culture. Always,
the victim, the stranger, the enemy and the outcast, the face in the
crowd, becomes a fully realised being by the grace of fiction’s magic
dust- a dust whose recipe is an open secret – full attention to detail,
empathy, respect.
This tradition is vigorously upheld in Israel’s literary culture – and right
from the beginning of the founding of the state. A recent discovery for
me has been S Yizhar’s Khirbet Khizeh, published in 1949 – the luminous
account of the clearing of an Arab village during the ’48 war – and of a
protest that never quite leaves the throat of its narrator as the houses
are demolished and the villagers driven from their land. It is a tribute to
an open society that this novella was for many years required reading
for Israeli schoolchildren. Khirbet Khizet remains painfully relevant, and
the moral questioning lives on.
There are so many writers one could mention, but let me single out
three senior figures who have earned the respect and love of readers
around the world – Amoz Oz, Abrahim Yehoshua and David Grossman.
Very different writers, with overlapping but far from identical politics,
writers who love their country, have made sacrifices for it – and have
been troubled by the directions it has taken, and whose work never fails
with that magic dust of respect, the bestowing of the freedom of the
individual on Arab as well as Jew. In their long careers they have
opposed the settlements. They and Israel’s younger literary community
are the country’s conscience, memory and above all hope. But I think I
could say of these three writers that in recent years they have felt the
times turning against their hopes.
I’d like to say something about nihilism. Hamas whose founding charter
incorporates the toxic fakery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has
embraced the nihilism of the suicide bomber, of rockets fired blindly into
towns, and embraced the nihilism of an extinctionist policy towards
Israel. But (to take just one example) it was also nihilism that fired a
rocket at the undefended Gazan home of the Palestinian doctor, Izzeldin
Abuelaish, in 2008, killing his three daughters and his niece. It is
nihilism to make a long term prison camp of the Gaza Strip. Nihilism has
unleashed the tsunami of concrete across the occupied territories. When
the distinguished judges of this prize commend me for my ‘love of
people and concern for their right to self-realisation’, they seem to be
demanding that I mention, and I must oblige, the continued evictions
and demolitions, and relentless purchases of Palestinian homes in East
Jerusalem, the process of right of return granted to Jews but not Arabs.
These so-called ‘facts on the ground’ are a hardening concrete poured
over the future, over future generations of Palestinian and Israeli
children who will inherit the conflict and find it even more difficult to
resolve than it is today, more difficult to assert their right to self-
realisation.
To the humble atheist it seems clear enough – when parties to a political
dispute draw their primary inspiration from their respective, partisan
gods, a peaceful solution drifts further away. But I’m not really
interested here in arguments of equivalence. A great and self-evident
injustice hangs in the air, people have been and are being displaced. On
the other hand, a valuable democracy is threatened by unfriendly
neighbours, even to the point of extinction by a state that could soon
possess a nuclear bomb. The urgent question is Lenin’s – what is to be
done? And when we pose the question, we are also asking, who is to do
it, who has the power to act? The Palestinians are split, their democratic
institutions are weak or non existent, violent jihadism has proved self-
defeating. They have been unlucky in their leaders. And yet many
Palestinians are ready for a solution, the spirit is there.
And Israel? Believe it or not, there is an arithmetic to measure the
creative energies of a nation. Look to the editions in this book fair, the
numbers translated in and out of Hebrew, or to the number of successful
patent applications, (astonishing for a small country) or the numbers of
scientific papers cited, the breakthroughs in solar energy technologies,
the sell-out concerts around the world for the Jerusalem Quartet. The
creative energy index is high and so is the capability. But where is
Israel’s political creativity? What do national politicians have to compete
constructively with Israel’s artists and scientists? Surely not the concrete
mixer? Surely not the eviction order? We have all read the documents
leaked to Al Jazeera. That was surely not the best Israeli politicians could
do, when they succumbed to what David Grossman has called ‘the
temptation of strength’, and casually brushed aside remarkable
concessions from the Palestinian Authority?
In this context, the opposite of nihilism is creativity. The mood for
change, the hunger for individual freedom that is spreading through the
Middle East, is an opportunity more than it is a threat. When Egyptians
decide en masse to reform their society and think constructively, and
take responsibility for their nation into their own hands, they will be less
inclined to blame outsiders for all their misfortunes. This is precisely the
time to restart the peace process. The new situation demands bold
creative political thinking, not a retreat to the sourness of the bunker
mentality, or an advance behind yet more concrete.
After her recent visit here, The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
notes that the firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza constitutes a war
crime. She also notes that the annexation of East Jerusalem contravenes
international law and that East Jerusalem is steadily being drained of its
Palestinian inhabitants. There are some similarities between a novel and
a city. A novel, of course, is not merely a book, a physical object of
pages and covers, but a particular kind of mental space, a place of
exploration, of investigation into human nature. Likewise, a city is not
only an agglomeration of buildings and streets. It is also a mental space,
a field of dreams and contention. Within both entities, people,
individuals, imaginary or real, struggle for their ‘right to self-realisation’.
Let me repeat – the novel as a literary form was born out of curiosity
about and respect for the individual. Its traditions impel it towards
pluralism, openness, a sympathetic desire to inhabit the minds of others.
There is no man, woman or child, Israeli or Palestinian, or from any other
background, whose mind the novel cannot lovingly reconstruct. The
novel is instinctively democratic. I gratefully accept this prize in the
hope that the authorities in Jerusalem - a twin capital, one day, I hope -
will look to the future of its children and the conflicts that potentially
could engulf them, end the settlements and encroachments and aspire
creatively to the open, respectful, plural condition of the novel, the
literary form that they honour tonight.
===========================================
=============================
Ian McEwan is donating ten thousand dollars to ‘Combatants for Peace’,
an organisation that brings together Israeli ex-soldiers and Palestinian
ex-fighters. These ex-combatants go about in pairs, talking in public to
make the case that there can be no military solution to the conflict.
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Rattling the Cage: Tips for information warriors

By LARRY DERFNER, Jerusalem Post, 2nd March, 2011
In these days of uncertainty, a volunteer army of steady, sure, confident
voices in Israel’s defense is more critical than ever.
As you well know, Israel has never been in such peril as it is today. Anti-
Semitism has risen to historic levels. Israel’s enemies are arming
themselves with weapons that endanger not only its existence, but its
very existence. And now, added to these grave existential threats comes
the upheaval we’ve seen spreading throughout the Middle East. In these
days of uncertainty, a volunteer army of steady, sure, confident voices
in Israel’s defense is more critical than ever. Here is a set of talking
points for you to use when fighting the information war for Israel’s
survival. B’hatzlaha – good luck.
1. “Our hearts are with the protesters in the square, but...” This
lets your audience know at the start that you, as a supporter of Israel,
are in favor of democracy, even for Arabs. Then you get to the “but,”
and after the “but,” you only mention the bad, terrible things that could
happen.
For example: “But Islamic fundamentalists could take over, just like they
did in Iran.” “But the new leaders could tear up the peace treaty with
Israel.” “But they could support terrorists like al-Qaida.” “But they could
destabilize the whole region and start World War III.”
You start off paying lip service to the good – democracy – but keep it
brief and vague, and then when you get down to specifics, hit them with
one doomsday scenario after another. By the time you’re through, your
audience will be more scared of Arabs than ever.
2. “Stability.” This was the point to bring up during the Egyptian
uprising – not that we were against democracy and in favor of tyranny,
God forbid, but that we were for “stability,” i.e. Mubarak. Today, of
course, it’s a little late for that argument. But while it’s become dicey to
use the stability gambit against Arabs protesting against dictators, it can
be adapted to shore up the case for Israel – and, indirectly, still make
the case against the Arab protesters.
It goes like this: Instead of saying, “Israel is the only democracy in the
Middle East,” which may not be the case for long and which sounds like
you want to keep it that way, you say: “Israel is the only stable
democracy in the Middle East.”
This reminds your audience of all the terrible things that could happen
with these uprisings, and, again, leaves them more scared of Arabs than
ever.
NOW THAT your listeners are in a black mood, now that they’re booing
the Arabs again, it’s time to lift their spirits and get them cheering for
Israel. Time to switch from negative to positive.
3. “Vibrant democracy.” This is the oldest of old chestnuts in the
Israel advocate’s basket of goodies – that Israel is a “vibrant
democracy.”
The funny thing is that it used to be true – the Right would fight it out
with the Left, they went back and forth from the government to the
opposition, there would be huge rallies by the settlers and huge rallies
by the peaceniks. Today there’s no Left, there’s no fight, there are no
huge rallies. Today the only debate is between the hard-liners who want
to jail all the Arabs and leftists today and the moderates who counsel
patience. The settlers keep building, the army keeps slugging away and
barely a peep is heard in protest. But you can still sell people on Israel’s
“vibrant democracy” – show them clips from the shouting matches in
Knesset. Remember: It’s not the steak, it’s the sizzle.
4. “Israel is not perfect.” This is indispensable. It shows the audience
that you’re not a propagandist, not a shill, not trying to sell them a bill of
goods – and that criticism of Israel is welcome, so long, of course, as it’s
fair. What is fair criticism of Israel? To say that Israel is not perfect –
that’s fair. Israel makes mistakes – that’s fair. And if anybody asks you
for an example of a mistake Israel has made, you can say, “Well, we
thought the Palestinians wanted peace, but...”
Or, “Well, we thought the world would support us when we tried to make
peace, but...”
In other words, Israel’s mistake, Israel’s imperfection, is that it’s too
good. That’s criticism, and audiences will be impressed with your
candor.
5. “Delegitimization.” A really cool word that you can use against
anybody who says anything about Israel that you don’t like. Israel’s
oppressing somebody? Delegitimization! Israel’s violating somebody’s
rights? Delegitimization! It shuts people up. When you say they’re
“delegitimizing” Israel, it’s like you’re saying they’re denying Israel’s
right to exist, like they’re calling for the destruction of Israel, like they’re
calling for the Jews of Israel to be wiped out! It puts people on the
defensive beautifully. It’s like calling them anti-Semites without actually
using the word, which was getting pretty stale, kind of embarrassing.
Delegitimization sounds a lot more sophisticated, and it does the job
more effectively.
6. “Denying Israel’s right to self-defense.” This can be used
against anyone who questions the divine justice behind anything the IDF
does. Anybody who suggested that maybe Israel should not have
banned pasta, for example, from entering Gaza was denying Israel’s
right to self-defense. Anybody who wonders whether the army should
take more precautions before shooting at Gazan fishermen, farmers and
metal scavengers is denying Israel’s right to self-defense. Even Israeli
combat soldiers who describe killing, brutalizing and humiliating
Palestinian civilians are denying Israel’s right to self-defense.
Again, that’s like denying Israel’s right to life itself, which is a pretty
serious charge. And an intimidating one. Use it liberally.
7. “Context” or “contextualization.” This is a fancy way of saying “the
background to a story that makes Israel look good and/or the Arabs
bad.” If, on the other hand, the background to the story makes Israel
look bad and/or the Arabs good, then this is not “context” or
“contextualization,” it’s “propaganda.” For instance, if Israel blockades
Gaza’s coast and airspace and attacks it with jets, helicopters, tanks and
snipers, and you point out that Gazans fire Kassams at Israel, that’s
putting the story in context. But if Gazans fire Kassams at Israel and
someone else points out that Israel blockades Gaza’s coast and airspace
and attacks it with jets, helicopters, tanks and snipers, that’s
propaganda.
8. “Lawfare.” Sounds like “warfare,” doesn’t it? That’s the point – to
turn lawsuits against the occupation, whether in foreign courts or in
Israel’s own courts, into the equivalent of war. In other words, the
equivalent of killing people. In other words, the equivalent of terrorism.
Going to court against the occupation is terrorism.
But you don’t want to use the word “terrorism” for a lawsuit, just like
you don’t want to use the word “anti-Semitism” for some CNN story. So
you call the CNN story “delegitimization” and the lawsuit “lawfare.” You
gotta be subtle.
9. “Incitement.” This is the one to bang away at when there’s no, or
nearly no, Palestinian terror to speak of, like there hasn’t been for years.
When there was terror, you could say, “When the Palestinians stop
terror, they will be amazed at how generous we are.” But now we’re in a
bit of bind because the Palestinians have basically stopped terror, and,
well, what does that leave us to work with? It leaves us incitement!
When a Palestinian preacher quotes something gruesome from the
Koran, when a Palestinian newspaper accuses Israel of war crimes, when
a Palestinian textbook accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing, that’s
incitement, and they have stop it or there will never be peace.
All right, we’ve got our rabbis, and they’re saying all sorts of crazy
things about killing gentiles and how Arabs are animals and God knows
what, and we’ve got this foreign minister who says he wants to execute
Arab Knesset members who meet with Hamas and bomb Egypt, and the
polls say half of Israelis want the Arabs gone, period.
But that’s not incitement, that’s... that’s... Israel’s vibrant democracy!
Yeah, say that. If that doesn’t work, then try, “Israel is not perfect.”
And if they still complain, accuse them of “delegitimization.”
Remember, Israel is at war, the information war. All is fair.

PART TWO:
When fighting the information war for Israel’s survival,
as in any other war, the first casualty is truth.
Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post, March 9th 2011
In the week since you received the first sheet of talking points, the
matzav – the situation, meaning Israel’s situation with the Arabs and the
goyim at large – has become more urgent than ever. Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu said he is preparing a plan that will bring peace
with the Palestinians, yet he was left off the cover of Time magazine.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak asked the US for $20 billion in additional
military aid, yet the money has not arrived.
Meanwhile, news from the region grows more distressful. Hosni
Mubarak’s return to power isn’t going as smoothly as we’d hoped. Alas,
the shah of Iran is still dead. Clearly, Israel’s need for advocates who
will spread its message has never been greater. So here are some more
killer arguments to help you to help Israel win the information war. Yalla!
(That’s Hebrew for “Victory!”)
1. “Every Israeli wants peace.” This will just bliss your audience out, this
will fill them with warm feelings for Israel. My, my, my, every Israeli
wants peace. Every single one, including the Hebron settlers, including
the Kachniks, including the ones who burn mosques and shoot
Palestinians – every Israeli wants peace. Who can deny it? Do you know
any Israeli who wants to get killed in a war? No, which means every
Israeli wants peace. OK, it’s not saying much, it’s basically saying every
Israeli wants to stay alive, you could just as easily say every Iranian
wants peace, every Congolese wants peace – which is why you don’t
want to dwell on any one point too long. Hit ‘em hard and fast, then
move on.
2. “We don’t want to rule over a foreign people.” Of course we don’t.
This has all been a misunderstanding. If the Palestinians had just let us
take over the West Bank and Gaza, we wouldn’t have had to rule over
them! But they forced us into it.
Here you want to show how Israel is doing everything humanly possible
for peace, but the Palestinians, alas, simply will not listen to reason.
3. “We support a Palestinian state, but not one that will threaten Israel’s
security.” What could be more reasonable than that? If a Palestinian
state has an army, that will threaten Israel’s security. If it can forge
military alliances, that will threaten Israel’s security. If it controls its own
borders, terrorists will be able to come in and threaten Israel’s security.
If it controls its own airspace, Israeli spy planes won’t be able to fly over,
which will threaten Israel’s security. We simply can’t allow it. The
Palestinians can have their state, but no army and no military alliances,
and Israel controls their borders and their airspace. Two states for two
peoples, like the US and Vermont.
And if anybody asks you if it’s fair for a militarized, sovereign Israel to be
able to threaten the Palestinians’ security but not vice versa, explain
that Israel doesn’t threaten the Palestinians’ security because Israel is
trustworthy and harmless. A Palestinian state, you point out, would
threaten Israel because Palestinians are liars and murderers, and then
you conclude by saying that the day Palestinian leaders show the
courage to prepare their people to accept this reality, Israel will know it
has a partner.
4. “DEFENSIBLE BORDERS/Auschwitz borders.” What more legitimate
demand can any nation make than for defensible borders? For Israel,
defensible borders means not those pre-Six Day War borders when we
didn’t have the West Bank, not those “Auschwitz borders” as that dove
of doves, Abba Eban, called them a long time ago. True, those were the
borders from which Israel fought the Six Day War, so they seem to have
been pretty damn defensible, but there are army guys who say they
aren’t, and army guys know best, so go with “Auschwitz borders.” True,
Abba Eban kicked himself over those words the rest of his life, but he’s
not around anymore to carp and meddle, so don’t worry.
5. “A Jew has the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem.” How much of an
anti-Semite do you have to be to say otherwise? I’m sure Obama would
agree that a Jew has the right to live anywhere in Washington DC
(publicly he’d agree, privately who knows what President Hussein
thinks?) so how can he say a Jew doesn’t have the right to live anywhere
in Jerusalem? The idea! Alright, an Arab can’t live anywhere he wants in
Jerusalem, but people have to understand – this is a Jewish state. Here
the Jews are the majority, and the majority says all of Jerusalem is for
the Jews and only the Arab part is for the Arabs – if they behave. That’s
not democracy? That’s more democracy than they’ve got in Saudi
Arabia, or Malaysia, or wherever Obama was born.
6. “Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia.” Bibi just used this one, Sharon once
used it – it freaks people out completely. You tell them that everybody’s
pressuring Israel to give up the West Bank for peace just like they
pressured Czechoslovakia in 1938 to give up the Sudetenland for peace,
and just let it sink in. Let your audience fill in the blanks. If Sudetenland
equals the West Bank, and Czechoslovakia equals Israel, Nazi Germany
equals…the Palestinians! Your audience is seeing Nazis when they think
of Palestinians, and all you’ve mentioned is Sudetenland and
Czechoslovakia! Just make sure not to go straight into the pitch about
how Israel wants to make peace with the Palestinians, because it’s not
going to be very convincing – Israel wants to make peace with Nazis? So
put at least 10 or 15 minutes of shpiel between the Sudetenland thing
and the peace thing.
7. “Glorifying terrorism.” This is a real shlagger – the Palestinian
Authority names city squares, community centers and whatnot after
suicide bombers, after this Dalal Mugrabi who killed 37 Israelis in the
Coastal Road Massacre, after Amin al-Hindi who plotted the Munich
Olympics massacre, and others like them. The Palestinian Authority,
the “moderates,” the darlings of America and Europe. Such hypocrisy!
But maybe some anti-Semite is going to bring up all the bridges,
neighborhoods, schools, etc. in Israel named after Menachem Begin, and
he’s going to say Begin ordered the bombing of the King David Hotel,
and British officers clubs, and train stations and Arab markets, and that
hundreds of people, mainly civilians, were killed, and wasn’t that
terrorism, so doesn’t Israel glorify terrorism, too, with the Menahem
Begin this and the Menachem Begin that? So here’s what you do – deny
it! Say it’s all “a biased, distorted view of history,” it’s “the radical
Palestinian narrative.”
Damn the facts, just start shouting about “moral equivalence.” In no
time, the little anarchist will have been pushed out the door, and there
you are, standing up for Israel against these vicious attacks. Your
listeners will be ready to walk through fire for you, blind.
8. “We reject extremism from both sides, Left or Right.” This makes you
sound balanced, evenhanded, and it gives people the idea that there’s
just as much danger from the Israeli Left as there is from the Right.
They’ll figure that philosophy students in North Tel Aviv pose no less a
threat to human life and decency as armed settlers in Yitzhar. They’ll
think Yossi Sarid casts as long a shadow over Israeli democracy as
Avigdor Lieberman. In the end, your audience will be confused into
neutrality, into silence, into nodding their heads for the status quo,
which just happens to be owned by the Right. You see how it’s done?
You start off presenting yourself as “apolitical,” and end up winning
support for good old, hardline, anti-Arab Israeli nationalism.
Remember: You are fighting the information war for Israel’s survival, and
in an information war, as in any other war, the first casualty is truth.

Back to Top

Netanyahu in 1987: Shoot to kill stone throwers

By Noam Sheizaf, +972Mag, March 7, 2011
The settler’s blog “The Muqata” pulled out this old Maariv piece from the
days of the first Intifada to condemn Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, who apparently got too soft with the years, at least for the
blog’s taste.
It reads:
Netanyahu: Shoot to Kill the Stone Throwers | According to
Netanyahu, the Intifada’s leaders should be deported, and the West
Bank sealed to foreign media
Still, I guess Netanyahu should be considered a moderate compared to
his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who in his youth joined Rabbi
Kahane’s Kach movement, later to be outlawed for its racist activities.

Back to Top

Why the Jewish Right Is Terrified by J Street's

Conference
Dan Fleshler, February 25, 2011 in Huffington Post
J Street, the political arm of the American Jewish pro-Israel, pro-peace
movement, will convene its second national conference on Saturday
night. There will be an enormous turnout. An organizer told me that
about 2100 people are pre-registered (at their last conference, only 850
people were pre-registered but 1500 people showed up). There will be
about 500 students from 100 campuses.
Why are all of these people converging? There are many reasons. They
are desperate to find hope in what often seems like a hopeless mess in
Israel and the territories. They want answers to troubling questions, like,
"Is the 2-state solution dead?" and "What, in God's name, can the U.S.
do to help?" They want community. They want inspiration. They crave
ideas for mobilizing somnolent American Jews and cowardly U.S.
politicians. I'm going, and I want all of those things.
This won't be quite as large as AIPAC's legendary policy conferences, but
AIPAC has had more than 50 years to build momentum; J Street is only
three years old.
So what is the reaction from the American Jewish and Israeli right?
Abject terror.
There is no other way to explain the panicky screeds on the right-wing
Judeo blogosphere. Check out these widely-publicized riffs from Noah
Pollak of the Emergency Committee for Israel and the permanently
truculent folks at Front Page magazine. I won't dignify all their
arguments and character assassinations by conveying them here, but
one of their objections to the conference is that some of the speakers
are, gasp, Arabs who are unhappy with Israel!
American Jews, you see, are not supposed to listen to Arabs who are
unhappy with Israel, people with different narratives and perspectives
than those of the pro-Israel community, people like James Zogby or
Mustafa Barghouti. Spend three minutes reading about Barghouti here,
and you will learn about the kind of impassioned, articulate Palestinian
nationalist that not all Israelis like very much. But surely all Israelis need
to figure out how to live with a neighbor like Mustafa Barghouti.
But Americans Jews, you see, are not allowed to hear him speak. Perish
the thought! And, of course, if an organization gives him a podium, that
automatically means the organization endorses each and every one of
his views. That is an enduring principle of the Jewish thought police. He
will be speaking at a panel on Hamas, summarized as follows: "Hamas
remains in control of the Gaza Strip, armed and opposed to the
existence of the State of Israel. What is the best way to counter the
threat posed by Hamas? Is reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah a
prerequisite to peace, or would it make peace more difficult to achieve?
Can Hamas be neutralized by undermining its popular support among
Palestinians or splitting its moderate elements from its militants?" It
would make perfect sense to exclude Palestinians from the ground who
actually know what they are talking about from such a panel, wouldn't
it?
American Jews are not supposed to hear from Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, the
physician and friend to many Israeli moderates whose daughters were
tragically killed by Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead. Perish the
thought! He has devoted his life to reconciliation between Israelis and
Palestinians. But we must not hear about his experiences or his three
lovely, lost daughters because, Front Page asserts, he denounced the
Israelis but not Hamas. We must run the other way if we see him
coming.
Front Page sums up the other principal objection: "Any illusion that J
Street has included these speakers merely to give insight into "the other
side" is dispelled by the roster of Jewish speakers scheduled to speak at
`Giving Voice to Your Values.' All are leftists, and most are even more
radically anti-Israel than the Islamists who will appear." There are
certainly a lot of leftists, and it is not hard to show that they are, in fact,
pro-Israel. But what scares these righties more than anything, I think, is
all of the thoroughly mainstream, centrist speakers who are also gracing
J Street with their presence: Knesset Members from Kadima; Dennis
Ross; Kenneth Pollack of Brookings; Patrick Clawson of the Washington
Institute for Near East Peace; Tom Dine, who used to run AIPAC; Ethan
Felson of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Rabbi David Sapirstein,
head of the Religious Action Center of the Reform movement--the
largest synagogue movement in the US.
"Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself," wrote Justice
Potter Stewart. And that is what is going on here. We are listening to the
sputterings of an insecure right wing that has no answers. They have no
suggestions about the Israeli-Palestinian situation other than grim,
bloody "conflict management," which should really be called "nightmare
management." They have no notion of how to preserve the democratic
Jewish state. They don't know how to stop the steady drift of young
people out of the American Jewish community because what is
happening to the Palestinians cannot be reconciled with either Jewish or
universal values.
And they are panicking. They want us to put our hands over our ears,
like the haredim who don't want to hear women's voices singing, or the
fanatics who want to burn down the offices of newspapers that print
cartoons of the prophet Muhammed. Sorry folks. It won't work.
Thousands of American Jews and others will show up in DC this
weekend, eager to hear complicated truths and nuanced arguments,
instead of the useless pablum of those who cling to a horrific status quo.

Back to Top

The Dissenters
Haaretz prides itself on being the conscience of Israel.
Does it have a future?
by David Remnick February 28, 2011
Amos Schocken, the paper’s patrician publisher and owner,
is apt to tell disgruntled readers, “It seems that Haaretz is just not for you.”
Photograph by Michal Chelbin.
In the early days of the uprising in Egypt, the Web site of the journal
Foreign Policy published a list of the ten world leaders “who are freaking
out the most.” Coming in first, ahead of all the nerve-racked autocrats
who had reason to fear that the democratic fervor would spread their
way from Tahrir Square, was the popularly elected Prime Minister of
Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Since 1979, Israel has based its national-
security strategy on a peace treaty with Egypt, a treaty that drastically
reduced the prospect of regional war in the Middle East.
Rattled by the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, Netanyahu sent a cable
to Israel’s embassies abroad, telling diplomats to advertise the
constancy of Hosni Mubarak and caution against the alternatives.
Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, gave a speech warning against a
future Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood in power. And nearly all the
country’s main media outlets—including Channel 2, the biggest
commercial-television station, and the mass-circulation tabloids—
described the news from Egypt in terms fraught with alarm.
The outlet that conveyed the greatest sense of equipoise, even
optimism, was Haaretz (“The Land”), a broadsheet daily that is easily
the most liberal newspaper in Israel and arguably the most important
liberal institution in a country that has moved inexorably to the right in
the past decade. The Schocken family, which has owned the paper since
1935, is not commandingly wealthy, yet it invests lavishly in the quality
of a paper that is authoritative in its news columns, left-wing in its
ideology, and insistently oppositional in its temper. Golda Meir once said
that the only government that Haaretz ever supported was the British
Mandate, before the birth of the state.
Dov Alfon, Haaretz’s editor-in-chief, tried to keep the tone of the paper’s
Egyptian coverage cool, analytical, observant. “This country was
submerged in paranoia, as if Iran were invading Egypt, as if the
demonstrators in Cairo were Hezbollah,” Alfon, who was born in Tunisia
and grew up in Paris, said. “Suddenly, on Sunday morning all the Israeli
newspapers were running headlines like ‘A NEW MIDDLE EAST’ and ‘THE
END OF MUBARAK.’ I was much more cautious. I was influenced by my
childhood in Paris. I remember the posters in May, 1968, claiming
revolution, claiming the end of de Gaulle, and parents at school claiming
the end. A few weeks later, it was exactly the opposite.”
The Egyptian uprising posed a reporting challenge to Haaretz, as it did
to all Israeli media. There are no Israeli news bureaus in Egypt, or
anywhere else in the Arab world. Israeli reporters can get into Cairo
quickly only if they carry a second passport. (Haaretz had a reporter in
Cairo briefly in the late eighties, but he was thrown out of the country.)
So when, in late January, Alfon watched the first street demonstration
taking shape, he mobilized Anshel Pfeffer, a defense reporter in his late
thirties who was born in Manchester and carries a British passport.
Pfeffer has played a fireman’s role for the paper, covering the Mumbai
terror attacks, the Russian-Georgian war, and swine flu in Mexico. He
had just returned from the uprising in Tunisia, and now Alfon was asking
him to bolt a vacation and go to Egypt.
Pfeffer was the first Israeli reporter to reach Cairo. He checked in at the
Ramses Hilton, a five-minute walk from Tahrir Square, and, for the first
few days, he spoke with as many demonstrators, soldiers, and other
ordinary Egyptians as he could, taking in a spectacle that he compared
to “a curtain going up on a secret world.” His first articles were straight
reporting pieces. Because the regime had shut down access to the
Internet, he filed “in the ancient manner”—by fax or by dictating his
pieces to an operator in the newsroom in Tel Aviv. Egyptian secret police
were in the hotel, but the staff members who sent and received his
faxes, and heard him dictating in Hebrew, remained friendly. Pfeffer
speaks some Arabic, but he felt that he was more effective on the street
coming across “as an English twit.”
As a defense reporter, Pfeffer understood why a threat to the peace
treaty with Egypt would cause high anxiety in the military command in
Israel, yet he also saw that what was being broadcast and published at
home did not reflect the reality in Tahrir Square. “The more tabloid
populist side of the Israeli media was intent on searching for anti-Israeli,
anti-Jewish manifestations,” he said. “Out of the ten thousand signs on
the square, there were maybe two with a Star of David written across
Mubarak’s face—and that was what was shown.”
Pfeffer wanted to make sure his readers understood that the
demonstrations were in fact not anti-Israeli, and he wrote a column
headlined “WHY SHOULD ISRAEL BE THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE
MIDEAST?” “The late Arab-American scholar Edward Said appears to
have been right,” he wrote. “We’re all suffering from Orientalism, not to
say racism, if the sight of an entire people throwing off the yoke of
tyranny and courageously demanding free elections fills us with fear
rather than uplifting us, just because they’re Arabs. . . . Doesn’t Egypt
deserve democracy, too?”
The editorial pages, meanwhile, represented a wide range of views. Both
the editor of the section, Aluf Benn, and the columnist Ari Shavit
attacked Barack Obama for failing to support a crucial ally. Benn wrote,
“Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who ‘lost’ Turkey,
Lebanon, and Egypt, and during whose tenure America’s alliances in the
Middle East crumbled.” Shavit, a liberal-centrist who has long been
arguing for a reckoning with Iran, was Spenglerian in his gloom, writing
that Obama’s failure to support a “moderate” like Mubarak, coupled with
his failure to speak up for the democratic movement in Tehran, signalled
nothing less than the decline of the West.
But the voices that predominated in Haaretz were in praise of the
Egyptian democracy movement. Bradley Burston, a former Berkeley
radical whose first job in Israel was as a shepherd, wrote a column
thanking the Egyptians for jolting Israelis out of fixed ideas. “It is
beginning to dawn on my people, the Israelis, that freedom for Arabs
may have nothing to do with annihilation for Jews,” Burston wrote. “Here
and there, people here are recognizing that the Arab world, and this
grand nation which is its cultural epicenter, is vastly more complex than
this view of a vast sea of blood-eyed fanatics barely restrained by the
brittle dikes of a heavily subsidized corps of despots.” And, he insisted,
“Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman”—Israel’s foreign minister
—“increasingly resemble the rulers of unapologetically non-democratic
Mideast regimes.”
Finally, the paper published an unsigned editorial reflecting the
consensus opinion of the owner and publisher, Amos Schocken, and the
editorial board:

Israeli leaders have always preferred to do business with Mubarak and

his ilk, on the assumption that they would “preserve stability” and
forcibly repress the radical forces seeking change in the region. This
view led Israel to disregard the citizens of neighboring countries, viewing
them as devoid of political influence in the best case and as hostile
Israel-haters in the worst case. Israel viewed itself as a Western outpost
and displayed no interest in the language, culture and public opinion of
its immediate surroundings. Integration into the Middle East seemed like
a trivial, if not a downright harmful, fantasy.
But that era was over, the editorial concluded. The time had come for
Israel’s foreign policy to “adapt itself to a reality in which the citizens of
Arab states, and not just tyrants and their cronies, influence the
trajectory of their countries’ development.”
The Haaretz building, a low-slung gray-and-white concrete affair that
could be mistaken for a warehouse or a factory, is situated on a street in
southern Tel Aviv named for the Schocken family. The neighborhood is
remote from the Bauhaus center of Tel Aviv high life, with little more
than car-repair places and falafel joints nearby. The newsroom, like
newsrooms everywhere, is filled largely with young people working in an
ascending arc of urgency; the day starts with desultory phone calls,
office gossip, and planning meetings, and the pace accelerates as
deadlines approach. What is unusual about the Haaretz newsroom is the
art collection. Amos Schocken is one of the country’s biggest collectors
of Israeli art, some of it spectacular, much of it politically subversive. As
you walk in the main entrance, you pass the split corpse of a pig,
hanging from a meat hook. The animal is made of multicolored jelly-
worm candies. “I’m not sure what it means,” Schocken told me, with his
distinctively thin, enigmatic smile. There are slyly disfigured maps of
Israel, paintings made of blown-up phone-sex ads, a portrait of David
Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Moshe Dayan hovering over dead soldiers.
Elsewhere there are Adi Nes’s homoerotic photographs of Israeli soldiers
and, in Schocken’s office, a huge canvas, by the Palestinian artist Durar
Bacri, of an Arab man and a goat. During the second intifada, a time of
suicide bombings and military incursions, Schocken put up a painting, by
David Reeb, of soldiers in combat, with the bitingly ironic banner “LETS
HAVE ANOTHER WAR.”
Schocken is sixty-six, slender, and aristocratic in a German-Jewish way,
both diffident and self-possessed. He is not evidently eager for approval,
least of all from readers and advertisers. When he answers letters of
complaint from readers, he is apt to write, “It seems that Haaretz is just
not for you.” As a newspaper proprietor, Schocken faces all the familiar
challenges of his peers around the world: a vanished classified-ad
market, the uncertain profitability of Internet editions. His ideological
focus, however, is distinct and unyielding. He is thoroughly committed to
ending Israel’s forty-four-year occupation of East Jerusalem, Gaza, and
the West Bank. He is also a singular force in Israeli journalism on issues
such as free speech, equal rights for Israeli Arabs, the independence of
the Supreme Court, and the exposure of military abuse. On the sixtieth
anniversary of Israel’s independence, Schocken published an article
saying that “Hatikvah,” the national anthem, should be changed, as its
lyrics are about only Jewish aspirations. “How can an Arab citizen
identify with such an anthem?” he wrote, and he went on:
Hasn’t the time come to recognize that the establishment of Israel is not
just the story of the Jewish people, of Zionism, of the heroism of the
Israel Defense Forces and of bereavement? That it is also the story of
the reflection of Zionism and the heroism of IDF soldiers in the lives of
the Arabs: the Nakba—the Palestinian “Catastrophe,” as the Arabs call
the events of 1948—the loss, the families that were split up, the
disruption of lives, the property that was taken away, the life under
military government and other elements of the history shared by Jews
and Arabs, which are presented on Independence Day, and now only on
that day, in an entirely one-sided way.
Schocken is routinely bashed at home as a traitorous radical, a haughty
“post-Zionist,” an aristocrat of old Israel, who overlooks Israeli security
concerns and shows only disdain for the Orthodox, for the settlers, for all
the non-Haaretz readers who live in provincial cities like Ashdod,
Be’ersheva, and Ashkelon. “Schocken lives in a utopian fantasy world of
thousands of Arab students studying in Israeli universities and
thousands of Israeli students studying in Arab universities,” one
columnist wrote in the Jerusalem Post.
Recently, I sat in on a session of the editorial board, which was meeting
with Tzipi Livni, the leader of the centrist opposition party Kadima.
Schocken was easily the least polite of Livni’s questioners. The press
that month was filled with the news that dozens of leading Orthodox
rabbis had signed a letter calling on Jews to refuse to rent or sell
property to non-Jews. Schocken’s paper denounced the edict as racist
(so did Netanyahu), and, during the meeting, the publisher repeatedly
asked Livni why she didn’t say to the Arabs of Israel, “We stand with
you.” Hard as Livni tried to filibuster, Schocken persisted. A few editors
in the room smiled discreetly. They had seen this movie before.
Later, Dov Alfon laughed and said, “I think Amos was putting on a little
show for you.” But then he added, “Of course, he is right—and he
believes every word.”
There are many voices on Haaretz that confront the occupation, and
every scenario of resolution has been rehearsed and argued there a
thousand times. The most vivid and unflagging columnist on the issue is
Gideon Levy, who for many years has been ferociously attacking the
Israeli government for sponsoring the “criminal enterprise” of
settlements, the Israeli Army for war crimes during the bombing of Gaza,
two years ago, the Israeli media for “dehumanizing” the Palestinians,
and the Israeli people for complacency in the face of injustice.
Levy, who is in his mid-fifties, told me that he comes from the “Israeli
mainstream.” His father fled the Nazis in 1939 and spent six months on
a refugee boat before landing in Palestine. As a youth, Levy was “a full
member of the nationalistic religious orgy,” and even dreamed of
becoming Prime Minister. From 1978 to 1982, he worked as an aide to
Shimon Peres, a politician whom he now reviles for his role in the
construction of settlements. Levy is easy to characterize as the most
fashionable of radicals, and many do. He lives in the prosperous Ramat
Aviv area of Tel Aviv—a neighborhood that, he points out, was built on
the ruins of Sheikh Munis, one of more than four hundred Palestinian
villages destroyed after 1948. Levy enjoys a kind of leather-jacket roué
glamour in Tel Aviv and on the foreign lecture circuit. He is a regular on
television. Even some liberals who concede the rightness of his cause
and the grace of his prose criticize him for being a “one-trick pony,” a
self-regarding scold, who ignores Israeli suffering and wins his loudest
plaudits abroad. He has been called “Hitler’s grandson”—sooner or later,
nearly everyone on Haaretz gets called a Nazi—and some have wished
cancer on his family. He has been threatened in the market, harassed on
the street, and shot at by Israeli soldiers. When he writes, for example,
that the Qassam rockets fired at Israeli towns by Palestinian militants
“have a context,” the denunciations are renewed. He does not care.
Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli invasion of Gaza, “wasn’t a ‘war,’ ” he
says. “It was a brutal assault on a helpless, imprisoned population. I
suppose you can call a match between Mike Tyson and a five-year-old
boxing, but the proportions, the proportions!”
Levy makes reporting trips to the West Bank every week. He thinks of
himself as forcing Israeli society to see. “The dehumanization of the
Palestinians in the Israeli media allows the public to feel fine about it
all,” he told me one evening in the newsroom. “With the assistance of
the Israeli media, we’ve built a world of our own, in which all criticism of
the Israeli government is anti-Semitism, in which ‘they are all against us,
anyway’—which is not true. We are more spoiled than any state in the
world.
“I see the territories as the dark back yard of Israel,” he went on. “It is
now in an easy stage. The freedom of movement is much easier, less
bloodshed, a better economy. But the occupation is brutal in the way
that it governs the Palestinians in every field of their lives, from birth to
death, from their currency to their I.D. cards. I will never forget the
scene in the first intifada”—in the late eighties—“when at a checkpoint I
saw a soldier checking the X-ray of an old lady, as if he will decide if she
is sick enough to get to the hospital in the West Bank. This scene of this
nineteen-year-old child who has the right to decide on her fate and plays
God and looks at her X-ray without knowing a thing, just to humiliate her
or give himself this power—those things can happen today, too.”
The Haaretz writer usually mentioned alongside Levy is Amira Hass, who
has lived for three years in Gaza and thirteen in Ramallah—the only
Jewish Israeli living in and reporting from the territories. Hass, the
daughter of Holocaust survivors, grew up in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,
but, unlike Levy, she was an outsider. She never dreamed of being
Prime Minister. Her parents were Communists. “I was what you call a
‘red-diaper baby,’ ” she says. Her Israeli friends are, in the main, on the
left. “My tribe is leftists, not liberal Zionists,” she said. “David Grossman
and the rest are always waking up too late. That is their hallmark—
understanding too late.”
I’d met Hass before on reporting trips, and we agreed to go together to
Nabi Samwil, which is on the site of a Palestinian village that was
occupied in 1967. Nabi Samwil, the burial place of the prophet Samuel,
is typical of the West Bank, where centuries of history and religious
yearnings mingle and conflict. There is a crusader fortress and a mosque
in Nabi Samwil. In 1971, the Israelis bulldozed the Arab houses, and a
few Palestinians, Hass said, sold their land to Israel. On a cold, gray
winter afternoon, Hass was headed there to collect material for a
portrait of the village that she had been working on for months.
As she drove, Hass filled me in on the details of her career. After
abandoning academia, she volunteered for a while on a labor hot line,
run by an advocacy group for the rights of Palestinian workers in Israel.
In 1989, when she was in her mid-thirties, she joined Haaretz as a copy
editor, and in 1993, when the Oslo Accords seemed to augur a lasting
peace, she went to live in Gaza, as a reporter for the paper. In what Hass
calls a “folkloric” arrival, she entered Gaza in a car with forged
Palestinian license plates made for her by friends in the Jabaliya refugee
camp. “Gaza was intense, but it was easier in a way than the West
Bank,” she said. “As a typical Eastern European Jew, I found Gaza to be
a form of diaspora, a shtetl sort of life.”
In Gaza, Hass picked up a working knowledge of Arabic and wrote
hundreds of dispatches on the texture of life under Israeli occupation.
“My emphasis is that this is Israeli news,” she said. “I’m writing not so
much about the misery of the Palestinian people as about the effect of
Israeli policy. It’s not about ‘the poor Palestinian people.’ It’s about us.”
She wrote about the obvious things—the battles, the suicide bombers
and their families, the internal politics of Hamas and Fatah—but she also
wrote stories about the dual road system in the West Bank, cases of
depression in the Balata refugee camp, restrictions on food imports to
Gaza, the concrete details of fragmentation and disconnection.
Hass pulled off the highway and started up the steep road to Nabi
Samwil. From this one windswept hill, we could see Jerusalem and well
beyond; the crusaders called it the Mountain of Joy. Hass stopped by a
ramshackle store, where an old Palestinian man sold his wares—
packaged food, detergent, candy. He was a source for Hass, and they
talked for a while in Arabic about lost relatives, abandoned homes, the
rude injustices of everyday life.
Apart from the settlers, Israelis rarely go to the territories, unless they
have the obligations of a soldier or a journalist. When I asked Amos
Schocken, Amira Hass’s greatest supporter on the paper, when he had
last visited Ramallah, which is a fifteen-minute drive from Jerusalem, he
said, “I’ve never been there.”
“Why not?” I asked. Ramallah is, in a sense, the capital of his outrage.
Schocken smiled. “I read about it in Haaretz,” he said.
As we drove north toward Ramallah, Hass mentioned that a few years
ago she was almost fired. Editors at the paper had told me that she had
started to file less frequently and that her reports were getting less fact-
rich and more commentary-heavy, which was not her strength. Hass
said that she had grown frustrated. “I got tired of fighting,” she said. “It
was humiliating to go like a beggar from one editor to the next and hope
I could get some attention for these stories.”
This is hardly an unusual conflict between reporters and editors, but it
took on ideological weight. “During Oslo, the editors thought I was
spoiling the party,” she said. “They ran the stories, usually, but they
buried them, put them in the cellar, we say. During the second
intifada”—after the collapse of the 2000 peace talks—“there were all
those terror attacks, and Israelis did not want to entertain any facts that
contradicted their emotions or the way they saw the world.”
Several years ago, Hass prepared the concentration-camp diary of her
mother, Hanna Levy-Hass, for commercial publication. The book is a
remarkable account of a Jew from Sarajevo who joined Tito’s partisans,
was captured by the Nazis, and, in the summer of 1944, was put on a
train from Montenegro to Bergen-Belsen. Levy-Hass used to describe to
her daughter the sight of German women standing by the side of the
road trying not to notice the sick and the dying as they marched to the
gates of the camp. The image was ingrained in Amira, and she says that
her work as a reporter is rooted in the “dread of being a bystander.”
“I don’t want to be seen as an exotic—the strange woman who lives with
the savages,” she said. “I want to report—to see.”
After a discussion with Amos Schocken, in early 2008, Hass took a leave
of absence. It didn’t last. That November, with the Israelis on the brink of
sending troops into Gaza, she flouted Israeli restrictions and, carrying a
Dutch passport from a long-over marriage, entered Gaza by sea, via
Cyprus, on a “Free Gaza” boat, along with some British Members of
Parliament. Under heavy surveillance, she filed stories from Gaza for
three weeks, until officials from Hamas told her to leave—“for your
protection.” Frustrated by having to cover the Israeli bombardment from
outside Gaza, she eventually found a way back in, again illegally,
through Rafah, on the Egyptian border.
That evening, after leaving Nabi Samwil, we drove through the
checkpoints to Ramallah, where we settled down at a café for dinner.
Ramallah is still hemmed in by Israeli military checkpoints and Jewish
settlements, but no frequent visitor to the city can fail to note the effect
of the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, a technocrat who has
brought in huge donations and investments from abroad; the city is
richer and full of construction sites. For Hass, though, Ramallah remains
a “five-star prison.”
Hass lives a disconnected life. When she goes to Tel Aviv, she sees the
doctor and the dentist, stops by the newsroom to say hello, and that’s it.
She cannot bear being asked idiotic questions about her life in Palestine.
(“They ask things like ‘Where do you buy food?’ And I say, ‘In a store!’ ”)
A mournful expression made her face sag. “If not for my left-wing
friends, who are generally real activists—some have gone to jail—I
wouldn’t manage,” she said. “Otherwise, when I’m in Tel Aviv, I feel like
a zombie.” She has lots of Palestinian friends, but it’s clear that she is a
visitor. When she tried to take Arabic at Birzeit University, she was
rejected, and that hurt.
“In Ramallah, I’m accepted and I’m not,” she said. “For the bourgeois
élite here, the presence of an Israeli Jew who can come and go as she
pleases only emphasizes the privileges we have and they do not.” And
she understands this. “This is a nicer Soweto, but it is still a Bantustan,”
she said. “For my neighbors here in Ramallah, the sea does not exist.
Jerusalem does not exist. I’m embarrassed to tell them that I am going
to Tel Aviv and that I’ll be there in less than an hour.”
The poignancy of her journalistic life is that so many Israeli readers are
dismissive of her—even some readers of Haaretz. The usual critique is
that she is nakedly partisan, too leftist, too boring, banging on about the
same thing. Taghreed el-Khodary, a Palestinian journalist who has
worked for many years in Gaza, says, “All the Israelis I know on the right
or in the middle—they don’t even read her. Which is tragic.” And yet
Amos Harel, the chief military correspondent for Haaretz, told me one
day while we visited the occupation headquarters in the West Bank,
“The most sophisticated military guys admire Amira for her accuracy.”
As the evening grew late, I said to Hass that it must be extremely
difficult to live as she does. She did not deny it. “Sometimes you’re so
busy you forget how lonely you are,” she said. “On Yom HaShoah”—
Holocaust Memorial Day—“I’m really lonely. On that day, a memorial
siren goes off in the Jewish settlement of Beit El, nearby. But I cannot be
with them. I cannot join them to commemorate the day, I just cannot.
And here in Ramallah the siren doesn’t mean much.”
The patriarch of Haaretz was Salman Schocken, a department-store
magnate from Germany who was so imperious that Hannah Arendt once
called him “Bismarck personified.” Born in 1877, Salman Schocken was
the son of a poor, unlettered owner of a drygoods store. He had only a
grade-school education, but he was a relentless autodidact, consuming
Goethe and Nietzsche even as he worked as a travelling salesman. In
the Saxon city of Zwickau, he and his brother Simon started the first of
what became one of the largest chains of department stores in
Germany, offering quality goods at reasonable prices. As he began to
make money, he accumulated a vast library of rare German and Hebrew
books. This, as Schocken’s biographer Anthony David points out, was
the seed of his true ambition. Like the merchant princes of the
Renaissance, Schocken meant to put his stamp on his time as a cultural
and political impresario.
After a tour of Palestine in 1921, he began to contribute to the yishuv,
the Jewish pre-state community, helping to build the port of Haifa and
Hebrew University. A decade later, Schocken created a publishing
house, Schocken Verlag; he acquired the rights to the works of Franz
Kafka and acted as a kind of Jewish Medici, sending money, and even
food and clothing, to writers he valued. As he took a deeper interest in
both the Zionist movement and his own Jewish roots, he published the
work of friends like the theologians Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber,
the Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem, and the novelist S. Y. Agnon.
In 1933, Hitler became chancellor, and Schocken landed in Palestine.
Schocken never learned to speak fluent Hebrew, but he tried to assert
himself as something more than a money pot for the Zionist movement.
He was a sympathizer with the Brit Shalom faction, which supported a
binational state with the Arabs. In his search for a political vehicle,
Schocken began talks with Moshe Glickson, the owner of Haaretz, which
had been in existence since 1919.
In 1935, Schocken bought the paper, with the intention of handing it
over to his son Gustav (who changed his name to Gershom when he
arrived in Palestine). He dreamed of re-creating a Hebrew version of the
prewar Frankfurter Zeitung: sober, analytical, with a strong emphasis on
high culture. He saw the paper as an instrument for the creation of a
new society. The paper, he said, must help turn “servile underlings into
human beings,” and guide readers “in their fundamental opinions so
that they will unwittingly adopt our view.” Haaretz published the news
alongside scholarly essays by Scholem and Buber; it serialized Agnon’s
novel “A Guest for the Night,” in a hundred and thirty-nine installments.
In 1942, one of the paper’s stars, Robert Weltsch, wrote a rare report on
the slaughter of Jews in Poland and Ukraine; the same issue also
included a poem by Goethe and tips for child care.
Salman Schocken never really found a home in Israel. In an era of Jewish
nationalism, he was the ultimate cosmopolitan, living in hotels and
houses from Scarsdale to Switzerland. He expanded his publishing
empire, establishing Schocken Books in New York; at one point, he made
Arendt the editor. But this seemed to bring him little satisfaction.
Gershom Scholem wrote that Schocken was “a broken and miserable
human being who has managed to antagonize everyone in America.”
To his children and grandchildren, Schocken was a withholding
presence, content, on his trips to Jerusalem, to live among the books in
his library. Amos Schocken’s sister, Racheli Edelman, who now runs the
Schocken publishing company in Tel Aviv, wrote in Haaretz, “Grandpa
was closer to his books than to his family.” When his sons tried to tell
him something, he would sneer and say, in sarcastic German,
“Grossartig, grossartig.” Big deal.
During a fifty-year marriage, Schocken was a restless philanderer, and
when he finally left his wife he declared, “Now I am a free man.” Five
years later, in 1959, he died alone, in a hotel room in Switzerland. The
hotel staff found him in bed clutching two books: the stories of Rabbi
Nachman of Bratslav and Goethe’s “Faust.” Gershom Schocken told his
son Amos that his father’s death was among the most liberating events
in his life, rivalling his acquisition of a driver’s license. In later years,
when Gershom Schocken published articles in the paper, it was often
under a pseudonym that scarcely concealed his filial resentment: Ben-
Dam was the name he used—the Son of Blood.
In mid-June, 1967, little more than a week after the end of the Six-Day
War, while nearly all of Israeli journalism joined the country in what
became a prolonged period of postwar exultation, Amos Elon, then a
young reporter at Haaretz, travelled to Aqbat Jabar, a refugee camp
near the West Bank city of Jericho. Elon was born in Vienna and had
emigrated to Palestine as a child, with the rise of Hitler. He approached
this assignment warily, sensitive to the mixture of surrender,
resentment, and foreboding among the Palestinians. As he walked
through Aqbat Jabar, a small crowd of Palestinians came out of their red
clay huts and stood near their vegetable gardens, greeting him in
Hebrew: “Shalom! Shalom!” Some had draped white cloths on their
doorways as a signal of surrender to the Israel Defense Forces. They
offered Elon coffee and conversation. Earlier, Elon had visited Gaza,
which he found to be far tenser, a “psycho-pathological atmosphere of
claustrophobia.” He wrote of a Norwegian study that compared the
Palestinians in Gaza, first under the Egyptians, now under the Israelis, to
inmates serving a life sentence. One refugee after another there spoke
to Elon of a yearning to work, to leave, to breathe.
Elon’s reporting in Haaretz was a rebuke to the national euphoria. All
over Israel, people were celebrating not only the lightning victory over
Egypt, Syria, and Jordan but also the conquest of territory that had been
in Arab hands since 1948. They went on pilgrimages to Biblical sites that
previously had been impossible to visit: the Old City of Jerusalem and
the Western Wall; the Cave of the Patriarchs, in Hebron; Rachel’s tomb,
in Bethlehem. In Elon’s eyes, Israeli society was in danger of glorifying
force and allowing religious fervor to creep into politics. The newly
occupied territories, he warned the readers of Haaretz in those
dispatches, more than forty years ago, were a poisoned chalice:
Whatever the fate of the occupied territories in our hands at
the moment may be—we can already do something with
respect to the problem of the refugees who have remained in
the areas under the control of the state of Israel. We have a
moral obligation to do this. For on the backs of these people
Israel’s independence was plowed and they paid with their
bodies, their property and their future for the pogroms in
Ukraine and the Nazi gas chambers. We owe a huge debt to
these forlorn people, even if they were knowingly led astray,
even if they, or their parents, blindly followed irresponsible
leaders. They are victims of our independence.
Elon called the territories “detonators” bound to trigger an explosion.
The top editors at Haaretz, including Gershom Schocken, decided to
print Elon’s reports and warnings, but they did not all agree with them—
not at first. Like almost everyone else in Israel, they saw the military
victory as a miracle. Schocken had been among those who called on the
Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, to bring Moshe Dayan into the leadership to
direct the war, and now Dayan was the most prominent figure in the
“pacification” of the occupied territories. Dayan used blatant colonial
rhetoric, and religious leaders sanctified military conquest with
messianic language; few saw the peril inherent in holding on to the
territories.
As Elon wrote later, “It was said of the British Empire that it was born in
a fit of absent-mindedness. The Israeli colonial intrusion into the West
Bank came into being under similar shadowy circumstances. Few people
took it seriously at first. Some deluded themselves that it was bound to
be temporary. Those responsible for it pursued it consistently.” The
settlement project, which grew at a terrific rate, even during the peace
negotiations of the nineties, radicalized the Palestinian national
movement. And the occupation itself undermined the reputation and the
security of a state begun as a refuge for a scattered and oppressed
people. In the early decades of Israel, the kibbutz exemplified its
pioneering spirit; now the settlers laid claim to this mantle, and no Israeli
government failed to pay them obeisance.
The gulf between Haaretz and mainstream political opinion only widened
in the nineteen-eighties. During the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war, when
Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon,
broke their promises of a limited incursion and sent troops deep into
Lebanon to crush the P.L.O., the paper took a strong position against the
government. Hundreds cancelled their subscriptions and wrote angry
letters to Gershom Schocken, accusing him of betraying the Army and
the state. During the first intifada, in the late eighties and early nineties,
the paper also took a strong stand in favor of Palestinian rights. Haaretz
published casualty reports that defied the Army’s official count; it ran
editorials expressing sympathy with the political fervor behind the rock
throwing in the streets. The paper’s stand was now clear.
The Schocken family’s politics were, and remain, left-wing on matters
like the Palestinian issue and civil liberties, but the Schockens have
always been free-market advocates, a difficult position in a country
where democratic socialism was, for decades, in the ascendancy. The
family was especially opposed to the domination of labor unions, such as
the Histadrut, which exercised tremendous power over Israeli
businesses. In the early seventies, the economics editor of the paper,
Avram Schweitzer, told Amos Schocken that “the building exists for the
sake of the printers.” Profits were thin, and the unions stood in the way
of hiring younger men and women who could operate new,
computerized presses. “We were paying old-fashioned protection
money,” Schocken recalled one night over dinner in Tel Aviv. “I decided
that this was not the way I wanted to live my life. At that point, thirty per
cent of my life was spent negotiating with unions.” During these
negotiations, Haaretz routinely faced work slowdowns and strikes. While
his father was still running the paper, Amos started three aggressive city
papers, Kol Ha’ir and Hadashot, in Jerusalem, and Ha’ir, in Tel Aviv; all
were non-union shops. In 1984, when printers and union journalists
besieged a Schocken printing plant and tried to prevent distribution of
Hadashot, Schocken used helicopters to airlift copies of the paper to
their distribution points. Finally, the family came to an agreement with
the printers, and was able to adopt new technologies that the printers
had resisted. The Schockens also gained the right to hire and fire any
new employees.
In 1990, Gershom Schocken, who had ruled Haaretz for more than half a
century, died, of liver cancer. Amos Schocken’s sense of loss was
profound. His father had been a distant, formal man—“I don’t remember
us kids sitting on his lap the way my kids sat on ours”—but not the frigid
martinet that his grandfather had been. At the shiva, a grand occasion in
Tel Aviv circles, Hannah Zemer, the editor of the liberal (now defunct)
newspaper Davar, approached Amos and whispered to him that he
should become the next editor.
Schocken said nothing. He felt a sense of inadequacy in the newsroom,
his father’s realm. He was more at home in the world of international
business. Between 1968 and 1972, he lived in the United States, first
studying for an M.B.A. at Harvard and then serving an apprenticeship at
Fairchild Communications, in New York. After finishing his Army duty, he
went to work at Haaretz, but on the business side. He was not as learned
as his father, and he had no skills as a professional journalist. He
installed his father’s deputy, Hanoch Marmari, as editor and, not long
afterward, appointed himself publisher and chairman.
It was soon clear to Schocken’s staff that he had acquired all the
essential values of that rare breed—the media owner whose priority is
the integrity and independence of his paper’s journalism. “When I was
young, my father had a falling out with his brother,” he recalled.
“Haaretz published a negative story about an American-Israeli paper
mill. My father’s brother was the chief engineer. My uncle felt that he
should have protected him, and they didn’t speak to each other for a
few years.” Many years later, when Amos was in charge, a similar
incident took place. An architectural contest was being held to design
the new Prime Minister’s office. One of the competitors, it was revealed,
was not professionally certified. The architect in question was Hillel
Schocken, Amos’s brother. Amos got a note in his mailbox saying that
the editor did not want to publish the particularly embarrassing article
on the subject. Amos was left with only one option: Haaretz gave the
article prominent play, under the headline “VETERAN ARCHITECT
WITHOUT A DIPLOMA.”
Amos Schocken began attending meetings of the editorial board in
1992, the beginning of a period when the fortunes of both the country
and Haaretz seemed buoyant. The prospect of a final peace between the
Israelis and the Palestinians coincided with rapid growth in the high-tech
sector, the end of government monopolies, the privatization of the
banks, a drop in the budget deficit, an influx of tourists, near-zero
inflation—and a newspaper fat with advertising.
“During Oslo, Haaretz was at the center of public opinion,” Schocken
said. The paper was not only in tune with a broad swath of its
readership; it was also in a position to expand, and it added immensely
to its coverage of business, real estate, technology, culture, and life
style. Its design and layout became more modern. This was no longer
the stolid paper of Salman and Gershom Schocken. Within a decade,
Haaretz had tripled its pages and its staff; circulation went up by fifty
per cent; and, in 1997, in partnership with the International Herald
Tribune, it added an English-language edition. Suddenly, a newspaper
that was known only to readers of Hebrew was being quoted all over the
world as “the New York Times of Israel.” The English-language Web site
became a powerful international instrument. David Makovsky, a former
diplomatic reporter for the paper and now a policy expert in Washington,
told me, “When I go to the Arab world, the first thing an Arab foreign
minister will say is ‘Did you read Haaretz this morning?’ They know
everything about Israel from Haaretz.”
When Schocken visited the newsroom of the Washington Post, he asked
a top executive how many people were on the editorial staff. “Too
many,” the executive moaned. Schocken realized that the Post’s staff
was minuscule compared with his. Haaretz’s editorial staff was forty per
cent of the Post’s while it had only ten per cent of the circulation—three
hundred journalists for a newspaper with seventy-three thousand
readers. But, despite its outsized costs, Haaretz was flourishing.
Leave it to Amira Hass to signal the end of the party. In the spring of
2000, when a final rapprochement between Ehud Barak and Yasir Arafat
seemed possible, she went to Boston to collect an award at Faneuil Hall
and, by way of an acceptance speech, told everyone that the
negotiations would end in failure and political convulsion. She was right.
The second intifada soon commenced. Ariel Sharon replaced Barak as
Prime Minister. Now the news from Israel was of suicide bombers,
military reprisals, and disillusioned and terrified populations on both
sides. The high-tech bubble burst. The tourist trade vanished. Schocken
said at the time, “Maybe the only growth area in the labor market is
security guards at the entrance of every store, restaurant, or office
building.”
Haaretz covered all the terror attacks, but many Israeli readers, who
now feared for their own security, were enraged that the paper
continued to cover the Palestinian point of view. It carried, without fail,
Danny Rubenstein’s features from East Jerusalem, Amira Hass’s detailed
reports on the daily life of occupation, and Gideon Levy’s columns of
outrage. The letters decried a lack of national feeling and sympathy;
Schocken was called “anti-Jewish,” “anti-Zionist,” and, inevitably, a
“Nazi.” The paper began to lose thousands of readers to Yedioth
Ahronoth and Maariv, tabloids that were determined to be sources of
national solidarity and consolation.
During the second intifada, Amnon Dankner, who had once worked for
Haaretz and now edited Maariv, wrote of his former paper, “Is it wrong
to ask of reporters in a country that is in the midst of a difficult war to
show a little more empathy for their people and their country?” Ben-Dror
Yemeni, the editor of Maariv’s opinion page, called Levy one of the
“propagandists for Hamas.” And a popular novelist, Irit Linur, wrote an
open letter to the paper, saying, “Haaretz has reached the point where
its anti-Zionism has become stupid and evil.” She went on, “I have
reached the conclusion that you and I don’t live in the same place. A
large and growing proportion of the reports and articles in your
newspaper stink of the foreign press, which regards the State of Israel as
a different, distant, and repulsive territory.”
Inside the newsroom, the atmosphere was only marginally less tense.
The editor, Hanoch Marmari, was already privately at odds with
Schocken over a business Web site that Schocken had decided to start,
without consulting him. (“This was the first crack in the level of trust
between Amos and me,” Marmari says.) Now Schocken and Marmari
were arguing about the tone of Haaretz itself. They clashed in editorial
meetings, with Marmari insisting that they were being coldhearted
toward their own readership.
“It was also the constant dilemma: How do you edit a newspaper when
your readers are on edge, and at the very end of their nerves?”
Schocken recalled in a speech. “To what extent do you take this factor
into your editorial decisions? We had in Haaretz the unbelievable
situation when I, the publisher, complained to our editor that he was
taking too much account of the readers—and he retorted, ‘I have a
suicidal fanatic for a publisher.’ ”
In less stressful times, Marmari and Schocken had disagreed without
incident. One night in the summer of 1997, Schocken noticed that
Marmari, like every other editor in the world, was planning to lead the
paper with the death of Princess Diana. Schocken loftily objected,
saying, “This doesn’t seem very Haaretz.” Marmari informed the
publisher that if they did not lead the paper with the Diana story they
would distinguish themselves as fools. Schocken backed off. But during
the turbulence of the second intifada no one ever backed off. The battles
were frequent and legion. Marmari felt that Schocken was undermining
his management of the paper.
“The integrity of the editorial staff was damaged,” Marmari told me.
“There was a practical split between me and Amos. The editor lost his
sovereignty.” Oddly, it was a conflict in which the editor seemed more
concerned about alienating readers than the proprietor did. “Amos was
displeased because I was less radical than him,” Marmari said. “I felt the
paper might derail itself to the point of irrelevancy. Haaretz has the
talent and the skills of the New York Times, but sometimes it becomes
marginal and even ridiculous. . . . During the worst terror attacks, people
were really terrified. I had to tell the staff that we could not just count
the dead and injured and mourn the Palestinians. We also had to show
empathy to the Israelis, regardless of who might be right.”
The paper’s managing editor, Yoel Esteron, wrote an editorial that
defended Israel’s decision to act forcefully against terror; Amos
Schocken disagreed. “Amos was advocating a far-left approach, an
extreme-left approach to the Palestinian problem and many other
issues,” Esteron told me. Not only was Schocken alienating readers—“it
was against his own newspaper’s business interests.”
Gershom Schocken’s three children—Amos, Hillel, and Racheli—make up
a majority of the board of directors, and Esteron and others told me that
Racheli, in particular, criticized her brother repeatedly for spending too
much money. “She was always shouting about staff and spending
money and sending people abroad, saying, ‘You can use Reuters,’ this
kind of bullshit,” Esteron recalled. Amos Schocken admitted, “My sister
thinks I could run the business a little better. She thinks the paper is too
big and that we have too many employees.”
In 2004, Schocken replaced Marmari with David Landau, a former editor
at the Jerusalem Post. Landau, who was born in England, considered
himself left-wing, somewhere in the range of the typical Haaretz staffer.
But, in a newsroom dominated almost completely by secular Jews, he
was an outlier. He wears a yarmulke and keeps the Sabbath. Unlike
Marmari, Landau had no problem with Schocken’s strategy to put more
and more resources into the new business section, which is called The
Marker. Under the leadership of a young, hyper-ambitious editor named
Guy Rolnik, The Marker brought a new, more youthful audience to
Haaretz—one at least as interested in the high-tech industry as it is in
the Palestinian issue—just as the worldwide newspaper crisis hit. The
Marker, which can be bought separately, has helped save the paper.
Rolnik has been especially good at publishing investigative pieces on
what he calls the “Israeli oligarchs,” a small group of billionaires and
their families who control much of the national economy.
But, while Landau conceded Rolnik his independence, he wound up
having the same sort of political disputes with Schocken that his
predecessor had. “I don’t want to see Amos compromise his ideals and
values, but I do believe—and here is where I am out of kilter with the
spirit of the current paper—you can give these political positions without
alienating whole swaths of Israeli society,” Landau said. “You don’t have
to soft-pedal your stance on the kind of racism or xenophobia or fascistic
trends that are worryingly engulfing parts of Israeli society, but you can
do it without casting yourself as antagonistic. There is a need in the
paper’s rhetoric for a greater sophistication and empathy. The goal is to
make the newspaper a place where people are being challenged but are
also made to feel welcome.”
Amos Schocken’s anxieties and fever dreams resemble, in part, those of
Donald Graham and Arthur Sulzberger. He cannot predict with absolute
certainty that Haaretz will survive, that there will be a paper to pass on
to the next generation. Schocken says that he and his brother and sister
“did a good job of not blowing the place up after my father died—
sometimes you see families where it all breaks loose after the founder
dies. You wonder how it will be with the next generation. For us, I don’t
know.” When I asked him if the family possessed the sort of cash
reserves that would help protect Haaretz, and insure its independence,
Schocken said that he would use the word amimut—ambiguity, opacity—
which is the tactic the Israeli government uses when it deflects
questions about its nuclear arsenal.
It is hard to see how the base of readers can grow. The secular, liberal
readers who are willing to pay more than eight hundred dollars a year
for a subscription live mainly in the greater Tel Aviv area and have a
modest birth rate. The settlers read Makor Rishon, and the ultra-
Orthodox read Hamodiya. “Middle Israel” reads Maariv, which is
declining; Israel Hayom, a free tabloid that is owned by the right-wing
casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; and Yedioth Ahronoth, which is owned
by the Mozes family and is the dominant paper in the country.
The Mozes family—the Murdochs of Israel—is led by a mysteriously
recessive figure, Arnon (Noni) Mozes, who is sometimes referred to as
the most powerful man in Israel. With a circulation of more than two
hundred and fifty thousand, Yedioth may be the biggest newspaper in
the world relative to population outside of North Korea. It has a
penchant for screaming headlines and sensational stories, but it also
carries the work of the most influential columnist in the country, Nahum
Barnea, and arguably its best investigative reporter, Ronen Bergman.
(“Sometimes I think if I just hired those two guys all my competitive
problems would be over,” Dov Alfon said.) The Mozes family also owns a
group of local life-style magazines, a Web site called Ynet, a Russian-
language paper, two printing plants, a publishing house, modelling
agencies, and various cable outlets. Yedioth’s politics are all over the
map, and it seems to place the greatest value on shifting with its
readership.
Ideologically, Schocken has disdain for Mozes and Adelson, but he has
startled his colleagues with a willingness to do business with both of
them. In 1990, needing cash, Schocken secretly took a loan from the
Mozes family. In 1998, he built a printing plant north of Tel Aviv, and his
biggest printing client is Adelson’s right-wing giveaway. Adelson is an
American who speaks no Hebrew but has tremendous clout in Israel.
Schocken is unfazed. “In what way is it different from Salman Schocken
buying a newspaper in Israel?” he said, with a shrug. Schocken allowed
that Adelson does not seem terribly well informed, particularly about the
Palestinians. At their most recent meeting, he brought Adelson a gift: a
copy of Walid Khalidi’s “All That Remains,” a history of the hundreds of
Palestinian villages that were destroyed or absorbed into Israel after
1948.
Schocken even prints Besheva, a weekly read mainly by religious
settlers in the West Bank. When he went to an Independence Day
gathering in the settlement of Kedumim, the atmosphere reminded him,
at first, of “the good old days of the kibbutzim.” But when the mayor, a
notorious firebrand named Daniella Weiss, spoke, he said, “it was like a
lunatic asylum all of a sudden.”
In the eyes of the Haaretz journalists, there is a deep division within
Schocken, between the businessman, cagey and even ruthless, and the
idealist, who hardly cares that his convictions are so distant from the
center of Israeli public opinion. “Amos is a complex man,” Dov Alfon told
me, “both a political radical and a strikebreaker, a real lefty and at the
same time the scion of an aristocratic family, and a bit of a snob about
it, who thinks Haaretz is not for everyone.”
In 2006, Schocken sold a twenty-five-per-cent share in the Haaretz
Group to a German publishing enterprise, DuMont Schauberg, which has
a Nazi past. As we left a restaurant one night and headed to his car, I
asked if it bothered him that so many people accused him of “selling out
to Nazis.”
Again the enigmatic smile.
“Look at my car,” he said. Schocken drives an Audi. “Germany is an ally
of Israel now. Almost too good an ally.”
He opened the door and got in.
Aluf Benn, Haaretz’s opinion editor, is trim and quick, and his bald head
gleams like a polished bean. His job is to maintain a sense of rigor and
balance in his pages, while preserving the over-all sense of an
opposition paper. An experienced diplomatic reporter, he is also an
editorial envoy, dealing not only with the likes of Hass and Levy but with
columnists well to his right, like Yisrael Harel, a leader of the settler
movement, and Moshe Arens, a hawkish former defense minister. (One
staffer called Harel and Arens the paper’s “shabbes goys.”)
Benn is well schooled in the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict, but,
unlike Alfon and others at the top of the masthead, he says that the
dominant problem of Israeli society is not the Palestinian question but
the drift toward tribalism—a drift that, incidentally, bodes ill for the
paper. “Look at it politically,” he says. “Thirty years ago, after the 1981
election, the two major parties”—Labor and Likud—“had almost all the
Knesset. Now there are many more small parties. The seculars are more
secular, the national religious people are more both, and the Arabs are
more explicit in their political expression. The ultra-Orthodox and the
Arabs are coming out of their villages and towns, and they also want
their share of the pie. With the Russian immigration in the nineties, you
had an influx of people who saw themselves as more developed than the
absorbing society. They tripled the number of doctors, engineers, and
chess players. They are very secular—many are not even Jewish by
rabbinic law—and they changed society, too. This is the center of the
political debate. ”
A glance at the paper made it clear that Benn had a point. There were
articles about the conflicts between secular and religious populations;
about demonstrations in Tel Aviv demanding civil rights for African
immigrants; about powerful rabbis making racist statements; about the
addiction to cheap foreign labor (“The streets of south Tel Aviv look like
a slave market in the morning,” one article began).
Earlier that day, I’d attended an editorial meeting at which a liberal rabbi
and a textile magnate came to discuss their plan to get Orthodox
schools, which receive state funding, to teach boys subjects beyond the
Torah and the Talmud. “The people who came in today are concerned
with a society torn apart,” Benn said. The Israeli educational system is
fractured: there are state schools, which are secular; state religious
schools, which are identified with the settlements; independent ultra-
Orthodox schools, which teach boys only religious subjects; and Arab
schools, which are mainly poor.
Benn runs countless columns on the Palestinians, the settlements, and
the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but when the degree of “cross-
border fire” is low, as it is now, the discussion fades. Israelis talk about
their internal problems, as if the conflict had somehow disappeared
behind . . . a wall. “In periods like today, do you see any Palestinians?”
Benn said sarcastically. “No one goes to Jenin and Nablus. So where are
these Palestinians? They are aliens, nonexistent people. The issue is
seen as something to clear with the United States.”
Since the talks between Arafat and Barak collapsed, a decade ago,
mainstream public opinion in Israel has become a paradox: majority
support for the idea of a two-state solution, but a generalized distrust of
Palestinian intentions. Middle Israel feels that it left Lebanon, in 2000,
and got rockets from Hezbollah; left Gaza, in 2005, and got rockets from
Hamas. The peace camp, despite occasional demonstrations and
displays of vitality, is depleted. And so where Haaretz fits into the Israeli
future is a serious question.
There is a price for writing your mind, in Israel as elsewhere. Zeev
Sternhell, a historian of the origins of fascism, nearly paid the greatest
price of all. Sternhell is in his mid-seventies and teaches at Hebrew
University. Almost the entire staff of Haaretz lives in Tel Aviv or its
northern suburbs. Sternhell, a regular columnist, lives in the Old
Katamon district of Jerusalem.
One morning this winter, Sternhell greeted me at the door of his modest
apartment. He was born in Poland to an affluent secular Jewish family.
After Operation Barbarossa, the family was sent to live in the ghetto. As
a small boy, Sternhell saw other children falling dead from the trees
after Nazi soldiers spotted them hiding there and opened fire. When he
was seven, the Nazis took his mother and sister to a concentration
camp, where they died. An uncle smuggled him to Lvov, in western
Ukraine. For the remainder of the war, he lived in hiding in the house of
a Polish Army officer; he pretended to be a Catholic, serving as an altar
boy. The end of the war did not erase the terror: Sternhell remembers a
Polish woman shouting at Jews, “Filthy animals, you came out of your
holes, too bad they didn’t finish you off!” When he emigrated to Israel,
in 1951, at the age of sixteen, the transformation was, he says,
“metaphysical.” In Europe during the war, Sternhell told his Haaretz
colleague Ari Shavit, the Jews “were human dust. They were people who
were shot in a way that cats and dogs are not shot. . . . And now, just a
few years later, the Jew becomes a full and complete being.”
Sternhell told me that he became increasingly radical in the nineteen-
eighties, during the war in Lebanon and the first intifada. “Our basic
failure in 1967 was not to understand that what was good and legitimate
until 1949 had ceased to be after that,” Sternhell told me. “Why was it
O.K. to settle the upper Galilee and not the Golan? Why Ramla and not
Ramallah? That was the basic question. If Zionism is the conquest of the
land, what is sacred about the Green Line?”
Sternhell was one of the founders of the Peace Now movement and has
been both celebrated and denounced for his fierce columns in Haaretz
on the anti-democratic trends in Israel. In 2008, on the sixtieth
anniversary of the state, Sternhell won its highest honor, the Israel Prize,
and the announcement infuriated settlers, who claimed that he
supported armed insurrection. Sternhell did no such thing, but he had
written in Haaretz that Palestinians had no recourse other than armed
resistance. “My intention was not to say that they could kill civilians,”
Sternhell recalled. “No. The important thing is that I said the settlers’
movement was both illegal and illegitimate, and the Palestinian
resistance to settlements was understandable.”
At around 1:30 A.M. on September 25, 2008, Sternhell went to his front
door to lock it before going to bed. As he opened the outer door, a pipe
bomb exploded. He and his wife had just returned from Paris, and so the
hall was filled with luggage, which shielded Sternhell from the worst of
the blast. He suffered only minor injuries. “The nasty thing in that story
is that this was pure terror,” he said. “It could have been my wife or my
younger daughter, who brought us in from the airport.” A year later, the
police arrested a religious Florida-born settler named Yaakov (Jack)
Teitel, who was tacking up leaflets in an Orthodox neighborhood of the
city praising the murder of men at a gay bar in Tel Aviv. The police
discovered that Teitel had also killed a Palestinian shepherd in the West
Bank and an Arab cabdriver.
Sternhell sees the attempt on his life as a symptom of anti-democratic
tendencies in Israeli political life. In his view, fully a third of the Knesset
is “infected” with such views, and he compares the foreign minister,
Avigdor Lieberman, and the interior minister, Eli Yishai, the leader of the
religious party Shas, to the extreme nationalists of Europe. “The last
time politicians holding views similar to theirs were in power in post-
World War Two Western Europe was in Franco’s Spain,” Sternhell said.
“I still am a Zionist—a super Zionist,” he went on. “That has never
changed for me, you know. If I didn’t want to keep Israel as a state of
the Jews—a state in which the Jews are a majority and enjoy sovereignty
—I would have lived elsewhere. I came here when I was sixteen because
I wanted to participate in this story. This was a Jewish renaissance. And I
wanted to be part of that. That was the meaning of Zionism for me. If
the result is to be the end of the Jewish state, by the creation of an
apartheid state or even of a binational state, both of these solutions are
unacceptable. This would be the end of it.”
In the last years of his life, Amos Elon lived with his wife in a villa in the
Tuscan hills. He’d left Haaretz; he’d left Israel. In an interview with Ari
Shavit, he explained why he now lived in exile: “Nothing has changed
here in the last forty years. The problems are exactly the same as they
always were. The solutions were already known back then. But no one
paid attention to them. And I found myself repeating them. I found
myself saying the same thing all the time. . . . I was a lone voice in the
wilderness.” Elon died in Italy, in 2009, an exhausted intellectual.
Some readers and former staffers who have grown disenchanted with
Haaretz believe that, in a sense, the paper has become an aging exile in
its own land. “There is a community of readers around Haaretz who
think that if it disappears that essentially means that Israel is going
down the drain,” said Shmuel Rosner, a former head of the news division
and a former chief U.S. correspondent, who was fired after Landau was
replaced. “The people who feel that way are richer and more educated
than the rest, but also older. I don’t think the new generation feels this.
There aren’t that many young people who think they can’t live without
Haaretz.”
Rosner, who is decidedly more conservative than his ex-colleagues, rails
against Haaretz, but, like so many former staffers and current rivals, he
concedes that it is still the most authoritative paper in the country.
Nahum Barnea, the popular columnist at Yedioth, spent a long time
describing to me how “out of touch” Haaretz was with public opinion,
but then admitted that he begins his morning with it, not with his own
paper.
In a small and tribalized country, Haaretz is an unlikely survivor—
defiant, heterodox, oppositional, unafraid to investigate everything from
an Austrian billionaire suspected of bribing Israeli politicians to the
military’s abuses in Gaza. Since taking charge of the paper, three years
ago, Dov Alfon, who started out as a cultural correspondent, has raised
the investigative metabolism of the paper. The complaints can be
vehement. Read the Talkbacks under the columns on Haaretz.com;
they’ve got to be among the most vicious on the Internet. But “for many
readers Haaretz is not a newspaper—it is something more,” Alfon told
me one afternoon as we ate lunch. “I get readers writing in saying, ‘If
Haaretz closes, it won’t make sense to live in Israel anymore. The
disappearance of Haaretz would kill the democratic state and the self-
critical state.’ There is not one journalist on the staff who says, ‘What
am I doing here?’ We have a mission—to tell the truth to the Israeli
public and explain the consequences of these truths. I’m not even sure
all of our subscribers want to hear that.” Later, he added, “Haaretz alone
cannot guarantee Israeli democracy.”
But it can try. After Anshel Pfeffer returned to Israel from Egypt and
Mubarak fell, he wrote a scathing column comparing the Muslim
Brotherhood favorably to several influential right-wing rabbis who spout
anti-Arab venom and have considerable power in the Knesset. The
Brotherhood’s aims are “abhorrent,” he wrote, “but it is the duty of
Egyptian democracy supporters to fight them. Our job is to deal with our
own religious fundamentalists and their despicable views.”
The fate of Haaretz, its future and its independence, depends absolutely
on Amos Schocken. “Amos is a very private, discreet, careful man, and
his personal commitment to the paper is total,” David Landau, who is
now at work on a biography of Ariel Sharon, said, “but he is aware that
he is only a link in the chain. He cannot leave the next generation bereft
of its fortune. His over-all strategy is quality. He believes that you create
a niche market, and, in doing so, you strengthen the loyalty of your
readers and the advertisers and create a sense of belonging in them. It
is not a mass product.”
In the nineties, when Schocken was trying to conceive a slogan for a
marketing campaign, he suggested “Haaretz: Not a Newspaper for
Everyone!”
The advertising executives looked at Schocken as they might have
regarded a deranged intruder.
They finally settled on “Haaretz: Not What You Thought.”
One night, when Schocken and I were talking in his office, I asked him if
he ever imagined what the effect would be if Haaretz folded or if he had
to sell it to an owner with different principles. He removed his glasses
and rubbed his eyes. His impassive expression, though, never changed.
“The ability to publish a newspaper that does not serve any outside
agenda, except what its editors believe, is in the best interests of the
country,” he said. “If we weren’t around, it would be . . . sad.” Finally, he
could not resist a local metaphor. Sometimes, he said, shouldering the
burden of Haaretz “is like carrying a cross.” ♦

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1,500 Arrested in a Year: Israel's War on Children

Jonathan Cook, 13 December 2010
Israeli police have been criticised over their treatment of hundreds of
Palestinian children, some as young as seven, arrested and interrogated
on suspicion of stone-throwing in East Jerusalem.
In the past year, criminal investigations have been opened against more
than 1,200 Palestinian minors in Jerusalem on stone-throwing charges,
according to police statistics gathered by the Association of Civil Rights
in Israel (ACRI). That was nearly twice the number of children arrested
last year in the much larger Palestinian territory of the West Bank.
Most of the arrests have occurred in the Silwan district, close to
Jerusalem's Old City, where 350 extremist Jewish settlers have set up
several heavily guarded illegal enclaves among 50,000 Palestinian
residents.
Late last month, in a sign of growing anger at the arrests, a large crowd
in Silwan was reported to have prevented police from arresting Adam
Rishek, a seven-year-old accused of stone-throwing. His parents later
filed a complaint claiming he had been beaten by the officers.
Tensions between residents and settlers have been rising steadily since
the Jerusalem municipality unveiled a plan in February to demolish
dozens of Palestinian homes in the Bustan neighbourhood to expand a
Biblically-themed archeological park run by Elad, a settler organisation.
The plan is currently on hold following US pressure on Benjamin
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
Fakhri Abu Diab, a local community leader, warned that the regular
clashes between Silwan's youths and the settlers, termed a "stone
intifada" by some, could trigger a full-blown Palestinian uprising.
"Our children are being sacrificed for the sake of the settlers' goal to
take over our community," he said.
In a recent report, entitled Unsafe Space, ACRI concluded that, in the
purge on stone-throwing, the police were riding roughshod over
children's legal rights and leaving many minors with profound emotional
traumas.
Testimonies collected by the rights groups reveal a pattern of children
being arrested in late-night raids, handcuffed and interrogated for hours
without either a parent or lawyer being present. In many cases, the
children have reported physical violence or threats.
Last month 60 Israeli childcare and legal experts, including Yehudit Karp,
a former deputy attorney-general, wrote to Mr Netanyahu condemning
the police behaviour.
"Particularly troubling," they wrote, "are testimonies of children under
the age of 12, the minimal age set by the law for criminal liability, who
were taken in for questioning, and who were not spared rough and
abusive interrogation."
Unlike in the West Bank, which is governed by military law, children in
East Jerusalem suspected of stone-throwing are supposed to be dealt
with according to Israeli criminal law.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the Six-Day war of 1967, in
violation of international law, and its 250,000 Palestinian inhabitants are
treated as permanent Israeli residents.
Minors, defined as anyone under 18, should be questioned by specially
trained officers and only during daylight hours. The children must be
able to consult with a lawyer and a parent should be present.
Ronit Sela, a spokeswoman for the Association of Civil Rights in Israel
(ACRI), said her organisation had been "shocked" at the large number of
children arrested in East Jerusalem in recent months, often by units of
undercover policemen.
"We have heard many testimonies from children who describe terrifying
experiences of violence during both their arrest and their later
interrogation."
Muslim, 10, lives in the Bustan neighbourhood and in a house that Israeli
authorities have ordered demolished. His case was included in the ACRI
report, and in an interview he said he had been arrested four times this
year, even though he was under the age of criminal responsibility. On
the last occasion, in October, he was grabbed from the street by three
plain-clothes policemen who jumped out a van.
"One of the men grabbed me from behind and started choking me. The
second grabbed my shirt and tore it from the back, and the third twisted
my hands behind my back and tied them with plastic cords. 'Who threw
stones?' one of them asked me. 'I don't know,' I said. He started hitting
me on the head and I shouted in pain."
Muslim was taken into custody and released six hours later. A local
doctor reported that the boy had bleeding wounds to his knees and
swelling on several parts of his body.
Muslim's father, who has two sons in prison, said the boy was waking
with nightmares and could no longer concentrate on his school studies.
"He has been devastated by this."
Ms Sela said arrests had risen sharply in Silwan since September, when
a private security guard at a settler compound shot dead a Palestinian
man, Samer Sirhan, and injured two others.
Clashes between the settlers and Silwan youths came to prominence in
October when David Beeri, director of settler organisation Elad, was
shown on camera driving into two boys as they threw stones at his car.
One, Amran Mansour, 12, who was thrown over the bonnet of Mr Beeri's
car, was arrested shortly afterwards in a late-night raid on his family's
home.
Also in October, nine rightwing Israeli MPs complained after stones were
thrown at their minibus as they paid a solidarity visit to Beit Yonatan, a
large settler-controlled house in Silwan. Israel's courts have ordered that
the house be demolished, but Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, has refused
to enforce the order.
In the wake of the attack, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the public security
minister, warned: "We will stop the stone-throwing through the use of
covert and overt force, and bring back quiet."
Last month police announced that house arrests would be used against
children more regularly and financial penalties of up to $1,400 would be
imposed on parents.
B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, reported the case of "A.S.", a
12-year-old taken for interrogation following an arrest at 3am.
"I sat on my knees facing the wall. Every time I moved, a man in civilian
clothes hit me with his hand on my neck … The man asked me to
prostrate myself on the floor and ask his forgiveness, but I refused and
told him that I do not bow to anyone but Allah. All the while, I felt
intense pain in my feet and legs. I felt intense fear and I started
shaking."
In a statement B'Tselem said: "It is hard to believe that the security
forces would have acted similarly against Jewish minors."
Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, denied that the police had
violated the children's rights. He added: "It is the responsibility of
parents to stop this criminal behaviour by their children."
Jawad Siyam, a local community activist in Silwan, said the goal of the
arrests and the increased settler activity was to "make life unbearable
and push us out of the area".
The 60 experts who wrote to Mr Netanyahu warned that the children's
abuse led to "post-traumatic stress disorders, such as nightmares,
insomnia, bed-wetting, and constant fear of policemen and soldiers".
They also noted that children under extended house arrest were being
denied the right to schooling.
Last year the United Nations Committee Against Torture expressed
"deep concern" at Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors, saying Israel
was breaking the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which it has
signed.
Over the past 12 months, Defence for Children International has
provided the UN with details of more than 100 children who claim they
were physically or psychologically abused while in military custody.

Back to Top

Palestinian women suffer specific consequences of

forced evictions in East Jerusalem caused by certain
Israeli policies which must end.
Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling
The Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) has issued a
report highlighting the gender-specific impact that Israeli policies in East
Jerusalem have on the lives of Palestinian women. WCLAC calls upon
Israel to end forced evictions and home demolitions and makes
recommendations to the international community and other actors to
alleviate the situation of affected Palestinians.
“Using feminist and legal research methodology, this report shows the
particular ways in which women are affected by forced evictions here,”
said WCLAC’s General Director, Maha Abu Dayyeh. “The report comes
at a critical moment as Israeli pressure on East Jerusalem seems to be
increasing. These women’s testimonies must convince key actors to
abide by and enforce international legal standards.”
The report has been issued by WCLAC’s International Humanitarian Law
(IHL) Project. The IHL Project situates the human stories of Palestinian
women within the context of their legal rights which are systematically
denied by Israeli policies and practices of occupation.
Focusing on the experiences of Palestinian women in East Jerusalem,
this WCLAC report presents testimonies from affected women, together
with analysis of 13 selected case studies of living with the threat or
event of forced eviction. The legal rights at stake in such cases include
the right to adequate housing, the right to freedom from unlawful and
arbitrary interference with the home, and to freedom from
discrimination in the exercise of these rights.
The report addresses, in turn, living with the threat of eviction, the
eviction or demolition process itself – including economic loss and
physical injury – and the denial of rights after eviction. The report
documents the ways in which women are particularly affected by forced
eviction, charting the gender-based violence surrounding the event, the
psychological effects, loss of social and economic status, loss of privacy
and independence, and deterioration in family relationships.
The case studies show that forced eviction has a lasting impact on
women’s lives and that it is not limited to a single geographical area of
East Jerusalem. Families live under intense pressure, sometimes for
years, being threatened with eviction or with their homes under threat
of destruction. As this report shows through wide-ranging case studies,
people from areas such as Al-Ashkariya, Jabbal Al-Mukabber, the Old City
of Jerusalem and Al-Isawiya as well as from Sheikh Jarrah and
Bustan/Silwan are all affected by forced eviction.
Amani S, from Jabbal Al-Mukabber, is among the women who describe
the lasting impact forced eviction has had on their life. “I’ve lost my
independence and I’ve lost my privacy. I used to wear short sleeves in
the house and go without my headscarf. Now I always have to worry
about what I am wearing because I’m living with other people. . . I have
no privacy or time or space to myself at all.”
The report can be downloaded here or can be found on the WCLAC
website: www.wclac.org/english
Back to Top

First step for the joint struggle in Silwan, E. Jerusalem

Mairav Zonszein, +972Mag, 25 December 2010
What happens before and after an Israeli-Palestinian protest
can teach us a lot about the challenge of building trust and the
hard work needed in the joint struggle against decades of
occupation and segregation.
While the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement has been successfully
bringing the story of East Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Sheikh
Jarrah, Silwan and Issawiya to the forefront of public debate in Israel, a
far less covered aspect of the story is what happens before and after the
protests, which reflects the challenges and complexities of organizing
acts of civil disobedience amongst Palestinians themselves, between
them and Israelis, and all under the jurisdiction of the Israeli military
apparatus.
Yesterday’s weekly protest in Sheikh Jarrah was moved to Silwan, where
Israelis joined Palestinians in solidarity with one of its residents, Adnan
Gheith, who was issued an expulsion order from Jerusalem by Israel’s
Home Front Commander, applying a rare defense emergency regulation
from pre-state times. (Read more about Adnan’s case here). Hundreds of
Israelis and Palestinians walked together from the Wadi Hilweh
Information Center down to the tent erected to protest the planned
demolition of 22 houses in al-Bustan to make way for a national garden.
Watch a video of the protest here.
During the protest the army and border police were calm and did not
interfere. However, what happened before the demonstration started,
which happens every Friday in Silwan around the time of morning
prayers, is that the Israeli Border Police enter the area to make their
presence known and to guard the settlers. As a result, a number of
children start throwing rocks to resist their presence, and in return, the
army fires tear gas grenades, sometimes in such quantities that it fills
houses. This is the routine in Silwan on a Friday.
But yesterday, in light of the protest, the children stopped throwing
rocks and cleared the streets for the protest. As troubled as it may be,
this is their way of showing that when positive actions are taken, they
are eager to cooperate and welcome Israelis. It is also important to note
that not only did various factions within Silwan unite for this protest, but
so did members from committees in Sheikh Jarrah and Issawiya. Inter-
Palestinian cooperation of this nature in East Jerusalem is not so
common. Neither are such high and constant levels of public Palestinian-
Israeli cooperation, since one of the issues that divide and vex
Palestinians most is suspecting one another of being “collaborators”
with Israel.
Once the protest ended and the buses carrying Israelis back to West
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv drove off, Silwan residents were left alone with
the border police who remained in the area in full riot gear, even though
there was no need for them to remain there. The children resumed
throwing rocks and began lighting garbage and tires on fire. Again, this
is the childrens’ way of showing the authorities which kind of visitors
they accept and which they do not.
 Israeli Border Police in
Silwan following protest.
Palestinians set garbage
on fire. (Photo: Justin
Randle)
This is different from
what happened at the
protest held in Issawiya
several weeks ago.
There the Palestinian
factions were much less united and organized, and some clearly did not
endorse the joint Israeli-Palestinian protest. Once the protest there was
over, the children threw rocks out of spite, in order to express their
dissatisfaction with what had gone on. This is unfortunate, but it is a
work in progress. It is important to remember that the Palestinian and
Israeli activists who are fighting a joint struggle against Israeli
occupation, control and discrimination, are grappling with decades of
mistrust and animosity both within their own communities and towards
the other. It demands a lot of effort, patience and determination to
mend.
Throughout the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, high–ranking
politicians and analysts have talked about the need for “confidence-
building” measures between Palestinians and Israelis. While the Israeli
government and settler organizations continue to imbue hatred,
intolerance and aggression in Palestinian East Jerusalem, the activists on
both sides who take to the streets are building the trust from the bottom
up.
Here is just one example:
The Palestinian girl did not plan to come
to the protest, but rather saw it
happening from her window, spotted
the Israeli girl and decided to come
down and join the procession.

Palestinian and Israeli girls holding

a sign at protest in Silwan that
reads: "How long will the
international charade go on?"
(Photo: Mairav Zonszein)
 Back to Top

Israel applies the “price tag” strategy in East

Jerusalem
Ir Amim, 26 December 2010
Since this morning, large numbers of Israeli security forces have been
blockading the village of Silwan in anticipation of the eviction of the Abu-
Nab house, inhabited by dozens of Palestinian residents and adjacent to
the settlement of Beit Yonatan. Like other properties in East Jerusalem,
this one has also found its way – with the help of the Israeli Custodian –
into the hands of extreme rightwing settler organizations; before 1948
the house had served as a synagogue for the small Yemenite Jewish
community in the area. After the eviction, the house is expected to be
populated by Ateret Cohanim members; it is likely that the settlers living
in Beit Yehonatan will simply cross the street and move into the Abu Nab
house.
The correlation made between the eviction of Beit Yehonatan
and the eviction of the Abu Nab house reflects the adoption of a
dangerous “price tag” policy made famous by extreme settlers
in the West Bank, and now being applied in Jerusalem by Israeli
authorities.
According to a peremptory order issued by the courts, Beit Yehonatan
should have been evacuated and sealed off years ago. During this time,
the Jerusalem Municipality, especially under Mayor Nir Barkat, has done
everything in its power to thwart enforcing the court’s order on Beit
Yehonatan. Linking this decision with the eviction of the Abu Nab family
from their home adds insult to injury; the decision regarding the Abu
Nab house is indicative of Israeli policy that allows only Jews to reopen
property ownership records from before 1948. The settlement in Beit
Yehonatan is another link in the ideological chain that seeks to
undermine the national character of Palestinian neighborhoods in East
Jerusalem and prevent any opportunity for an agreed political solution in
the city.
By making the eviction of Beit Yehonatan contingent upon the
eviction of the Abu Nab house, the authorities are making an
appalling correlation between two injustices with one common
victim.
Ir Amim sharply condemns the decision to stipulate the eviction and
sealing off of Beit Yehonatan on the eviction of additional Palestinian
families in East Jerusalem, and calls on the Israeli authorities to come to
their senses and apply sound judgment in the most sensitive area of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
 • For more about the eviction of the Abu Nab family and the
correlation with Beit Yehonatan, see here.

Back to Top

Netanyahu warned against using private guards at

East Jerusalem settler compound
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, 9 January 2011
Housing Minister Atias asked to transfer security in the
Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to the Israel
Police following fatal shooting of a Silwan resident by a
privately employed guard.
Despite warnings from security authorities and Housing Minister Ariel
Atias that the use of private security guards in settler compounds in East
Jerusalem could have fatal consequences, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has avoided holding discussions on the matter.
Six months prior to the fatal shooting of a Silwan resident by a privately
employed security guard, which stirred demonstrations in East
Jerusalem, the officer charged with security at the Housing Ministry,
Yitzhak Lehrer, wrote to Atias that "it is my duty to once more warn that
the unit of private guards is not prepared for dealing with wide-scale
disturbances which include weapons and fire bombs. There are gaps
which may result in the breakdown of the system and to the
endangering of human lives in the immediate future."
In the letter, a copy of which was relayed by Atias to Netanyahu, Lehrer
"wishes, before it is too late, to warn: we must not ignore the
seriousness of the incidents; human lives are at risk in a complicated
and sensitive setting. Action must be taken before we wake up too late,
after a resident or a security guard pay with their lives, or small-scale
incidents slip into general rioting, where the extent of the damage will
be severe."
Following the demonstrations that broke out following the killing of
Silwan resident Samir Sarhan, 32, by a security guard of the Housing
Ministry in September, MK Haim Oron (Meretz ) asked Atias to deal with
the issue.
"In view of the urgency and sensitivity of the issue, I asked the prime
minister to head an emergency meeting in order to evaluate the format
for security in East Jerusalem," Atias wrote to Oron.
The housing minister says that since March 2010, some 15 security
guards were removed from their position because they were found to be
unsuitable to work in the unit. He said that in May alone there were 246
incidents registered by the security guards in their log book, including
three in which they had to use firearms because they considered their
lives to be in danger.
Atias wrote to Netanyahu that "the writing is spread on the wall and I
can do little else but bring it before you over and over."
Ofer Rosenman, who heads Ilit Security, the company which trains the
guards for the Housing Ministry, told Haaretz that following the incident
"in Silwan there is a vacuum of governance," and claimed that his
request for riot dispersal equipment was turned down.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel asked Atias, after the September
incident, to transfer security authority in the Palestinian neighborhoods
in East Jerusalem to the Israel Police. A similar recommendation had
been made in 2006, by a public committee headed by Major General
(res. ) Uri Orr, which the government accepted, but in January 2007 the
Olmert government went back on its decision.
In 2010, the Housing Ministry has NIS 54 million in its budget earmarked
for private security guards in East Jerusalem.
The Prime Minister's Bureau had no response to this report.

Back to Top

Dr. Erakat on the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in

East Jerusalem: “Israel continues its efforts to cleanse
Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants, heritage and
history.”
Palestine Liberation Organization - Negotiations Affairs Department,
January 9, 2011
Dr. Saeb Erakat, Chief Palestinian Negotiator, denounced today the
Israeli demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem, initiated at 5 am
this morning.
“The State of Israel is demolishing one Palestinian property after another
in an effort to cleanse Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants, heritage
and history. East Jerusalem, and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in
particular, have been targeted by Israel in a campaign to forcibly
remove Palestinians and supplant them with Jewish settlers. Such
actions are unlawful and undermine the two-state solution and the
negotiations process.”
Dr. Erakat went on to say, “The United Nations and governments around
the world, including the United States and the United Kingdom have
already condemned plans to demolish this particular hotel. We call on
the world to take a strong stand in defense of their positions. This
intransigent and illegal behavior on behalf of Israel must not be allowed
to proceed unchecked.”
The Chief Palestinian Negotiator concluded, “What is happening today is
part of the political program of the Israeli government to preempt any
solution on Jerusalem. While Netanyahu continues his public relations
campaign regarding the peace process, on the ground he is rapidly
moving to prevent the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.”
Dr. Erakat added, “Israel continues to change the landscape of
Jerusalem aiming to change its status and turn it into an exclusive Jewish
city. This process of cleansing and colonization must be stopped to
change the dark reality of Israeli occupation into a free and sovereign
Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Settlement plans in Sheikh Jarrah, similar to those in Silwan, Mount of
Olives, Ras Al Amoud, Al Issawiya and other neighborhoods in East
Jerusalem, aim to create a ring of settlements severing the Old City from
the rest of occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”
About the Shepherd Hotel Property
The property currently referred to as the Shepherd’s Hotel was built in
the 1930’s by Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, as his
family home outside of the Old City of Jerusalem. Upon his exile by the
British in 1937, the property fell under British government control and
was pressed into service as a military outpost. During the period of
Jordanian rule, from 1948 through 1967, the Mufti's proxy took control of
the property, assumed its management and rented it to hoteliers. Thus
the home became known as the Shepherd’s Hotel. In 1967, the Hotel,
along with the rest of Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood where it’s located, fell
under Israeli occupation. Israeli authorities confiscated the property and
transferred it to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property who in turn
transferred it to the Israeli Development Authority from where it
subsequently passed, on 5 November 1985, to "C & M Properties."
The Shepherd’s Hotel is currently being demolished in order to facilitate
the construction of a residential Jewish settlement. These demolition and
settlement construction plans mask an settlement project that date
back to the 1984. In July 2009, the Israeli planning authorities approved
the construction license for the project, thus allowing for the demolition
of the existing building in favor of two new residential buildings, which
will include 30 housing units and associated amenities at the first stage
and 90 housing units at a later stage.
Back to Top

EU officials propose help for arrested Palestinians

Donald Macintyre, The Independent, 10 January 2011
The European Union is so troubled by the increased settlement activity
of Israel it has proposed that EU officials should be present at the site of
imminent house demolitions or evictions and intervene if non-violent
Palestinians face arrest in East Jerusalem, according to a new
confidential report.
The proposal, sent from the EU's top officials in Israel to their superiors
in Brussels, is one of several for strengthening the EU's support for
Palestinians in East Jerusalem. EU officials warn that Jewish settlement
activity there is making a two-state solution to the conflict increasingly
difficult.
The document, prepared for internal circulation by the 25 EU Consuls
General in the city, says: "Israel has left Palestinian neighbourhoods
ever more isolated" and "by legal and practical means, is actively
pursuing its [illegal] annexation by systematically undermining the
Palestinian presence in the city."
The Consuls-General – who are the ambassador-level representatives to
the Palestinian Authority – suggest that in addition to being present
when houses are demolished, they should attend court hearings dealing
with demolitions or evictions and "ensure EU intervention when
Palestinians are arrested or intimidated by Israeli authorities for peaceful
cultural, social or political activities in East Jerusalem".
Using markedly stronger language than EU ministers use in public when
criticising Israel, the document states: "If current trends are not stopped
as a matter of urgency, the prospect of East Jerusalem as the future
capital of a Palestinian state becomes increasingly unlikely and
unworkable. This, in turn, seriously endangers the chances of a
sustainable peace on the basis of two states, with Jerusalem as their
future capital."
The document says that the cumulative effect of Israeli policy towards
East Jerusalem Palestinians – including settlement building, demolitions
and evictions, but also "restrictive zoning and planning, ongoing
demolitions and evictions, an inequitable education policy, difficult
access to health care, the inadequate provision of resources and
investment" continue to "negatively affect" Palestinian life.
It adds: "The wider political consequences of the above measures are of
great concern. Over the past few years the changes to the city have run
counter to the peace process. Attempts to exclusively emphasise the
Jewish identity of the city threaten its religious diversity and radicalise
the conflict, with potential regional and global repercussions."

Back to Top
EU HEADS OF MISSION REPORT ON EAST JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM AND THE PEACE PROCESS
Cover Note
Considering the EU’s commitment to the two-state solution with an
independent, democratic, contiguous and viable Palestinian state,
comprising the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, living side
by side in peace and security with the State of Israel;
Considering the developments in East Jerusalem and in particular the
progressive separation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, as
demonstrated by the Jerusalem Report;
Considering the urgent need to address the situation in conformity with the
EU position, in accordance with international law, that the acquisition of
territory by force or the threat of the use of force is inadmissible;
Considering the EU Council Conclusions of 8 December 2009;
The Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah herewith submit
to the PSC the Jerusalem Report 2010 (Annex 1) and for discussion
a series of recommendations to reinforce EU policy on East
Jerusalem (Annex 2):
The Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah recommend:
- A more active and visible implementation of EU policy on East
Jerusalem.
- Using meetings with Israeli authorities to give a clear and
consistent message on East Jerusalem.
- Appropriate follow-up to the submissions.
- Mandating HoMs in Jerusalem and Ramallah to continue the work to
reinforce the EU policy on East Jerusalem.

[Annex 1]
EU HEADS OF MISSION REPORT ON EAST JERUSALEM JERUSALEM
AND THE PEACE PROCESS
1. Jerusalem is one of the most complex issues to be addressed in any
peace process. The city embodies the essence of the conflict: territory,
nationhood and religion. Since its occupation and annexation by Israel
(illegal under international law and not accepted by the international
community), the increasing integration of East Jerusalem into Israel has left
Palestinian neighbourhoods ever more isolated. Israel is, by legal and
practical means, actively pursuing its annexation by systematically
undermining the Palestinian presence in the city. A recent Israeli law
requires a two-thirds majority in the Knesset or approval in a referendum
for withdrawal from occupied East Jerusalem. Moreover, the past year has
again seen a further deterioration of the overall situation in East Jerusalem.
If current trends are not stopped as a matter of urgency, the prospect of
East Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state becomes
increasingly unlikely and unworkable. This, in turn, seriously endangers the
chances of a sustainable peace on the basis of two states, with Jerusalem
as their future capital.
2. The continued expansion of settlements, restrictive zoning and planning,
ongoing demolitions and evictions, an inequitable education policy, difficult
access to health care, the inadequate provision of resources and
investment and the precarious residency issue have not only serious
humanitarian consequences, they undermine the Palestinian presence in
East Jerusalem. The interlinked Israeli policies and measures continue to
negatively affect East Jerusalem’s crucial role in Palestinian political,
economic, social and cultural life. This has contributed to the increasing
separation between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank and
Gaza. The wider political consequences of the above measures are of great
concern. Over the past few years the changes to the city have run counter
to the peace process. Attempts to exclusively emphasize the Jewish identity
of the city threaten its religious diversity and radicalise the conflict, with
potential regional and global repercussions. The interest of safeguarding
the religious, historical and symbolic values of Jerusalem goes beyond the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This EU HOMs Report on East Jerusalem aims to
provide an update on the situation in the city and policy recommendations.
EU POLICY
3. EU policy regarding East Jerusalem is based on the principles set out in
UN Security Council Resolution 242, notably the inadmissibility of
acquisition of territory by force. In accordance with international law, the EU
regards East Jerusalem as occupied territory and has never recognised the
Israeli 1980 Basic Law (Jerusalem, Capital of Israel) which annexed
Jerusalem as Israel’s “complete and united” capital and modified the city’s
municipal borders. This is in line with UNSC Resolution 478 in which the
Security Council decided not to recognise this Basic Law and other actions
that “seek to alter the character and status of Jerusalem”. The resolution
also calls upon all UN Members that had established diplomatic missions in
Jerusalem “to withdraw such missions from the Holy city”. The EU considers
Jerusalem as a final status issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
opposes any measures that would prejudge the outcome of peace
negotiations, such as actions aimed at changing the status of East
Jerusalem.
4. In conferences held in 1999 and 2001, the High Contracting Parties to
the Fourth Geneva Convention reaffirmed the applicability of the
Convention to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,
and reiterated the need for full respect for the provisions of the said
Convention in that territory.
5. In 2004, the EU acknowledged the Advisory Opinion of the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) on the “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a
Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. While the EU recognises Israel’s
security concerns and its right to act in self-defence, its position coincides
with the ICJ Advisory Opinion according to which the sections of the barrier
route which run inside the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, together
with the associated gate and permit regime, violate Israel’s obligations
under international law.
6. The Council conclusions of 8 December 2009 reaffirm the longstanding
EU policy. According to the Conclusions, the EU will not recognise any
changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem, other
than those agreed by the parties. The EU has never recognised the
annexation of East Jerusalem and states that “if there is to be a genuine
peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of
Jerusalem as the future capital of two states”. The EU has repeatedly urged
the Government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities in
East Jerusalem which the EU considers illegal under international law and
calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of
Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

SETTLEMENTS
7. The demographic factor is a central element in Israeli policy. In 1967,
Israel extended its jurisdiction over East Jerusalem. At the same time, by
adding some 70 km² it redefined the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem.
Today, some 924 000 people live within these municipal boundaries, of
which around 30 percent are Palestinian. It has been a stated aim in official
planning documents to prevent the Palestinian population from becoming
more than 30 percent of the municipality’s total population. Successive
Israeli governments have pursued a policy of transferring Jewish population
into the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) in violation of the Fourth
Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. In East Jerusalem
35 percent of the land has been expropriated for “state land”. Only citizens
of Israel or those legally entitled to claim Israeli citizenship (i.e. Jewish) can
buy property built on state land. As a consequence, out of a total of more
than 500 000 settlers in occupied Palestinian land some 190 000 Israeli
settlers today live in settlements inside East Jerusalem. Between 2001 and
2009, 37 percent of all settlement housing units in the occupied Palestinian
territory were located in East Jerusalem.
8. In 2003, Israel committed under the Roadmap to reach a permanent
agreement that would include a negotiated solution on the status of
Jerusalem and to freeze all settlement activity, including “natural growth”.
The Israeli government reaffirmed its Roadmap commitment to a
settlement freeze at the Annapolis conference in 2007. In November 2009,
the Israeli government announced a 10-month settlement moratorium
(expiring at the end of September 2010) which resulted in a partial freeze
of construction of new settlement housing units in occupied Palestinian
territory. However, based on Israeli claims that the Jerusalem municipality
constitutes Israeli territory, the commitment to stop settlement activity has
never been interpreted by the Israeli government as applying to East
Jerusalem. For several months during the first half of 2010, a decrease of
settlement activity in East Jerusalem has been noted. Since the end of the
moratorium, however, renewed settlement activity has taken place.
9. There are two kinds of settlements in Jerusalem:
a) Small settlement buildings or compounds established by ideologically
motivated settlers predominantly in the Old City and the Historic Basin. By
establishing these settlements in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods
the settlers are creating new facts on the ground by attempting to prevent
a division of the city, taking advantage of the so called Clinton parameters
(i.e. an understanding that neighbourhoods that are Jewish will become
Israel and those that are inhabited by Palestinians will become part of a
Palestinian state).
b) Israeli Government initiated Jewish “neighbourhoods” built on land
occupied by Israel in 1967. These settlements can be divided into two rings
- outer and inner - which squeeze East Jerusalem and separate Palestinians
from the city.
Settlements in the Old City – Historic Basin
10. The Old City and its immediate environs to the south and east are
commonly referred to collectively as the Historic Basin. This area includes
the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Silwan, Ras al-Amud, At-Tur, Wadi al-Joz
and Sheikh Jarrah and contains the majority of the historical and holy sites
of Jerusalem. These are Palestinian residential areas, but since the
occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the land has progressively fallen
under the control of various pro-settlement Jewish organisations. Today, it
is estimated that around 5000 settlers live in the area. The focus of the
settler organisations has included settlement activity related to excavation
of archaeological sites, services for tourists and recreational facilities. In
spite of the fact that these activities are often being implemented by
private organisations, such as Ataret Cohanim and El’ad (see archaeology
section), they still form part of an overall pro-settlement strategy, the
realisation of which is facilitated by the Government of Israel as well as the
Jerusalem municipality.
11. The strategic settlement push is made evident through the continued
expansion of settlement activities around and within the Historic Basin. This
creates a settlement continuum, comprised by a swath of smaller
settlements, public parks, archaeological sites and tourist complexes along
the eastern and southern wall of the Old City. These activities effectively
encircle and contain the Historic Basin, cut off the territorial contiguity
between the Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and the Old City
and separate the Muslim and Christian holy places from the rest of East
Jerusalem.
12. Various methods are used to strategically gain control of Palestinian
properties: through the Absentee Property Law, on the basis of claimed
Jewish ownership (pre-1948), or through the purchase from the owners. As
a consequence, land and property have gradually fallen under the control of
various private settler organizations, often with state support. Documents
released in early November 2010 point to irregularities in the way that
Israeli state-seized land was passed to settlement organisations without the
proper tender processes and due diligence. This raises questions over the
extent of influence settlement organisations enjoy inside the relevant
authorities. At the same time, under Israeli law Palestinians are precluded
from reclaiming pre-1948 property in Israel or in West Jerusalem.
13. Moreover, private Israeli settler organisations have continued to take
over property within the Old City where today the number of Jewish settlers
is estimated at around 4000. These settlers presently occupy property in all
quarters of the Old City. Often these properties are wedged tightly in
between existing Palestinian dwellings (sometimes settlers will occupy
individual apartments in buildings also inhabited by Palestinian families).
The close proximity between settlers and Palestinians in the Old City only
adds to the considerable tension that already exists in the area. In July
2010, settlers seized a two-storey house in the Muslim quarter, thereby
displacing several Palestinian families. In Sheikh Jarrah, preparations for
building activity are in place on the Shepherd’s Hotel site. In March 2010,
building permits were issued for 20 new housing units on the site.
14. In January 2010, the Municipality approved construction permits for 24
new apartments in four buildings in the private settlement of Beit Orot on
the Mount of Olives. There are currently 14 families and 80 yeshiva
students living in the settlement which is in the middle of a Palestinian
neighbourhood.
In the neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud, renovation and construction work
started for 14 new apartments in the old Police Station, although the
permits have not yet been issued. The plan is to expand the nearby
settlement of Ma’ale Zeitim from 60 housing units to more than 200 by
incorporating this new site.
15. Concerns remain about the Open Spaces project, which foresees, inter
alia, in the establishment of a sequence of gardens and parks around the
Old City, running through Palestinian neighbourhoods. The plan risks
furthering limit Palestinian construction and living space in East Jerusalem.
The Inner Settlement Ring
16. The inner ring comprises large government-initiated settlements within
the Israeli-defined municipal boundary of Jerusalem. They are home to
approximately 190 000 Israeli settlers. Wedged in between East Jerusalem
and the rest of the West Bank, these settlements in combination with the
barrier effectively cut Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank.
17. As from November 2010, administrative planning procedures for
settlement activity in East Jerusalem have resumed very intensively. Four
new town plan schemes (the first since March) have been approved for
public review, altogether for 1 275 new housing units in the settlements
Ramot and Har Homa and 625 in Pisgat Ze’ev. The expansion of Har Homa,
in particular, implies the further completion of the inner ring as it foresees
housing units outside the already built-up area. Also in November 2010, the
Israeli authorities advanced East Jerusalem settlement construction by
issuing tenders for the construction of 238 housing units in the settlements
of Ramot and Pisgat Zeev. An additional 479 tenders were issued for
construction in Har Homa, Gilo, Pisgat Ze’ev and East Talpiot (on the basis
of plans approved prior to 2010). Finally, the implementation of a
controversial construction project to build four new hotels, with 1 400
rooms in No-Man's Land near Talpiot was revived in early July (but has been
temporarily shelved following international protest).
The Outer Settlement Ring
18. The outer ring consists of settlements outside Jerusalem’s municipal
boundary but largely on the west side of the barrier. These settlements
further isolate Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. They include the
three main “settlement blocks”: Giv’at Ze’ev, Ma’ale Adumim and the Gush
Etzion bloc, home to approximately 100 000 settlers.
19. Concerns remain about areas that have been designed for further
settlement expansion, such as the E1 area (situated between Jerusalem and
the Ma’ale Adumim settlement). In this area, there is a longstanding plan to
build a new settlement with 3500 units for around 14 500 settlers. The plan
includes an industrial park, a police station, large-scale infrastructure,
commercial development and recreational facilities. In 2008, the police
headquarters of “Judea and Samaria” moved to E1. The implementation of
the E1 project would not only divide the West Bank into a northern and a
southern part but also, by establishing contiguity between the settlements
and Jerusalem, be the final step to geographically cutting off East Jerusalem
from the rest of the West Bank.

ARCHAEOLOGY
20. A clear example of government involvement in settlement activities in
the Historic Basin is the outsourcing of archaeological undertakings to
private Israeli pro-settlement organisations. The use of archaeology as a
politico-ideological tool in the Wadi Hilweh area just south of the Temple
Mount/Haram Al-Sharif (often referred to as the “City of David” area) is a
source of increasing concern. According to historic accounts, biblical
Jerusalem originated in this area some 3 000 years ago and the place has
been the subject of numerous archaeological excavations throughout the
last century.
21. The management of the various archaeological sites in Wadi Hilweh/City
of David has now been largely placed in the hands of a pro-settlement
Jewish NGO by the name of El’ad. Over the years this organisation has
successfully obtained an increasing amount of government funding for its
archaeological undertakings. The organisation has entered into a
partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority which is paid directly by
El’ad to physically carry out the excavations without Palestinian
involvement or international oversight. Furthermore, with the support of the
Jerusalem municipality, El’ad has been successful in securing a contract
from the Israel Nature and Parks authority to manage an archaeological
visitors’ park in Wadi Hilweh/City of David. Consequently, not only the
excavation, but also the presentation of the archaeology of ancient
Jerusalem has been outsourced to El’ad.
22. This has resulted in a strong monopolisation of the historical narrative,
exploiting the biblical and Jewish-Israeli connotations of the area while
effectively disenfranchising Arab/Muslim claims of historic-archaeological
ties to the very same place. The overarching purpose of such a pre-
programmed approach to the presentation of archaeological evidence in
the area seems to be a concerted effort to utilize archaeology to enhance a
claimed historic Jewish continuity in Jerusalem, thereby creating a historic
justification for the establishment of Jerusalem as the eternal and undivided
capital of Israel.

PLANNING, DEMOLITIONS AND EVICTIONS

23. The planning regime of the Jerusalem municipality remains a source of
concern as it places severe restrictions on the building of Palestinian
housing in East Jerusalem. Many Palestinians live under the threat of having
their house demolished and being evicted, adding to the existing tensions.
These restrictions result in a housing shortage in East Jerusalem and
regular demolitions of Palestinian-owned structures.
24. According to the planning regime, 13 percent of the land in East
Jerusalem is currently zoned for Palestinian construction (compared to 35
percent which is allocated for Israeli settlements). Only within this 13
percent, which is already densely built upon, Palestinians have the
possibility of obtaining an Israeli-issued permit to build, repair or maintain
their homes and livelihood-related structures. Administrative requirements,
however, make it extremely difficult for Palestinian residents in East
Jerusalem to obtain such permits. In addition, the procedures take several
years and usually entail a prohibitive cost.
25. Over the past years Palestinians have received fewer than 200 building
permits per year. Based on the population growth, permits for 1500 housing
units annually would be necessary to cover the housing needs.
26. As a consequence of the restrictive planning regime, there is an acute
housing shortage in East Jerusalem. In addition, Palestinian houses are
overcrowded and in a bad condition. The planning regime poses a difficult
dilemma for Palestinian families: they have the choice between migrating
outside the municipal area of Jerusalem (and losing their residency status)
or building without the necessary building permit. According to UN OCHA, at
least 32% of Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem lack such a permit,
putting approximately 88 000 Palestinians at risk.
27. Buildings constructed without a permit are considered illegal by the
Israeli authorities who issue demolition orders against them. Unofficial
sources estimate that up to 1 500 ‘illegally’ built residential buildings in
East Jerusalem currently have demolition orders against them. In the course
of this year, UN OCHA recorded the demolition of 50 Palestinian-owned
structures in East Jerusalem, thereby affecting over 250 people (half of
whom are children). Families are not only fined for having constructed their
houses without a permit, they can also be charged for the costs of the
demolition. As a means to avoid such fines, some Palestinian families are
carrying out so-called self-demolitions (estimated at 6 this year).
28. The Jerusalem municipality acknowledges the planning crisis in East
Jerusalem. The city’s new planning policy for East Jerusalem, presented in
December 2009, aims at a “significant expansion of the number of floors
and of the building ratio with regard to the approved plan, many solutions
for adding residential units in the area, and a response to the existing
hardship”. According to some planning experts, however, the new policy
will not cause any significant progress in the densely populated and poorly-
maintained Palestinian neighbourhoods.
29. The take-over of Palestinian property is often associated with the
eviction of Palestinian residents. Throughout 2010 there have been 3 cases
where Palestinians have been forcibly evicted, two in the old city, one in
Jabal Mukabber. In these cases, the properties have been taken over by
Israeli settlers or settler organisations under police protection. These
evictions have affected approximately 70 people this year. In Sheikh Jarrah,
over 60 Palestinians lost their homes over the past years and an estimated
500 remain at risk of forced eviction, dispossession and displacement in the
near future.
RESIDENCY STATUS
30. Restrictive measures continue to apply in relation to the ID and
residency status of Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Following the Israeli
occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Palestinian residents of the city have
been given the civil status of “permanent residents” of Israel. This status
gives them the right to live in Jerusalem and work in Israel without the need
for a special permit. To retain this status residents are forced to regularly
prove that they adhere to the strict criteria that demonstrates Jerusalem is
the centre of their life. If they fail to convince the Israeli authorities their
status is revoked and they lose their right to reside in the city. Between
1967 and mid-2010, some 14000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem have
had their status revoked. Unlike Israeli citizenship, permanent residency is
not automatically passed on to non-Jewish children, who only receive
permanent residence under certain conditions. This leads to difficulties in
the registration of children - where one parent is a Jerusalem resident and
the other is from rest of the West Bank or Gaza Strip - with the Jerusalem
Centre for Socio-Economic Rights estimating that there are as many as
10000 unregistered children in East Jerusalem. The inability to become
registered makes it very difficult for these children to access basic
education, health and other social services. Around 5500 children in school
age are not registered and therefore do not attend school.
31. As permanent residency is not automatically transferred through
marriage, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who marries a Palestinian
from the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and wishes to reside in the city with
his/her spouse must apply for family unification. Applications for family
reunification and ID cards and identification for children and spouses
involve a long, expensive bureaucratic process. In 2003, Israel introduced
the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law which disproportionately impacts
residents of East Jerusalem, under which they are forbidden from family
unification not only with their spouses, but also with their children.
32. In June this year, the Israeli authorities invoked “breach of loyalty to the
state of Israel” in order to withdraw the residency rights for three members
of the Palestinian Legislative Council as well as for a former Palestinian
Minister of Jerusalem Affairs.

ACCESS AND MOVEMENT

33. The route of the separation barrier and its associated permit regime
continue to have a serious humanitarian, social and economic impact on
Palestinian life. It continues to sever the connection between East
Jerusalem and the wider West Bank and between Palestinian communities
in East Jerusalem itself.
34. The construction of the separation barrier in East Jerusalem, which
started in 2002, continued throughout 2010. In the area around the
Jerusalem municipality, the barrier measures around 168 kilometres, of
which only 3 percent runs along the 1967 Green Line. The main reason
behind this deviation is the integration of 12 Israeli settlements (and space
for their future expansion).
35. The route of the barrier changes the de facto boundaries of Jerusalem
and, in some cases, runs through the middle of densely populated
Palestinian neighbourhoods. As a consequence, a number of Palestinian
communities (such as Kafr ‘Aqab and Shu’fat) within the Jerusalem
municipal boundary find themselves on the ‘West Bank’ side of the barrier.
These communities need to cross checkpoints to access the health,
education and other services to which they are entitled as residents of
Jerusalem. The barrier also affects 16 West Bank localities which are
trapped on the ‘Jerusalem’ side of the Barrier. These communities face
uncertain residency status, impeded access to basic services and fear of
displacement.
36. In April this year construction of the barrier around the Palestinian
village of Al Walaja resumed. The construction works have led to the
confiscation of land and the uprooting of trees. Once completed, the barrier
will completely encircle the village (which will only be accessible through a
tunnel) and cut off farmers from much of their agricultural land.
37. Palestinians who do not have residency rights in East Jerusalem or do
not have Israeli citizenship need a permit to enter Jerusalem. Access for
those Palestinians granted permits is restricted to three out of the 14
barrier checkpoints: Qalandiya, Gilo and Zaytoun. The permit is difficult and
time consuming to obtain and is subject to a number of conditions, e.g. a
time limit or a ban on driving a car or staying overnight. West Bank ID
holders with permits for Jerusalem or Israel must enter and exit through the
same checkpoint and risk having their permits revoked if this is not
complied with. Permits are suspended during security closures and often
during Jewish holidays.
EDUCATION
38. Inadequate numbers of classrooms, the substandard condition of
existing facilities and several access restrictions have a severe impact on
the educational sector in East Jerusalem. Many students fail to complete the
secondary cycle and the drop-out rate is much higher than in West
Jerusalem. Palestinian students face serious difficulties in reaching
educational services, reporting longer journeys and delays in getting to
educational facilities. The same holds true for students from Jerusalem who
wish to attend a school on the other side of the separation barrier.
39. The East Jerusalem school system continues to have a shortage of
approximately 1000 classrooms; only 39 new classrooms have been built
recently. Planning restrictions hinder the construction of new school
facilities and some schools are threatened by demolition and sealing
orders. Due to this shortage, children often study in overcrowded,
makeshift classrooms in facilities that are not built for educational purposes
and that lack libraries or even playgrounds. The Israeli NGO ACRI estimates
that 50 percent of East Jerusalem classrooms were unsuitable or
substandard in 2009. East Jerusalem students are also disadvantaged with
regard to financing of education. According to the Jerusalem municipality,
students attending primary schools in East Jerusalem receive only one
fourth of the budget that students in other parts of the city receive. Only
some 20 percent of the general municipal education budget is spent in East
Jerusalem.

HEALTH
40. While East Jerusalemites on the Jerusalem side of the separation barrier
have the possibility to enjoy Israeli health insurance and access to
adequate health care, those Jerusalem residents caught on the "West Bank"
side of the barrier regularly have their right to appropriate healthcare
denied.
41. Furthermore, key secondary and tertiary care which is not available in
the West Bank or Gaza, including treatment for diabetes, cancer and
cardiovascular disease, are only provided for by East Jerusalem’s hospitals
(non-governmental). West Bank Palestinians, who make up about 60
percent of all admissions to these hospitals, require permits to enter
Jerusalem for treatment. Patients needing emergency treatment available
only in Jerusalem are especially affected by the delays caused by the Israeli
access restrictions. General closures of checkpoints by Israeli authorities
further impede access to the East Jerusalem hospitals for treatment as,
except for emergency cases, other medical access permits become
temporarily invalid; there were a total of 50 days of general closure in the
12-month period ending in March 2010.
42. Since 2008 all permit-holding medical personnel, excluding doctors,
who live in the West Bank are only allowed to cross through the three main
checkpoints (Qalandiya, Gilo and Zaytoun). Only doctors continue to have a
special stamp on their permits allowing them to use any checkpoint to
reach East Jerusalem. These further access restrictions result in long delays
and impede the efficient functioning of hospitals and the delivery of quality
health-care services.
43. East Jerusalem hospitals are prohibited by the Israeli Ministry of Health
from importing medical equipment and medicine from the West Bank
creating supply and logistical problems for the hospitals and resulting in
higher costs. Furthermore each hospital has a quota for the number of new
staff they can employ from the West Bank. Trainee medical personnel also
require access to the hospitals in order to complete their studies (and
therefore meet the future needs of health sector staffing) and some 90
percent of these students are from the West Bank. In June 2010 a number
of these students were denied renewal of their permits by the Israeli
authorities.
44. Though East Jerusalemites are included in and contribute to the Israeli
health system their access to health care is also restricted by the security
requirement for Israeli ambulance staff to enter Palestinian neighbourhoods
in East Jerusalem only under police escort. Requests for the dispatch of
ambulances regularly result in unnecessary, and potentially life-
threatening, delays for Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem.

ECONOMY
45. The economic situation in East Jerusalem remains a major source of
concern. The barrier continues to have a particularly adverse impact on the
traditionally strong trade links between the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
There are, for instance, restrictions on the import of dairy products and
vegetables from the West Bank to East Jerusalem. A recent draft law aims
at forbidding Palestinians to work as tour guides. This would not only
deprive visitors of a Palestinian perspective on Jerusalem but also represent
a significant cut in income for Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
46. While Palestinians constitute approximately 30 percent of the
population in Jerusalem, approximately 10 percent of the municipal budget
is spent in Palestinian areas. The provision of services in East Jerusalem by
the Jerusalem Municipality is inadequate. Palestinian areas are
characterised by poor roads, little or no street cleaning, limited sewage
systems and an absence of well-maintained public spaces, in sharp contrast
to areas where Israelis live (in both West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem
settlements).
47. Poverty figures in East Jerusalem are far higher than in other areas of
the city. According to data published by the National Insurance Institute,
75,3 percent of Palestinian adults and 83,1 percent of Palestinian children
in East Jerusalem live below the poverty line. Over 95000 children in East
Jerusalem are estimated to live in a permanent state of poverty.

TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE
48. A number of completed or ongoing infrastructure projects contribute to
the Israeli control over occupied East Jerusalem. A tramway/light rail will
connect Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem with the centre in West
Jerusalem. Its construction has continued throughout 2010 and is scheduled
to be completed within the coming months. The first line of this tramway
will pass through the Palestinian neighbourhood of Shu’fat and touch the
southern border of Beit Hanina.
49. A separated and inferior set of roads for Palestinians is being set up
around Jerusalem. A series of bypass roads, to the east of Jerusalem, are
currently being built and will connect Palestinian neighbourhoods outside of
the separation barrier north and south of Jerusalem. The apparent purpose
of the Israeli authorities for these roads is to secure so-called “transport
contiguity” for Palestinians living in the north and the south of the West
Bank, who are in fact already denied travelling from Ramallah to Bethlehem
through East-Jerusalem. It is intended that one of the main roads linking
Hizma to Az Zayyem will have restricted access by a further Israeli
checkpoint in Anata (north of Ma’ale Adumim).
It is separated by a wall from a parallel road reserved for Israeli vehicular
use only, which connects the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem.
50. At least two other roads are currently under construction: the first one
is Route 20, a lateral bypass road that will create a direct link between road
443 (west of Ramallah) and Pisgat Zeev. It will be reserved for Israelis and
Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. The second one is an additional access
road south of Ma’ale Adumim, reserved for Israeli use only and aiming at
facilitating traffic and access to Ma’ale Adumim. Land confiscations for
another bypass road for Palestinian traffic have taken place south of the
Ma’ale Adumim/E1 area. The cumulative effect of this new road grid will
further restrict Palestinian traffic in the Ma’ale Adumim/E1 area. Bedouin
communities, who are disregarded in the planning process, have already
been displaced from this area.
PALESTINIAN INSTITUTIONS
51. In 1993 the then Foreign Minister of Israel in a letter to his Norwegian
counterpart acknowledged the importance of Palestinian institutions in East
Jerusalem, adding that their activities would not be hampered. In 2001,
however, Israel decided to close most of these institutions. The Roadmap
required Israel to reopen the institutions whilst the EU, in its December
2009 Council conclusions, also called for the reopening of Palestinian
institutions.
52. Nonetheless, Israeli authorities continue to renew the order of closure of
numerous institutions every six months (the latest on the 25 July, extending
the closure for another six months as of the 9 August 2010), basing its
decision on claims that the institutions are affiliated to the Palestinian
Authority and, therefore, in violation of the Oslo Agreements. This
development contributes to undermining the role of Jerusalem as an engine
and centre of Palestinian society.
53. The institutional and leadership vacuum in East Jerusalem created by
the prolonged closure of those institutions, in particular that of the Orient
House, which functioned as the PLO focal point in East Jerusalem, remains a
key concern. Palestinian politicians active in Jerusalem are subject to
repressive measures by Israel. This void continues to seriously affect all
spheres of life of Palestinians in East Jerusalem (political, economic, social
and cultural) and foster a growing fragmentation of society at all levels, the
isolation of communities and a weakened collective sense of identity.
Equally worrisome is the general sense of neglect felt by many Palestinian
East Jerusalemites and the absence of Palestinian state-sponsored
institutions and secular organisations, as they allow more space for Islamic
extremist organisations to extend their influence.
ACCESS TO RELIGIOUS SITES
54. Jerusalem is a city of significant importance to the three monotheistic
religions and the location of many of their most sacred sites. Access
restrictions and closure regimes, however continue to impede visits by
Christian and Muslim religious worshippers to some of their holy sites,
located in Jerusalem/the Old City, throughout the year. The restrictions are
typically tightened during religious holidays. During the month of Ramadan,
many Muslims cannot observe their prayers at the mosque of their choice,
notably at the Al Aqsa Mosque. This was again the case in 2010, when
access for Palestinians with West Bank IDs was restricted to men over 50
and women over 45 and boys and girls under 12. Men between 45 and 50
and women between 30 and 45 had to apply for special permits. This
implies that 40 percent of the West Bank population was denied access to
Friday prayers. However, it should also be noted that the functioning of
checkpoints around Jerusalem during the Ramadan period was more orderly
than in the past.
55. In 2010 Israeli authorities again invoked security reasons to intensify
the restrictions on the access of Christian pilgrims to the Old City during the
Holy Fire Ceremony of Christian Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday. Similar
restrictions are not put in place for the Jewish population during their
religious holidays. Furthermore, many believers of the Christian and Muslim
faiths, for various reasons, face difficulties in obtaining or extending visas,
including for visiting clergy. Members of churches and religious
communities as well as volunteers working for them requesting long term
visas are typically subject to long, complicated and opaque procedures.
THE HARAM AL-SHARIF/TEMPLE MOUNT
56. Developments at the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, are significant
in several respects – they are a cause of tension locally between the various
communities, but also receive attention globally, such as the large
demonstrations by Muslims whenever they perceive the Muslim position in
Jerusalem to be undercut. For this reason, this site is one of the most
sensitive in Jerusalem and therefore, any event happening on it or around it
is likely to have serious repercussions.
57. In 2010, the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount area continued to see
heightened tension and inflammatory actions which led to riots and
demonstrations in Palestinian neighbourhoods. Repeated provocative visits
of the Haram area by Jewish radical political and religious groups, which
continue to occur during 2010, are highly problematic. On several occasions
Israeli forces entered Al Aqsa Mosque and confronted stone-throwing
Muslims. The perceived threat to religious places promotes rumours which
in turn can lead to violent encounters between the various groups.
58. The disputes regarding various construction projects (e.g.“archeological
tunnels”, recent plans to alter of the Western Wall plaza) serve as examples
of a lack of consensus-building by Israel around those projects in sensitive
areas of the city. Work on the Mughrabi Gate has proven a particular
example of this in 2010. The Waqf, the Islamic body responsible for the
Haram al-Sharif compound, has expressed concern regarding the
construction by the Israeli Authorities, without their agreement, of a new
bridge to replace the collapsed ramp leading to the Mugrabi Gate. Work on
the Mugrabi Gate, the passageway between the Wailing Wall Plaza and the
Temple Mount / Haram al Sharif, started again in September after the
Jerusalem District Court's decision to authorize the work. The Waqf believe
that the damage caused to the ramp is negligible and could be fixed
without replacing the whole structure. They suspect this may be used as an
opportunity to undertake new excavations under the ramp or as seemed to
be originally planned (prior to the Court’s ruling against it) to expand the
area of the Wailing Wall Plaza. A new plan for the Mughrabi Gate, revealed
in November this year, seems to be less far-reaching in the sense that it
does not include any expansion of the Plaza. The Waqf, however, was again
not consulted in the process.

[Annex 2]
Reinforcing the EU policy on East Jerusalem
The submissions made by Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah
2010 are largely congruent with those of 2009. Keeping in mind the
sensitivity of the situation in Jerusalem, they have been drawn up in a spirit
that aims to maintain the possibility of a two-state solution as set out in
numerous statements by the EU, not least the Council Conclusions of 8
December 2009. They thus remain valid, but have been adapted and
updated reflecting the situation as set out in this year’s report –
highlighting specific actions aiming to maintain the Palestinian social fabric
in East Jerusalem on a political, cultural and economic level.
A. East Jerusalem as the future Palestinian capital
1) In conformity with the objectives of the Strategic Multi-sector
Development Plan for East Jerusalem, promote a coordinated approach and
a coherent Palestinian strategy towards East Jerusalem.
2) Promote the establishment of a PLO focal point/representative in East
Jerusalem.
3) National or Europe Day events to be held in East Jerusalem (when
suitable at Palestinian institutions).
4) EU missions with offices or residences in East Jerusalem to regularly
host Palestinian officials with senior EU visitors.
5) Avoid having Israeli security and/or protocol accompanying high
ranking officials from Member States when visiting the Old City/East
Jerusalem.
6) Prevent/discourage financial transactions from EU MS actors
supporting settlement activity in East Jerusalem, by adopting appropriate
EU legislation.
7) Compile non-binding guidelines for EU tour operators to prevent
support for settlement business in East Jerusalem (e.g. hotels, bus
operators, archaeological sites controlled by pro-settler organisations etc).
8) Ensure that the EU-Israel Association Agreement is not used to allow
the export to the EU of products manufactured in settlements in East
Jerusalem.
9) Raise public awareness about settlement products, for instance by
providing guidance on origin labelling for settlement products to major EU
retailers.
10) Inform EU citizens of financial risks involved in purchasing property in
occupied East Jerusalem.
B. Reopening of Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem
1) Highlight the reopening, as stipulated in the Road Map, of Palestinian
institutions in high level meetings with Israeli representatives, as well as in
the EU and Quartet discussions and statements.
2) Host Palestinian Jerusalem civil society events in cultural offices,
consulates and diplomatic residences until institutions are reopened.
3) Explore the use of Palestinian institutions to promote joint EU-PLO
interests.
C. Economic and social rights of the Palestinian population
1) Provide assistance to ensure that Palestinians are included in the
development of urban masterplans in East Jerusalem in order for i.e.
Palestinian housing needs to be met.
2) In high level meetings, stress the EU’s serious concerns regarding
inadequate emergency services, e.g ambulances, fire fighting and policing
for all residents in East Jerusalem.
3) Coordinate, fund and support projects in East Jerusalem.
D. Religious and cultural dimension of the city
1) Support and encourage inter-faith dialogue in Jerusalem.
2) Encourage Arab countries to acknowledge the multicultural
dimension of Jerusalem, including its Jewish and Christian heritage.
3) Engage in informing (e.g. web sites etc) EU citizens undertaking visits
on the political situation in East Jerusalem.
E. Strengthen the role of the European Union
1) Enhance local coordination between Quartet actors for input into
policy making and decisions.
2) Ensure EU presence when there is a risk of demolitions or evictions of
Palestinian families.
3) Ensure EU presence at Israeli courts cases on house demolitions or
evictions of Palestinian families.
4) Ensure EU intervention when Palestinians are arrested or intimidated
by Israeli authorities for peaceful cultural, social or political activities in East
Jerusalem.
5) Operationalise the EU policy on bringing high level visitors to
sensitive sites (e.g. separation barrier etc).
- on logistics for high level visitors (e.g choice of hotel, change of transport
East/West)
- on contacts with the Jerusalem Mayor and on refraining from meeting
Israeli officials in their East Jerusalem offices (e.g. in the Israeli
Ministry of Justice etc)
- on information sharing on violent settlers in East Jerusalem to assess
whether to grant entry into the EU.
Back to Top

No Man's Land in East Jerusalem

Elior Levy, Ynet, 22 January 2011
Ynet special: Chaos reigns supreme in Jerusalem neighborhoods
situated beyond security fence
The main road in Kafr Aqab, a northern Jerusalem neighborhood
adjacent to Ramallah, is bustling with traffic. One lane for each route
cannot contain the number of taxis, trucks and many private cars the
road regularly sees. Local traffic wardens donning yellow vests are
steering traffic in exchange for NIS 1 (roughly 30 cents) they receive
from each taxi driver. In the absence of Israeli presence, this is the only
solution the residents have found.
"We have no other choice, otherwise the road will get congested and no
one will be able to pass through," says one of the wardens, Nazmi Jaber.
Asked why there are no traffic police vehicles or at the very least traffic
lights, he smiles and says the only police they get here are Border Guard
jeeps coming in cases of riots or stones being hurled at the Qalandiya
checkpoint.
The Shin Bet chief's recent overview of the "no-man's land area" in east
Jerusalem surprised no one. This is life for the residents of Jerusalem
neighborhoods situated beyond the security fence, such as Kafr Aqab
and Shufat.
The Jerusalem vicinity fence surrounds the entrance into the Shufat
refugee camp on nearly all sides. Several hundreds of meters away from
Pisgat Zeev is no man's land. Crowded buildings, narrow, faulty roads,
no parks or gardens. Even trees are hard to come by. The road to the
refugee camp entails crossing a military roadblock. A new checkpoint is
currently being built causing concern among locals holding Israeli IDs.
"We know that steps are being taken to keep us within Palestinian
Authority territory but most of the people here would rather stay inside
Israel," a local who wishes to remain anonymous says. "It’s not that we
love Israel, but we know that the Palestinian Authority cannot provide
work for everyone, and national insurance in the PA is not like what we
get here."
Haven for Palestinian criminals
The increase in Palestinian license plates on the highways is proof of the
immigration growth from the territories to Shufat and to the Anata
village.
"Since 2004 many Palestinians have moved here from the territories in
search of work near Jerusalem, and with them a lot of criminals who
escaped the Palestinian Authority looking for a safer place. We became
their haven," says the mukhtar of Shuafat, Jameel Sanduka. "Life here is
very similar to anarchy."
Sanduka described an incident that occurred a few weeks ago when two
Bedouin were shot and killed by armed men near a garage. "We called
the police but they refused to enter the camp and requested that we
move the bodies to the checkpoint. No one arrived to collect evidence
from the crime scene. We were told that the investigation was handed
over to the hands of the Palestinian Authority," he says.
Even during medical emergencies, he claims, the residents are forced to
call for a Red Crescent ambulance, and then to drive patients to the
checkpoint as the Red Crescent refuses to enter the premises without
police escort.
When a fire broke out last winter in a house at the refugee camp, killing
two brothers aged two and five, the firefighters called in refused to enter
as well. The residents were forced to break one of the walls in a
desperate attempt to rescue those trapped inside but failed to save
them.
This tragic outcome created a window of opportunity to amend the
situation, but Sanduka says nothing has changed. "We've talked with the
municipality and asked that they supply us with our own fire
extinguishing equipment so we could respond immediately the next
time, but so far we have gotten nothing," he says.
All one has to do is walk around the refugee camp and see the garbage
pilled up on the streets to understand the dire situation. The residents
have to burn the garbage in order to get rid of the stench. The streets
are filled with potholes that go unfixed.
Yet some know how to make the most of the situation: The PA, and
especially Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The Palestinian PM provided the
camp residents with financial aid to build new roads. In doing so, the PA
managed to gain a little more control over the territory, which is
officially defined as part of Jerusalem.
The PA is gaining a foothold in other ways as well. "In certain cases,
undercover PA security forces come here, kidnap people and bring them
in for questioning in Ramallah," says Samih, a Kafr Aqab resident. "Even
when a clan fight begins and things become dangerous, Palestinian
police arrive in civilian vehicles, pick up suspects, resolve the situation
and get out quickly," he says.
The lack of enforcement and Israeli presence has led to extensive illegal
construction. Buildings are being built one after the other, without
municipal permits. Orly Noy of the Ir Amim group, which works to
promote equality in Jerusalem, says that authorities encourage
Palestinians residing in east Jerusalem to move to the other side of the
fence and therefore ignore the illegal construction.
Jerusalem city council backs up Noy's statement. Council member Yakir
Segev, a rightist, charged a few months ago that Israel has given up on
neighborhoods beyond the security fence and that he does not know
anyone who wishes to enforce Israeli sovereignty there. Segev told Ynet
he thinks things have gotten much worse ever since he made these
statements.
"(Shin Bet Chief) Yuval Diskin is right. There is no control here, not by
Israel and not by the Palestinian Authority. There's no master," says
Nassar Jubran, a member of Anata's residential council. "This is going to
hit Israel like a boomerang, because Hamas might take advantage of
this vacuum and establish a strong base here and take over the
neighborhoods."
A Jerusalem city council official said in response that the city provides
the neighborhoods surrounding Jerusalem with cleaning, infrastructure,
education and sanitation services. "Firefighting, emergency and rescue
services are provided immediately when needed," the official said.
Jerusalem district police said they "abide by the law and investigate any
complaint from these neighborhoods." Police officials said that when
security forces enter these neighborhoods they usually get attacked and
stoned, and many times it turns out that "these calls are bogus and are
made in order to attack the forces entering the area."

Back to Top

A New Tunnel in Silwan

settlementwatcheastjerusalem | January 27, 2011 |
Co-authored by Shir Alon
On Tuesday, the Israel Antiquities Authority was about to make the
announcement, accompanied by a heartfelt video, that it had completed
digging and revealing an underground tunnel extending from the Pool of
Siloam, underneath the houses and streets of the Palestinian
neighborhood of Silwan, coming out near the Western Wall plaza inside
the Old City walls. Soon enough, Israeli media reported that the police
increased its presence throughout East Jerusalem, fearing Palestinian
riots over the dig. The Arab media warned of a tunnel to the Temple
Mount, towards al-Aqsa, and of violation of the sites most holy to Islam.

The Antiquities Authority hastened to claim that the tunnel steers clear
of the Temple Mount and that the matter has nothing to do with politics.
But when watching the video that the Antiquities Authority released only
recently, one gets quite a different impression. The archeologist in
charge of the dig effectively describes how the revealed tunnel runs
underneath the street which used to lead to the Temple Mount, straight
to the Holy Temple, and in the video he demonstrates climbing up the
steps to the Temple itself.
It is no news that Jerusalem evokes deep religious and national
sentiments on both sides, and that any kind of activity there can cause a
new crisis. Tunnels dug underground, hidden from the public eye, are
bound to give rise to rumors and fears. The residents of Silwan, who
have been hearing the excavation works carried out under their homes
day and night, didn’t know what was being dug under them and how.
When they brought this matter in front of the Supreme Court, the
digging was stopped for a short while, but eventually the court decided
that revealing the past carried more importance than the residents’ right
to private property.
In recent years, the Israel Antiquities Authority has come to function as
an executive contractor for the settlers around Silwan and the Old City.
Many of the largest digs in Jerusalem are initiated and funded by right
wing organizations. In many cases these are underground digs, lacking
transparency and hidden from the public, which spawn harsh
professional criticism from many archeologists.
The revealed tunnel is a particularly significant step in the process of
settlement tourism striking roots in Silwan. The tunnel’s Western Wall
entrance is still closed, but once it is opened a new route will be
available: The visitors to the "City of David" site, which is managed by
settlers, would enter the tunnel by the Siloam Pool in the slopes of the
Silwan neighborhood, pass underneath the Palestinian streets and
houses, and come out again next to the Western Wall plaza within the
walls of the Old City. This would be a tour of purely Jewish history, cut off
from the present and hiding from the visitors the reality of the
Palestinian neighborhood existing on the ground above them.
“For the first time, I can touch the destruction [of the Temple],” says Eli
Shukrun, the archeologist in charge of the project, in the dramatic video
produced by the Antiquities Authority. He has no idea how truthful his
words are—the excavation of the tunnel represents another step
towards Jewish settlements taking a stronghold in East Jerusalem, and
can lead to the destruction of any possibility of compromise in the city.

Back to Top

11 March 2011

Israel must stop demolitions in the West Bank – UN

human rights expert

GENEVA – UN Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestinian territories,

Richard Falk, called on Israeli authorities to stop illegally demolishing
Palestinian homes in the West Bank, as they are about to forcibly
displace 15 families, consisting of 150 Palestinians – including children,
by demolishing two apartment buildings in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem.
“This pattern of eviction, demolition, expansion of settlements, and
settlers’ violent expropriation of Palestinian homes in the occupied East
Jerusalem violates fundamental human rights, as well as provisions of
the Fourth Geneva Convention governing belligerent occupation,” Mr.
Falk said describing the development as “particularly disturbing.”
Noting that on Sunday, 6 March 2011, the families were given only 10
days to vacate their homes, the Special Rapporteur said that Israeli
authorities often seek to justify demolition of Palestinian homes on the
grounds that the owners lack building permits, which are next to
impossible for Palestinians to obtain.
“Beyond the immediate dire consequences to individuals and families
facing the loss of their homes,” the human rights expert said, “such acts
form part of the broader picture of annexation, not as an Israeli legal
claim but enacted increasingly as evidence of an Israeli political
project.”
Since the beginning of 2011, Israeli authorities have demolished 96
Palestinian structures throughout the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem, consisting of 32 homes and other residential structures. As a
result, 175 people, more than half of them children, have lost their
homes – a sharp increase compared to the same period in 2010 (56
demolitions and 129 people displaced). At the same time, Israeli
settlements in the West Bank have continued to expand.
END
In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council designated Richard Falk (United
States of America) as the fifth Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The
mandate was originally established in 1993 by the UN Commission on
Human Rights.
Learn more about the mandate and work of the Special Rapporteur:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/countries/ps/mandate/index.htm
OHCHR Country Page – Occupied Palestinian Territories:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/MENARegion/Pages/PSIndex.aspx
OHCHR Country Page – Israel:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/MENARegion/Pages/ILIndex.aspx
For more information and media requests, please contact Nikki Siahpoush (Tel.: + 41
22 928 9430 / email: nsiahpoush@ohchr.org) or write to sropt@ohchr.org.

Back to Top

Residents of Jerusalem-area village fight battle against

separation fence
By Amira Hass, Haaretz, 3 January 2011
The Indians of Walajeh fear being cut-off from their neighbors.
Exhausted from the prolonged struggle, the Indians of the village of
Walajeh know their fate has been decided and they will be encircled by
the winding separation wall. They will be cut off from their eastern
neighbor, Beit Jala. They will be a tiny enclave next to the other choking
enclave, that of Bethlehem, which is surrounded by thriving Jewish
settlements (those of Gush Etzion, Har Gilo, and so forth ), the
inseparable part of the State of Israel.
By chance, of course, the wall will also cut them off from 2,400 of the
remaining 4,000 dunams (some 1,000 acres ) of land that the village still
owns. Before 1948, Walajeh had some 18,000 dunams. The original
village turned into two moshavim, Aminadav and Ora, and the residents
turned into refugees. A large part of the land that had remained east of
the Green Line was expropriated after 1967 for the benefit of Jews living
in the settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo. The Civil Administration and
Jerusalem municipality (to which half the village's lands were annexed )
failed to prepare a master plan for the village, but excelled at
demolishing 45 of its houses on the pretext that they were illegal. Now
the white man is also trying to get the rest of the poor village's lamb.
On the other hand, the Indians of Walajeh have been fighting a
rearguard battle against the route of the wall. One such battle took
place on December 22: The exterminators of nature, landscape and
livelihood in the form of giant bulldozers accompanied by a contractor,
workers and a Border Police unit raided the hillside to the west of the
village, apparently at dawn. When the bulldozers were within sight and
sound of the village, the villagers appeared on the scene and found
some two kilometers of land freshly scarred by a path that had been
breached between the oak and olive trees and the rocks. Dozens of
trees were marked with blue and orange ribbons to indicate their clear
fate - uprooting.
The owners of the land hastened to call Shireen al-A'araj, a member of
the village council. She demanded that the contractor show them the
order on the basis of which the work was being carried out on the
residents' private property. He did not have one. The villagers
demanded that a halt be put to the work lest it transpire it was illegal.
About two hours later, a representative of the Civil Administration
appeared on the scene and told A'araj that the matter had already been
discussed in the High Court of Justice, and it was legal and sanctioned.
Well versed with previous land expropriations, A'araj demanded to see
the order for appropriating land for security purposes. She says the
official replied it was not his duty and then ordered the Border
Policemen to arrest anyone who interfered with the work.
The residents sat down in front of the bulldozers and the Border
Policemen dragged them away. A'araj was sprayed with pepper gas and
could not see. One of the policewomen told her she should sit down,
"over here," and she found herself on a thorny bush. "Just how evil can
they be?" she thought to herself as she heard them gloating.
Around 3:00 that afternoon, eight Palestinians were arrested on the
order of the Civil Administration's apparatchik - six men, a youth and
A'araj. (A Border Police spokesman told Haaretz that the Border
Policemen "get their instructions from the sovereign authority at the
site." ) The eight were detained at the Bethlehem checkpoint for several
hours. Then they were taken to a lock-up within the industrial zone at
Atarot. A'araj was the only one who remained handcuffed for several
hours. The eight were released the following morning.
In response to Haaretz's questions, security sources said that work was
being carried out at the site "for preparing the route of the security
fence on the basis of an order that was legally issued a while ago, and
about which the residents were informed on several occasions. The day
before, a tour was held by the civil administration official and the owners
of the land."
The arrests were carried out, the security sources said, "after there was
a violent disturbance at the site during which the Palestinians threw
stones at the workers. After attempts to hold a dialogue failed, and the
demonstrators refused to listen to the force's instructions and even
continued their violent actions, a number of demonstrators were
arrested on the order of the force's commander."
But if everything is legal and in order, how is it that Supreme Court
Justice Asher Dan Grunis nevertheless ordered the military authorities,
on December 28, to refrain from any further activity at the site until
another ruling, "including the chopping down and uprooting of olive
trees, digging, groundwork and paving roads"?
Attorney Ghiath Nassir, who represents the village, submitted an urgent
petition to the High Court on December 23. Representatives of the
Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces were told to respond.
When they failed to do so by December 28, Grunis announced his ruling.
Nassir explained to Haaretz why he considered the work to be illegal and
not according to the rules set by the authorities themselves. He said it
was possible to petition against land confiscation only once valid orders
are issued, and not merely on the basis of the route published by the
Defense Ministry. The original order had expired at the end of 2007, he
said, and it was indeed renewed but was not shown to the residents so
they could appeal. The route affects the village's cemetery, a well and
rich agricultural land.
The High Court is also considering another petition from the villagers
relating to a northern section of the fence in an area that was annexed
to Jerusalem. There, too, the work was stopped at the behest of the High
Court.
The villagers and their representatives hope that someone will still come
to his senses and understand that the harm to them and their lands is
disproportionate. They are hoping that the proposal by Col. (Res. ) Yuval
Dvir of the Council for Peace and Security that the route be moved close
to the Green Line will be accepted. Perhaps the Defense Ministry also
believes that some people out there might come to their senses, and
precisely because of this sent the bulldozers in the small hours of the
morning?

Back to Top

Wallaja Press Conference, Monday 21 March at 11.00

a.m.
Notice of a strong West Bank story:
I am writing to invite you to a joint Palestinian Authority, European
Commission, UNRWA event at Al Walaja Village in the West Bank on 21
March. This event will provide strong headlines, powerful quotes and
compelling pictures.
The event begins at 11 a.m. at the village school. There will be activities
at the school to film and photograph. In addition, UNRWA will brief on
the situation at the village. Salaam Fayyad, the E.C head of delegation,
Christian Berger and UNRWA Commissioner General, Filippo Grandi, will
be available for interview.
I also send a narrative/fact sheet about Al Walaja, which is not for
publication. But please use the information sourced to UNRWA.
Please confirm that you will be able to attend to Alice Gilham by email
at: A.GILLHAM@UNRWA.ORG. And please be in touch with interview
requests.
Best wishes and thanks.
Chris Gunness,
UNRWA Spokesperson,
0542 402 659.

Al Walaja `
In October last year small red ribbons began to appear mysteriously in
the ancient olive groves on the gently sloping hills of the Palestinian
village of Al Walaja, just ten kilometers from the heart of Jerusalem.
Charming as they were as they fluttered in the West Bank breeze, these
deceptively beautiful ribbons meant something tragic and sinister to the
villagers. These were the markings placed by the Israeli authorities to
indicate the new route of the West Bank barrier or wall. When complete
it would isolate the villagers from all but one sixth of the land which they
owned in 1948 and completely encircle their village, much of which has
already been bulldozed by the Israeli authorities in preparation for
building the wall.
The Israeli occupation had already robbed them of their communal
dignity. In 1967 half the village was unilaterally annexed by Israel to the
Jerusalem Municipality and half of it remained in the West Bank. The
Israeli authorities imposed a divisive system of residency rights that
rendered many of the villagers illegal aliens in their own land, in that
they were living in Jerusalem but were denied Jerusalem residency. This
subsequently cut them off from markets and essential services in
occupied East Jerusalem, as well as family and friends. A series of
discriminatory Israeli practices ensued, ensuring that life for the
residents became a living nightmare: effectively no building permits
have been granted, arrests have been commonplace, more than 40
houses have been demolished and around the same number of
demolition orders are still pending.
Compounding their misery, planned construction of the new Jewish
settlement of Givat Yael, will destroy their livelihoods further and open
them to the threat of settler violence, to which the Israeli army has often
turned a blind eye. Al Walaja is a village of about two thousand
refugees, dispossessed and facing forced displacement for the second
time. The systematic denial of housing rights, the constant
administrative harassment, the continued construction of the barrier and
settlement expansion have rendered this village a tragic symbol of the
fate of tens of thousand of Palestinians across the West Bank.
Underpinning this symbolism, the sheer scale of the facts attest to the
enormity of the threat to human dignity. If completed along current
projections, 85 per cent of the West Bank barrier will be inside the
“Green Line”, effectively incorporating nearly 10 per cent of the West
Bank into Israel. About 33,000 Palestinians holding West Bank ID cards
will be located in the “seam zone” on the “Israeli” side of the barrier cut
off from essential services and their ancestral lands in the West Bank.
About 126,000 Palestinians will live in communities surrounded by the
barrier on three sides. 28,000 people, including eventually the residents
of Al Walaja, will live in ghettoised communities surrounded on all four
sides.
The situation is particularly bleak in the Area C of the occupied
Palestinian territory, defined by the Oslo Agreements as being
temporarily under Israeli jurisdiction and in which some of Al Walaja lies.
The area is home to around 150,000 Palestinians many of them
impoverished herders, some of whose houses have been demolished
and rebuilt 15 times. Poverty is on the increase. Already 55 per cent of
people in Area C are food insecure.
As the barrier lengthens, settlements built illegally on West Bank land
expand. The number of Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian
territory, including East Jerusalem is likely to move above the half million
mark this year, despite the fact that the Fourth Geneva Convention
explicitly prohibits the occupying power, in this case Israel, transferring
parts of its own civilian population into occupied territory. While 35 per
cent of East Jerusalem has been expropriated for settlements, only 13
per cent is “zoned” for Palestinian construction in areas already built up
to the point where any further building would be environmentally
undesirable, if not impossible. The UN Office for the Co-ordination of
Humanitarian Affairs estimates that because the Israeli authorities
routinely deny building permits to Palestinians, at least 28 per cent of
homes in East Jerusalem have been built in violation of Israeli zoning
requirements, placing at least 60,000 Palestinians at risk of having their
homes demolished. Currently, 1,500 demolitions orders are pending
implementation in East Jerusalem alone. All this in spite of the fact that
under international law, Israel is obliged to respect and implement the
right to adequate housing of the occupied population.
Palestinians, more than half of whom are children, are being denied by
Israel a broad range of civil, cultural, economic, political and social
rights. The Israeli occupation regime restricts the full enjoyment of their
rights; freedom of movement, the rights to an adequate standard of
living and to education and health. Discrimination historically lies behind
many human rights violations in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory
yet the prohibition against discrimination underpins international human
rights treaties to which Israel is a party. Let us be clear. The
discrimination has a devastating impact on one ethnic group – the
Palestinians and over the decades, this discriminatory system has
resulted in forcible widespread population transfers, a practice
prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
On her recent visit, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi
Pillay, called on Israel to end these discriminatory practices in
accordance with its obligations under international law and human rights
law. She clearly stated that “all settlement-related activities, and any
legal or administrative decision or practice that directly or indirectly
coerce Palestinians to leave East Jerusalem, including evictions,
demolitions, forced displacements and cancellation of residence permits
on a discriminatory basis, should be halted and restrictions on access to
East Jerusalem by other West Bank inhabitants should be lifted. The
confiscation or expropriation of private property in the occupied
territory, including East Jerusalem,” she stated, was “in almost all cases
also illegal”. East Jerusalem, she said was “being steadily drained of its
Palestinian inhabitants, in clear-cut defiance of Security Council
resolutions”. This culture of impunity she argued, led to more abuses
against and between civilians, stimulating anger and resentment on all
sides and impeding the peace process.
Her reference to the peace process is particularly apposite at this time.
The West Bank, the territory where the future Palestinian state will be
substantially situated, is looking increasingly unviable, politically,
economically and socially, because of settlement expansion, the wall
and the regime which supports the Israeli occupation. The resulting
displacement and dispossession can only complicate further the
establishment of that putative state. Jerusalem, home to some 300,000
Palestinians, of whom 140,000 are UNRWA registered refugees, is
envisaged as a shared capital and its “steady draining” by Israel of
Palestinians can only increase cynicism and diminish their belief in the
possibility of a just and durable peace. That in itself is a dangerous
thing.

Back to Top

Labour is concerned
By Amira Hass, Haaretz, 13 December 2010
No, not Labor. The British parliament is the one debating the
treatment of underage Palestinian detainees by Israeli
military tribunals.
Labour Party representatives who had visited the Ofer military tribunal
in the West Bank two weeks ago expressed shock over how the court
conducts its hearings. In a parliamentary debate about detained
Palestinian minors, they said that given a sample of 100 children, 69
said soldiers beat them and kicked them when they were being arrested.
The children were better off pleading guilty regardless of whether they
had done something, because if they were detained until the end of
proceedings, this could be three times longer than their punishment, the
parliamentarians said.
The Labour legislators cited data they had received from the Palestinian
branch of Defense For Children International.
This is not the Israeli Labor Party. The visitors at Ofer were members of
the British Labour Party. It was not Israel's parliamentarians who spent
an hour and a half debating a subject that shows the face of Israeli
society, but rather their British counterparts.
In a debate December 7, Labour MP Sandra Osborne said that she and
three of her colleagues had spent four days touring the West Bank under
the auspices of the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
"It was a visit to a military court ... that shocked us to the core," she
said.
Another member of her faction, Richard Burden, added: "I thought that
the area had lost its capacity to shock me." But he realized he had made
a mistake "when I saw the military court and what went on there."
The visiting MPs were sitting in one of the caravans - the halls of the
court - when they "heard a jangle of chains outside the door of the
courtroom," Osborne continued. "Army officers led child detainees into
the military courtroom. The children's legs were shackled, they were
handcuffed and they were all kitted out in brown jumpsuits. One had to
wonder if the soldiers felt threatened by 13- and 14-year-old boys."
During the proceedings, she said, "The judge never once looked at the
children or spoke to them."
Burden said of the shackled children, "It hit me. It hit me even more to
be told by an observer, a brave Israeli woman [a member of Machsom
Watch] who monitors what goes on in such courtrooms week in and
week out, that what we saw was better than normal. The children came
in handcuffed with their hands in front of them but all too often their
hands are cuffed behind their backs."
Burden called what he saw in the occupied territories "a dual system of
law based on nationality. Few Israeli settlers are charged with offenses
committed in the occupied West Bank, but when they are, they are
prosecuted in regular civilian courts within the State of Israel.
Palestinians who are arrested, however, have to go to military courts
and are held in military prison. That applies to children as well as adults.
"The minimum age for criminal responsibility is the same for Israelis and
Palestinians; in both cases it is 12.
However, the minimum age for a full custodial sentence in the Israeli
civil system is 14 and in the Israeli military system it is 12. The age of
majority for Israelis is 18 but for Palestinians it is 16."
Burden has difficulty accepting the fact that the Israeli judicial system
has different values for how long Israeli or Palestinian children may be
left in detention until they are brought before a judge, and for the
number of months they can be held until the end of proceedings.
A Conservative MP, Guto Bebb, came faithfully to Israel's defense. He
said Osborne had said most of the children were accused of throwing
stones but, he asked, what about those who were "involved in shootings,
throwing Molotov cocktails or attacking military vehicles? Is it not the
case that, in a civilized society, putting someone on trial for such
behavior is a reasonable response?"
Bebb continued: "I do not believe for one second that Israel would
behave in that way unless it was faced with an insurrection that puts its
citizens in danger, and that insurrection is unfortunately utilizing young
people in the Palestinian territories."
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs Alistair Burt closed the debate with a speech that showed he had
done his homework. He knew even that after 40 years of occupation
Israel had set up a military court for youth, and he called on Israel to
respect international law that stated that 18, not 16, was the age of
majority. He noted his country's friendship with Israel and its support for
Israel's right to exist in security, condemned Hamas for not respecting
human rights in Gaza, mentioned abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, praised
the Palestinian Authority for its security forces' actions but took it to task
for its treatment of detainees, and also mentioned B'Tselem reports
about the arrest of minors.
The British government, he said, asks the Israeli government about
issues that concern it.
"Too often, we do not receive formal responses to our lobbying," he
noted. "When we do, the responses often fail to address our concerns in
detail, pointing to the prevailing security situation - for example,
demonstrations in the West Bank that turn violent - and stressing that
Israel strives to follow due process."
He noted that he too considered the dual judicial system to be wrong
and added: "As we have heard, many convictions are based on
confessions, either from the defendants themselves seeking a shorter
sentence under plea bargaining or from the evidence of minors facing
detention. Access to lawyers is often restricted."
All those arrested are entitled to a fair trial, he said, adding that he, like
Osborne, would continue to follow developments.
Back to Top
The Children's Judge
By Aya Kaniuk and Tamar Goldschmidt. Mahsanmilim.com.

True, in the military courtroom itself Palestinians are neither shot nor
beaten. They are not ‘targeted for elimination’ nor even sentenced to
death. At least not in the courtroom. But the military court is also the
place where all illusions die. And hopes. Because that is where
Palestinians learn that injury caused them, is no error, nor
misunderstanding, but a matter of policy. That is where they learn that
law regarding Palestinians is nothing short of another kind of weapon.
One of many. Among the tanks and planes and cluster bombs and
checkpoints and Separation Wall and white phosphorus and the IOF
spokesman.
The military court is the end of ends. The last judgment. The final
accusation, a-priori, of Palestinians only because they are Palestinians.
And courtroom number 2, where children are put on trial, is the place
beyond that end. The place where all the words end.
Only two family members are allowed to come to the trial. This is usually
the only time they can come and see their son, and they do. Time after
time. They may bring cigarettes and money for the long day awaiting
them. Nothing else. Not even medication, nor tissues, nor food, nor a
book or a newspaper. We, visitors who are not Palestinian, are allowed
to bring in a notebook and pen. But not tissues. We have no privileges
concerning tissues.
Perhaps because tissues are evidence that there is something to cry
over, and the State of Israel is not willing to name its own deeds at the
end of which lies weeping. And its necessity is the evidence and the
visibility of that which Israel is not willing to name, that and the
anticipated weeping. Perhaps that is why tissues are not allowed in
court.
One man managed to smuggle in a roll of toilet paper despite the order
forbidding tissues. Apparently deep in his clothes he dared to hide toilet
paper, soft as tissues. Now he moved from woman to woman, handing
out bits of toilet paper to every single one of them, all the mothers, so
they would have it ready for the tears when they would come. When he
handed it to us as well we were ashamed, because we have no spouses
or sons in jail. And because the man only had one roll of paper, we felt
uneasy that we were getting some at the expense of someone else.
Finally we were lucky to have gotten it. Because all that remains in this
accursed place is to weep. The warmth of the wet, salty tears is the only
possibly warmth inside this sinister ticking mechanism that no word
could encompass or cover.
Courtroom number 2. The children’s court. Every Monday. On the
podium, judge Sharon Rivlin Ahai. From 9 a.m. until close to 6 p.m. Boy
follows boy. A boy and then another child. Wearing brown prison garb.
Chained feet. Shackled hands, one hand shackled to that of another boy.
Some of them are so small that their feet wave in the air when they are
seated on the bench. Some of them are so small that our eyes look
away. Most of them are accused of throwing stones. Molotov cocktails.
Most of them are not released on bail, have not been interrogated in the
presence of an adult – parent or social worker. Most of them were picked
up in the dead of night. All these are violations of the international law in
defense of children, even those under occupation. Most of them were
arrested following denunciation, mostly by some other child, who – like
them – was taken in the dead of night because someone else gave in his
name. And most of them confessed, if not immediately then later on, of
anything they were told to admit.
The prosecutor speaks, then the judge, the defense, the interpreter, the
judge once again, and Tareq Mohammad's father writes on the palm of
his hand their home phone number to make sure that 13-years old son,
remembers and knows it. The mother cries, so does the child. In custody
now for three and a half months. For throwing stones. His remand has
been extended seven or eight times already. And the next court session
is scheduled for January 3rd. The father signals him to get his hair cut, to
be strong, to be a man. I don’t want to be here were the last words he
said before being led out, and the mother covered her face.
Another two children are led into the courtroom. They are seated next to
each other. The warden unshackles their hands. Their feet remain
chained.
One of the boys is Bilal Sami Matar, 14-years old, in custody for half a
year already. Twenty one children and youths were caught that night in
Qalandiya refugee camp, and so was he. Some boy gave their names in.
That is how it usually happens. A child is arrested for one reason or
another. And he is told, give us fifteen names and we’ll let you go. First
he says, no way. Eventually he gives them names. Usually they are the
names of boys he knows, his age, sometimes of boys he’d never met, in
order to supply the required number. And already the deal is made
between the prosecution and the defense, and with it the corrected
indictment sheet.
Because finally he confessed like everyone else, regardless whether or
not he really did the deeds of which he is accused.
After all, even if he did, how would the occupation forces know whether
he ever threw a stone or not? Only because someone said so?
But apparently this really does not matter much. The main thing is the
power that tramples. That there are more means to recruit collaborators.
The main thing is to brutalize. To crush. To intimidate. Not as a means
but as an end.
First reading of the plea for sentencing is postponed until January 10th.
No one objects. Not even the child. He is not listening anyway. Nor are
his parents. They only devour the last moments of grace to look at each
other and exchange a few more words, for this is the only time they see
each other and has been so for months, and anyway, everything takes
place regardless of the boy or his actual deeds.
How are things at home? The boy asks his parents. Well practiced at
speaking from meters away, as long as the policeman will not keep
them from looking at each other.
Everything’s fine, Bilal’s mother mouths expansively so the child can
read her lips.
Are you studying? Asks the father in his authoritative voice.
Every day, Bilal answers.
Say hello to everyone, he says before being pushed again through the
back door by the warden, blows them a kiss and vanishes.
Outside the hall his mother breaks into tears.
Another two boys are brought in. One name is read aloud, Mu’amin
Omar Asad, he stands up, this and that is said, something nearly
identical to what was just said before and will be said again and again,
about having thrown, hurled, prepared, wanted, meant, demonstrated,
as the young denouncer had said… Then the interpreter presents
Mu’amin with the indictment sheet which he takes in his hand. Another
Hebrew form, one of many he’s received since his arrest, signing them
without a notion of what is written in them. After receiving the form, the
hand of the 14-year old automatically points to his parents seated a few
meters away, and suddenly freezes, stops.
Until not very long ago he would always bring home to mother any
certificate or trouble or duty or some such.
His frozen hand remains in the air for a moment, then retreats and
returns to his lap, the form is released from his slack fingers, his
parents’ faces are ashen.
Does not plead guilty. For the time being.
The next court session is set in two weeks’ time.
Boy after boy enter, their names are read, they rise, then sit, then
another court date is set, or a plea bargain. The interpreter speaks, the
prosecutor, the judge, the defense lawyer. The eyes of mother and son
are locked. Don’t forget to pray, the father tells the child. Yes, the boy
nods his head, his lips pursed tight, their murmurs trying to cross the
distance. Last moments of grace in this encounter. Soon the baby will
return into the darkness. The mother cries over his wearing such a thin
shirt. Enough, the boy dismisses her with a smile, trying to look grown
up and brave. Then he is told to rise. Words that tear the air and the skin
and the heart. And he rises. His parents’ eyes dwell for another moment
on the chain between his feet which they repressed earlier on, he holds
out little hands, adept, the policeman shackles one of them and
connects the other to another prisoner, together they are led outside.
Twenty three children and youths were brought into court that day. Most
of them confessed to the deeds attributed to them already in their first
interrogation. Or the second, at the latest. Few confessed only in the
courtroom itself. The few who do not plead guilty at first usually do later
on. They confess because they are frightened. Threatened. Because
they are children. Because a verdict on the basis of denunciation is very
difficult to refute. Especially because the military court regards
denunciation as a fact. And if they confess, so they are told, then their
prison sentence will be lightened, and sometimes they will only be
sentenced to the number of months they have already spent in custody,
several months, the months they already spent as part of the system.
And after all, this court does not seek the truth, nor could it with such
means.
And if they don’t confess, they’re told, they will likely spend much more
time in jail.
So they confess.
Most of the time.
It is hard to say what it is about this terrible place that is worse than
others. Which darkness is darker, more painful. Is it the mothers and
their broken hearts? Or the helplessness of the father whose child is
abandoned, and he has not the power to protect him. Is it the horror of
the little ones, the feeling that this is a sold game in which no one cares
for the truth, be it as it may, because this system does not enable one to
find out the truth. That this is not really a court, but only another tool of
occupation. Where Palestinians are guilty unless proven otherwise. Even
if proven otherwise. Guilty because they are Palestinians.
Is it the unbearable serial sense of a child and then another and another,
and the empty eyes of the various forces of occupation. The good-
looking soldier girl, with her long groomed hair who stands right in
between the mother and boy so they cannot see each other, or
exchange a few words while their fate is cast. Their fate that has nothing
to do with them or with who they are, but only with what they are. And
the policeman, his gaze lazy and empty, most of the time looking to see
if he got any messages on his cell phone, while next to him fates are
determined, transparent like his victims. Or is it the judge with her
pleasant face, who does not cry to high heaven, does not tear at her hair
and feel ashamed nor protest what she is doing in the service of her
country. How she stands silent in view of these strange plea bargains,
13-year old children who perhaps threw a stone, and perhaps not,
because that’s what their denouncers said, who are but children like
them taken in the dead of night. Or not wondering that everyone
confesses, that months go by until the verdict is given, that they are not
released on bail, that they sit in prison until the end of the proceedings,
three, four, six, eight months and more, no matter what the accusation
is, no matter that it’s a child. That there are no innocents, ever. That
every voice of an army man is crystal-clear fact. And every incriminating
testimony, too, crystal clear. But not denial. Denial is not crystal clear,
ever. Nor the claim that confession was obtained by force. That I signed
something I did not understand. That I was afraid. That I was beaten up.
That I did not do it. No.
I did not do it.
Even when it comes to children.
And their denying words are regarded as ridiculous, a superfluous waste
of time, and mostly changing when the child and his parents learn that
no matter what he did, or did not do, his fate is sealed. And that the
system does not enable him to defend himself. That it is better to
confess. And indeed this is what he usually does.
And so child after child. Everything seems reasonable to her, and to the
rest of those judges. Eight months, and six, and once again having to
pay 5000 shekel.
This fine that is always eventually charge. More and more money to be
paid by those who don’t have any to begin with. Or else the son will sit
another few months, as many as the thousands of shekels that were
required in payment.
A child arrives wearing a short-sleeved shirt, shivering with cold.
Apparently he is fifteen but looks younger. Does not know who his
lawyer is. No parents. Bites his fingernails. Sucks his thumb. His look is
scattered and scared. He is accused of having thrown stones. Attorney
Samara volunteers to take him on.
I request the postponement of this case in order to complete it by the
13th of next month, says the judge. Three weeks from today. And the
defendant gives his parents’ phone number to the lawyer.
The policeman has already shackled the child who rises and stands to be
led out again, and the judge asks resentfully, why is he not dressed, just
such a light shirt in this cold weather? How could this be?
Her pitying voice is not directed at anyone in particular.
Indeed, one should resent and hurt the fact that he is cold, your honor.
But why just this? What about their having come in the dead of night to
pick him up? That he has not seen a lawyer until now? That there was no
adult present at his interrogation? That his parents have not been
informed of his whereabouts? That he was arrested on the basis of
denunciation? That he was not released on bail? That he has been in
custody for months before his trial began?
And if he did throw stones, how would you know? Is this the way to find
out? Can one find out at all?
And if he did, your honor, is this what he deserves?
Would this happen, your honor, were this a Jewish child who threw
stones?
No need to answer, your honor, the answer is obvious.

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New state budget gives settlements NIS 2 billion – and

more
Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, 31 December 2010
Security expenses for settlers living in Palestinian
neighborhoods in East Jerusalem went up in the new
budget, reaching NIS 3,160 per settler.
The 2011-2012 budget, approved on Wednesday by the Knesset,
allocates NIS 2 billion to settlements, their services and security, and
hundreds of millions of shekels more hidden among the different clauses
of the bill.
According to the budget, 200 housing units will be marketed in Maaleh
Adumim next year, with NIS 58 million allocated to the city’s
development in 2011 and NIS 31 million in 2012. In 2011, 500 housing
units will be marketed in the Har Homa neighborhood beyond the Green
Line in Jerusalem; NIS 238 million will be spent on its development over
the next two years.
The budget also indicates the settlement division of the World Zionist
Organization supports at least 16 illegal outposts: The Central Bureau of
Statistics lists the number of official settlements in the West Bank at
120, but the budget say the WZO works in 136 communities.
The treasury also allocated NIS 180 million to Route 20, a road set to
link Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood to Route 45, toward Modi’in
and Tel Aviv. Peace Now, which traced the settlement support clauses in
the budget, said yesterday Route 20 was a clear obstacle to peace, as it
cuts across neighborhoods meant to become a part of the Palestinian
state.
Some NIS 225 million were allocated to repairing the road between the
Adumim plain and the Good Samaritan junction, and Pisgat Ze’ev and
the Zeitim intersection.
The state will also transfer more than NIS 22 million to exporters
operating from settlements, to compensate for the loss of sales to the
European Union, which no longer recognizes settlement produce as
Israeli produce under the terms of its free trade agreement.
Security expenses for settlers living in Palestinian neighborhoods in East
Jerusalem went up in the new budget, reaching NIS 3,160 per settler.
This represents a rise of 40 percent in the settler security budget, from
NIS 54.5 million in 2010 to NIS 146 million in 2011 and 2012.
Most of the settlements have been defined as areas of first national
priority, in which the Israel Land Administration subsidizes 69 percent of
the cost of land, or second national priority areas, in which the subsidy
reaches 49 percent of the price of the land.
The purchasers of flats in a national priority area can receive a
subsidized loan up to NIS 97,000, whether the flats are located in a
priority area within Israel or in the West Bank. The housing assistance
budget comes up to NIS 87,368 million in 2011, and NIS 86,518 million
in 2012.
The Judea and Samaria Higher Education Council, responsible for all
post-high school educational institutions operating in settlements will
receive NIS 900 million to support three colleges. The state’s share in
school buses in settlements using bullet-proof buses that are bullet proof
will reach 90 percent, as opposed to other local councils, where it comes
up to between 40 percent and 85 percent. Subsidies for public transport
(described as “support for other populations,” meaning settlers and the
ultra-Orthodox) will reach NIS 31 million per year, and protecting buses
with armor or window bars will cost another NIS 10 million.
Every settler can request that his personal car get added protection
from stones at the state’s expense, and the overall reinforcement and
security ingredients in settlements and conflict zone areas reaches over
NIS 630 million.
Most of the settlement budget is concealed in general clauses, and the
budget itself lacks regional detail, making it impossible to find how much
of which clause is destined for settlements.
As the settlements issue is politically controversial, Peace Now said it
demands the ministries be obliged to report on the geographic allocation
of the budget so as to allow for better monitoring of this information.

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Demolition of Palestinian homes in West Bank's Area C

tripled in 2010
Amira Hass, Haaretz, 26 January 2011
A B'Tselem report reveals that as a result, 472 Palestinians,
including 223 minors, lost their homes last year, up from
217 - including 60 minors - in 2009.
The number of Palestinian residences demolished by Israel's Civil
Administration in the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control
tripled last year compared to 2009, data complied by B'Tselem shows.
Attorney Shlomo Lecker, who has represented the Jahalin Bedouin tribe
in the West Bank for years, attributed the increase in Area C demolitions
directly to the increased pressure applied over the last two years by
both settlers and a new organization, Regavim.
The latter, which sees its aim as preserving state lands in the West
Bank, has waged both legal and media battles against what it claims is a
policy of ignoring illegal Palestinian construction.
In 2010, the Civil Administration destroyed 86 residences in Area C,
including tents and shacks, B'Tselem said. That compares to only 28 in
2009. As a result, 472 Palestinians, including 223 minors, lost their
homes last year, up from 217 (including 60 minors ) in 2009.
The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there
was also a rise in demolitions of income-producing structures in Area C,
especially cisterns, which are vital for sheepherding and agriculture.
Destroyed cisterns affected 14,136 Palestinians last year, up from 764 in
2009, OCHA said. This increases poverty and dependence on external
aid, and in the long run is thus even more harmful than the destruction
of residences, the organization added.
As an example of the increased pressure by settlers and Regavim,
Lecker cited the demolition orders that the Civil Administration issued
against an entire Bedouin village near Khan al-Ahmar, northeast of
Jerusalem, in November 2010.
The village's approximately 100 residents say they have been living
there for decades, but had never received a single demolition order
before.
Lecker believes the orders stemmed directly from a petition to the High
Court of Justice filed in September by Regavim and three nearby
settlements, Kfar Adumim, Alon and Nofei Prat. That petition asked the
court to order the demolition of a school made of old tires and to issue
demolition orders to 258 Jahalin Bedouin structures in the area.
Even though it was rejected by the court, he said, the petition prompted
the Civil Administration to launch a major campaign to get the Jahalin
out of the area.
Lecker claimed that the Civil Administration's inspection unit is staffed
mainly by settlers or people with sympathetic views. As a result, he
wrote in a High Court petition that he filed two weeks ago in an effort to
get the demolition orders canceled, it is influenced by "political motives"
and effectively serves "as the operational arm of the Yesha Council of
settlements with regard to forbidding Palestinian construction in Area C."
The petition also noted that while master plans enabling construction
exist for many of the settlements, no such plans exist for Palestinians in
Area C.
On January 12, the Civil Administration destroyed 17 structures in the
Bedouin village of Dakeika, south of the Hebron Hills. This happened
even though the residents, at the High Court's suggestion, were in the
process of preparing a master plan for the village, and the court had
promised to reconsider their petition against the demolition orders once
the master plan was completed.
"The reporter' claims regarding an enforcement policy derived from
direct pressure by the Regavim organization and the city of Maaleh
Adumim, or from any other external consideration is completely
unfounded," the Coordinator of Government Activity in the Territories
said in a statement.
The statement also said that the Civil Administration was supporting the
project of transferring West Bank Bedouins to permanent settlements.
The spokesman did not reply to Haaretz queries regarding the
demolition orders handed out to the tribe at Khan al-Ahmar.
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'Shin Bet tortures prisoners and denies access to

lawyers'
Amira Hass, Haaretz, 28 December 2010
As many as 90% of Palestinian prisoners are denied this basic
right despite civilian and military legislation, says study
produced by Public Committee Against Torture and
Palestinian Prisoners' Society.
As many as 90 percent of Palestinian prisoners being interrogated by the
Shin Bet security service are prevented from consulting with an
attorney, even though civilian and military legislation state clearly that
such prohibition should be rarely applied, according to a report
published by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and the
Palestinian Prisoners' Society.
The Shin Bet says it has legal clearance to keep certain detainees from
lawyers.
According to Dr. Maya Rosenfeld, the author of the study, during
prolonged periods when prisoners are kept from meeting with lawyers,
the Shin Bet utilizes interrogation methods that run contrary to
international law, Israeli laws and Israeli commitments to avoid such
methods.
Among these interrogation methods are tying prisoners for a long time
to a chair with their hands behind the back, sleep deprivation, threats
(usually of harming family members ), humiliation and being kept for
long periods in unsanitary cells.
The Shin Bet has refused in the past to provide data on the numbers of
prisoners who are prevented from meeting with a lawyer.
A petition filed by the human rights group Yesh Din and the Movement
for Freedom of Information in March 2009 is still pending.
In the absence of official data, The Public Campaign and the Prisoners
Society carried out research and cross-referenced their information with
different sources in order to estimate the numbers of prisoners who are
prevented from meeting with lawyers.
According to estimates of the authors, out of 11,970 Palestinians the
Shin Bet admits to interrogating between 2000 and 2007, the numbers
of those whose right to an attorney was blocked ranged between 8,379
to 10,773.
Attorney Irit Ballas of the Public Committee, who authored the epilogue
of the report, entitled "When the Exception Becomes the Rule," says the
relevant data for the years 2008-2010 suggests that the scope of this
phenomenon has not been reduced.
Prisoner access to counsel is considered a basic right in Israeli law.
Preventing such access is considered out-of-bounds and the maximum
period such prohibition can be in effect, in security related cases, is 21
days. In Israeli military law, the minimum time permissible is 15 days
and the maximum is 90 days.
According to the report, preventing a meeting with a lawyer for long
periods of time enables illegal interrogation aimed at exhausting the
prisoners and moving them to cells where undercover agents pretend to
be regular prisoners. The report mentions a number of cases in which
after a prolonged interrogation, the physical and psychological
exhaustion resulted in admissions of relatively minor violations which
were carried out several years earlier and did not justify the violation of
the prisoners' rights.
The Shin Bet stated in response that "the phenomena of terrorism and
espionage, which are the subject of Shin Bet investigations, have unique
characteristics which justify the use of essential court arrangements to
counter them. These arrangements were established by legislators and
received extensive approval over the years by the courts, especially by
the Supreme Court in its rulings. One of the tools given to the Shin Bet
by law is the authority to prevent meetings between the suspects and a
lawyer - the claim that preventing such meetings is meant to evade
supervision over 'methods of physical and psychological abuse' are
baseless."
The report describes as "fruitless" the legal efforts the Public Committee
has undertaken in recent years against the phenomenon.
Some 70 percent of the hundreds of appeals that they submitted to the
State Attorney, asking to revoke orders preventing meeting with an
attorney, have been rejected. In the dozens of cases that were
deliberated by the High Court, the judges were convinced by the Shin
Bet's arguments.

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Shin Bet: Disclosing number of detainees who haven't

seen lawyer compromises security
Amira Hass, Haaretz, 5 January 2011
According to a study issued last week, between 70 percent and 90
percent of Palestinian prisoners who are interrogated by the
Shin Bet are prevented from meeting with counsel.
A petition demanding the Shin Bet security service release figures on
the extent to which it prohibits detainees from meeting with lawyers was
rejected Tuesday by the High Court of Justice.
The petition was filed jointly in March 2009 by Yesh Din - Volunteers for
Human Rights and the Movement for Freedom of Information, after the
Prime Minister's Office refused to release such information, claiming
Israel's Freedom of Information Law did not apply to the Shin Bet or any
data in its possession.
Justices Eliezer Rivlin, Neal Hendel and Salim Joubran accepted the
state's argument that releasing such information posed a national
security risk.
The petitioners explained that their appeal did not challenge the Shin
Bet's authority to prevent detainees from meeting with their lawyers.
But in their opinion, concealing such information does not serve Israel's
security needs. The only purpose of this strategy, they continued, is to
prevent public discussion of whether the Shin Bet maintains a fair
balance between security concerns and the need to safeguard
detainees' rights.
On May 31, 2010, the state argued that terror organizations would love
to obtain the exact figures requested in the petition. After receiving
classified information to back up the position of the respondents - the
Shin Bet and the Prime Minister's Office - the justices looked for ways to
partially accept the petition.
But as Hendel wrote in the ruling, "The detailed explanation of the
authorities representing the respondents convinced me that accepting
the petition - whether narrowly or broadly - could open a window that at
the end of the day could unintentionally aid, to one degree or another,
elements that seek to inflict harm on the state."
Up to 90% of prisoners denied counsel
According to a study issued last week by the Public Committee Against
Torture in Israel and the Palestinian Prisoners' Society, between 70
percent and 90 percent of Palestinian prisoners who are interrogated by
the Shin Bet are prevented from meeting with counsel, in violation of a
basic principle of Israeli law.
Last month, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill
extending the amount of time security prisoners can be kept from
meeting with an attorney. According to the proposed law, which is
expected to be submitted for second and third readings in the Knesset
plenum in the near future, a district court could forbid such
consultations for a period of up to six months, which could also be
renewed once for the same amount of time.
Roy Peled, director of the Movement for Freedom of Information, issued
the following response to the High Court ruling: "It is unfortunate that
the court allowed the entire issue to take place under cover of darkness,
as that provides fertile ground for disproportionate harm to human
rights. The harm is currently focused on those suspected of committing
security offenses, but by the same token could affect any Israeli of
whom the Shin Bet has founded or unfounded suspicions."

Back to Top

Beinisch doesn't understand

Amira Hass, Haaretz, 17 January 2011
The security establishment plans to shorten Palestinians'
detention time. This only incidentally happens as the High
Court hears petitions demanding an end to discriminatory
arrest practices.
Hebron: Yehoshua and Adel are having a fight. A commotion ensues.
Yehoshua, an Israeli citizen, is arrested, spends the night in the lockup in
Jerusalem's Russian Compound and, the following day, a judge at the
Jerusalem Magistrate's Court releases him on NIS 1,000 bail. Even
though he lives in Hebron, Israeli law applies to him and he must be
brought before a judge within 24 hours of his arrest.
Adel is also arrested and sent to the Etzion lockup. A day later, he is
transferred to the Ofer detention center. He was born in Hebron and is a
resident of the city, and Israeli military law applies to him - which allows
for a Palestinian to be held under arrest for up to eight days without any
judicial supervision. On the eighth day of his arrest, Adel is taken to a
military court where the judge releases him on NIS 6,000 bail.
This is an imaginary story. First of all, because it is highly unlikely that
Yehoshua would have even been arrested. Second of all, because a very
short interrogation of Adel on the sixth day of his arrest would quite
possibly have revealed that he studies at the same university attended
by a well-known Hamas activist.
Shiri or Liran from the military prosecution would then ask the judge to
extend Adel's remand because of important classified security
information that has reached them. Nothing is actually said, but it is
understood that perhaps during the period of his extended remand they
will be able to persuade Adel to work with the Shin Bet security service
and regularly supply information about his colleague at the university.
The right to freedom? The right to protection against arbitrary arrest?
The right to a fair trial? These are fundamental rights that are taught in
every law faculty. Therefore the young prosecutors, who were
outstanding students in a special military-academic track, will show a
great deal of consideration in this respect. So even though military
legislation allows a military judge to extend the remand by another 30
days, they will ask for a mere eight-day extension. The judge will grant
their request only partially, and extend the remand for only three days.
In defense of discrimination
On May 1, 2009 - and this is a true story now - seven individuals who
participated in a demonstration against the West Bank separation fence
at Umm Salmona near Bethlehem were arrested. Two of them were
released that day - an Israeli citizen and a British citizen. There was no
duty judge at the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court who could handle their
arrest. The five others, all Palestinians, were held in detention for four
days before being brought to a court, which only happened after their
lawyer submitted a special request.
If you ask Israeli activists who have been arrested during protests
against the fence, they will tell you that nothing agitates them more
than the knowledge that their friends - who were arrested for exactly the
same "crime" - are still behind bars.
Last year, two petitions were filed with the High Court of Justice, asking
that the institutional discrimination imposed by Israel that differentiates
between two kinds of people be rescinded. One petition was submitted
on behalf of the Palestinian Prisoners Club by attorney Smadar Ben-
Natan, and the second by attorney Lila Margalit on behalf of the
Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human
Rights, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. The two
petitions were heard by the court last Wednesday.
Responding on behalf of the state, attorney Aner Helman of the State
Prosecution not only asked that both petitions be rejected, but also
provided a long list of reasons as to why the discrimination was in effect.
"In quite a few of the security investigations carried out in the Judea and
Samaria areas, it is not possible to establish in advance where and when
an arrest will take place, unlike in a regular criminal investigation," he
argued. "In many cases, suspects who reside in the Palestinian Authority
are arrested when they arrive at IDF roadblocks."
"The fact that [many are arrested] in unplanned fashion makes it
difficult to interrogate them initially and this holds up the investigation
because in many such cases, one can only start preparing for the
unplanned interrogation after the arrest is made and the relevant
investigative file is located ... and the arrested person is transferred to
where the interrogators are going to carry out the interrogation,"
Helman continued.
"Most of the security interrogations begin after confidential intelligence
material reaches the security forces. In those cases, there are generally
no objects that can serve as evidence ... and even if there are, they are
beyond the reach of the security bodies. The only way (or almost the
only way ) to get preliminary evidence that will support the intelligence
information, is by interrogating the suspect," he said.
"Since the suspects are motivated by nationalistic feelings, their degree
of cooperation with their interrogators is very low. Therefore a minimum
period is required until preliminary evidence can be obtained that will
make it possible for the interrogators to formulate a stance concerning
the continuation of the investigation."
Unexpected amendments
Despite these serious contentions, it turns out that at this very moment
amendments have been made to military legislation, which aim to
shorten the period of detention for Palestinians. The amendments were
preceded by staff work and discussions over the past few years within
the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet and the police in cooperation
with the attorney general's office. This information was also revealed by
Helman in his response to the petitions.
ACRI released a press statement containing a user-friendly table in
which it details the current discrimination as compared with the slightly
shorter discrimination now being proposed by the IDF and the
prosecution.
In a remark to Margalit, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch said this
was not a distinction between two kinds of people, but rather between
two legal systems. For years, Beinisch said, she could not understand
why it was necessary to delay bringing Palestinian suspects to court. In
her opinion, according to the press release, there should be no
distinction between Israelis and Palestinians.
Beinisch has issued many other comments about the state prosecution's
proposal. She has proposed that the administration consider shortening
the period during which Palestinians are detained even further, beyond
that mentioned in the response to the petitions. There will be more to
come.
 Back to Top

Secret Prison Facility 1391: HCJ 9733/03 HaMoked:

Center for the Defence of the Individual v. The State of
Israel (judgment rendered 20.1.2011)
By Attorney Yossi Wolfson, 23 January 2011
“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”, said American Supreme
Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Publicity is one of the main guarantees for
good governance. This is one of the reasons why judicial hearings are
held in open court. This is one of the reasons why democratic judicial
systems detest secret detentions and secret prisons. Brandeis’ famous
quote does not appear in the judgment of Supreme Court President Dorit
Beinisch in the matter of the secret prison referred to as 1391. However,
questions about revealing and concealing are woven into the judgment
throughout.
The judgment relates to an incarceration facility which bears the military
code “1391”. Information published about the facility – some officially
and some unofficially – indicates that this is a military intelligence prison
currently located in a fort dating back to the British Mandate, near
Hadera. Over the years, the facility was mainly used for holding
prisoners from foreign countries. Persons abducted from Lebanon,
including Sheikh Obeid and Mustafa Dirani and other nationals were held
there. For many years, the facility operated in complete secrecy. During
the hearing of the petition, then President Aharon Barak admitted he did
not know about the facility when serving as the attorney general. The
clandestine routine was disrupted when, for a certain period of time
beginning in 2002, the facility was also used for interrogating detainees
from the Occupied Territories.
Unlike prisoners from foreign countries, when a resident of the
Territories is arrested, his family knows where to turn in order to find out
where he is held and try to provide him with assistance. One of the
major addresses to which to turn is HaMoked: Center for the Defence of
the Individual, or HaMoked, which handles thousands of requests to
locate detainees every year. When the authorities do not provide
information regarding the place of detention, HaMoked files a High Court
of Justice petition. When HaMoked requested the location of detainees
who were held in the secret facility, it received false, partial or deceptive
responses. Following petitions it filed, the existence of the facility came
to light. When the interrogation of detainees held in the facility ended
and they were transferred to other holding facilities, their testimonies
could be collected. These uncovered the cruel holding conditions in the
facility and paved the way for the petition filed in 2003 and decided in
2011.
The relief sought by HaMoked in its petition was the closure of the
facility. HaMoked argued that a long list of express provisions, both in
Israeli and international law, prohibit the operation of a secret prison.
Secrecy per se injures the rights of the detainees who are thrown into an
unknown place. Additionally, secrecy compromises a long list of
guarantees for protecting the detainees’ rights, such as the possibility of
outside supervision of the facility. These guarantees are particularly
necessary when subjects of enemy states are involved, as they are
particularly vulnerable to harm and the guarantees for their protection
are particularly weak. The UN Committee against Torture referred to
Facility 1391 in its 2009 report.[1] The Committee found that holding
detainees in a secret facility is, of itself, a violation of the Convention
against Torture. President Beinisch chose not to address this report in
her judgment.
Along with HaMoked’s petition, the judgment rules on a petition filed by
Zahava Gal-On, who was a member of Knesset in 2003, when she filed
the petition. Gal-On requested, as a member of Knesset, to enter the
facility in order to perform her duty and hold parliamentary supervision
of the site. The state refused.
The judgment includes a lengthy description of the developments that
occurred in the operation of Facility 1391 after the petition was
submitted. In fact, this description is the focal point of the judgment. The
court uses these developments to defend its decision to reject the
petition. In view of this, the choice not to describe the facts which
preceded the petition stands out. The only details provided about the
past are figures relating to the number of detainees in the facility and
how long they were held. The court evades telling the readers of the
judgment what the detainees were told about their place of detention
(for instance: that they are “on the moon”). It does not address the
question of who, even within state authorities, knew about the facility.
“[W]e are not addressing the situation prior to the hearing of the
petition”, states President Beinisch.[2]
However, concealment never ends with concealment alone. It ends with
deception. As recalled, the context for submitting the petition was the
authorities’ evasiveness in providing answers regarding the
whereabouts of detainees as well as false answers. The court does not
share this with the reader, but rather tells a different story. According to
this story, “the petition was filed in the context of the publication of a
newspaper report regarding the existence of a secret detention facility
the location of which as well as the conditions of holding detainees
therein were confidential and concealed from the public.”[3] Indeed, in
the summer of 2003, Aviv Lavie, a journalist, did publish an extensive
investigative report about Facility 1391, yet this report was a result of
HaMoked’s exposure of the facility and the battle to have it shut down
and was not the catalyst for the petition.
The justices’ choice of “not addressing the situation prior to the hearing
of the petition”, is only the beginning of their apologetics. President
Beinisch reiterates that Facility 1391 is not a black hole, like the facilities
operated by the CIA around the world, the very existence of which was
denied. She emphasizes time and again that holding detainees in
Facility 1391 does not fall under the definition of “enforced
disappearances” which place individuals outside the protection of the
law. This rhetoric is merely a straw man argument: HaMoked never
claimed that holding detainees in the facility constitutes enforced
disappearance. HaMoked claimed that the facility’s secrecy annuls a
number of guarantees put in place to, inter alia, prevent the
phenomenon of enforced disappearances. These guarantees were
stipulated in express statutory provisions which are hard to interpret,
either literally or purposefully, in a manner which allows to hold a
detainee in a secret facility.
What do the justices do with these express statutory provisions, such as
the provisions which require declaring places of detention and telling
detainees and their families where they are held? It is difficult to extract
a clear answer to this question from the judgment. In some instances, it
seems that the justices accept the state’s position that a purposeful
interpretation of these provision is not at odds with the existence of a
secret prison; that it is sufficient to declare a prison by a code name, the
significance of which is known by very few; and that the authorities fulfill
their obligation to notify the detainee’s family by providing the
telephone number of a contact with respect to the detainee. In other
instances, it seems that the justices do not adopt the position that this is
the literal meaning of the laws, but allow a deviation from the letter of
the law in this specific case, due to military necessity and as long as a
series of alternative guarantees for protecting the detainees is
maintained, such that the harm done to the detainees is
“proportionate”.
These guarantees, which are to replace the guarantees originating in the
publicity of the place of detention and its opening to outside supervision,
are the basis for the decision to reject the petition. The President of the
Supreme Court presents some of these in her opinion: Thus, for
example, it has been determined that residents of Israel or the
Territories would not be held in the facility, that individuals would not be
held in the facility for longer than a “limited and extremely brief” period
of time, and that holding a person in the facility requires authorization
by “high ranking officials” and reporting to the attorney generals. In
addition, the court was presented with procedures designed to ensure
the rights of the detainees: the facility is inspected by government
bodies and members of the Secret Services Subcommittee of the
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee may visit it.
The pesky theoretician might ask: if, in any case, the correct
interpretation of the law does not deny the existence of a secret prison
why was rejection of the petition subjected to the existence of these
special guarantees? And if the correct interpretation of the law forbids
the existence of a secret facility, where is the clause empowering the
state, with the approval of the court, to enact alternative norms
applicable to secret prisons anchored? As previously stated, the
judgment provides no answer to these questions.
The pesky practical person would ask another question. He would want
to know exactly which norms apply to Facility 1391. An attorney
representing a detainee held in the facility might, for example, like to
know how many days a detainee may be held in Facility 1391, so that if
his client is held there for a longer period, he may petition to have him
transferred. There is no answer to this question in the judgment either.
The maximum time a detainee may be held is “a limited and extremely
brief duration not exceeding the number of days noted by counsel for
the state in the annex to the second supplementary response on behalf
of the state attorney’s office, submitted for review by the court only
(section 7 of the annex).”[4] The rest of the norms applicable to the
facility are mostly confidential: “Naturally, we are unable to expose the
details of the arrangement brought for our review ex parte.”[5] One can
only hope that those government officials who possess these provisions
are diligent in upholding them…
Thus, on course to endorsing the existence of a secret prison, the
Supreme Court created secret legislation and secret case law. The
detainees inside Facility 1391 will not be placed outside the protection
of the law, but the law protecting them will remain secret, and as such,
unenforceable, save for by the authorities themselves. At times, the
judgment seems like a statement of defense for the state and the court
itself, a statement of defense which seeks to convince us to count on the
justices that the secret guarantees they sanctioned will indeed
guarantee the detainees’ rights. The harder this statement of defense
tries, the more questions it raises. The saying that sunlight is the best
disinfected holds true not only for prisons but also for the content of
court rulings.

[1] Committee against Torture, 42nd session, Geneva, 27/4/09-15/5/09 "Consideration

of reports submitted by states parties under article 19 of the convention – concluding
observations of the Committee against Torture – Israel".
[2] Paragraph 23 of the judgment.
[3] Paragraph 23 of the judgment.
[4] Paragraph 27 of the judgment.
[5] Paragraph 28 of the judgment.

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Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory

Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories
Human Rights Watch, December 2010
I. Summary
This report consists of a series of case studies that compare Israel’s
different treatment of Jewish settlements to nearby Palestinian
communities throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It
describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel
operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its
exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and
benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on
Palestinians. The report highlights Israeli practices the only discernable
purposes of which appear to be promoting life in the settlements while
in many instances stifling growth in Palestinian communities and even
forcibly displacing Palestinian residents.
Such different treatment, on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national
origin and not narrowly tailored to meet security or other justifiable
goals, violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under
human rights law.
It is widely acknowledged that Israel’s settlements in the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem, violate international humanitarian law, which
prohibits the occupying power from transferring its civilian population
into the territories it occupies; Israel appears to be the only country to
contest that its settlements are illegal. Human Rights Watch continues
to agree with the nearly universal position that Israel should cease its
violation of international humanitarian law by removing its citizens from
the West Bank. This report focuses on the less-discussed discriminatory
aspect of Israeli settlement policies, and analyzes serious and ongoing
violations of other rights in that context.
The case studies in this report show that discriminatory Israeli policies
control many aspects of the day-to-day life of Palestinians who live in
areas under exclusive Israeli control and that those policies often have
no conceivable security justification. For example, Jubbet al-Dhib is a
160-person Palestinian village to the southeast of Bethlehem that is
often accessible only by foot because its only connection to a paved
road is a rough, 1.5 kilometer-long dirt track.
Children from Jubbet al-Dhib must walk to schools in other villages
several kilometers away because their own village has no school. Jubbet
al-Dhib lacks electricity despite numerous requests to be connected to
the Israeli electric grid, which Israeli authorities have rejected; Israeli
authorities also rejected an internationally donor-funded project that
would have provided the village with solar-powered streetlights. Any
meat or milk in the village must be eaten the same day due to lack of
refrigeration; residents often resort to eating preserved foods instead.
Villagers depend for light on candles, kerosene lanterns, and, when they
can afford to fill it with gasoline, a small generator.
Approximately 350 meters away is the Jewish community of Sde Bar. It
has a paved access road for its population of around 50 people and is
connected to Jerusalem by a new, multimillion dollar highway—the
“Lieberman Road”—which bypasses Palestinian cities, towns, and
villages like Jubbet al-Dhib. Sde Bar operates a high school, but Jubbet
al-Dhib students are ineligible to attend; for Palestinians, settlements
are closed military areas that may be entered only with special military
permits. Residents of Sde Bar have the amenities common to any Israeli
town, such as refrigerators and electric lights, which Jubbet al-Dhib
villagers can see from their homes at night.
Both Jubbet al-Dhib and Sde Bar fall within “Area C” – land that was
designated under the 1995 Oslo interim peace agreement to fall under
Israeli civil and military control. But while Israel grants Sde Bar residents
access to roads, electricity, and funds for housing development, it
deprives residents of Jubbet al-Dhib of similar amenities. Since Sde Bar’s
founding in 1997, Israel has invested millions of dollars in nearby Jewish
settlements like Tekoa and Nokdim to build homes, schools, community
centers, health clinics, and swimming pools. The same is not true for
Jubbet al-Dhib, which dates to 1929. Development and infrastructure
there are at a standstill, strictly prohibited by Israeli authorities who
prevent villagers from building new houses or expanding those they
already have.1
Israel has human rights obligations towards all persons under its control,
including those in territory it occupies, as has been stated by the
International Court of Justice and other international bodies. Israel
denies that its human rights obligations apply to Palestinians in the West
Bank, except for East Jerusalem, which it considers part of Israel. It
argues against the applicability of human rights law based on an
interpretation that restricts its applicability to the territory of a state and
not to occupied territories, and on the argument that the law of
occupation applies to the West Bank to the exclusion of human rights
law. The International Court of Justice as well as several UN human
rights committees have rejected this interpretation, on the basis of the
text of the relevant human rights treaties, which define their
applicability based on the degree of a government’s control over a
person rather than on a state’s borders, and on the principle that human
rights law and the law of occupation, as written and interpreted, are not
mutually exclusive but complementary obligations that may both apply
to populations under a government’s effective control. International law
does not require Israel to treat Palestinian residents of the West Bank as
though they were Israeli citizens; for example, non-citizens do not have
the right to vote. However, the rights of Israeli citizens—including
settlers—do not include the right to benefit from discriminatory
treatment that violates the rights of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied
territory.
Israel’s differential treatment in law, regulations, and administrative
practice directly affect the roughly 490,000 Jewish settlers and 420,000
Palestinians in areas under its exclusive control in the West Bank
(including in Area C and East Jerusalem). In addition, the implications of
Israel’s discriminatory policies are far broader, affecting many of the
roughly 2.4 million Palestinians living in the cities and towns in the
occupied West Bank (known as Areas A and B) where Israel has ceded
most civil responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority. That is because
Area C contains substantial amounts of water resources, grazing and
agricultural land, and the land reserves required for developing cities,
towns, and infrastructure. It is also the only contiguous area in the West
Bank, effectively isolating the cities and towns (which fall outside Area
C) into disconnected enclaves.2 As a result, Israel effectively controls
movement and access between Palestinian population centers.3
Palestinians must cross checkpoints to travel through Area C and need
permits to build infrastructure that would connect to cities, towns, and
villages (including roads, water and sewage pipes, and electricity
towers). It is often impossible for Palestinian cities, towns, and villages
that have outgrown municipal lands to expand into Area C, where Israel
strictly controls Palestinian construction.
To the extent that Israel, which remains ultimately responsible for
persons in the territories it occupies, has conferred powers on the
Palestinian Authority (PA) in certain areas, the PA also has human rights
responsibilities. Since 1967, when it seized the West Bank from Jordan
during hostilities—and under a variety of governments, since the right-
wing Likud party first came to power in 1977—Israel has expropriated
land from Palestinians for Jewish-Israeli settlements and their supporting
infrastructure, denied Palestinians building permits and demolished
“illegal” Palestinian construction (i.e., Palestinian construction that the
Israeli government chose not to authorize), prevented Palestinian
villages from upgrading or building homes, schools, health clinics, wells,
and water cisterns, blocked Palestinians from accessing roads and
agricultural lands, failed to provide electricity, sewage, water, and other
utilities to Palestinian communities, and rejected their applications for
such services. Such measures have not only limited the expansion of
Palestinian villages, but imposed severe hardships for residents,
including forcing children to walk long distances for school, and leaving
residents with limited access to medical care, which can often be
accessed only by crossing multiple checkpoints, because there are no
Palestinian general hospitals in Area C. Road blocks, checkpoints, and
substandard roads delay ambulances and people seeking medical care,
in addition to the costs they impose on the Palestinian economy. Since
Palestinians need special military permits to enter settlements, usually
as laborers, medical services there are effectively unavailable to them.
In some cases, Israel’s discriminatory policies have forcibly displaced
Palestinians from their communities.
Such policies have not been applied to Jewish settlements.
Notwithstanding Israel’s evacuation of settlers from Gaza and four West
Bank settlements in 2005, and its evacuation of a handful of “outposts”
(unauthorized settlements), settlements have expanded in size—
growing from approximately 241,500 inhabitants in 1992 to roughly
490,000 inhabitants in 2010 (including East Jerusalem). Settlers enjoy
continuing government subsidies, including funding for housing,
education, and infrastructure such as special roads.
In most cases where Israel has acknowledged differential treatment of
Palestinians—such as barring them from accessing “settler-only” roads
and subjecting them to 505 roadblocks and checkpoints within the West
Bank (as of June 2010)—it has asserted that the measures are necessary
to protect Jewish settlers and other Israelis who are subject to periodic
attacks by Palestinian armed groups, particularly during the second
Palestinian intifada, or uprising, from 2000 to around 2006.4
But no security or other legitimate rationale can explain many instances
of differential treatment of Palestinians, such as permit denials that
effectively prohibit Palestinians from building or repairing homes,
schools, roads, and water tanks; repairing a home does not under any
stretch of the imagination constitute a security threat. In cases where
Israel has justified policies that harm Palestinians on the grounds of
security (whether that of residents of Israel or of settlers), it has often
done so based on policies that define all Palestinians as a security threat
by virtue of their race and national origin, rather than on policies that
are narrowly tailored to well-defined security interests. A government’s
differential treatment of different populations can sometimes be
justified, but only to the extent that it serves a legitimate purpose and is
narrowly tailored to have the least harmful impact possible.
In some cases, the harm caused to Palestinians by Israel’s
discriminatory policies has been vastly disproportionate to the stated
goal and has been carried out despite less harmful alternatives. For
example, the Israeli military requires many Palestinians to obtain
military “coordination” in order to access their olive groves and other
agricultural lands where those lands are located near settlements. Such
a policy purportedly protects settlers from potential attacks, as well as
protecting Palestinians from settler attacks, but in practice, the Israeli
military prohibits (by refusing to “coordinate” access) Palestinian
villagers from accessing their lands for almost the entire year. Residents
of Al Janiya, a Palestinian village near the settlement of Talmon, cannot
adequately cultivate their lands during the roughly two weeks per year
that they have "coordinated" access to them, with the result that
agricultural yields have declined sharply and their livelihoods have been
harmed. The Israeli military has not attempted to alleviate this near-
permanent exclusion of Palestinians from their lands by increasing the
amount of time they are given access or by imposing restrictions on the
settlers to enhance Palestinian access, effectively forcing Palestinians to
bear the entire burden of ensuring settlers’ security.
Israel’s desire to protect settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
and citizens within Israel from the threat of attack by Palestinian armed
groups does not justify policies that have nothing to do with security or
that discriminate against all Palestinians as if they were all security
threats.
Discriminatory practices also often violate Israel’s obligations towards
Palestinians under the law of occupation. As the occupying power in the
West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israel is obliged to ensure the
welfare of the occupied population and to limit its actions according to
the law of occupation as set forth in international humanitarian law. In
some cases, Israeli policies have made Palestinian communities virtually
uninhabitable and effectively forced residents to leave. According to a
survey of households in Area C and East Jerusalem in June 2009, some
31 percent of Palestinian residents had been displaced since 2000.5 The
unnecessary and effectively forcible transfer of the occupied population
by the occupying power to other parts of the territory, by unlawfully
demolishing homes or by other measures that make it impossible to
remain in a given community, is a serious violation of Israel’s obligations
under the law of occupation. Israel’s confiscation of land and natural
resources for the benefit of settlements exceeds its authority as an
occupying power, as does its demolition of Palestinian homes and other
property in any case except for urgent military necessity.
Israel’s highest court has ruled that certain measures imposed against
Palestinian citizens of Israel were illegal because they were
discriminatory. The court has also ruled that certain Israeli military
measures in the West Bank, including bans on Palestinian drivers using
certain roads and the route of certain parts of Israel’s separation barrier,
have “disproportionately” harmed Palestinians when weighed against
the benefit to settlers and other Israelis. However, Human Rights Watch
is not aware that the courts have adjudicated on the merits of the
question of whether any Israeli practice in the West Bank discriminated
against Palestinians, although petitioners have raised such claims in a
number of cases.6
In the cases that Human Rights Watch has examined, there appears to
be no legal justification for Israel’s differential treatment of Palestinians,
which breaches Israel’s obligations under international law, violating the
prohibition against discrimination as well as a host of associated rights,
including the right to freedom of movement, the right to a home, and
the right to health.
This report is not a comprehensive overview of all instances of
discrimination between settlers and Palestinians or a complete survey of
all of the policies and practices that have resulted in the forcible
displacement of Palestinians. Rather, it addresses a representative
sample of discriminatory policies, laws, and regulations that privilege
Jewish settlers to the detriment of Palestinians. As noted, Israel contests
the illegality of its settlements. Quite apart from that isolated position,
Israel should nonetheless immediately cease these discriminatory
policies, and allow Palestinians to build and develop their land, travel
and move freely, with equitable access to water, electricity, and basic
infrastructure, except to the extent that limits are justified by narrowly-
tailored security needs.
Israel’s allies—above all the United States—should strongly encourage
the Israeli government to abide by its obligations and should themselves
ensure that they are not contributing to or complicit in the violations of
international law caused by the settlements, such as the discriminatory
human rights violations that are the focus of this report. Foreign
governments that are export markets for settlement products should
thus not provide incentives such as preferential tariff treatment for
those products, particularly in cases where ongoing discriminatory rights
violations against Palestinians have contributed to the production of
goods – for example, agricultural crops exported from settlements that
use water from Israeli-drilled wells that have dried up nearby Palestinian
wells, limiting Palestinians’ ability to continue cultivating their own
agricultural lands and even gaining access to drinking water.
The United States should consider suspending financing to Israel in an
amount equivalent to the costs of the Israeli government’s spending in
support of settlements and the discriminatory policies documented in
this report, since the US’s $2.75 billion in annual military aid to Israel
substantially offsets these costs.
Foreign governments also should ensure that laws and regulations
granting tax exemptions for private, charitable donations or charitable
organizations that support settlements are consistent with governmental
obligations to ensure respect for international law, including human
rights prohibitions against discrimination. For example, numerous US-
registered tax exempt organizations fund settlements that were
established through discriminatory means of land confiscation, planning
and construction, that exclude Palestinians from any similar benefits,
and continue to violate the human rights of Palestinian residents of the
West Bank through ongoing expansion and land confiscation, continued
restrictions on freedom of movement, and other practices. The US
Congress should request the General Accounting Office to prepare a
report on the amounts and end-uses of tax-exempt funding flows to
settlements, and the lawfulness of tax-exemptions for such support
according to the US’s international obligations.
Israeli and multinational corporations and their subsidiaries profit from
settlements in a variety of ways, including by receiving, producing,
exporting, or marketing settlement agricultural and industrial goods, and
by financing or constructing settlement buildings and infrastructure.
Companies have directly contributed to discriminatory rights violations
against Palestinians, for example through business activities based on
lands that were unlawfully confiscated from Palestinians without
compensation for the benefit of settlers, or activities that consume
natural resources like water or rock quarries to which Israeli policies
provide settlement industries preferential access, while denying
equitable access to Palestinians. These businesses also benefit from
Israeli governmental subsidies, tax abatements, and discriminatory
access to infrastructure, permits, and export channels; Palestinian
businesses deprived of equitable access to these government-provided
benefits are sometimes as a result unable to compete against
settlement-based companies in Palestinian, Israeli, or foreign markets.
Companies that benefit directly from discrimination should urgently and
impartially review the impact of their activities on Palestinians’ human
rights and identify and implement plans to prevent and mitigate these
violations, in accordance with their corporate codes of ethics and with
international standards, such as the “Ruggie framework” developed by
the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and
human rights, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) guidelines for multinational enterprises, which
require businesses to respect the human rights of those affected by
their activities. In cases where companies’ involvement in activities in
the Occupied Palestinian Territories is found to contribute to serious
violations of international law, including prohibitions against
discrimination, companies should, in consultation with affected settlers
and Palestinians, end such operations.
Background
This report focuses on East Jerusalem and on “Area C,” the latter an
administrative area that derives from the temporary agreement (known
as “Oslo 2”) signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) in September 1995, which created and granted limited autonomy
to the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of an as-yet unreached final
status agreement. Oslo 2 divided the West Bank (excluding East
Jerusalem) into three administrative areas—A, B, and C. As modified by
subsequent agreements, Area A, which includes Palestinian cities and
covers approximately 18 percent of the land of the West Bank, was
transferred to the civil and military control of the PA.7 Israel retains
military control over Area B, which covers 22 percent of the territory,
including most of the built-up areas of the Palestinian villages, but
transferred civil control to the PA.8 Israel retained full control of security,
planning, and building in the remaining 60 percent of the West Bank
(some 340,000 hectares of land), known as Area C, which includes Israeli
settlements, main roads, and smaller Palestinian villages and
agricultural lands . Most Palestinians live in Areas A and B. Some four
percent live in Area C.
The rationale for the division was, in part, that the agreement granted
the PA control of the majority of the Palestinian population, while leaving
sparsely populated but extensive areas under Israeli control.9
Israel controls civil matters related to planning and construction and
access to utilities and other services in Area C. It has granted Jewish-
only settlements control of roughly 70 percent of the area (or 42.8
percent of the West Bank, including settlements’ built-up areas and land
reserves), and offers settlers sizable subsidies to move, build, and invest
there. Israel effectively allows Palestinians to build or improve their
homes and agricultural lands in only one percent of Area C, by
designating lands there according to several categories, all of which
restrict Palestinians’ ability to use them. In addition to areas controlled
by settlers, Israel has designated roughly 18 to 20 percent of the West
Bank closed military zones (often designated as firing zones that overlap
with the large land areas designated as the territory of settlement
regional councils) and 10 percent as nature reserves, where Palestinian
and Israeli land use is prohibited. Only Palestinians with special permits
may enter the settlements, usually for work such as construction,
cleaning, or agriculture. The PA is responsible under the 1995 Oslo
accords for providing services to all Palestinian villages in the West
Bank, including education and health services to communities in Area C.
Under those agreements, Israel was to retain its military control but
progressively to transfer its civil authority over Area C to the PA by
1999. Israel transferred small amounts of Area B to Area A, and of Area
C to Area B, in 1999 and 2000 following agreements at Sharm el-Sheikh,
Egypt, before the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada (uprising)
in 2000, but continues to maintain its absolute authority over Area C.
The Civil Administration—the Israel military authority that governs
civilian matters in the West Bank— and the IDF must approve any
construction in Area C, from small-scale renovations and connections, to
utilities, to the construction of homes, schools, and hospitals.
Israel’s complete control over all construction in Area C has made it
difficult for the PA to fulfill its limited educational and health
responsibilities there. A survey conducted in 2009 by United Nations
agencies found that the PA faced “difficulties in obtaining building
permits” from the Israeli Civil Administration for building or expanding
schools and health clinics, which “significantly impedes the fulfillment of
this responsibility.” As a result, Palestinians have generally been forced
to fend for themselves in obtaining these services. The Israeli Interior
Ministry recognizes as official “communities” 121 settlements
established in the West Bank after Israel occupied the territory in 1967.
Israel considers as “neighborhoods” of Jerusalem 12 other settlements
located in the part of the West Bank that Israel annexed to the
Jerusalem municipality. Since the mid-1990s, Israel largely stopped
officially recognizing new settlements, leading to the establishment of
an additional 100 “unrecognized” settlements, usually referred to as
“outposts.”
Israel continues to expand and invest in the existing settlements. In
addition to providing infrastructure to settlements and unrecognized
outposts alike—such as connections to the road network and electricity
grid, water supply, schools and hospitals, and devoting significant
security expenditure in the form of IDF forces obliged to guard them—
Israeli policies have provided a wide variety of financial incentives to
Jews willing to live in settlements. A study by the Israeli daily newspaper
Haaretz in 2003 found that government funding to settlements
amounted to US$1.4 billion annually (NIS 5.5 billion), including US$526
million in security costs to protect settlers.
In East Jerusalem, which Israel unilaterally annexed from Jordan in the
1967 Middle East War (it remains occupied territory under international
law), Israel exerts full governmental control over 190,000 Israeli and
roughly 270,000 Palestinian residents. This report documents that Israel
has sponsored the development of Jewish settlements in Palestinian
areas of East Jerusalem, even in houses from which Palestinian residents
are evicted, while strictly limiting Palestinian building and development,
including by demolishing homes. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem
pay taxes but receive far fewer services than do residents of
predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem.
Many Jews move to settlements due to their national-religious views;
they believe that the West Bank is part of the historical, ancient land of
Israel given to Jews by God. However, many ultra-orthodox and secular
Jewish settlers move to the settlements primarily for economic reasons,
such as the low cost of housing. Large government subsidies
undoubtedly contribute to the high levels of immigration to settlements;
in 2006, according to Israeli statistics, 20 percent of the population
increase in the settlements resulted from migration from inside Israel
(including new immigrants from other countries) rather than “natural
growth,” a term the Israeli government uses to justify settlement
construction. In 2007, 37 percent of settlement growth was due to such
migration.
In addition to receiving support from the Israeli government, settlements
receive support from private foreign donors, including Jewish and
Christian individuals and non-profit organizations (NGOs) in the United
States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Donations to non-profit
groups in foreign countries that fund Jewish settlements in the West
Bank are often tax-deductible, including in the US. Charities have funded
many aspects of settlements, including synagogues, water networks,
vocational training for troubled settler youth, rifle scopes, thermal
imaging systems, and other security equipment.
Settlers also benefit from Israeli government subsidies that attract
investment and produce agricultural and industrial products, including
for export to overseas markets. Several multinational corporations have
invested, usually through their subsidiaries, in settlement “industrial
zones,” which receive massive subsidies and tax abatements from the
Israeli government.
Construction Permits, Zoning, and Demolitions
Israel exercises complete control over planning procedures and
construction in Area C of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Although
the PA controls planning and construction in Areas A and B, in many
cases these cover only the areas of Palestinian cities and towns that
were already built-up in 1995, when the Oslo agreement was signed;
over the past 15 years, Israel’s complete control over Area C has
significantly affected residents of these cities and towns, particularly in
cases where Israel has refused to approve Palestinian requests to build
new homes beyond the limit of the built-up area, as necessary to
accommodate the expanding population. For the 150,000 Palestinians
whose villages lie partly or entirely inside Area C, Israel’s control over
planning and construction has had severe consequences. Israeli
authorities rarely permit residential construction intended to benefit
Palestinians, who are effectively prevented from building outside built-
up areas that in many cases are already over-crowded, and that amount
to only one percent of Area C. Israel altered the Jordanian planning laws
in place in the West Bank so as to exclude Palestinians from any
participation in the planning process. As a result, only 18 of the 150
Palestinian communities in Area C have any plans, of which 16 were
drafted by Israeli military authorities and which allow building in only
very limited areas. In contrast, Israeli military orders have created a
separate track for settlers, who participate in planning their own
communities.
Palestinian homes and buildings that are not constructed in accordance
with an approved Israeli plan are not eligible for building permits and are
subject to demolition. When Palestinians construct, repair, or renovate
homes, mosques, schools, medical clinics, animal pens, electricity poles,
water pipes, wells, and cisterns without prior Israeli authorization—
which is often impossible to obtain—the Israeli Civil Administration
distributes “stop work” orders and may then authorize demolition. From
2000 to 2007, Israeli authorities rejected more than 94 percent of
Palestinian building permit requests in Area C; according to government
statistics, for every building permit application granted to Palestinians
by the Israeli authorities during this period, 18 Palestinian structures
were demolished and demolition orders were issued for 55 more. The UN
reported in 2009 that Israeli authorities had delayed granting permits or
had ordered the demolition of at least 25 schools in Area C with over
6,000 students.
In contrast, in several cases where Jewish settlers have built buildings,
roads, and other infrastructure—and entire settlement outposts—without
necessary permits, Israeli authorities did not demolish the buildings, but
retroactively approved their construction. An Israeli governmental report
in 2005 identified more than 100 settlement outposts that had been
built illegally, without the required permits; a few have been
demolished–after which settlers often rebuilt them–but virtually the
same number of outposts remains today. In several cases documented
in this report, Israeli settlements and outposts continued to expand near
Palestinian communities, which some residents were effectively forced
to leave due to Israeli planning restrictions that prevented them from
remaining in homes they had occupied for years or from building homes
to accommodate expanding families. Repeated Israeli demolitions have
permanently displaced Palestinian families from communities in the
West Bank on the grounds that the communities are located inside
“closed military zones,” which the communities pre-dated and which the
Israeli military imposed despite the availability of large, uninhabited
areas of land nearby and in other areas of the Jordan Valley. Israel also
applies discriminatory policies to housing in East Jerusalem, which unlike
the rest of the West Bank it considers to be part of Israel. Israeli zoning
laws reserve some 25 percent of the land in East Jerusalem for Israeli
settlements, while zoning only 13 percent of the land for Palestinian
construction, according to UN figures. In some Palestinian
neighborhoods, as a result, Israel has issued no construction permits
since 1967, and has demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes and
buildings on the grounds that they were built illegally.
According to the UN, Israeli authorities destroyed 730 Palestinian houses
in East Jerusalem from 2000 to the end of 2009 due to lack of building
permits. In contrast, Israeli authorities have in several cases failed to
implement court orders to seal or demolish unlawful construction by
settlers in East Jerusalem. In 2004, for example, 85 percent of recorded
building violations in Jerusalem were located in the western part of the
city, yet 91 percent of all administrative demolitions orders were for
buildings in East Jerusalem, according to the Association for Civil Rights
in Israel (ACRI), an Israeli human rights organization.
Israeli authorities have also repeatedly refused to approve town plans
submitted on behalf of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem
neighborhoods. In the neighborhood of al-Bustan, municipal authorities
rejected local residents’ plans but commissioned and approved a plan
that would have razed 88 Palestinian homes to create a “garden” park
area adjoining the “City of David,” a settler-run tourist and
archaeological site nearby (under international pressure, the
municipality revised the plan, which will now destroy between 20 and 40
homes and allow displaced Palestinians to move into the remaining
structures already occupied by other families.) El Ad, the settler group
operating the archaeological site, has built a settlement that includes
several Palestinian homes it obtained on the basis of Israel’s “absentee
property” law, which strips ownership rights from Palestinians who were
not physically present in East Jerusalem on the date Israel occupied the
area in 1967. El Ad has caused property damage and collapses by
tunneling and conducting unapproved excavations underneath
Palestinian homes.
In 2009, the Jerusalem municipality adopted a master plan (“Jerusalem
Outline Plan 2000”) intended "to guide and outline the city's
development in the next decades," that embraced the goal of
“maintain[ing] a ratio of 70% Jews and 30% Arabs” in the city. The
plan’s introduction acknowledged that the “goal is not attainable—the
demographic ratio was already 65:35 in 2008—and that a 60:40
demographic ratio of Jews to Arabs would emerge by 2020. The plan
identified “maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city” by improving
services and affordable housing for Jews as a “main policy goal.”
According to the Israeli NGO Ir Amim, which focuses on Jerusalem issues,
based on current demographic trends the plan would create a massive
projected housing shortage that would affect 150,000 Palestinians by
2030. Israeli authorities have not invoked a security rationale for the
political goal of altering the demographic balance in Jerusalem, which
does not justify the different treatment of the populations in Jerusalem.
Seen in their totality, Israeli plans aim to alter the demographic balance
in Jerusalem as a whole by lowering the number of the city’s Palestinian
residents (including Christians as well as Muslims). Israeli authorities
cancelled the Jerusalem residency permits of some 4,500 Palestinians in
2008 alone; the interior ministry allows only those Palestinians whom it
determines have their “center of life” in Jerusalem to retain their
residency permits. (Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have special
residency permits, which are distinct from Israeli citizenship or from PA
identity cards held by other residents of the West Bank.)
The government’s housing and construction policies in the West Bank
(including East Jerusalem) violate the state’s obligation not to
discriminate in policies relating to housing, and have led to home
demolitions that amount to arbitrary violations of the rights to a home,
to housing, and to property; they also violate prohibitions against forced
displacement of a population under occupation. Further, as an occupying
power, Israel is prohibited from altering the legislation of the occupied
territories, including planning laws, and from destroying property except
as needed to maintain orderly governance of the territory and for
military necessity. Rather than issuing demolition orders against
schools, Israel is obliged to “facilitate the proper working” of educational
institutions. Israel’s human rights obligations require it to destroy homes
only as a last resort and to provide alternative housing at least
equivalent to that which it destroyed. Unless and until an agreement is
reached that respects the rights of the persons forcibly displaced
without due process, Israel is obligated to pay them compensation and
allow them to return to their lands.
Freedom of Movement
Israel has imposed an extensive network of movement restrictions on
Palestinians, including checkpoints, roadblocks, and the separation
barrier, in many cases solely or primarily for the benefit of settlers. As a
result, large sections of the West Bank remain barred to Palestinians
except those with special permits or residency in those areas. This
segregation of territory limits the movement of Palestinians and
effectively isolates them in residential pockets from which entry and exit
is restricted and can be extremely difficult.
In contrast, settlers enjoy virtually unfettered freedom of moment, with
easy access to roads, built for them at considerable expense, that
bypass Palestinian populated areas and connect settlements to the
Israeli road network, other settlements, and major metropolitan areas
inside Israel. In some cases, Palestinians are not only barred from these
roads, but are effectively cut off from their lands and other villages and
cities. According to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, as of August 2009,
Palestinian vehicles were completely prohibited from traveling on 105
kilometers of West Bank roads, and only permitted vehicles, VIP card
holders, and ambulances could travel on another 180 kilometers of
roads. The primary road construction projects that Israel has undertaken
for the benefit of West Bank Palestinians are “fabric of life roads”—
usually underpasses beneath settler bypass roads that allow Palestinians
to move between enclaves.
Settlers also typically enjoy easy passage through checkpoints, or travel
on roads without any checkpoints, whereas Palestinian travel is inhibited
by more than 500 earth mounds, checkpoints, and roadblocks, as well as
by the separation barrier. According to numerous media, UN, and NGO
reports, Israeli soldiers often fail to open the checkpoints and gates in
the separation barrier that they are manning, or subject Palestinians to
arbitrary and humiliating treatment.10 Israeli restrictions on movement
have led to the “gradual funneling of Palestinian traffic onto a secondary
road network,” the UN reported in June 2010.
The World Bank noted that movement restrictions on Palestinians
contributed to a 60 percent decline in per capita GDP from 1999 to
2008, and argued that “a fundamental reassessment of closure, and a
restoration of the presumption of movement, as embodied in the many
agreements between [Israel] and the Palestinian Authority,” was
necessary to allow “the Palestinian private sector be able to recover and
fuel sustainable growth.”
In many West Bank areas, Israeli authorities allow Jewish settlers to
travel freely but require Palestinians to present permits, usually for
security reasons, which are often difficult to obtain. This is particularly
salient in the areas of the West Bank that lie to the west (i.e., on the
“Israeli side”) of the separation barrier. Israel began to construct the
barrier during the second intifada for the stated purpose of preventing
Palestinians from entering Israel to carry out suicide bombings or other
attacks; however, 85 percent of the wall’s route falls inside the West
Bank. A report by the Israeli NGO Bimkom found that the barrier’s path
“almost totally ignores the daily needs of the Palestinian population”
and is “focused almost exclusively on the desire to maintain the fabric of
life of Israeli settlers.” Israelis may enter and exit these areas—including
East Jerusalem—freely, without passing through checkpoints or
presenting identification. An estimated 7,800 Palestinians live in these
“seam zone” areas where the barrier has been completed (not including
East Jerusalem) and an unknown number of others own agricultural
lands there.
Palestinians may enter the seam zone only with special permits from the
Israeli military, which must be renewed and are granted only to persons
who can prove “permanent residence” in the area. The UN found in
November 2006 that Israeli military authorities had denied 60 percent of
Palestinian applicants permits to access land they owned in these “seam
zone” areas. Palestinians may enter the seam zone through fewer than
half of the 67 special gates that are spaced at intervals in the 425
kilometers of the separation barrier’s 709-kilometer route constructed to
date, and that are often open only seasonally or for limited hours each
day (this report does not consider in detail unlawful restrictions on
freedom of movement imposed by Israel’s separation barrier, which
have been reported extensively).
Palestinians wishing to enter Jewish settlements, usually for work
purposes, also must obtain individual permits from an IDF commander,
according to a military order that declares settlements to be closed
military zones only to Palestinians. In cases of agricultural settlements,
Israeli authorities allow settlers to transport agricultural goods directly
and freely from the settlement to locations in Israel, from where they are
often exported abroad. Palestinian farmers must unload and re-load
their produce at checkpoints inside the West Bank, and when they cross
checkpoints into Israel. The delay and labor involved raises costs, and
may damage the products.
The Israeli government argues that its restriction of the freedom of West
Bank Palestinians’ freedom of movement is justified on security grounds.
For instance, the Israeli rights group HaMoked petitioned against the
“seam zone” policy, which requires Palestinians to obtain special
permits to access their lands in areas of the West Bank located between
the Israeli separation barrier and the 1949 armistice line (the “green
line”), while Israelis and foreigners visiting Israel need no such permits.
In its response to the petition, the state argued:
… it is contended that the declaration on closing area and the
accompanying orders constitute systematic discrimination…. This
contention ignores the fact that the said declaration and orders were
issued after Palestinian residents from the region carried out dozens and
hundreds of deadly terrorist attacks on a purely racist bias against Israel
and Israelis; thus, substantive security reasons required a distinction be
made between Palestinians and other persons who move about in the
territory.11
However, the Israeli policies in question restrict the movement of all
Palestinians, rather than being targeted to particular persons deemed to
present security risks. Further, these policies as implemented often
require Palestinians to bear the entire burden of security, their own as
well as the settlers’; for example, the IDF requires Palestinians who own
agricultural lands near settlements to obtain the IDF’s agreement to
“coordinate” visits to these lands, ostensibly to prevent settlers from
attacking Palestinians, and only grants such coordination during a few
weeks per year.
In two cases where the Israeli military barred Palestinians from using the
roads due to Palestinian attacks that killed Israeli drivers during the
second intifada, the Israeli high court has recently ordered the re-
opening of “settler-only” roads. In other cases, Israeli courts ordered the
military to re-route sections of the separation barrier. In such cases, the
court’s rulings have been based on findings that the burden imposed on
Palestinians was “disproportionate” to the security or other benefits to
settlers. However, whereas the high court has directly addressed
discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, it has failed to address the
discriminatory nature of the restrictions imposed on Palestinians in the
West Bank, with the result that its rulings have addressed the impact of
the implementation of policies that treat all Palestinians as security
risks, but not the discriminatory nature of the policies themselves (see
“Israeli jurisprudence on discrimination,” below). In addition, in several
cases, the Israeli military has failed to implement court decisions
requiring it to reduce harms affecting thousands of Palestinians, even
years after the verdicts were delivered.12
As the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination noted
in 2007, Israeli policies “targeting a particular national or ethnic group,
especially through the wall, checkpoints, restricted roads, and permit
system, have … had a highly detrimental impact on the enjoyment of
human rights by Palestinians, in particular their rights to freedom of
movement, family life, work, education, and health.”
Water
Water has long been a scarce resource in the semi-arid region, and is
under increased threat of over-extraction; a symbol of the pressure on
regional water resources is the fact that the level of the Dead Sea is
dropping by one meter per year. Israeli authorities have controlled West
Bank water resources since they seized the land from Jordan in 1967,
and continue to control completely all Palestinian access to water
resources in the West Bank, including in Areas A, B and C. Israel
provides Jewish settlers with access to water for domestic and
agricultural use that it denies Palestinians. This policy has benefited the
Jewish settler economy while damaging that of Palestinians, whose
agricultural sector has lost up to 110,800 jobs compared to its potential
with adequate access to water resources, according to the World Bank.
Jewish settlements—which use a significant proportion of the water to
produce agricultural goods for export by a government-run private
export company, Agrexco—are serviced by wells in the West Bank
(largely in the Jordan Valley), and by the Israeli national water network
(Mekorot), which itself extracts water flowing from aquifers lying
beneath the occupied West Bank. 13 Even many unauthorized
settlement outposts are connected to the national water network. In
general, Israeli subsidies for settlers, including those for settlement
agriculture products, help offset costs of water and other utilities.
Average Israeli per capita consumption of water—including water
consumption by settlers— is 4.3 times that of Palestinians in the
occupied territories (including Gaza), according to the World Health
Organization. In the Jordan Valley, an estimated 9,000 settlers in Israeli
agricultural settlements use one-quarter the total amount of water
consumed by the entire Palestinian population of the West Bank, some
2.5 million people.
Over-extraction of water by Israel has caused a drop in the water table
in the West Bank, which contributed to a 4 percent decrease in the total
amount of water Palestinians extracted from 1995 to 2007, even as the
Palestinian population increased by as much as 50 percent, according to
the World Bank. According to UN estimates, some 60,000 Palestinians
currently living in Area C lack any access to running water and must pay
high prices – up to one-sixth of their income – to bring in water tankers,
which in turn require special permits from the Israeli authorities.
In 1995, according to the Oslo accords, Israel granted the PA a role in
developing and regulating the use of some water resources in the West
Bank, by creating a joint Israeli-PA water commission with equal
representation for both sides, which must approve West Bank water
projects. However, the commission’s history indicates that in reality
Israel and the PA are not equal partners. As of April 2009, the World
Bank reported the commission had approved all but one Israeli-proposed
projects in the West Bank, but only half of the projects (by dollar value)
proposed by the PA for the benefit of Palestinians, of which only one-
third had been implemented or begun implementation.
One reason for the unequal approval of projects is that Israel often
proposes infrastructure projects that will provide water to Palestinian
communities only if pipes are first laid to service Israeli settlements.
Fewer projects are implemented than approved because, in addition to
approval by the joint water commission, Palestinian water projects in
Area C must also be approved by the Israeli Civil Administration, which
often cites security grounds for refusing requests, such as ruling that
Palestinian wells would be drilled in areas considered too close to
settlements. Moreover, the majority of Palestinian projects that have
been approved involve improvements to water networks rather than
drilling new wells or increasing the amount of water available to those
networks; as noted, total Palestinian water consumption has decreased
over the past decade even as the population has grown.
Israeli planning restrictions and military orders have forced Palestinians
in Area C to spend up to one-sixth of their income to purchase water at
significant expense from small, portable water tankers; water
restrictions have severely affected Palestinian Bedouin communities,
many of which have no reliable access to water sources. In one case
discussed in this report, Israeli authorities cut water pipes leading from a
spring to a Palestinian farm in the northern Jordan Valley, which now has
no access to water other than via expensive tankers. The spring now
supplies water for a nearby settlement through pipes that run through
the farmer’s land, which he cannot touch.
The creation of water infrastructure to service Jewish settlers, and the
diversion of water resources away from Palestinians, is discriminatory.
Israel’s unequal provision of access to water resources is unjustified by
any reasonable security concern or other necessity (severe water
shortages affecting tens of thousands of Palestinians, notably in Area C,
also violates Israel’s obligations as an occupying power to ensure the
welfare of the occupied population). Its policy of exploiting the occupied
territory’s natural resources to benefit its own citizens violates its
obligations under customary international law to alter such laws and
policies in the occupied territory only where doing so benefits the local
population, does not permanently deplete resources, or is required by
reasons of strict military necessity (to the knowledge of Human Rights
Watch, Israel has not invoked the justification of military necessity
regarding its exploitation of natural resources in the West Bank, and
recently ordered a temporary halt to quarrying activities by Israeli and
multinational companies in the West Bank after a petition filed by Yesh
Din, an Israeli human rights NGO.) The effects of Israel’s discriminatory
restrictions on access to water, including prohibitions on well drilling,
access to the Jordan River, and the destruction of water pipes, tanks,
and cisterns, have been so severe that they have forcibly displaced
residents of several Palestinian communities, which also amounts to a
serious violation of the prohibition against involuntarily transferring
residents of an occupied territory from their homes.
Land Confiscation
Palestinians interviewed for this report stated that Israeli authorities had
confiscated their lands without compensation and transferred their
ownership to settlements, or protected and supported settlers who had
taken their lands without official authorization or recognition. The law of
occupation permits the confiscation of private property only in cases of
urgent military necessity. Human rights law permits confiscation of
property only where it is non-discriminatory and proportionate to
justifiable need, and where fair compensation is paid; the instances
documented in this report fail to meet these criteria.
Israel has confiscated West Bank land through a variety of means. For
example, it has designated 26.7 percent of the West Bank “state lands,”
based on laws and procedures that make it extremely difficult for
Palestinian residents to prove their ownership of an area, even when
they have resided there for generations. Other Israeli laws and practices
have made it virtually impossible for Palestinians to register ownership
on their own initiative (which they attempt most often in response to
attempts to expropriate their land). Israeli plans and maps that in some
cases provide the legal basis for confiscation or demolition orders are
written only in Hebrew and stored inside a settlement, which, as with
other settlements, Palestinians need a special military permit to enter.
At the same time, Israeli authorities have transferred confiscated lands
to the control of settlers. As noted, Israel has granted 70 percent of Area
C to settlements and confiscated large areas to build road networks for
settlers. No Palestinian land use is allowed in areas controlled by
settlements, in closed military zones, in nature reserves, or in areas not
zoned for Palestinian construction.
Even where Israel recognizes Palestinian land rights, owners may be
unable to exercise them: for instance, in numerous cases where
Palestinian-owned olive groves lie near a settlement, Palestinians are
able to access them for only brief periods twice or three times a year,
requiring Israeli military coordination and escorts. Israeli NGOs have also
found, based on government documents, that numerous Israeli
settlements have been partly built on privately owned Palestinian
property, violating Israeli and international law. The legal bases for land
confiscation, the processes by which Israel confiscated lands, and the
difficulty involved in appealing the confiscations are described in the
“Background” section below. Many of Israel’s numerous alterations,
through military orders, of applicable land laws and regulations in the
West Bank violate the limitation of its authority as an occupying power
to alter local laws except as necessary to maintain and restore order.
Israel’s unjustified confiscation and transfer of property from
Palestinians to settlers—the basis for demolitions and other measures
that create forced displacement—is discriminatory and violates the
prohibition on confiscation of property, except for reasons of military
necessity.
II. Recommendations
To the Government of Israel
Israel should accept its obligations as an occupying power to cease
support and subsidies for settlers, settlements, and regional councils in
the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, dismantle the settlements, and
ensure the welfare of the Palestinian population. Pending fulfillment of
those obligations, Israel should:
• Accept that human rights prohibitions against discrimination, including
with regard to the rights to housing, education, medical care, freedom of
movement, access to water, and other rights, apply to Israel’s actions in
the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
• Immediately suspend discriminatory policies that privilege settlers and
harm Palestinians, and afford Palestinians treatment that is at least
equal to that afforded to settlers, including by:
o Ending policies that arbitrarily prevent Palestinians from obtaining
construction permits, and ensuring that permitted building is adequate
to Palestinian needs, taking into account the urgent need for
construction to compensate for over-crowding in builtup areas and
inadequate infrastructure for residential and agricultural land use due to
prior restrictions;
o Ensuring that plans for development include adequate and equitable
development for Palestinians, including by reforming the planning
system to incorporate meaningful Palestinian representation on planning
bodies;
o Ending selective enforcement of planning, permit, and building laws
and regulations that subject Palestinian property to higher rates of
demolition orders and demolitions while Jewish settlement homes are
retroactively authorized;
o Ensuring that demolitions of Palestinian homes and other property are
carried out only as a last resort, are strictly necessary as required by a
legitimate state purpose in accordance with Israel’s human rights
obligations and its obligations as an occupying power, and are fully
compensated;
o Ending policies that arbitrarily confiscate Palestinian lands by expelling
residents from, or preventing land use in, areas declared “closed
military zones” or nature reserves or areas under the control of
settlements or settlement regional councils unless such actions can be
justified by narrowly tailored military necessity;
o Suspending policies that arbitrarily determine land ownership by
refusing to recognize the land ownership rights of Palestinians who were
“absentees” on the date Israel occupied the West Bank, or who cannot
prove to have continuously cultivated their agricultural lands at all times
since 1967;
o Suspending all declarations of Israeli control over land except in cases
of genuine military necessity, and in such cases limiting control of land
in time and area to the shortest and smallest amount possible;
o Reevaluating and limiting the areas reserved exclusively for settlers
(including the jurisdictional areas of individual settlements and of
regional settlement councils) or military authorities for the benefit of
settlers, including “closed military zones,” to areas strictly necessary for
security;
o Ensuring that policies restricting freedom of movement are narrowly
limited to current security needs, that the burden of achieving security
goals is borne equitably by Jewish settlers rather than imposed in a
discriminatory fashion on Palestinians, and that security policies are
narrowly tailored to address clearly defined security threats, with
restrictive measures proportionate to such threats;
o Ceasing the discriminatory extraction and allocation of natural
resources such as water; and
o Providing equitable access to water, electricity, road networks,
educational and health care facilities, and other essential services for
Palestinian residents living under Israeli control.
• In East Jerusalem, in addition to ceasing support for settlements and
suspending discriminatory policies as described above:
o Ensure that municipal and other resources are expended
proportionately to the needs of the population, including by urgently
redressing Palestinians’ lack of equitable access to paved roads,
sanitation networks and other infrastructure, and to schools, hospitals,
and other public services;
o Repudiate and suspend as inherently discriminatory planning policies
intended to “maintain” a demographic majority of Jewish residents; and
o Ensure planning solutions on a non-discriminatory basis for the over-
crowded Palestinians sector.
• To ensure that policies of discrimination and forced displacement are
discontinued and that victims are properly compensated, and
considering Israeli courts’ failure to adjudicate claims that settlements
and their associated infrastructure are discriminatory, create a national
commission of inquiry, empowered to subpoena Israeli officials and
documents as necessary, that will receive and investigate complaints
from Palestinian residents of the West Bank who have been harmed by
Israeli policies, and recommend changes in government policy to end
such unlawful discrimination and forced displacement pending
withdrawal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank.
To the Government of the United States
Avoid policies that support the features of Israeli settlement policies that
are inherently discriminatory and otherwise violate international law,
including by:
• Avoiding offsetting the costs of Israeli expenditures on settlements by
withholding U.S. funding from the Israeli government in an amount
equivalent to its expenditures on settlements and related infrastructure
in the West Bank;
• Assessing and analyzing the role played by donations from tax-exempt
charities in supporting discriminatory and other illegal aspects of the
settlements. To this end Congress should request a report from the
General Accounting Office on the subject of tax-exempt organizations
that support settlements and settlement-related activities.
Such a study should include specific assessments of the amounts and
types of donations involved and the actual end-uses of such donations in
the settlements. The report should also address whether current laws
and regulations regarding charitable organizations ensure that tax-
exempt status is not granted to organizations that facilitate human
rights violations or violations of international humanitarian law, are
adequately enforced, and whether they are adequate or require revision.
To the International community, including the United States and
European Union
Ensure that policies do not promote settlement activity, such as the
discriminatory violations of Palestinian human rights documented in this
report, by enforcing tariff agreements in accordance with international
law, such that Israeli settlement goods are not given preferential
treatment, including by requiring and enforcing clear origin labeling.
To the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination
Follow up and provide early warning on the discriminatory impact of
Israeli settlement policies and practices on the Palestinian population of
the West Bank.

1 With the exception of settlements in East Jerusalem, where Israel has applied its civil
law, Palestinians are virtually excluded from living in settlements by the requirement
that they obtain renewable permits from the Israeli military to enter settlements;
Human Rights Watch is not aware of cases of Palestinians applying for or the military
granting permits allowing them to purchase homes in settlements.
2 World Bank, The Economic Effects of Restricted Access to Land in the West Bank,
October 21, 2008, p. 4.
3 See OCHA, The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Infrastructure in the West Bank, 2007,
Chapter 2; B’Tselem, Land Grab: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank, May 2002,
p. 50.
4 Violent attacks by Palestinian armed groups killed 202 Israeli civilians in the West
Bank between 2000 and August 31, 2010. During the same period, Israeli settlers killed
43 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Israeli security forces killed 1823
Palestinian civilians there, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
5 Save the Children UK, “Fact Sheet: Jordan Valley,” October 2009,
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/English_Jordan_Valley_Fact_Sheet_and_Citat
ions.pdf p. 2 (accessed July 21, 2010). The survey found that Palestinian residents in
Area C in the West Bank had been temporarily or permanently displaced primarily as a
result of Israeli home demolitions, military orders, and other policies preventing
development.
6 See “Israeli Jurisprudence and Discrimination,” below. Israeli courts have not
addressed the legality of the settlements under the law of occupation since 1979, or
addressed whether security measures intended to protect settlers that harm
Palestinians are legitimate alternatives to removing settlers to within Israel proper.
7 Later Israeli-Palestinian agreements (the Wye agreement, 1998; the Sharm el-Sheikh
memorandum, 1999) slightly altered the Oslo agreements’ administrative division of
the West Bank.
8 The Israeli NGO Bimkom notes that the 1998 Wye agreement effectively increased
the size of Area C—over which Palestinians have no planning control—to 63 percent of
the West Bank. The Wye agreement prohibited “new construction” in three percent of
the total area of the West Bank designated as “green areas and/or nature reserves.”
9 As noted above, the Oslo agreements and subsequent Israeli-Palestinian agreements
do not affect Israel’s obligations as the occupying power under international
humanitarian law.
10 In July 2010, for example, an Israeli soldier reportedly prevented a Palestinian man
who lived in Azzun Atme, a Palestinian village south of Qalqilya, from carrying two
kilograms of meat and a 50-kilogram sack of flour through a checkpoint controlling the
only access to his home, on the grounds that these amounts exceeded allowable limits
for personal consumption, although no such limits have been published. Ma’an News
Agency, “’No comment’ on arbitrary treatment,” June 16, 2010.
11 State’s response to petitioners, HCJ 9961/03 (case pending), available at
http://www.hamoked.org/items/3827_eng.pdf (accessed November 20, 2010).
12 For example: Yehudit Karp, a former deputy attorney general, notified the Ministry
of Justice on February 7, 2010 of 12 recent court rulings the government has refused to
implement, including three cases relating to Palestinians in the West Bank (HCJ
1748/06, ordering the state to remove a cement railing constructed near a road in
South Mt. Hebron that severely impeded Palestinian movement; HCJ 8414/05, ordering
the state to re-route the separation barrier around the village of Bil’in; HCJ 2732/05,
invalidating part of the barrier’s route near the settlement of Tzufin north; the
ministry’s letter in response is available at
http://www.news1.co.il/uploadFiles/109020411968232.doc, accessed November 12,
2010). The Supreme Court in October 2010 criticized the State's failure to evacuate or
halt construction on six illegal West Bank outposts, which the court had already ruled
against in response to petition filed by Peace Now in 2007. Aviad Glickman, “Court
chides state over West Bank outposts,” Ynet News, October 19, 2010,
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3971965,00.html (accessed November 10,
2010). The state has failed to stop construction or survey land ownership at the Derekh
Ha'avot outpost in Gush Etzion despite state promises to do so in 2004 in response to a
petition submitted by Palestinian residents of the nearby village of El Khader, who
claim to own the land, and Peace Now. Akiva Eldar, “Border Control / Minister of
contempt,” Haaretz, October 19, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-
edition/features/border-control-minister-of-contempt-1.319916 (accessed November
11, 2010).
13 Israel’s use of water resources originating in the West Bank includes substantial
runoff from the Western and Northeastern aquifers into areas inside Israel; Palestinians
are barred from using more than a small fraction of the resources of these aquifers
before they flow into Israel. The joint Israeli-PA water commission does not have
authority over such water resources when extracted inside Israel.

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B'Tselem’s 2010 summary of human rights in the West

Bank and Gaza Strip:
Alongside welcome, albeit limited, improvements, B'Tselem
warns that so long as the settlement enterprise and the siege
on Gaza continue, there will be no real improvement in human
rights
30 December 2010
The siege on Gaza: Collective punishment of 1.5 million people
Israel continues its siege on the Gaza Strip, which began in 2007. As a
result, until June 2010, 95 percent of the factories and workshops in
Gaza had closed and the agricultural sector was severely damaged,
which led to unemployment of 40 percent. The siege has also prevented
reconstruction of thousands of homes destroyed in Operation Cast Lead.
As a result of the continuing damage to the water system in Gaza, at
least 95 percent of the water drawn from the system is not potable, as
of August 2010. Israel continues to restrict access to land 1,500 meters
from the Gaza perimeter fence, including by use of live gunfire.
According to UN figures, limits of Palestinian access to these areas,
which constitute some 17% of the Gaza Strip and are primarily
agricultural areas, harms some 7.5% of the Gaza population who are
dependent on the these areas for agriculture, housing or education.
Following the violent interception of a flotilla to Gaza in May, Israel
announced the easing of some restrictions on imports, and, in
December, on exports. It is still too early to evaluate
implementation of these decisions and their effects, but it is
clear that these decisions do not overturn the policy of
collective punishment of the 1.5 million residents of Gaza. The
limited opening of Rafah Crossing by Egypt since June also does not free
Israel of its obligation to enable movement between the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip.
The settlement enterprise: Continuing harm to Palestinians
About half a million Israelis now live in 236 settlements: 124 authorized
settlements, 100 unauthorized outposts, and 12 neighborhoods on land
that Israel annexed to Jerusalem. The transfer of 43 percent of the
area of the West Bank to control of the settlements has
prevented the development of Palestinian communities,
especially those in the Jordan Valley and in the southern Hebron hills.
Israeli control of land, along with its control of the Israeli-Palestinian joint
water sources prevents the development of Palestinian agriculture, the
major sector in the Palestinian economy. Following the partial
moratorium on building in settlements in the West Bank, in
September, construction work was renewed in 63 settlements,
in which 1,629 housing units are now being built, according to the
figures of Peace Now. The establishment of settlements is prohibited
under international law, and their continued existence and expansion in
the West Bank severely violates Palestinians’ rights to property, freedom
of movement, livelihood, self-determination, and other rights.
This year, Israel continued its actions aimed at separating East
Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. These actions include placing
restrictions on Palestinians from the West Bank wishing to enter the city.
The Jerusalem Municipality has continued to advance plans to expand
Israeli neighborhoods built in East Jerusalem, and settler organizations
have been expanding settlement enclaves in Palestinian neighborhoods,
among them Sheikh Jarrah, Ras al-‘Amud, and a-Tur. Construction of
new sections of the Separation Barrier have led to the detachment of
residents of the village Sheikh Sa’ed from the center of their life in
Jerusalem, and is expected to sever the residents of the village al-Walaja
from their farmland, which provides their primary income. Until 20
December, Israel demolished, or forced Palestinians to demolish,
17 houses of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, leaving 135 persons
homeless, including 66 minors.
Other issues
Drop in number of fatalities: As of 30 November, Israeli security
forces killed 67 Palestinians (12 in the West Bank and 55 in the Gaza
Strip), eight of them minors. At least 24 of the persons killed were not
participating in hostilities, 39 were killed while engaged in hostilities,
and in the case of two fatalities, B'Tselem does not know if the person
killed participated in hostilities. Two of the Palestinians killed in the Gaza
Strip were the object of a targeted killing. The number of Palestinians
killed by security forces in the West Bank was lower than in previous
years. In addition, Israeli civilians killed two Palestinians.
Palestinians killed eight Israelis: five civilians (including a
policeman) in the West Bank, two members of Israel’s security forces in
the Gaza Strip, and one member of Israel’s security forces in the West
Bank. Palestinians also killed one foreign national inside Israel.
Five Palestinians were executed in Gaza by the Hamas
government.
Continued fragmentation of the West Bank alongside less
checkpoints: In addition to isolating East Jerusalem, Israel continued to
sever the Jordan Valley and the area lying west of the Separation Barrier
from the rest of the West Bank, by severely restricting Palestinian
movement to and from these areas. The number of checkpoints in the
West Bank decreased. There are now 99 checkpoints in the West
Bank, compared to 103 in 2008, and 420 physical obstructions
(dirt piles, concrete blocks and the like), compared with 488 at
the end of 2009. As of October 2010, Israel restricts or prohibits
Palestinians from traveling on 232 km of major roads in the West Bank.
Continuing construction of the Separation Barrier: Israel has
completed 61.4 percent of the Barrier and 8.4 percent are currently
under construction. The total length of the Barrier is 707 kilometers,
more than twice the length of the Green Line. 85 percent of the route
runs through the West Bank, causing harm to some 400,000
Palestinians.
Increase in West Bank house demolitions (not including East
Jerusalem): Israel restricts Palestinian construction in Area C, which
constitutes 60 percent of the West Bank, leaving Palestinians living
there with no option but to build without a permit. This year, up to 20
December, the army demolished 82 houses of Palestinians in the
West Bank (compared to 28 houses in 2009), leaving 445
persons homeless, 204 of them minors. Most of the demolitions
took place in the Jordan Valley, part of efforts to push Palestinians out of
this area.
Decrease in firing at Israel by armed Palestinian organizations:
According to the Israel Security Agency, this year, armed Palestinian
groups fired 131 rockets and 173 mortar shells from the Gaza
Strip into Israel (as of the end of November), compared with 561
rockets and 286 mortar shells that were fired until the end of November
2009, and 2,048 rockets and more than 1,672 mortar shells firing
throughout 2008.
Lack of accountability: B'Tselem continues its efforts to hold security
forces accountable for harming Palestinians. The figures are not
encouraging: from 2006-2009, B'Tselem made a demand for a Military
Police investigation in 148 cases in which security forces killed
Palestinians not taking part in hostilities (the figures do not include
Operation Cast Lead, which is discussed below). Of these, only 22
investigations were opened. As of September 2010, only two of the
investigations had been completed: in both cases, the Judge Advocate
General’s Office closed the file without prosecution.
In 2010, B'Tselem demanded MP investigations into seven cases. In two
of them, an investigation was opened.
The case of Bassem Abu Rahma, a demonstrator killed by direct fire of a
tear-gas canister, exemplifies the Judge Advocate General’s Office’s
dismal handling of cases in which Palestinians are killed: only after
B'Tselem and attorney Michael Sfard conducted their own investigation,
based on video documentation, and threatened to petition the High
Court of Justice, did the JAG order a criminal investigation, in July 2010.
No investigation of decision-makers for Operation Cast Lead:
B’Tselem has raised serious concerns over Israel’s policy and actions in
Operation Cast Lead, in which at least 759 Palestinians not taking part in
hostilities were killed. Two years later, Israel has indicted soldiers in
only three incidents regarding harm to the civilian population
(one for killing a person, another for using a child as a human shield,
and the third for stealing a credit card). The political echelon and senior
military commanders have not been held accountable for their
responsibility in setting the policy that led to extensive loss of life and
limb and property damage during the operation. Israel reported that
more than 40 investigations have been opened. Some of them were
opened a year and a half after the operation ended, and the Judge
Advocate General’s Office has not revealed how many have been closed.
The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip has not taken any steps to
investigate crimes committed by its own people and by other armed
Palestinian organizations in the Gaza Strip, and to prosecute those
responsible.
Limitation of freedom to demonstrate: In 2010, Israel renewed its
use of Order 101, which severely restricts the right of assembly of
persons protesting in the West Bank. Based on the order, two leading
activists against the Separation Barrier in Bi’lin were imprisoned for
more than a year: Abdallah Abu Rahma and Adib Abu Rahma.
Drop in number of administrative detainees: At the end of
November, 205 Palestinians (two of them minors) were being held in
administrative detention in Israel, compared with 291 (one of them a
minor) in November 2009.
Gilad Shalit remains a hostage: Since June 2006, Hamas has held
abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in an unknown place and under
unknown conditions. No ICRC representative, or any other person or
entity, has been allowed to visit him, and he has been denied all contact
with the outside world, in breach of international law. In October 2009, a
video of Shalit filmed since he was abducted was broadcast in Israel. To
the best of B'Tselem’s knowledge, no other information about his
physical or mental health has been provided.

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When killing an Old Man is “Returning Fire”

By Yossi Gurvitz, +972Mag, 12 January 2011
The IDF killed Amr Al Qawasme in his bed yesterday, but an
Israeli news site claimed the soldiers “returned fire”
Early yesterday morning (Friday), IDF gunmen shot Amr Al Qawasme,
aged 66 and residing in Hebron, to death, apparently while he was in
bed. An early version of the IDF response, before the IDF was forced to
“express its regrets” and admit that oops, we did it again, showed in the
Nrg news site. It said (Hebrew) that the soldiers, while arresting a
wanted man, “identified another Palestinian, who wasn’t supposed to be
present in the building, and – according to them – behaved in a
suspicious and threatening manner”. As a result, wrote Nrg, “The force
was forced to return fire”.
Let’s dissect this short sentence. Everyone, the IDF Spokesman
included, agrees that Al Qawasme wasn’t armed and certainly didn’t fire
at anyone. Hence, “returning fire” is an impossibility. Returning fire is a
process in which an armed force identifies shots fired in its direction,
and fires back at the source. In this case, only one side fired: frightened
gunmen – they are always frightened, dammit; who’s brilliant idea was it
to arm these panic-prone young men? – shot a helpless old man, who
was merely trying to climb out of bed. The “was forced” part of the
sentence is also rather impressive: the gunmen didn’t really wanted to
“return fire” towards an unarmed old man, they simply had no choice in
the matter.
Most Israelis, naturally, don’t care. One less Palestinian. It’s a safe
assumption that the gunmen and their commanders won’t pay any price
for the incident. Just a Palestinian, after all. One can only imagine what
would have happened if, during a search after a wanted Jew – say, Jack
Teitel – one of the cops would suffer a panic attack and shoot to death
his old and unarmed father. What riots we’d see, how the settler
leadership would rise to its hindquarters, how a wave of shock would
sweep the country.
But here, nu, just a Palestinian. And this time we can’t say he was a
terrorist, planned on being a terrorist, or once considered being one. Just
an old man, shot in his bed at dawn. A pointless killing. This
embarrassment, this inability to say our hands did not spill this blood, is
likely to have brought up the expression “returned fire”. We can’t say,
after all, we shot an old man in his bed, even if all the signs point to
that. Otherwise, how would we look ourselves in the mirror?
 Back to Top

No demotion for officer who ordered soldier to shoot

bound protester with rubber bullet
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, 28 January 2011
It is not clear if the military prosecutor will appeal the decision after the
prosecution demanded Lt. Col. Omri Borberg’s demotion.
The commander of a soldier from an armored battalion who fired a
rubber bullet at a bound demonstrator two years ago in the West Bank
village of Na’alin will not be demoted in rank and will be able to continue
serving in the army, a special military tribunal in Tel Aviv ruled
yesterday.
The officer, Lt. Col. Omri Borberg, was convicted three months ago of
making threats and of conduct unbecoming of an officer.
It is not clear if the military prosecutor will appeal the decision after the
prosecution demanded Borberg’s demotion.
The officer was dismissed from his command of his battalion after
photographs of the incident in Na’alin appeared in the media around the
world showing him ordering a soldier under his command to threaten
the bound demonstrator, Ashraf Abu Rahma, with a weapon.
The soldier fired a rubber bullet which ricocheted, lightly wounding the
demonstrator.
A demotion would have put an end to the officer’s military career for all
practical purposes.
Instead the judges recommended that Borberg’s promotion in rank be
delayed by two years and that he not be given a command authority for
a year.
The soldier who fired the rubber bullet, Staff Sgt. (res.) Leonardo Korea,
was demoted to private and given a criminal record, but was not given a
jail term. The judges explained that Korea had “not sought to abuse” the
demonstrator and is now a law-abiding citizen.
The military panel accepted the defense’s argument that Borberg had
been sufficiently punished through his dismissal from command of his
battalion. In their sentencing decision, the panel wrote that the case
involved a “serious, inappropriate incident” and a violation of the
fundamental values of the Israel Defense Forces. On hearing the
decision, Borberg burst into tears.
Despite the recommendation that he not be placed in a command
position, it is expected that Borberg will be assigned command positions
inasmuch as two of his senior commanders, GOC Northern Command
Gadi Eizenkot and Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman, testified on his behalf,
saying that the incident involved an exception and that he should be put
in command positions in the future.
The human rights group B’Tselem, which had distributed the video of
the incident, said in a statement that it hoped the army would take heed
of the judges’ ruling, adding that more serious violations had been
committed in recent years that military enforcement officials had chosen
to ignore.
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IDF officer’s career torpedoed over corruption, but not

over alleged war crimes
By Roi Maor, +972Mag, 2 February 2011
In Israel, reporting on the upheaval in Egypt has been sidelined by news
that the appointment of Major General Yoav Galant to IDF Chief of Staff
has been cancelled. Yedioth, Israel’s most widely read newspaper,
devoted half of its pages to coverage of this development, pushing news
of Mubrak’s decision not to run for reelection to page 14.
The Galant affair is petty and farcical, but is also instructive, and could
have significant implications for Israel and the region. The background is
a bitter power struggle between the popular incumbent Chief of Staff, Lt.
General Gaby Ashkenazi, and the increasingly loathed Defense Minister,
Ehud Barak. This is an argument about prestige and influence, but it
may also touch on policy.
Barak – who presided as prime minister over the outbreak of the Second
Intifada, and in his current office, launched the Gaza war – is widely
regarded as a hawkish figure, agitating for military action against Iran.
Ashkenazi is believed to be a more cautious voice. Unlike Galant,
Ashkenazi has not joined the chorus of generals warning of an upcoming
regional conflict.
Galant, however, was not brought down by his positions on policy.
Instead, his selection was embroiled in a web of intrigue, which verges
on the bizarre. At first, Galant was accused of planning a smear
campaign against Ashkenazi. The document outlining this campaign,
however, turned out to be a forgery, initiated by people close to
Ashkenazi, who was apparently misled to believe the document was
genuine.
After this cloud cleared, it emerged, in a separate affair, that Galant,
while building his opulent mansion, illegally took over state land, and
committed various construction violations. He then proceeded to
“massage” the truth about these violations, and was probably accorded
favorable treatment by the authorities. These revelations drove the
Attorney General to conclude that he could not defend the appointment
before the High Court of Justice, which was petitioned to block Galant’s
selection.
After intense deliberations, Netanyahu, despite Barak’s opposition,
decided to drop Galant. Barak, however, extracted a concession:
Ashkenazi’s term will not be extended. Instead, the newly appointed
Deputy Chief of Staff, Yair Naveh, will serve as interim head of the
military, until a permanent appointment is announced, this time, after
extensive background checks are conducted on all prospective
candidates. Naveh himself is in the running, as well as a few other senior
commanders, who were skipped over in Galant’s favor in the previous
round.
This turn of events is astounding on several levels. During the 2008-9
Operation Cast Lead, when the Israeli army invaded Gaza, Galant was
the commander of Israeli forces, as head of the IDF Southern Command
at the time. Despite the fact that this campaign was shrouded by
accusations of war crimes, including some that were substantiated by
the IDF’s own investigators, no one in Israel even dreams of suggesting
that Galant should be disqualified on these grounds. On the contrary,
the war is counted to his credit, while building and land-related
infractions are his downfall.
Even the treatment of these infractions themselves screams of
hypocrisy. Settlers in the West Bank take over not just public land, but
also Palestinian private lands, and not only are they not sanctioned, they
are actually endowed with various forms of support. On the other hand,
you have Palestinians, or Bedouins who are Israeli citizens, which can be
considered invaders and brutally punished, for living on land which was
theirs before the state was even founded.
So you have a clear scale. Jews taking land from Palestinians (e.g.
settlers) are pampered and rewarded. Palestinians keeping their own
land, thereby denying it to Jews, are sanctioned. And a Jew taking over
Israeli state land (which is preserved exclusively for the benefit of Jews),
cannot be IDF Chief of Staff. But if he is cleared of that, and “merely”
implicated in war crimes, that is okay.
This up-is-down feeling is reinforced by the coverage of possible
alternatives to Galant. As mentioned above, one of the most prominent
names is that of Yair Naveh, the current Deputy Chief of Staff, and
former head of Israel’s Central Command. Yedioth found only two facts
worthy of mention in regards to Naveh’s background. First, he oversaw
the evacuation of a few small settlements in the West Bank, as part of
the disengagement plan in 2005 (the major component of that plan was
the evacuation of settlements from Gaza). Second, it was during his
tenure in the Central Command that a soldier named Anat Kamm illicitly
copied files from his office, and leaked one of them to the press.
Reading the story, one would imagine that the worst embarrassment for
Naveh, from the second affair, was the lax security protocols in his
office. That indeed seems to be Yedioth’s opinion. It fails to mention that
the leaked document clearly indicated that Naveh violated a High Court
of Justice ruling, by ordering an illegal assassination, and giving
permission to carry it out even if civilian casualties would ensue.
The coverage of Galant and Naveh exposes the degree to which Israeli
elites and public opinion refuse to discuss the problems with the
country’s military policy. The IDF, and its Chief of Staff, wield enormous
influence, not just by virtue of their institutional power, but also because
the Israeli public, and even its decision makers, follow them blindly.
Paradoxically, this means the military is almost worshipped, and at the
same time, is openly held to the lowest possible moral standards.
Just look at what Yedioth senior political columnist, Sima Kadmon, had to
say on the topic over the weekend, when the omens for Galant were
already looking bad:
In Israel you can be a lame duck Prime Minister, and an attacked
President of the High Court, but you cannot be IDF Chief of Staff without
the public’s full trust. This body [the IDF]… must be headed by an
admired man. A demi-god. Someone whom the officers standing before
him will not think twice before following his orders… a man above the
people.
Yet the same columnist also writes:
Is there even a culture of truth telling among the military’s commanders
and soldiers? … Anyone who was present at an early debriefing
conducted by a commander after an incident, quickly, before the formal
debriefing takes place – knows that this is a framework for coordinating
testimonies and obscuring the truth. Theft and lies are common
phenomena in every military, including the IDF.
Kadmon, however, fails to connect the dots. When the military is
accorded divine status, when the IDF Chief of Staff is more important
than the Prime Minister (as Eitan Haber, Rabin’s most senior aide,
believes) and is the most sacred figure on the Israeli street (as columnist
Nahum Barnea argues) what chance is left for accountability, human
rights or democracy? How far are we from Egypt, where the army will
ultimately decide how the country will be run and by whom?

Back to Top
April 20-23: The 6th Annual Bil'in Conference on the
Palestinian Popular Struggle
As nonviolent resistance for freedom sweeps across the
Arab world, join us in harnessing the winds of change at
the 6th annual Bil’in Conference.
What: 6th Annual Bil'in Conference on the Palestinian Popular Struggle
When: 20-23 April 2011
Where: The Village of Bil'in, Occupied West Bank
From Gaza to Bil’in, popular resistance to the occupation remains
steadfast. Drawing delegations from across the globe, the Bil’in
conference will provide opportunities to build and strengthen ties
between Palestinian, Israeli and international activists working against
Israeli apartheid, to strategize and to support Palestinian popular
resistance. Representatives from the popular committees throughout
the West Bank will be in attendance.
As a result of our experience in previous years we have decided to add a
fourth day to the conference and make more time for participatory
workshops. The program will include a number of renowned presenters
as well as opportunities to workshop, participate in a direct action and
visit other communities engaged in popular resistance.
Tentative schedule:
Wednesday, Thursday mornings: Presentations and panels by
Palestinian and international figures (to be announced), including a
video-link to Gazan fishermen working under siege.
Wednesday, Thursday afternoons: Strategizing workshops to share ideas
and brainstorm, connect and network with international activists. A
focus on linking the global BDS movement to the struggle “on the
ground”.
Friday: Demonstration in Bil’in against the settlements and separation
wall.
Saturday: Field trips to visit different neighborhoods and villages
currently involved in the popular struggle.
Conference admission: €30 suggested donation
Accommodation with Bil’in families: €20/night
Prepare your delegation today and join the struggle to bring freedom to
Palestine!

For real time updates on the popular struggle, see the Popular Struggle Coordination
Committee's Twitter account. Popular Struggle Coordination Committee | Amarat
alRamouni | Ramallah | Occupied Territories

Back to Top
In Palestine, Everything is Relative: The Settler Violence
You Won't Hear About
By Yousef Munayyer, Palestine Center, Washington DC
When I heard the horrific news last night that 5 Israeli settlers were
murdered in their home in the settlement of Itamar, I knew it would only
be a matter of hours before a shoddy piece of journalism describes the
murders as the end of a "lull in the violence" or the end of "relative
calm" since 4 Israeli settlers were killed in an attack near Hebron last
summer. At that time, the Washington Post ran an editorial saying that
the attacks then ended "three years of peace" in the region which we
posted about.
So I suppose it should come as no surprise that the Washington Post's
own Janine Zacharia leads the way this morning by displaying a
complete ignorance of the situation she is supposedly covering or an
overt pro-Israel bias (or both). Here's Zacharia's story and the critical
excerpt:
The Israeli daily Ha'aretz, citing a preliminary investigation, reported
that the children killed were ages 11, 3 and a 3-month-old baby. The
newspaper also said that another 12-year-old daughter and two of her
younger brothers managed to escape.
The attack shattered a relative calm that had prevailed in the
West Bank in recent months as Palestinian security forces assert
greater control in the territories where they are allowed by Israel to
operate and as Israeli and Palestinians forces coordinate security efforts.
Last August, four Jewish settlers were killed in a drive-by shooting in the
West Bank.
Zacharia's chronology is likely representative of the broader mainstream
media's coverage of these events, sadly. American readers or
consumers of mainstream media (MSM) are delivered a simple,
straightforward message: Israelis are killed about 6 months apart and in
between everything was calm.
The problem is that for Zacharia and much of the MSM "relative calm"
means no Israelis were attacked, injured or killed and ignores the
ongoing occupation and violence against Palestinians.
In this period of "relative calm", the Israeli Human Rights group
B'Tselem recorded at least 41 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in
occupied Palestinian territory. This includes Omar Qawasmeh, the 66
year old Palestinian civilian who was massacred in his bed while he slept
by raiding Israeli soldiers and two 20-something Palestinian unarmed
civilians shot and killed at the same checkpoint less than a week apart.
That reports can describe the killings of dozens of Palestinians by Israeli
soldiers as "relative calm" and finding them completely unremarkable is
disgusting in itself. Still, it's only part of the story.
Readers may know that one of our ongoing research projects at the
Palestine Center is the recording and analysis of Israeli settler violence
against Palestinian civilians. This past fall, we made an extensive
presentation of these data that shed light on a facet of occupation
almost never discussed. The presentation covered data from Jan of
2009-Aug. 2010 and included over 1000 instances of settler violence.
Since then, we've undertaken the coding of a much more significant
period of time that would span 6 years and give us the ability to
understand more about the history and trajectory of Israeli settler
violence. This would be the most comprehensive analysis of settler
violence that I am aware of. I was hoping to make an updated
presentation covering this new data in the fall, however given the recent
surge in Israeli settler violence we've expedited the project and will
make the presentation this spring.
So what instances of settler violence were there in the period of "relative
calm" that Zacharia describes? There were, in fact, over 300 instances
of settler violence during this period which left over 85 unarmed
Palestinians injured, 4 dead, and inestimable property damage
(Including thousands of torched or uprooted olive and almond trees).
Among these events were over 26 acts of Arson, 59 acts of destruction
of property, 32 physical attacks, 20 shootings, 60 acts of stone throwing
and 23 instances of theft. There were also 10 instances of vehicular
attacks where settlers mowed down Palestinian civilians including a 5-
year old and 11 year old in Hebron, an 85-year old in Salfit and this
horrifying act caught on video in Jerusalem.
Attacks originated from the settlements of Adora, Ariel, Ateret, Bat Ayin,
Beit El, Beitar Elit, Bracha, Dulip, Efrat, Eli, Eli Zehav, Elkana, Elon
Moreh, Haggai, Halamish, Harsina, Havat Gilad, Immanuel, Itamar,
Kaida, Karmei Tzur, Karmel, Karnei Shomron, Kedumim, Maale Mikhmas,
Maon, Maskiyot, Neve Daniel,
Rehalim, Revava, Shama, Shuvot
Rachel, Shilo, Sussia, Talmon, Kfar
Tappuah, Yaki, Yash Adam and
Yitzhar. These attacks were directed
against 79 different Palestinian
villages and cities in every district in
the West Bank....and this is only in
the past 6 months.
If these 6 months can be described
as "relative calm" one really has to
wonder just what extent of violence
against Palestinian civilians would be considered noteworthy by the
mainstream media?
In a world where everything is relative, it seems the mainstream
American press has decided that Palestinian lives are relatively
worthless compared to Israeli lives. But this is also a world where the
mainstream media is losing its grip on the control of storytelling and
information that directly contradicts faulty journalism is available at
everyone's finger tips.
We'll continue to do our part to bring this information, especially about
settler violence, to you and we hope you'll share it with others who'd
otherwise be mislead by a relatively worthless mainstream media.

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Netanyahu’s Exploitation of the Murders at Itamar

By Nehemia Shtrasler, Haaretz 15th March 2011
The horrific murders in Itamar were a crime against humanity. Entering
a home in that manner and slaughtering five people in their sleep is a
base, cowardly act, and it makes no difference whether the victim is an
adult or an infant. Murder is murder is murder.
Motti Fogel, brother of Udi Fogel, said at the Har Hamenuhot cemetery
on Sunday that the funeral should have been a private affair. "A person
is born for himself, to his parents and siblings, and dies for himself, he is
not a symbol or a national event, and death must not be allowed to
become an instrument of something."
But it was not Motti who decided. Right-wing politicos, cabinet ministers,
Knesset members and West Bank rabbis expropriated the murder of his
brother and his family from Motti and made it a political event. To them
the five murdered members of the Fogel family are a catalyst for
realizing the great dream: the dream of messianic redemption, of the
Greater Land of Israel.
Above the freshly dug graves the speakers competed among themselves
as to who could be more extreme. Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona
Metzger, said there is no partner for talks on the Palestinian side, and
the small community of Itamar should be turned into a major Israeli city
- an extreme-right agenda voiced by a figure who is supposed to be the
voice of the state.
"How long will you stay silent, how long will you grovel?" cried Udi
Fogel's father, Haim Fogel, as if we weren't mistreating the Palestinians
sufficiently, not burning enough mosques, not destroying enough olive
trees, not expropriating enough of their lands and not killing enough of
them.
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin seized the opportunity to declare that
Israel "shall continue to build anywhere and at any time." Samaria
Regional Council chairman Gershon Mesika said, "All the talk of peace
delusions must stop."
Interior Minister Eli Yishai was quick to demand the construction of 5,000
homes in the settlements, while Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon
denounced incitement by the Palestinians, as if he had never heard of
the incitement by West Bank rabbis, for whom the Palestinians are
gentiles not created in God's image.
Many others spoke of "hastening the redemption" - meaning extending
Jewish control over the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and
the Jordan River while "transfering" the Arabs to the other side of the
river.
The murders strengthened the hands of extremists on both sides. Those
on the Palestinian side want young settlers to launch a revenge
campaign in their villages that will set off a third intifada.
Our extremists want that intifada to become an all-out war, the war of
Gog and Magog, that will end in victory and the "cleansing" of Arabs
from the land.
The only problem is that while both sides are confident in their own
victory, only one side can prevail, and sometimes both lose.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, too, hastened to move the attack to
the political arena. He promised to build 400 homes in the main
settlement blocs and even declared, during a condolence visit, "We shall
build our land," thus disclosing his true thoughts.
Netanyahu, after all, never believed in the two-state solution, despite his
Bar-Ilan speech. To him, the entire land belongs to us, and the two-state
shibboleth is meant only to buy a little sympathy from U.S. President
Barack Obama.
Netanyahu believes in force and deterrence, and as the familiar saying
in these parts goes, if force doesn't work, use more force.
Netanyahu's real plan is "to annex as much of the open territory as
possible," as he said some years ago - somewhere around the 50
percent mark, while holding on to the Jordan Valley as a safety belt to
the east. In the small, noncontiguous area that remains he would be
prepared to give the Palestinians autonomy that would be called a
"state."
In his opinion, because any significant chunk of territory that Israel
leaves would soon become an Islamic base, and every concession would
play into the hands of Hamas and Iran, as few concessions should be
made as possible.
Netanyahu is consistent in this regard. He never believed in a peace
deal entailing genuine concessions. He opposed the Oslo Accords when
he was a Knesset member and shattered them after he won the 1996
election. Now, in his second go-round as prime minister, he maintains
the exact same policy, with an extreme-right cabinet and with the aid of
his natural partners, Yishai and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Netanyahu's real vision is to live by the sword. He will lead us from
intifada to intifada, from war to war, and the murders in Itamar were just
one more opportunity to heighten construction in the territories as well
as the walls of hatred and blood between us and them.

Back to Top

Three Megillah segments

Devoting five minutes to Gilad Shalit, practicing the
sangfroid and self-discipline of a Japanese samurai
master and leveraging the appalling Itamar attacks: to
any avail?
By Doron Rosenblum, Haaretz, 18th March, 2011
How I worked for Gilad Shalit's release
This week it was declared that we have to work for Gilad Shalit's release
by stopping everything and standing still for five minutes - in schools, in
stores, in the Knesset, in spas, everywhere. A five-minute stop - one
minute for each year of his captivity. That is what is supposed to bring
the abducted soldier home. Well, that and the balloons, the marches and
the cardboard cut-outs. Still, it's a small sacrifice, when one thinks in
practical terms about the intended result: bringing Gilad home.
What's another minute or two for us, in return for the release of a
soldier? Well, not only did I accede to the initiative, I felt the need to
observe the precept zealously: I therefore stopped and stood in the
kitchen, not for five minutes but for six and a half. Even seven. I'm
telling you. And in front of an open freezer, too. "To hell with the ice
cream," I said, "and no matter about the meat. What's that, when we are
struggling for such a noble cause?"
I am not the only one. Many people feel that they can do more, plenty
more. Well, a group decided to take action for the return of the
abducted soldier by doing a series of tai chi exercises in a park. Even if it
doesn't help, it certainly can't hurt. We heard about tenants in an
apartment building who took an even more creative initiative: for the
sake of Gilad's return, they are not turning on the lights in the stairwell
again even if they go out while people are still groping for their house
key. A small sacrifice that has a tremendous quid pro quo. There are
also those who are working for the soldier's return by means of a viral
initiative, which is spreading in Facebook: they will not wipe the lenses
of their eyeglasses for a week, not even after sneezing while sipping
soup. You just say no. True grit, that's the name of the game.
Now let's see who cracks first: the government or Hamas.
How I was impressed by Japanese sangfroid
When I was invited to the studio, I had my remarks already prepared: a
few words about the hard geographic conditions that steeled - for good
and for ill - the character of the Japanese people, as the sledgehammer
steels the sword of the samurai; a few historical observations about the
tranquil manner in which the Japanese stand up to challenges. I also had
a whole slew of other comments and insights, including segments from
"A Book of the Five Rings," from Kurosawa's movies and even from
Miyazaki's animation movies, but I decided to concentrate on the
sangfroid theme.
In "Five Rings," Miyamoto Musashi, the great samurai master, enjoined:
"In fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm.
Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit
settled yet unbiased" (translation: Victor Harris ). Indeed, in the
interview itself not only did I quote from his writings at length, I also
called on my interviewers "to learn something" from the sangfroid and
self-discipline of the Japanese in the face of the disasters that have
befallen them. I read from "A Book of the Five Rings": "Even when your
spirit is calm do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed
do not let your spirit slacken ... With your spirit open and unconstricted,
look at things from a high point of view .... In strategy it is important to
see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of
close things." I concluded the interview with a slight bow, like that of
stalks swaying in a pleasant evening breeze, not before summing up by
noting that we especially, in our hot-tempered country, still have a lot to
learn from the wonderful Japanese culture. May that be our benefit from
their disaster.
As I was leaving, the producer said to me in the corridor, "Professor, we
were very impressed. If only people in Israel would take to heart what
you said." I smiled like a frozen lake on the first day of spring, but when I
got to the parking lot I was met by an appalling sight: a small van was
blocking my car.
He didn't even leave a note, the little shit. I honked a few times, and
when I tried to open the door of the van, an ear-splitting alarm sounded.
I felt the pulse starting to throb in my forehead like the branch of a
cherry tree that is buffeted by the north wind. I knew I was liable to be
late for a hearing in the Family Court about the order barring me from
entering the house, and the blood rushed to my head again. I tried to
make the van move by means of drumming on its hood with my
clenched fists and emitting hoarse cries, rising to a crescendo like three
caws of the raven on the eve of a tempest: "Hallo!! Hallo!!? Hallo!!!!"
A typical ugly Israeli emerged from the administration building,
shouting, "Hey, abaleh! Calm down! What are you bouncing on the
vehicle for?" I informed him that he was an idiot and he replied that I
could call my father an idiot. And not only did he not move the van, he
started to unload a small ladder from it, with calculated slowness.
In his book, Musashi talks about the "three shouts": the loud shout
before the battle, the low shout during combat and the shout of "Sen go
no koe" after slicing the enemy. I am not sure in which category to place
the bronchial roar of "May you drop dead, you stinking dog!!" that came
out of me as I smashed him on the back of the neck with the file folder
containing my Zen writings. It's also clear to me that the hoarse "Leave
me alone! Watch out for my glasses!" that emanated from my throat,
which was in the grip of his arm, was less obedient to the demands of
the "Tai no sen" tactic from Bonzan and closer to the "Gewald!" school
of thought from Krakow.
But what am I saying? That's it's no big deal to be a Japanese in Japan.
Let's see you preserve samurai sangfroid in a shaky, dangerous and
edgy country like ours.
How I leveraged the appalling terrorist attack
When I was first informed of the despicable murder, I did not yet grasp
its full diplomatic, informational and internal political potential. I thought
it was just another criminal act, or some terror event inside the Green
Line, that remote committee-free region where there are no local bosses
and no demands for land redistribution even after the most horrific mass
terrorist incidents. It was only a few minutes later, when I took in the full
significance of the venue of the tragedy, that the adrenaline and the
fear started to course through my veins. I immediately convened the
Forum of Seven and asked for suggestions without undertaking to
accept the sanest one. The reactions around the table ranged from
foaming at the mouth in the course of rhythmically beating the head
against the wall, to proposals - in a quiet voice - to unleash a "tsunami of
fire" on the cities of the West Bank and to hang Abu Mazen with the rope
that was used for Eichmann.
Few saw the opportunity accorded by the despicable murder for a
political breakthrough: ending the construction freeze; enlarging the
coalition by co-opting Baruch Marzel; sending atrocity photos from the
massacre - accompanied by a translation of Bialik's "On the Slaughter" -
to the German chancellor and the Quartet ministers with a demand to
recognize the legality of the settler outposts; and flooding both Houses
of Congress with horrific pathological testimonies, recorded in a loop,
until we get 50 Stealth bombers or - even more strategically important -
Pollard's release.
"Let's see them now," I encouraged my colleagues. "Now the world will
ask for forgiveness for the peace initiatives and beg us to build Amona.
But without euphoria, gentlemen. Let us maintain restraint."
 Back to Top

Tear down this Israeli wall

I want the music industry to support Palestinians' rights and
oppose this inhumane barrier

By Roger Water, The Guardian, 11th March 2011

A Palestinian woman walks past the wall on the Israeli side of the Abu Dis
neighborhood
of East Jerusalem. Photograph: Kobi Gideon/EPA
In 1980, a song I wrote, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, was banned by
the government of South Africa because it was being used by black
South African children to advocate their right to equal education. That
apartheid government imposed a cultural blockade, so to speak, on
certain songs, including mine.
Twenty-five years later, in 2005, Palestinian children participating in a
West Bank festival used the song to protest against Israel's wall around
the West Bank. They sang: "We don't need no occupation! We don't
need no racist wall!" At the time, I hadn't seen firsthand what they were
singing about.
A year later I was contracted to perform in Tel Aviv. Palestinians from a
movement advocating an academic and cultural boycott of Israel urged
me to reconsider. I had already spoken out against the wall, but I was
unsure whether a cultural boycott was the right way to go.
The Palestinian advocates of a boycott asked that I visit the
occupied Palestinian territory to see the wall for myself before I made up
my mind. I agreed.
Under the protection of the United Nations I visited Jerusalem and
Bethlehem. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day.
The wall is an appalling edifice to behold. It is policed by young Israeli
soldiers who treated me, a casual observer from another world, with
disdainful aggression.
If it could be like that for me, a foreigner, a visitor, imagine what it must
be like for the Palestinians, for the underclass, for the passbook carriers.
I knew then that my conscience would not allow me to walk away from
that wall, from the fate of the Palestinians I met: people whose lives are
crushed daily by Israel's occupation. In solidarity, and somewhat
impotently, I wrote on their wall that day: "We don't need no thought
control."
Realising at that point that my presence on a Tel Aviv stage would
inadvertently legitimise the oppression I had seen, I cancelled my gig at
the stadium in Tel Aviv and moved it to Neve Shalom, an agricultural
community devoted to growing chick peas and also, admirably, to co-
operation between different faiths, where Muslim, Christian and Jew
work side by side in harmony.
Against all expectations it was to become the biggest music event in the
short history of Israel. Some 60,000 fans battled traffic jams to attend. It
was extraordinarily moving for us, and at the end of the gig I was moved
to exhort the young people gathered there to demand of their
government that they attempt to make peace with their neighbours and
respect the civil rights of Palestinians living in Israel.
Sadly, in the intervening years the Israeli government has made
no attempt to implement legislation that would grant rights to Israeli
Arabs equal to those enjoyed by Israeli Jews, and the wall has grown,
inexorably, illegally annexing more and more of the West Bank.
For the people of Gaza, locked in a virtual prison behind the wall of
Israel's illegal blockade, it means another set of injustices. It means that
children go to sleep hungry, many chronically malnourished. It means
that fathers and mothers, unable to work in a decimated economy, have
no means to support their families. It means that university students
with scholarships to study abroad must watch the opportunity of
a lifetime slip away because they are not allowed to travel.
In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over
the besieged Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in the occupied
West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the
rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair-
minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil,
nonviolent resistance.
Where governments refuse to act people must, with whatever peaceful
means are at their disposal. For me this means declaring an intention to
stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine but also with the
many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government's
policies, by joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
against Israel.
My conviction is born in the idea that all people deserve basic human
rights. This is not an attack on the people of Israel. This is, however, a
plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other
disciplines, to join this cultural boycott.
Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa's Sun City resort until
apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights.
And we are right to refuse to play in Israel until the day comes – and it
surely will come – when the wall of occupation falls and Palestinians live
alongside Israelis in the peace, freedom, justice and dignity that they all
deserve.
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BDS 2010: More Powerful Than The Sword

By Eric Walberg, Dissident Voice, December 29th, 2010
It was two years ago today, 27 December, that Israel launched its
invasion of Gaza, carrying out 22 days of murder and mayhem, killing
1400 and leaving 5400 civilians crippled for life. Since then it has
continued to besiege the 1.5 million Gazans, causing hundreds more
unnecessary deaths. Its actions were deemed war crimes by the UN
Goldstone Report.
Israel remains unpunished, hiding behind the skirts of its US lobbyists,
who put unremitting pressure on every single congressman, senator and
the president to prevent any condemnation of its crimes.
But its attempt to cow the Palestinians have failed. What Israel has
succeeded in doing is to confirm beyond a doubt, for millions around the
world, its inhuman, racist agenda.
The past two years have witnessed an awakening of world citizens to the
plight of the brave Gazans. There have been more than a dozen convoys
and flotillas, including Free Gaza boats that broke the siege five times,
the Gaza Freedom March, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla — people of all
faiths and nationalities risking life and limb to bring Gazans emergency
help.
The latest, the “Asia to Gaza Solidarity Caravan”, the first from south of
the equator, represents 18 countries. It reached Turkey last week having
started in India, and passing through Pakistan and Iran. It timed its
peaceful “invasion” of Gaza to coincide with the anniversary of Israel’s
day of infamy.
These efforts to bring relief to suffering Gazans are essential but far
from enough. They can be conceived of the positive tactics in a peaceful
war by the Palestinians and all people of good will against apartheid
Israel. This war goes by the name Boycott Divestment and Sanctions
(BDS). The war aims are to penalise Israel both politically and
economically to end the siege and make a just peace with the
Palestinians.
Politically BDS has coaxed more and more governments to legitimise
Palestine, even going as far as to delegitimise an apartheid Israel.
Important steps include:
• Venezuela and Bolivia cutting diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009
after the invasion of Gaza, Nicaragua after the attack on the Freedom
Flotilla in May 2010.
• Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay recognising a “free and
independent” Palestine with 1967 borders in 2010, with Paraguay to
follow suit in the spring.
• Norway and Britain upgrading their Palestinian Authority
representative to consul, with the new year promising more European
countries to follow suit.
• Edinburgh city council rejecting a bid by French company Veolia to
take over public services due to its complicity with Israeli crimes.
• Also in Scotland, Stirling city council approving a comprehensive
boycott campaign against Israel’s “open aggression and disregard for
international law.”
• Marrickville, Australia, a sister city to Bethlehem since 2007, recently
voting to support a comprehensive BDS campaign.
Israel besieges Gaza. BDS calls on the world to “besiege the siege”, to
starve Israel of its export and import markets and pressure it to make a
just peace with its captives. There were many victories on this economic
front in 2010 too. Examples include:
– Qatar cutting its trade relations with Israel;
– deals cancelled with Turkey, the UK, Egypt and Gulf States;
– a Turkish company demanding that Israeli companies sign a document
condemning the Israeli massacre in Gaza to continue doing business.
Israeli businessmen in Turkey now have to hide their identity;
– Japan’s MUJI abandoning plans to invest in Israel, facing immense
pressure from citizens in Japan and South Korea;
– European Union guidelines requiring supermarkets to mark the origin
of produce on labels to allow consumers to distinguish between
Palestinian, Israeli and settlement produce;
– Dutch pension fund PFZW disposing of the Israeli companies in its
portfolio. Major Swedish and Norwegian investment funds sold their
shares in all Israeli companies involved in building settlements and the
separation wall;
– the Chilean parliament’s decision to adopt a boycott of Israeli products
made in settlements; and,
– the decision by companies such as Multilock to close their West Bank
businesses because of human rights organisation pressure.
Dozens of BDS groups around the world, including in the US, are singing,
dancing and otherwise demonstrating in front of and inside stores selling
Israeli products, urging management and customers to join the boycott.
But the biggest impact on Israel, ironically, has come from the
beleaguered Palestinians themselves. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has
made it illegal for anything produced in settlements to be sold in
Palestinian stores. The West Bank market is worth around $200 million a
year to Israeli businesses, with some settlement factories selling up to
30 per cent of their output to the Palestinian market. Seventeen
factories in Mishor Adumim, a large industrial estate between East
Jerusalem and Jericho, closed as a direct result of the PA boycott.
As 22,000 Palestinians are employed by settlement businesses, the PA
has established a $50 million fund to both discourage Palestinians from
working in the settlements and help those who lose their jobs due to
BDS successes.
While Israel’s economic media passes no judgment on Israel’s political
and moral failings, BDS is forcing it to wake up. The Marker warned
about the growing boycott of Israeli high-tech companies by European
and US companies which find they cannot invest in Israel for moral
reasons. Nehemia Strassler, Israel’s leading economic analyst, attacked
Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai, for calling on the
military to “destroy one hundred homes in Gaza for every rocket that
falls in Israel”.
The operation in Gaza hurts the economy. The horror sights on television
and the words of politicians in Europe and Turkey change the behavior
of consumers, businessmen and potential investors. Many European
consumers boycott Israeli products in practice. Intellectuals call for an
economic war against us and to enforce an official and full consumer
boycott.
The world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel
movement was limited to the far left or Arabs and Muslims. Now the
campaign is entering the mainstream as a principled red and green —
left wing and Muslim — alliance
The boycott is an especially effective weapon against Israel because
Israel is a small country, dependent on exports and imports. BDS was
the key to ending the apartheid regime in South Africa and is fuelling
world citizens with energy to do the same to Israeli apartheid.
And it is all thanks to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which let the world
watch Israel pound Gaza with bombs on live television. Israeli-American
artist, Theordore Bikel, a recent convert to BDS, points to the legendary
Pablo Casals, who refused to play in fascist Spain, saying, “My cello is
my weapon; I choose where I play, when I play, and before whom I
play.” There are many weapons mightier than the sword.

Back to Top

Israel Prize laureates join academic boycott of

settlement university
By Or Kashti, Haaretz, 9 January 2011
155 academics sign petition calling Ariel, where the education
center is located, an illegal settlement whose existence
contravenes international law and the Geneva Convention.
Some 155 university and college faculty members have signed a petition
calling for an academic boycott of the Ariel University Center.
In the petition, the lecturers state their "unwillingness to take part in any
type of academic activity taking place in the college operating in the
settlement of Ariel." Furthermore, the petition states that "Ariel is not
part of the sovereign state of Israel, and therefore it is impossible to
require us to appear there."
Among the signatories are three Israel Prize laureates - professors
Yehoshua Kolodny of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Benjamin
Isaac of Tel Aviv University and Itamar Procaccia of the Weizmann
Institute of Science.
"We, academics from a variety of fields and from all the institutions of
higher learning in Israel, herein express publicly our opposition to the
continued occupation and the establishment of settlements," the
petition states. "Ariel was built on occupied land. Only a few kilometers
away from flourishing Ariel, Palestinians live in villages and refugee
camps under unbearably harsh conditions and without basic human
rights. Not only do they not have access to higher education, some do
not even have running water. These are two different realities that
create a policy of apartheid," the petition also says.
The signatories state that Ariel was an illegal settlement whose
existence contravened international law and the Geneva Convention. "It
was established for the sole purpose of preventing the Palestinians from
creating an independent state and thus preventing us, citizens of Israel,
from having the chance to ever live in peace in this region."
The petition was initiated and organized by Nir Gov of the Weizmann
Institute's Department of Chemical Physics. Unlike other such initiatives,
over a third of the list's signatories are from the natural and exact
sciences.
Gov, who started organizing the petition a few weeks ago, said it was
important to show that not only people known from other petitions
support a boycott of Ariel, and therefore this petition has among its
signatories many scholars who are not from the social sciences and the
humanities.
"Israeli academia must differentiate itself from the 'settlement'
academia," said Gov. "Only significant differentiation can help our
supporters abroad who are working against an academic boycott of
Israel. This assistance is important, but all in all it is secondary to the
principled stand that the goal of the establishment of the college at Ariel
was not teaching and academic research, but political. It may be too
late, but we felt a need to state in the clearest language that Israeli
academia must not be involved in the settlement project," Gov also said.
Gov said he encountered some colleagues who agreed with the message
of the petition but were afraid to sign. He said such fear, "in the current
atmosphere, is understandable, tangible. Even if there is no official
action against the signatories, we may pay some sort of price."
About three weeks ago, the Council For Higher Education issued a public
statement against calls by Israeli academics for an academic boycott of
Israel. The council, which is headed by Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar,
said such calls "undermine the foundations of the higher education
system."
However, Gov said there is no contradiction between the council's
statement and the petition. "The council says rightly that there is a
danger of delegitimization of the academic system in Israel. We say the
source of this danger is Ariel and the settlements."
Yigal Cohen-Orgad, chairman of the Ariel college's executive committee,
said: "A tiny and bizarre minority of some 150 lecturers is behind the
petition, out of 7,000 faculty members. The cooperation between the
Ariel University Center and many hundreds of scholars from universities
in Israel and many hundreds more from 40 universities abroad, is the
response to this petition. We know the heads of the universities oppose
the call for a boycott and all it entails. I am sure that academia will
continue to cooperate with us."

Back to Top

GUSH SHALOM

The Knesset
Has confirmed
In the first reading
The law
That turns a
Boycott on the
Products of the
Settlements
Into a criminal act.

Thus has the

The Knesset
Become an
Occupied territory
Of the settlers.

Ad published in Haaretz, March 11, 2011

Back to Top

WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on

brink of collapse
Haaretz, 5 January 2011
Cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv says Israeli officials
wanted Gaza's economy 'functioning at the lowest level
possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.'
Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza's economy "on the
brink of collapse" while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S.
diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday.
Three cables cited by the Aftenposten newspaper, which has said it has
all 250,000 U.S. cables leaked to WikiLeaks, showed that Israel kept the
U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv briefed on its internationally criticized blockade
of the Gaza Strip.
The territory, home to 1.3 million Palestinians, is run by the Islamist
Hamas group, which is shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize
Israel, renounce violence or accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian
peace deals.
"As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have
confirmed to (U.S. embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions
that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse
without quite pushing it over the edge," one of the cables read.
Israel wanted the coastal territory's economy "functioning at the lowest
level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis", according
to the Nov. 3, 2008 cable.
In a speech in January 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared
to spell out that policy, which has since been eased in the wake of an
international outcry over a deadly Israeli raid last May on a Turkish aid
ship trying to break the blockade.
"We will not harm the supply of food for children, medicine for those who
need it and fuel for institutions that save lives," Olmert said at the time.
"But there is no justification for demanding we allow residents of Gaza to
live normal lives while shells and rockets are fired from their streets and
courtyards (at southern Israel)," he added.
Israel says it has significantly relaxed the blockade since May, with
dozens of truckloads of goods entering the territory daily. Aid
organizations have said shipments should be increased further.
Palestinians say impoverished Gaza remains effectively a "prison" sealed
off by Israel, and have called for an opening to allow normal trade and
other links with the world.

Back to Top

'Our lives became something we'd never dreamt': The

former Israeli soldiers who have testified against
army abuses
By Donald Macintyre The Independent, 12 December 2010
Former Israeli soldiers who have testified against army abuses
have for the first time given up their anonymity, to make their
voices all the harder to ignore. Donald Macintyre gets an
exclusive preview of a powerful new book
For anyone who has covered Israel, the West Bank and Gaza over the
past few years, reading Occupation of the Territories, the new book from
the Israeli ex-soldiers organisation Breaking the Silence, can be an eerily
evocative experience.
A conscript from the Givati Brigade, for example, describes how troops
in the company operating next to his inside Gaza during 2008 had talked
about an event earlier in the day. After knocking on the door of a
Palestinian house and receiving no immediate answer, they had placed a
"fox" – military slang for explosives used to break through doors and
walls – outside the front door. At that very moment, the woman of the
house had reached the door to open it. "Her limbs were smeared on the
wall and it wasn't on purpose," the soldier recalls. "And then her kids
came and saw her. I heard it during dinner after the operation, someone
said it was funny, and they cracked up from the situation that the kids
saw their mother smeared on the wall..."
A second-hand story, of course; one without names, dates or supporting
detail. Except that it stirred a memory I had of reporting the death of a
Palestinian UN schoolteacher east of Khan Younis. Wafer Shaker al-
Daghma was killed when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) commandeered
her house during an incursion in May 2008. Her husband had been out
at the time. When we came to the house five days later, another
incursion was under way and we could hear, uncomfortably close, the
gunfire from Israeli armoured military vehicles while Majdi al-Daghma
described his wife's death at the age of 34. When she realised troops
were nearby, she'd ordered ' the children, Samira, 13, Roba, four, and
Qusay, two, into the bedroom, put on a headscarf and prepared to open
the door. "Samira heard a loud explosion and there was a lot of smoke,"
he explained. "She looked for her mother but couldn't see her."
It was surely the same incident. You have to assume that the laughter
alluded to by the conscript was a nervous reaction, a manifestation of
delayed shock from the soldiers. They had, after all, had the presence of
mind to cover Mrs al-Daghma's mutilated body with a carpet, and to
keep the children confined to the bedroom for the five hours they had
remained in the house. Samira said she had asked one of them, "Where
is my mother?" but had not understood his reply in Hebrew. She
explained how, when the soldiers finally left after nightfall, "There were
still tanks outside our house... I tried to call my father on my mother's
Jawwal [mobile phone] but there was no line. I lifted the carpet and saw
a bit of my mother's clothes. She was not moving. I did not see her
head."
The point of this is not just that the soldier's story is shocking, but that it
is so apparently corroborated. Especially given that the conscript's short
account – unlike many others in the book, some every bit as disquieting
– is based on hearsay, it is powerfully suggestive of the testimonies'
authenticity as a portrait of a 43-year-old occupation. These testimonies,
checked and cross-checked, of young Israeli men and women struggling
to come to terms, sometimes years after the event, with their military
service in the West Bank and Gaza, add up to an unprecedented inside
account, as the book's introduction puts it, of "the principles and
consequences of Israeli policy in the [Palestinian] territories".
Breaking the Silence is a unique organisation. No other country –
including those with recent and problematic military histories, such as
the US and Britain – has anything comparable. Since it began in 2004, it
has collected 700 testimonies from conscripts and reservists, spanning
the decade since the beginning of the second intifada. In July last year, it
made its greatest impact by publishing accounts from around 30 combat
soldiers involved in the onslaught on Hamas-controlled Gaza only six
months earlier, challenging the military's assertion that it had done "the
utmost to avoid harming uninvolved civilians".
Breaking the Silence has since taken two more decisive steps. The
Israeli military has long complained about the anonymity of its
witnesses. In July, the IDF even questioned whether all the testimonies
were genuine. Anonymity was understandable; the soldiers risked
alienation and heavy criticism from their own communities as well as
from the state itself, not to mention the possibility of proceedings
brought by the military. Now, for the first time, 27 of those who had
testified have allowed the Jerusalem-based photographer Quique
Kierszenbaum to take their portraits, and use their names, along with
summaries of why and what they testified.
The second step change, having in the past let the testimonies speak for
themselves, is that Breaking the Silence has been emboldened by the
sheer number of them to offer a broader analysis of what it believes
they expose: in part that, while Israeli forces have indeed had to deal
with "concrete threats in the past decade, including terrorist attacks on
Israeli citizens", their operations, especially in the West Bank, extend
beyond the solely defensive and "systematically" lead to the "de facto
annexation" of occupied territory "through the dispossession of
Palestinian residents".
In arguing that Israel exercises a measure of control over Palestinians
that extends beyond its own security needs, the book (published in
Hebrew on 21 December, with an English version to follow in the new
year), takes four technical terms in frequent use by the Israeli military
and tries to show in its introductions to the testimonies what Breaking
the Silence sees as their real, as opposed to ostensible, meaning.
The first of these terms is "Prevention" [sikkul in Hebrew] which, it
argues, has become a "code word" that allows almost every form of
military action, offensive as well as defensive, to be classified as
"prevention of terrorist activity". It says the principle, first enunciated by
the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon of "searing it into the
consciousness" of Palestinians that violence does not pay, translates
into "intimidation... and indiscriminate punishment of the Palestinian
population". The examples given include: sending a military truck into
the village of Tubas at 3am in 2003 "with stun grenades and just
throwing them in the street, for no reason, waking people up [to say]
'We are here. The IDF is here.'"; shooting ' a visibly unarmed man
walking on a roof in Nablus in 2002 ("The company commander declared
him a lookout, meaning that he understood there was no threat from the
guy, and he gave the order to kill him"); and halting stone-throwing in
Tekoa by using a "moving human shield" – a Palestinian man tied to the
front of a vehicle – before driving round the village.
The second term is "Separation" [hafradah], meaning the separation of
Palestinians not only from Israelis but from other Palestinians (within the
West Bank and between Gaza and the West Bank) and their own land by
using checkpoints, separation barriers, Israeli-only roads used by West
Bank settlers, and a strict permit regime enforcing "isolation" of many
communities. While much of this "separation" – including loss of land – is
permanent, in the past two years, post-intifada, some obstacles have
eased. But Breaking the Silence insists the "paradigm" is unchanged.
"It's obvious Israel relaxes its grip when things are easier," says the
organisation's Mikhael Manekin. "But it always has the grip. It can relax
or tighten it as it chooses."
There was the "separation" of Nablus in 2003 from the surrounding
villages: "You have to understand the proportionality. A person between
the ages of 16 and 35, who lives in Nablus has not left Nablus in the past
four years, even to go to a village next to Nablus." Another example was
the Qalqilya area in 2002: "Someone whose fig grove they uprooted
came in tears, and he said to me: 'I worked for 30 years to buy the land,
I worked this grove for 10 years, I waited 10 years for it to bear fruit, I
enjoyed it for one year and they [the IDF] are uprooting it.'"
Next is "Fabric of life" [mirkam hayyim], the term used by the IDF to
underline that it does its best to ensure as normal a life as possible for
Palestinians – a proposition strongly contested in the book. It claims that
Israel controls the passage of civilians and goods into Israel and within
the West Bank, the opening of private businesses, transport of school-
children, university students and medical cases. "[Property] can all be
taken at the discretion of a regional commander or a soldier in the
field... troops will burst into the house in the dead of night and arrest
one of the inhabitants, only to release him later – all in order to practise
arrest procedures."
Among the examples is the story of a Palestinian truck driver trying to
bring milk containers into Hebron from Yatta during a curfew in 2002,
who was detained, handcuffed and blindfolded on a hot summer
morning. He had some 2,000 litres of milk – all of which spoiled as he sat
all day, restrained. "When I look at it [now]," says a former soldier, "I feel
embarrassed... Did it contribute to the security of the state? No."
Another example concerns illegal workers and their families trying to get
into the Wadi Ara of northern Israel from the West Bank. One former
soldier recalls "Pouring out the kids' bags and playing with their toys...
They cried and were afraid." The adults cried, too? "Of course. One of
the goals was always: I got him to cry in front of his kids, I got him to
crap in his pants... from being beaten for the most part."
Finally, in examining the term "Law enforcement" [akhifat hak], the book
highlights the dual legal regime in the West Bank, whereby Palestinians
are subject to military rule and courts while Israeli settlers are
answerable to civilian courts. At the same time, it argues, Israeli settlers
are effectively allies of the military – and they have a common enemy.
The book's stark – and inevitably highly political – conclusion is contrary
to the view that "Israel is withdrawing from the Palestinian Territories
slowly and with the appropriate caution and security". The IDF soldiers
quoted "describe an indefatigable attempt to tighten Israel's hold on the
territories, as well as on the Palestinian population".
Not surprisingly perhaps, Manekin acknowledges that those who have –
as he deliberately puts it – "come out of the closet", by allowing
themselves to be named and photographed, are among the more
activist of the 500 individuals who have testified to the organisation. It is
no coincidence that this parallel project has happened at a time when
Breaking the Silence has decided to promote its own analysis of the past
decade of occupation. Manekin says it wasn't easy to be photographed.
"We didn't do this to be heroes," he says. "Really, the political
significance is the only reason for doing it."
For the full text of Occupation of the Territories click here

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IDF soldier charged with killing Gaza civilian: My

commander told me I was 'cold-blooded murderer'
Haaretz, 23 December 2010
Givati soldier who allegedly shot a woman during Operation
Cast Lead says he was following his commander's orders.
The day after ground troops entered the Gaza Strip during Operation
Cast Lead two years ago, S., a soldier in the Givati Brigade, allegedly
shot a woman in her upper body while she was carrying a white flag.
About half an hour later, S. subsequently told the Military Police, the
company commander arrived and S. was stunned by his response.
"He told me, in front of everyone, 'You're a cold-blooded murderer, you'll
go to hell,'" S. said. "When I tried to tell him, 'But those were your
orders,' he told me, 'Shut up. You won't remain in my company.'"
"But that was it. From then on, until the end of the fighting, it was if
nothing had happened," S. related.
This incident eventually led to the gravest indictment yet filed
concerning actions committed during Cast Lead, and one of the gravest
ever filed against any Israeli soldier.
The evidence collected in the case, as well as exclusive interviews with
S. and other soldiers indicted over Cast Lead, will be broadcast on
television tonight on Ilana Dayan's program "Uvda" ("Fact" ), which airs
at 9 P.M. on Channel 2.
Based on evidence collected thus far, it seems the incident raises much
larger questions than merely who fired and at what.
S. related that, during Cast Lead, after shouting suddenly erupted
nearby, his platoon commander ordered him to the lookout post. He saw
seven people approaching - "I don't remember a white flag. And then
the shooting began," S. said.
"I fired in the air ... But they continued to approach, so then I began
firing at their legs ... so that they'd turn away, not to injure their legs.
But they still kept coming. And then I fired at the upper bodies and hit
one of them. I saw someone fall," S. continued.
"I aimed at the body with intent to wound, because they were continuing
to approach and walking very quickly. After one of them fell, all the rest
began to run away ... After that, the shooting stopped.
"The battalion commander arrived and asked 'Who fired?' I said, 'I
fired,'" S. recalled. "He asked, 'Why did you fire?' and I answered, 'The
company commander's orders were to shoot anyone who approaches
the fortifications, because he's a terrorist.' He said, 'Very good' and went
away."
The police interrogator, saying that only S. had fired with intent to kill,
asked him why.
"I don't know why ... I don't know what the others saw or did," S. replied.
"Maybe everyone fired but only I hit."
S. said that he never saw the body. "Afterward they told me it was a
woman, though I was sure it was a man."
When asked if he ever considered whether those approaching might be
innocent civilians, S. replied, "If they were innocent, they wouldn't have
kept coming after the first shot was fired in the air."
Was there an explicit order, the interrogator asked, to treat everyone
who approached as a potential terrorist who should be killed? "I recall it
being said that 'even if they have a white flag with peace written on it,
you shoot,'" S. replied.
But he quickly added: "They spoke to us a lot about the judgment we
need to use, they spoke to us about the procedure to use in arresting a
suspect. This sentence was said in the heat of things, perhaps to stress
to the soldiers that this wasn't a joke. I didn't understand from it that I
should shoot everyone. That is, I didn't take it as an order. I think all the
soldiers understood that it wasn't an order, that we needed to use our
judgment - just as they're always telling us."
Because no one examined the woman's body after the incident, S. was
charged with a rare crime: "Killing an unknown person."
Equally bizarre is that, despite the company commander's severe
rebuke at the time, a subsequent inquiry was buried at the battalion
level and never went any farther - a fact which later led the military
advocate general to investigate S.'s superiors as well. But this burial of
the internal inquiry may have been due to the fact that the testimony
provided there by S.'s commanders differed from what they later told
the Military Police, especially with regard to the rules of engagement
soldiers were given prior to the incident.

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'Good hit. Alpha.'

By Amira Hass, Haaretz, 9 January 2011
Rare testimony from the flight navigator in the 2002 bombing of
Hamas military commander Salah Shehadeh that killed 14
civilians, including eight children.
"Who knows what happened on July 22, 2002?" Maj. T., an Israel Air
Force navigator, asked the audience at Tel Aviv's BINA Center for Jewish
Identity and Hebrew Culture on December 19, 2010. They came for "The
Limits of Obedience," part of a discussion series called "The Military in a
Democratic State" and held in cooperation with the Israel Defense
Forces Staff and Command School.
A paratroop commander, also a major, had already related dealing with
a religiously observant soldier's refusal to obey orders during the 2005
disengagement from the Gaza Strip. (The officers' full names appeared
in the invitation to the event. ) An older, higher-ranking officer who was
with them interrupted occasionally. The audience consisted of about 50
teenagers studying in BINA's secular yeshiva in preparation for military
service. They did not know what had happened on that date.
On July 22, 2002 an Israeli plane dropped a 1-ton bomb on a house in
Gaza City in which Hamas military wing commander Salah Shehadeh
was staying. Last month Maj. T. spoke about the moments before and
during the bombing and about his discovery that civilians had also been
killed. Haaretz has obtained a recording of his remarks. They appear
below in translation, with light editing and skipping over words that were
indecipherable due to poor audio quality. It constitutes the first open
publication of testimony of a participant in the bombing that killed, in
addition to Shehadeh and his aide, also 14 civilians, including eight
children.
The operation was preceded by several days of on-base training and
preparations.
"On the third night," T. related, "there was a siren, and we were allowed
to take off. That was at 11 P.M. We take off from Hatzor. It takes two
minutes to fly from Hatzor to Gaza. Two minutes after takeoff we're told
'Go wait over the sea.' That means west, far out, in the dark, so there's
no noise. This guy [the target] can smell planes, hear planes and flee.
We wait, and I tell myself: Cool, he's alone now, the guy's alone ...
"The base commander is dying to tell us who it was. [He] climbed the
[plane's] ladder on the second night ... and told us, 'Do you want to
know who it is?" [We said] 'Get off the plane, go away, we don't want to
know ... ' because it doesn't mean anything. I neither knew nor
understood who it was.
"We're waiting in the sea now, 50 minutes. My flight controller tells me
over the radio, 'Permission to strike.' I said 'great' ... You've seen it in
the movies, that's how it looks. We go east, west, hit, the house goes
down, falls ... We don't see anything around, from that height you don't
see much. I have a television screen where I see the target. I hit, using
night vision, land and wait for the base commander. When I returned
[he] told me, 'You know who that is?'
T. asks his audience: "Who knows who Salah Shehadeh is? Salah
Shehadeh is the Hamas chief of staff. In 2002 there's Sheikh Yassin, he's
the spiritual leader, and there's Salah Shehadeh, the military
commander. [The base commander] told me it was Salah Shehadeh, and
I said, Great. I have no idea who or what you're talking about. We made
a good hit, 'alpha' in air force jargon, and that's it, we went to bed. The
next day, actually the same day, we're told that the strike killed Salah,
his wife, his daughter, his son and others ... That's the subject. And I
fired ...
"A few days later, three guys came to the squadron. Three reservists.
They said 'What did you do?' They heard from the media. 'You went, you
killed, you murdered, ta-ta-ta,' they said. OK, we got it. The squadron
commander called us all in and we talked. The squadron talked, maybe
the first or second discussion of ethics I know of, in the squadron
certainly, about the rest [the incidents, the subjects] I don't know. I think
[there are discussions after such incidents]. They have them all the
time. In the first (discussion ) we presented the incident from start to
finish and we said ... [after all, they told me, permission to strike. Had I
known there were 14 people with him ... what should I have done?"
Someone in the audience: "You should have done your job."
T.: "What am I?"
Someone in the audience: "You should have done your best, yes,
because maybe at that stage you're already, on the one hand you must
be full of adrenaline, you're already in the plane ... seconds before you
strike. If you hesitate now it could make you itch more and kill more
people."
T.: "I'm not sure I would have hit like that ... You were discussing lawful
and unlawful commands, and we'll get to that. Had I had intelligence
information that wasn't intentionally connected to me, it's not my job, I
don't know, I don't have the big intelligence picture like someone else.
Had I known there's an intelligence picture connected to things
forbidden to me, I wouldn't have hit. It would have been wrong for me to
hit."
Someone in the audience: "If you'd known there were 14 you wouldn't
have hit?"
T.: "Had I known when I was in the air? The moment I take off, I become
a war machine. Until I know, until the point when I know I'm doing
something wrong. Something wrong is to kill ordinary people."
Someone in the audience. "Military Intelligence knew."
T.: "Forget Military Intelligence. I'm not investigating them. Maybe they
knew, maybe not."
Someone in the audience: "That's a kind of withholding information."
T.: "It's not withholding information. There's a very clear separation here
... I only want you to look at my perspective as a pilot. I didn't know ... I
knew there was somebody, I knew I'd been working on this for a long
time, and now I'm striking in the most professional way possible."
I didn't have a choice
The senior officer: "To understand the considerations of the other side -
he's in the air. He is not involved in the considerations. There are
considerations, there's a mission commander who makes decisions. The
mission commander knows the details, and if he doesn't then that's a
mistake. It could be, by the way, that he knew the details and it was a
conscious decision he made - that innocent people would be killed
because the goal justified it."
Someone in the audience: "But then it wasn't out of choice."
The senior officer: "The pilot in the air doesn't know the considerations,
and if permission to fire is given then he fires."
Someone in the audience: "But he has no choice."
The senior officer: "He has no choice. He had no choice, that's true."
T.: "I have no choice. My entire choice was before, in advance, on the
ground. And in this mission the timing, the choice of the bomb, counting
the fuzes ... how much damage the bomb would cause, etc. But in the
air you have no [choice]. You have your professional considerations, but
you can't permit yourself to go beyond that. I know about an incident, I
think in [Operation] Peace for the Galilee, in Tyre, when there was a
totally unlawful order that the pilot didn't carry out.
"After the number of fatalities became known] there was an ethics
discussion. As a pilot I don't have the option of choice. I strike in Syria, I
strike in Lebanon, and in Gaza I don't. I can't do that. In the territories
no, in Iran yes - just an example. With every mission I am assigned I
have to look in the mirror. That's true of everyone, in the air, on the sea,
look in the mirror, and say, can I do this thing? ... If the guy who came
and said ... would have thought before - if he can carry out the mission
and what exactly happened there, he would create his own limit of
obedience for this and other missions. I don't have the right to choose in
real time: "Wait a minute, squadron commander, don't assign me to a
strike in the territories, because I don't feel like it, I don't approve.' If I
refuse to strike in the territories I can't strike in Syria or Lebanon or
anywhere else.
"All the control and monitoring and advance planning, I'll do in advance.
I can intervene in planning, that's something we'll get to in a minute.
How did I feel? I felt my heart was totally with this mission. Because in
light of these circumstances, my professional level or the final outcome I
achieved was exactly what was expected of me and it was very good.
There are the wider circles, to my great regret, that additional civilians
were killed, and a relatively large number. That's the main event, for
now, when they talk about ... targeted assassinations and ... the
principle of proportionality. You look very carefully whether carrying out
the mission that is before me has priority over harming civilians.
"Even after Operation Cast Lead, this incident is preoccupying people in
Israel on the level of moral principles. It's an expression of the whole
issue of 'How much can I affect the mission.' What is obedience? It
seems very clear, to obey, we're in uniform, etc. ... Even a military
system in a democratic state, even in the IDF, in certain places we can
question the mission and the order, to reflect and to question in terms of
controlling the mission, etc., as long as the mission is lawful. Let's stay
within the bounds of lawful missions ... Where does one do that? Mainly
in the early planning stages, it's always done, but in the early stage
when we must think and not rush into the fire with your friends. We
must insure the proper controls to limit harm to civilians, for example, as
much as possible."
No sterile wars
Someone in the audience: "The intelligence unit must give you this
intelligence information too, 'He's eating dinner with his family.' So is
there a situation where you wouldn't carry out the decision? Is there a
situation where you'd say, 'OK, he's eating dinner'?"
T.: "The decisions aren't made in the eye of the storm, inside a plane,
but rather at a quiet desk and the like. The people who ... gave us the
order, they are the people, and it's at the highest level of the State of
Israel. They're the people who know whether it's worthwhile to strike,
what the principle of proportionality and so on is at the time. My opinion
was expressed at this stage. The moment I closed the hatch and
became a fighter pilot carrying out the mission, now I'm going to carry
out the mission and that's after the whole stage of talking, deliberating."
The senior officer elaborates: "That's why ... what happened, the
moment he took off, it's not his responsibility, he must execute the
mission as professionally as possible. Had there been a screw-up, a
failure to hit the target, he would have been responsible. But making the
decision was not his responsibility."
Voices from the audience: "What does it matter who's responsible?"
The senior officer: "You must understand the picture. The number of
uninvolved people who are hurt, what we call innocent bystanders, in
IDF operations in the past 10 years is tens ... hundreds of percentage
points [below] those hurt [by U.S. forces] in Iraq or other places.
Hundreds of percentage points, a difference of thousands of people.
[The rate] of [collateral damage] by the IDF [is very low].
"There are no sterile wars," the senior officer continued. "It happens, we
must do everything possible, and the IDF does, to limit that. You must
realize that every such incident, and I am also talking about many, many
strikes against people who are far less senior, and not only by manned
aircraft, are approved on the level of Israel's prime minister. Unlike other
places in the world where when a military commander is assigned a
sector, he is very eager to succeed, he can do almost anything he
wants. It doesn't reach such crazy levels. Mishaps happen, mistakes
happen, and we try to limit them as much as possible."
Back to Top
Illegal Closure of the Gaza Strip: Collective Punishment
of the Civilian Population
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 10 December 2010
In June 2007, following the Hamas takeover, Israel imposed an absolute
closure on the Gaza Strip. For more than three years, this most extreme
form of closure has been continuously applied to the so-called “hostile
entity” that is the Gaza Strip, cutting off 1.7 million individuals from the
outside world. Palestinian civilians are illegally denied access to their
basic needs, including food, medicine, fuel, electricity and other
necessary commodities.
As a rule Palestinians are not allowed to travel in and out of Gaza, with
few exceptions mainly for humanitarian reasons (mostly patients
needing life saving medical treatments). Students are not allowed to
attend university programs abroad, or in the West Bank; families are
divided and unable to visit each other even within the Palestinian
territory; traders and businessmen are prevented from doing their
business. Only a small, tightly regulated, number of internationals are
allowed into Gaza under a strict system of permits.
For the past three and half years the import of goods into Gaza has been
prohibited by the Israeli authorities, with only limited quantities of basic
goods, mainly food, allowed entry for ‘humanitarian’ reasons. Israel has
also imposed a total ban on the exports of the Gaza Strip’s products,
destroying the economic sector and generating dependency. Only
limited quantities of two goods, flowers and strawberries, were allowed
to be sporadically exported thanks to specific international mediation.
The effects of the current absolute closure of Gaza have been
exacerbated by Israel’s 27 December 2008-18 January 2009 military
operation (codenamed “operation Cast Lead” by the Israeli military). The
offensive caused the death of 1,419 Palestinians, 1,167 of whom (82%)
were civilians not taking part in hostilities and the injury of a further
5,300 and resulted in the extensive destruction of houses and civilian
infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, and industry.
Since the offensive, in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1860
(2009), Israel has failed to open the borders of Gaza, thus impeding the
passage of goods necessary for recovery and reconstruction. By
imposing this draconian closure policy – and not lifting it in the
aftermath of the military operation - Israel has manufactured a chronic
and profound humanitarian crisis.
By denying a people their ability to work and their right to move; by
depriving
families of the ability to rebuild their homes which have been reduced to
rubble; and by forcing individuals to give up generations-old family
traditions, an entire population is being reduced to a ‘humanitarian
problem’.
To this end, the most profound impact of the closure cannot be
described by figures or statistics. The systematic humiliation,
intimidation and general degradation that are the result of Israel’s
measures and restrictions erode the very fabric of life for the people of
Gaza and deprive them of their very human dignity.
95% of the 3,900 industrial establishments in the Gaza Strip have closed
or suspended their work due to the restrictions placed on the import of
raw materials and as a result of the inability to export their products.
The remaining 5% work at 20-50% of their capacity.
The decimation of Gaza’s industry has resulted in the loss of between
100,000- 120,000 jobs. After the military offensive of December 2008-
January 2009, only 1,878 individuals, of 65,000 employed prior to the
current closure, continue to be employed in the industrial sector in Gaza.
Israel’s unilateral imposition of a growing “buffer zone” all along the
Gaza borders, as a “no-go area” implemented with open fire, currently
renders 17% of Gaza territory or 35% of its agricultural land not
accessible or accessible only under high risk of being shot by Israeli
military forces. At sea, Israel allows fishing only out to 3 nautical miles,
despite the limit of 20 nautical miles established under the Oslo Accords.
This has further drastically negatively impacted upon the agricultural
and fishing sector on which thousands of families depend economically.
This report focuses on the Gaza Strip and on the exceptionally strict
conditions of closure imposed by Israel over the past three and half
years.
However the situation in Gaza cannot be isolated from the overall
context of the occupation of the Palestinian territory. Equally, the
closure policy is not a new phenomenon or one that is limited to the
Gaza Strip. Israel has subjected the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt)
to an illegal policy of harsh restrictions for almost two decades.
For many years, Palestinians have not been allowed to travel within the
oPt.
Residents of Gaza have not been allowed to travel to the West Bank and
residents of the West Bank are not allowed to travel to Gaza. Even
members of the Palestinian Legislative Council have been restricted
from traveling in and out of Gaza. The vast majority of Palestinians living
in the West Bank have never visited the Gaza Strip, as they are
prevented from doing so. An entire generation of Gazans has never
visited the rest of the Palestinian territory, let alone the world beyond
the Palestinian territory.
PCHR believes that Israel has pursued numerous aims through the
imposition of these closures on the occupied Palestinian territory, which
are one of the tools used by the occupying power to implement a policy
of separation, fragmentation and isolation of the occupied territory and
of its inhabitants.
An evident direct implication of Israel’s closure policy is the growing
separation inside the Palestinian territory and among the Palestinian
people. The internal political implications of this separation, forced
closure and isolation are evident today. Ultimately, PCHR finds that the
closure perpetuates the long-standing denial of self-determination of the
Palestinian people.
Most of all Israeli policy of closure exhibits a strongly punitive and
reprisory character: the closure is imposed collectively as a means of
‘economic warfare’, violating international law which unequivocally
prohibits collective punishment and reprisals against civilians (Art. 33 IV
Geneva Convention).
The International Committee of the Red Cross clearly stated that: “The
whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which
they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective
punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under
international humanitarian law.”
This report details the Israeli authorities’ responsibilities for the
implementation of this illegal closure policy, which violates fundamental
principles of international humanitarian law and the most basic human
rights of the Palestinian population of Gaza. In the words of the UN Fact
Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, led by Justice Richard Goldstone:
“The conditions of life in Gaza, resulting from deliberate actions of the
Israeli armed forces and the declared policies of the Government of
Israel – as they were presented by its authorized and legitimate
representatives – with regard to the Gaza Strip before, during and after
the military operation, cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict
collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip in violation of
international humanitarian law”.
The closure is prohibited as a form of collective punishment and results
in the infliction of great suffering on the civilian population, which is a
grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. It is a crime that entails
individual criminal responsibility for those involved in this policy at
various levels, especially at the level of planning, organization, and
active implementation of the closure. Ultimately, the closure may
amount to persecution, which is a crime against humanity.
PCHR reiterates that nothing has substantially changed after the alleged
“easing” of the closure, announced by Israel in June 2010 (after the
deadly Flottilla attack). As a very recent independent report co-signed
by a number of international NGOs has thoroughly detailed, the
measures taken by Israeli to allegedly ease the closure are not effective
and Israel failed to address the root causes of the socio-economic crisis
of Gaza.
Moreover PCHR highlights that the partial easing of the restrictions
implemented by Israel does not deal with the most important aspect,
which is the freedom of movement – also as a precondition for the
enjoyment of many other fundamental rights - of the imprisoned
population of Gaza and the restoration of their human dignity.
The International Fact Finding Mission mandated by the UN to
investigate the 31 May 2010 Israeli attack on the flotilla carrying
humanitarian assistance to Gaza, concluded that the situation in the
Gaza Strip is “deplorable”, “unsustainable” and “totally intolerable and
unacceptable in the
21st Century”. The closure is “unlawful and cannot be sustained in law.
This is so regardless of the grounds on which it is sought to justify the
legality of the blockade”.
The International community has the duty to take measures to put an
end to the illegal closure of Gaza, which is inherently illegal and criminal
in its nature. The High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions
have the duty to respect and ensure respect for the Conventions. This
entails a duty to investigate and prosecute those responsible for grave
breaches of the Conventions and to bring the perpetrators to justice
before their own national courts (Art. 147 IV GC).
By failing to do so the international community bears responsibility for
the intentionally manufactured socio-economical crisis that is
progressively destroying Gaza, and depriving its people of their most
fundamental human rights and dignity.
For the full report click here
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Reconstructing the Closure

Will recent changes to the closure policy be enough to build in Gaza?
Gisha, December 2010 – Position Paper
Following the flotilla incident, on June 20th, 2010 the Israeli government
announced its intention to "enable and expand the inflow of dual-use
construction materials for approved PA-authorized projects that are
under international supervision" and to facilitate the "expansion of
economic activity" in Gaza, limiting restrictions on movement into and
out of the Strip only to those necessary to prevent war materiel from
entering. Despite the cabinet's decision, Israel continues to ban the
entrance of steel, gravel and cement to Gaza, items which are not
considered to be dual-use according to international standards. Narrow
exceptions allowing the transfer of these materials for internationally-
funded projects approved by the Palestinian Authority have been made,
however slowly and with burdensome bureaucratic strings attached.
Continued ban on construction materials: Who can build?
Following the June 20th Security Cabinet decision, on July 6th, Israel
released two lists of items that would be prevented from entering the
Gaza Strip in addition to the items it already prevents from entering the
Palestinian territory according to the Directive on Defense Export
Control (Monitored Dual-use Equipment Transferred to the Territories
under PA Responsibility, 2008). The Directive on Defense Export Control
is a 56-item list which incorporates but also expands upon the control
lists of the Wassenaar Arrangement, the defining and internationally-
recognized source of information on "dual-use" goods. One of the lists
released on July 6th, entitled "Dual-use Items for Projects", includes
cement and other materials needed for building, despite the fact that
these objects have no military use, have not previously been included
on any Israeli or internationally-recognized dual-use list, and are needed
for rebuilding damage caused to homes and civilian infrastructure
during Operation Cast Lead.
Israel has required that the international community provide “end-use
assurances” to show that construction materials for projects are not
ending up in the hands of the government in Gaza. Israel fears that the
government will use these materials to build bunkers or "enhance its
military capability". Despite Israel's requirement for end-use assurances,
it has not made its expectations of the international community clear.
Gisha has asked for relevant documents and forms defining procedures
for requesting to bring in goods under the Freedom of Information Act
and criteria for evaluating requests, but thus far Israel has refused to
share them. The burden to provide end-use assurances has led some
international organizations to hire guards at high costs to "safeguard"
the construction materials, while others extensively document the
transfer and installment of materials via photographs and video; this
despite the fact that construction materials are not weapons and are not
considered to be dual-use goods according to Israeli legislation or
international agreements. The United Nations has estimated that end-
use assurance processes have cost the international body millions of
dollars, funds which could be put to use in projects to benefit Gaza
residents directly.
Paradoxically, while international organizations, funded by Western
states and working in cooperation with the PA, painstakingly negotiate
the entrance of each item needed for vital projects, the government in
Gaza acquires materials through the tunnels. From July 6 to December
6, 2010 just 744 truckloads of cement, gravel, and steel, or about 149
trucks per month, have been allowed into Gaza for international
projects. For perspective, prior to June 2007, residents of Gaza were
buying more than 5,000 truckloads of cement, gravel and steel each
month. On the other hand, on any given day, up to 900 tons of cement
(the equivalent of 36 truckloads) or 300 tons of steel or 250 tons of
gravel enter Gaza via an estimated 30-40 tunnels used for building
materials. High prices, lack of predictability of supply and poor quality
make the tunnels an unattractive option for private contractors. While
construction undertaken by the government remains mostly limited to
small repairs and some minor projects, there is nevertheless a
perception that the government in Gaza is able to deliver, while the
international community struggles to clear bureaucratic hurdles to even
begin its projects.
The difference can be seen in Gaza. To give an example: in late June,
Israel agreed "in principle" to allow the UN Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA) to build eight of the 100 schools it needs to educate Gaza's
schoolchildren. It took four months for Israel to actually begin allowing
the construction materials into Gaza – and then Israel rescinded
approval for four of the schools. At the start of this school year, UNRWA
had to turn away 40,000 children because of lack of classroom space.
International law allows Israel to restrict entrance of goods for security
reasons, but it must do so taking into consideration and balancing
legitimate security concerns with the rights and needs of Gaza
residents, whose access to goods Israel controls. Even if there were a
security reason for restricting construction materials (again, cement is
not a weapon and is not designated as a dual-use item in Israeli or
international legislation), the availability of construction materials via
the tunnels raises questions about the effectiveness of the ban, on the
one hand, and the tremendous harm to the rights of Gaza residents to
rebuild, on the other hand. This renders the ban both disproportionate
and counterproductive.
Five months in focus: The easing of the closure and Gaza’s
economy
The past five months since the July 6th implementation of the
government’s decision have seen a steady increase in the amount of
consumer goods entering the Gaza Strip, corresponding with the
relaxing of the ban on household items and food products, and
infrastructure changes made to the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Despite a
seemingly promising International Monetary Fund report issued in
September reflecting growth in the Strip, however, socioeconomic
indicators point to a much less positive picture. Rates of unemployment,
food insecurity, and poverty remain high.
While the volume of goods entering has increased to about 40% of need,
rather than 22% of need during the past three years, the ban on export
and on construction materials remains, constraining the possibility of
economic recovery. The maximum capacity of Kerem Shalom has grown
to 250 trucks per day, but the type of goods entering are mostly Israeli-
made consumer goods and humanitarian shipments, with just 3.5% of
imports being comprised of construction materials (steel, gravel,
cement) and about 3% raw materials.
Some limited export has begun in the past weeks, with a promise to
allow further export of items from the agriculture, furniture and light
industry sectors, according to a December 8th cabinet decision. This is a
welcome change following a three and a half year near-total ban on
marketing goods outside Gaza. The Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and
Israel are part of a single "customs envelope" controlled by Israel, which
sets the tariff and VAT rates in all three areas. Marketing goods from
Gaza to the West Bank and Israel is therefore not "export" but rather
trade that, under international law, can only be restricted for security
reasons. That trade is critical to economic recovery and development for
the 1.5 million people of Gaza whose ability to transfer goods is
controlled by Israel, particularly in order to revive Gaza's private sector
which in the past traded its locally-produced merchandise with
merchants in Israel, the West Bank, and abroad, bringing revenue and
jobs to residents, as well as self-sufficiency and dignity.
Claims have been made that demand for movement at the crossings is
lower than the current capacity. Since 2007, Israel has closed three out
of four of Gaza's commercial crossings, creating pressure on the Kerem
Shalom crossing, whose capacity is limited. Israel is currently
suppressing demand at Kerem Shalom by banning the entrance of
construction materials and the exit of outbound goods, with limited
exceptions. Prior to these restrictions, each day on average, 433 trucks
would enter Gaza, and 70 trucks of outbound goods would exit. In
contrast, since June 2007, Israel has permitted just 268 (until December
6, 2010) truckloads of outbound goods in total, for a daily average of
one-third of a truck.
Movement of people
Over the past several
months, two-thirds of
those able to travel
via Erez Crossing are
medical patients and
their companions and
employees of
international
organizations.
Movement between Gaza and the West Bank is especially limited, with
travel banned in all but the most exceptional cases. While there has
been a slight increase in the numbers of permits given to
businesspersons, criteria for travel remains limited mainly to
“humanitarian cases” and irrespective of any security allegations made
about individuals requesting to travel. In other words, movement
remains constrained, not for concrete security reasons and with
negative implications for the possibility of economic recovery and the
fulfillment of human rights.
As the September IMF report notes, true and sustainable economic
recovery, a goal declared by both Israel and the international
community, requires removing remaining restrictions on movement of
goods and of people. Exports and entrance of construction materials, as
well as movement of people into and out of Gaza, subject only to
individual security checks and including access between Gaza and the
West Bank, should and can take place without delay.
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"Lately there ain't been much work on account of the

economy"
Gaza Gateway, 28 December 2010
Recently, it was announced that Israel will allow limited marketing of
Gaza's goods outside of the Strip - an encouraging step. It has also been
suggested (article in Hebrew), that the closure has had a limited impact
on the level of poverty in the Gaza Strip. Yet a closer look at the reality
behind the numbers reveals a picture of limited economic activity,
mostly fueled by external aid.
Since the closure was imposed, aid dependence in Gaza has increased
from 63% to 80% because of the paralysis of the private sector, reports
OCHA. The International Monetary Fund reported three months ago that
the Gross National Product in Gaza is still 40% less than it was in 1994
and has yet to recover to 2007 levels.
Why is there so little economic activity and so much dependence on
international aid? There is a very simple explanation: the closure of the
Gaza Strip. The closure of Gaza is not just about shortages of products -
coriander became the star-of-the-moment when it was discovered that
its transfer into Gaza was banned by Israel - it is also about restrictions
on selling of Gaza's goods outside of the Strip, about bringing in
construction materials, and about movement of people.
Before 2007, some 70 truckloads of consumer and agricultural products
left Gaza for marketing outside Gaza each day. Since the Cabinet
decision declaring an easing of the closure and until December 23rd, 70
trucks left the Gaza Strip, in other words, 2/3 of a truck per day.
Another reason for the low economic activity is the ban on construction
materials. Before the ban, residents of Gaza brought in 5,000 truckloads
of gravel, cement and steel per month, compared to an average of 149
trucks per month since Israel declared the easing of the closure. As a
result, there was a drastic decrease in the number of people employed
in construction.
It is therefore no wonder that those who do have jobs in Gaza are more
often than not working in the public sector. According to a recent report
by the British think-tank The Portland Trust, jobs in the private sector
shrunk from 100,000 to 30,000 over the years 2006-2010 – while in
2006 only 28% of those employed worked in the public sector, today
70% of those employed work in the public sector. Those who lost their
jobs found work mainly in the public sector: in local government offices,
international organizations and non-governmental organizations.
Whereas the population of Gaza grew from 1.41 to 1.54 million between
the end of 2007 and mid-2010, the number of jobs remained static.
There has also been a shift from employment in factories, agriculture
and constructi! on towards employment in the Palestinian Authority, the
Hamas government and international organizations. Work in the public
sector is vital for sustaining a society – the public sector includes
teachers, doctors, aid workers – but the private sector is the engine for
development.
The question that should be asked, therefore, is not whether there is a
humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but whether deliberate harm is being done
to the economy and by extension to the well-being of residents of the
Strip, and whom this serves. What is the likelihood that the percentage
of residents living beneath the poverty line will decrease and that Gaza's
economy will enter a period of significant growth, without marketing
Gaza's goods outside of the Strip, without movement of people, and
without construction?

Goods Industrial Fuel

Needs Vs. Supply Needs Vs. Supply
28/11/10 - 25/12/10 28/11/10 - 25/12/10
 Back to Top

A father speaks for his son

By Ahmet Dogan, February 24, 2011
My son, Furkan, was killed in May by the Israeli military while attempting
to deliver humanitarian aid by sea to the Gaza Strip. As he was just 19,
he asked his mother and me for our permission to participate. Our
decision will be with us for the rest of our lives.
We could not crush his humanitarian impulse and say no to him. Parents
the world over wrestle with questions of when to let their children
pursue their dreams, and most reluctantly let go as their children enter
early adulthood. We did the same and took parental satisfaction in his
concern for others. But never did I imagine that the Israeli military would
storm his ship, killing Furkan and eight others, and then blame our son
and his co-passengers for their own deaths.
It is my responsibility to speak for my son and voice his concern for
Palestinians in Gaza. It is my responsibility to stand up to an Israeli
propaganda effort that has attempted to paint our beautiful child as a
fanatic and not the caring young man we knew him to be.
Every major American TV network looped cherry-picked Israeli Defense
Forces video of the events on the Mavi Marmara. Now it is my turn to
travel to the United States, speak on my son's behalf and attempt to
achieve a measure of justice for him.
I will forever be proud of my son. He was a humanistic and conscientious
child and a fine young man. I remember Furkan as unfailingly polite,
helpful and generous. He disliked violence his entire life. Deeply
concerned by the plight of Palestinians suffering under the Israeli siege,
he was determined to take humanitarian aid there with his own hands
and give it to the children of Gaza. Furkan was well aware that the Israeli
siege had made approximately 80 percent of Palestinians in Gaza
dependent on aid and that educational opportunities for children were
being foreclosed for lack of schools and textbooks. He wanted to
breathe the same air as these children, commiserate and make life a bit
more bearable for them.
In recent years, he became alert to the injustices to which Israel subjects
Palestinians -- the siege of Gaza, the two-tiered legal system that
discriminates against Palestinians and the colonization of the West Bank
that strips Palestinians of their land and the potential for a
Palestinian state.
But Furkan's particular sensitivity was always for the children, especially
those killed and injured despite their obvious innocence. The killing of
more than 300 Palestinian children during the 2008-2009 Israeli assault
on Gaza profoundly influenced him and motivated him to participate in
the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza. He was determined to find a solution to
their need -- to do something, to not look away as too much of the world
was doing.
He never got the chance. While filming the Israeli takeover of his ship,
he was shot five times and died on board.
Though Furkan was an American citizen born in Troy, American officials
jumped to take Israel's side, notwithstanding clear evidence that Israel
selectively released footage to exonerate its soldiers for the deadly
mayhem they unleashed while storming the humanitarian ship in the
dead of night.
The Obama administration's failure to support my son and my family's
humanitarian concern for Palestinians comes from the same misguided
policy that has led to decades of support for Middle East autocrats and
Israeli governments that have long oppressed Palestinians.
And the American position seems oblivious to the findings of the fact-
finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights .
The mission determined that the "circumstances of the killing of at least
six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal,
arbitrary and summary execution." My son's name was included among
the six.
Faced with such facts, what family would not push Furkan's government
to take up his case? I am in Washington and New York City this week,
not only to champion justice for my son, but also to remind Washington
that the U.N. mission concluded that "a humanitarian crisis existed" in
May 2010 in Gaza and that "for this reason alone the blockade
is unlawful."
Furkan, though young, also saw the bigger picture. He sought not simply
humanitarian relief for Palestinians, but also freedom from Israeli
subjugation. With freedom advancing in Tunisia, Egypt, and around the
Gulf, Palestinians' long efforts to free themselves from Israeli domination
are also worthy of recognition and support.
Ahmet Dogan studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . He is an assistant
professor of accounting at Erciyes University in Kayseri, Turkey.

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
AI Index: MDE 15/018/2011
18 March 2011
Conclusions and Recommendations in Amnesty International’s
updated assessment of Israeli and Palestinian investigations
into the Gaza conflict
For full report click here
Conclusions
More than two years since Operation “Cast Lead”, Palestinian and Israeli
victims are still waiting for justice, and it is evident that the domestic
authorities are unable or unwilling to provide it. The Israeli government
and the Hamas de facto administration have failed to conduct
investigations that are credible, independent and in conformity with
international law, and failed to prosecute perpetrators of violations of
international law, including war crimes and possible crimes against
humanity, identified by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
in its September 2009 report. The failure to implement the
recommendations of the UN Fact-Finding Mission and the continuing
impunity for violations committed during the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict
has reinforced the impunity for ongoing violations committed by Israel,
the Palestinian Authority, and the Hamas de facto administration. This
cycle of injustice and impunity perpetuated by the domestic authorities
will not be broken without recourse to international justice mechanisms.
Recommendations
To the Human Rights Council
Amnesty International calls on the Human Rights Council to adopt a
resolution at its 16th session that:
• · condemns the failure of the Israeli authorities and Hamas de
facto administration to conduct credible, independent
investigations or prosecute perpetrators of violations;
 • refers the September 2010 report and the March 2011 report of
the Committee of Independent Experts to the UN General
Assembly, and urges the General Assembly to call on the UN
Security Council to refer the situation in Gaza to the International
Criminal Court (ICC);
• notes that the ICC Prosecutor has yet to request a determination
from the Pre-Trial Chamber on whether the ICC has jurisdiction to
investigate war crimes committed during the Gaza conflict,
pursuant to a declaration accepting ICC jurisdiction submitted by
the Palestinian Authority in January 2009, and requests him to do
so urgently; and
• calls on states to fulfil their duty to investigate and prosecute
crimes committed during the conflict before their national courts
by exercising universal jurisdiction.

To the Prosecutor of the ICC

Amnesty International calls on the Prosecutor of the ICC to urgently seek
a determination from the Pre-Trial Chamber on whether the Court has
jurisdiction to act pursuant to the declaration of the Palestinian Authority
issued on 22 January 2009. If the Pre-Trial Chamber determines that the
declaration triggers the ICC’s jurisdiction, Amnesty International urges
the Prosecutor to seek authorization to open an investigation into crimes
committed by both sides during the Gaza conflict, without delay.
To all states
Amnesty International notes that under international law all states can
and should exercise universal jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute
war crimes committed during the conflict before their national courts.
Back to Top

Document - Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Petition

urges Human Rights Council to act for international justice
for Gaza conflict victims
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT
AI Index: MDE 15/017/2011
7 March 2011

Petition urges Human Rights Council to act for

international justice for Gaza conflict victims
Amnesty International today handed over a petition of some 66,850
signatures to the UN Human Rights Council calling on it to take a crucial
step later this month to ensuring international justice for victims of the
2008-2009 conflict in Gaza and southern Israel.
The petition contains the signatures collected by Amnesty International
members and supporters around the world over the last two months as
part of the organization’s ongoing campaign for justice for the victims of
the Gaza conflict. The petition was presented to Sihasak
Phuangketkeow, President of the Human Rights Council, by Amnesty
International representatives in Geneva.
The petition calls on the Human Rights Council to pass a resolution at its
current session that would help pave the way for the UN Security Council
to refer the situation in Gaza to the International Criminal Court (ICC)
and thereby contribute to combating the long-running cycle of injustice
and impunity in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The UN
Security Council’s swift action to refer the situation in Libya to the ICC
Prosecutor contrasts markedly with its unwillingness so far to address
the situation of the Gaza conflict, whose victims have been waiting in
vain for justice for over two years. The consistent application of
international legal standards and the application of international justice
mechanisms, in all situations where war crimes have been committed
and the domestic authorities are unable or unwilling to act, is important
for the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council, General Assembly
and Security Council.
On 21 March, the Human Rights Council will consider the second report
of a Committee of Independent Experts which it mandated to assess the
Israeli and Palestinian investigations into serious violations of
international law committed by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed
groups during the 22-day conflict. The UN Fact-Finding Mission on the
Gaza Conflict, commissioned by the Human Rights Council and headed
by Justice Richard Goldstone, found in September 2009 that the
violations committed by both sides included war crimes and possibly
crimes against humanity. It recommended that the Israeli authorities
and the relevant authorities in the Gaza Strip be required to investigate
serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law
reported by the Mission. If the authorities failed to conduct independent
investigations meeting international standards within six months, the
Mission recommended that the UN Security Council refer the issue to the
International Criminal Court.
The previous report of the Committee of Independent Experts, issued in
September 2010, concurred with Amnesty International’s continuing
assessment that the investigations conducted by both the Israeli
authorities and the Hamas de facto administration have failed to meet
the required international standards of independence, impartiality,
thoroughness, effectiveness and promptness. Failing to take account of
the victims’ right to justice, the Human Rights Council merely voted to
renew the Committee’s mandate for another six months and requested
it to report again at the Council’s 16 th session, which began on 28
February 2011.
Both Israeli and Hamas authorities have been given adequate time and
opportunity to ensure justice for the victims, yet they are both failing to
do so. An international justice solution must now be found. Amnesty
International is therefore urging the Human Rights Council to adopt a
resolution at its 16th session that:
• condemns the failure of the Israeli authorities and Hamas de facto
administration to conduct credible, independent investigations or
prosecute perpetrators of violations;
• refers the September 2010 report and the upcoming report of the
Committee of Independent Experts to the UN General Assembly,
and urges the General Assembly to call on the UN Security Council
to refer the situation in Gaza to the ICC;
• notes that the ICC Prosecutor has yet to request a determination
from the Pre-Trial Chamber on whether the ICC has jurisdiction to
investigate war crimes committed during the Gaza conflict,
pursuant to a declaration accepting ICC jurisdiction submitted by
the Palestinian Authority in January 2009, and requests him to do
so urgently; and
• calls on states to fulfil their duty to investigate and prosecute
crimes committed during the conflict before their national courts
by exercising universal jurisdiction.
In recent months, Amnesty International has been drawing the attention
of Human Rights Council members to the need for such a resolution, and
Amnesty International members have organized public demonstrations
and other campaigning activities in at least 18 countries around the
world to draw attention to the continuing lack of accountability for the
crimes committed during the Gaza conflict. The organization is
launching a video message urging the Council to seize this crucial
opportunity to promote justice and the consistent application of
international law (see more below under Audiovisual Materials).
Background
Operation “Cast Lead”, Israel’s massive 22-day military offensive on the
Gaza Strip which ended on 18 January 2009, killed 1,400 Palestinians, a
majority of whom were civilians, injured thousands and left thousands
more homeless. Hamas’ military wing and other Palestinian armed
groups fired rockets and mortars into southern Israel indiscriminately,
killing three Israeli civilians. Ten Israeli soldiers were also killed during
the conflict.
Israel’s investigations into specific incidents have been conducted by the
Israeli military, and the Israeli authorities have shown no indication of
bringing high-level military or civilian officials to account for the policy
decisions which led to serious violations of international law during the
conflict. Incidents that the Israeli military has failed to investigate or
where investigations have been closed without leading to prosecutions
include attacks against civilians with precision weaponry; attacks on
civilian property and infrastructure, and UN facilities; attacks on medical
facilities and personnel; and the indiscriminate use of white phosphorus.
Although four Israeli soldiers have been prosecuted on criminal charges
in three incidents, thus far only one Israeli soldier has been sentenced to
prison in connection with the conflict after being convicted of credit card
theft.
The Hamas de facto administration has failed to undertake credible
investigations into violations committed by Palestinian armed groups,
and has shown no intention of prosecuting those responsible for
violations and war crimes, including the firing of indiscriminate rockets
into Israel.
Audiovisual Materials
Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North
Africa explains why the organization is calling for international justice for
victims of the Gaza conflict at https://adam.amnesty.org/asset-
bank/action/viewAsset?id=128601 (live at 1800 GMT 07/03/2011).

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"Is the Goldstone Report Dead, High Commissioner?"

Open Letter from 13 Palestinian and Israeli Human Rights

Organisations to the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Navanetham Pillay, on her first official visit to
the Occupied Palestinian Territory
JOINT OPEN LETTER, 04 FEBRUARY 2011

As Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, we welcome your

first visit to the region and take this occasion to ask: is the Goldstone
report dead? Over two years have passed since the end of the Israeli
offensive “Operation Cast Lead” on the Gaza Strip, and justice for
victims has yet to be addressed. Should these victims give up on the UN
in their search for accountability? Or is there a way out from the
prevailing culture of impunity? The opportunity to achieve justice is
being hijacked by political interests and we seek your unequivocal
support on behalf of the victims. Achieving justice is essential to prevent
further violations of international law and to lay the foundations for a
just and long lasting peace in the region.
The Goldstone report, published in September 2009, presents strong
evidence that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity were
committed during “Operation Cast Lead.” The report, endorsed by both
the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, provides a
clear framework to ensure justice for victims in accordance with
international law, including referral to the UN Security Council, the
International Criminal Court and the exercise of universal jurisdiction.
Over a year later, justice has not been delivered to the victims.
Israeli investigations, conducted by the military, fail to examine the
legality of decisions taken by senior military and political leaders who
designed, planned and implemented the attacks. To date, only one
Israeli soldier has been sent to prison for stealing a credit card. The
Committee of Independent Experts appointed by the UN Human Rights
Council confirmed the lack of cooperation by Israel and its unwillingness,
despite its capability, to conduct genuine investigations in accordance
with international standards.
On the Palestinian side, the authorities in Gaza have been unsuccessful
in carrying out credible and genuine investigations, as confirmed by the
UN Committee of Independent Experts. Despite the independent
investigations mandated by the Palestinian Authority, no criminal
proceedings have been initiated.
Thus far, the international community of States has failed to uphold its
responsibility to ensure justice for international crimes. Furthermore, the
Palestinian Authority, entrusted to uphold the interests of the Palestinian
people before the UN and diplomatic community, has undermined the
Goldstone recommendations by capitulating to external political
pressures. Palestinian representatives and member States of the UN
Human Rights Council persist in prioritising politics over the rights of
victims by according more time to continue the façade of domestic
investigations.
As the implementation of the Goldstone recommendations is being
delayed, Israel’s closure policy continues to collectively punish 1.5
million people in the Gaza Strip, where incursions are intensifying and
civilians are being killed while trying to make a living. The denial of
justice for victims of “Operation Cast Lead” is compounded by Israel’s
occupation of Palestinian territory, where violations of international law
have gone unpunished for over 43 years. Today, Israel’s illegal policies
of settlement expansion and forcible transfer of Palestinians from East
Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank, amongst others, contribute
to undermine peace efforts and result in the delegitimisation of the
international actors involved, while undermining fundamental principles
of international law and justice.
As the highest UN official responsible for the promotion and protection of
human rights, we urge you to give a voice to the victims of “Operation
Cast Lead” and inject momentum into their search for justice. We call
upon you to denounce the forfeiture of justice for Palestinian victims of
international crimes in the name of politics and to publicly demand the
implementation of the Goldstone report, including referral to the General
Assembly, without further delay. We also request that you seek
immediate clarification from the Office of Legal Affairs of any pending
issues regarding the establishment of an escrow fund for Palestinian
victims of the offensive to promptly advance its development. Finally,
we ask you to firmly condemn Israel’s persistent violations of
international law, which prevent the Palestinian people from exercising
their universally recognised right to self-determination.
The UN must seize this opportunity to demonstrate its declared
commitment to justice as stated by the Secretary-General in his address
to the General Assembly in January 2011. We trust that you and your
Office will use all means at your disposal, including high-profile
advocacy, to ensure that the Palestinian people are fully included in the
UN-proclaimed “new era of accountability” and that impunity does not
prevail once again.
Yours sincerely,
Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association
Aldameer Association for Human Rights
Al-Haq
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
The Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem
Defence for Children International – Palestine Section
Ensan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights
Public Committee Against Torture in Israel
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies
Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

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Gaza ‘March 15′ protests continue amidst ongoing

crackdown
Adam Horowitz, MondoWeiss, March 18, 2011
The following video [see here] was taken before the protesters were
forced to take refuge in UNRWA headquarters to escape security forces
trying to break up the protest. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
has condemned the "forceful dispersal of peaceful assemblies in Gaza"
and below is a press release sent out by the protesters:
GAZA - As the world watches Arab youth all over the region rise up to
demand freedom and real democracy, the Palestinian youth under
occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as those living
as second-class citizens in Israel, took to the streets on March 15th to do
the same.
Our demands are simple: immediate unity and reconciliation among the
main Palestinian political factions as well as free and fair elections. It is
our belief that accomplishing this, along with an end to corruption and
intimidation, are the first and most crucial steps for the Palestinian
people to address once and for all the injustice, illegality and
unsustainability of the Israeli occupation.
We, the Palestinian youth of the Gaza Strip, answered this call, and
poured onto the streets in the hundreds of thousands to non-violently
protest our current predicament. Sadly, we were met with repression
from those forces that claim to be achieving our liberation and we have
been under Hamas attacks ever since March 15 for the crime of asking
for new elections to hasten the long overdue creation of an independent
Palestinian state.
Our demands were made and all political parties in Gaza joined us. We
suddenly found Hamas internal security attacking us wherever we went,
even within Al Azhar University. They entered the university and injured
dozens of students who were protesting peacefully inside their own
institution.
Many of us have now taken shelter in the UNRWA headquarters. We are
asking for UNRWA protection for the youth who are protesting in the
Gaza Strip now. We ask too that the international community recognize
our rights as human being to freedom, equality and safety whether
under Hamas or PA rule, as well as under occupation or as citizens of
Israel.
We lived through the first Intifada, the second intifada, the blockade and
the Israeli occupation. Is that not enough for us to justly demand to live
a better life and secure a better future? We, the youth, are more than
65% of the population here. We should have the right to decide who
leads us and to decide that our political division must end and soon. We
demand the right to free and fair elections observed by international
monitors.
We ask that the US, UK, European,and Arab governments immediately
call our two governments in West bank and Gaza and ask them to please
listen to the voice of the people, the voice of youth. Our full list of
demands are below:
We call on the governments of the West Bank and Gaza to respond to
the legitimate demands of the people:
1 - The release all political detainees in the prisons of the PA and Hamas
2 - The end of all forms of media campaigns against each other.
3 - The resignation of the governments of Haniyeh and Fayyad to re-
build a government of national unity agreed by all Palestinian factions
representing the Palestinian people.
4 - The restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organization to contain
all the Palestinian factions and get back to its initial aim: Palestine's
freedom from illegal occupation.
5 - The announcement of the freeze of negotiations until the full
compatibility between the various Palestinian factions on a political
program.
6 - The end of all forms of security coordination with Israeli occupation
forces.
7 - The organization of presidential and parliamentary elections
simultaneously in the time chosen by all the factions.

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Louis Theroux: An Englishman in Palestine

By Hilary Aked, 01 March 2011, Counterfire

Louis Theroux’s latest documentary, whilst rightfully welcomed as a

rare glimpse of the settler mentality on British television, failed to
fully portray the warped reality in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories. [For video link to YouTube: The UltraZionists]
Although the programme offered people who know nothing of the
situation to see something like the reality, it obscures the wider political
context behind it. Alarm bells ring immediately because of Theroux’s
persistent and uncritical use of Zionist vocabulary – not just when
speaking to settlers in order to keep them on-side, but also in voice-
overs addressed to the viewer. He refers “disputed areas” rather than
occupied land, and to the “Jewish presence” rather than Israeli
presence, conceiving the issue as religious, not political. He usually
speaks of “Arabs” instead of Palestinians, and even subscribes to the
term “security barrier” to describe the apartheid wall; the Israeli army is
called by its official title of Israeli ‘Defence’ Force. This use of the
misleading terminology of the oppressor is extremely significant and
damaging to the professed pursuit of impartiality.
The programme misrepresented the truth in several crucial ways. There
are some plain inaccuracies. The wall, according to Theroux “separates
Israel from the West Bank” – a cursory glance at a map however, shows
that the wall snakes deep inside the West Bank, separating neighbours
and families, serving to expropriate Palestinian land, in particular
annexing most of East Jerusalem, while excluding areas unwanted by
Israel like Abu Dis.
Theroux seems genuinely clueless, when he refers to a protest as taking
place “outside” the “small town of Bil’in”, that the very land he is
standing on has been stolen (and the very reason why the town’s
inhabitants march to the fence weekly is to attempt to access their
land.) He stands ignorantly behind the fence with the Israeli army.
Two massive problems become painfully clear at this point. Firstly,
Theroux’s decision to embed himself with the army and the settlers is
extremely troubling. John Pilger’s most recent film ‘The War You Don’t
See’ showed how this practice inevitably skews journalistic output.
Although Theroux’s signature technique is getting cosy with fringe
fanatics – and he’s frequently lauded for his talent for extracting the
truth from a range of bizarre interviewees – the version of reality that we
see through his eyes is highly problematic. He is inside a settler’s car,
for instance, when a Palestinian child throws a stone at it, but he is
never in a Palestinian household subjected to a night raid by the Israeli
army. An even more basic problem is that, naturally, the settlers are on
their best behaviour for the cameras. The soldiers too are considerably
less violent than usual.
The second enormous problem is that so many crucial facts are left out.
Granted, Theroux is no polemicist, but he usually delivers a dose of
reality. We expect him to tell the truth - the whole truth. But instead he
commits countless sins of omission: no mention of the International
Court of Justice’s statement that the wall is illegal under international
law. No mention of the Green Line, the ongoing ethnic cleansing in East
Jerusalem, and very little on the evictions of Palestinians families in
areas like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan. No mention at all of the demolition
of Palestinian homes. Nothing about the coloured ID card policy so
reminiscent of Apartheid South Africa, or the bureaucratic discrimination
which sees Palestinians’ permits – and therefore access to Jerusalem -
regularly revoked. Not a word on plans for the Jerusalem Light Railway
which will connect illegal West Bank settlements to illegally occupied
East Jerusalem and further cement the occupation. Silence on the
practice of administrative detention by which Palestinians are kept in jail
without charge and without trial for as long as the Israeli government
wants, while Israeli settlers and soldiers commit crimes with near total
impunity.
In Hebron, Theroux does briefly show us a checkpoint and challenges a
settler to explain the “harassment” suffered by Palestinians but in no
way does justice to the commonplace violent attacks, persecution,
restrictions on movement, shop closures, ritual humiliation suffered by
Palestinians living in the Israeli controlled area of the city. Nor does he
mention the brutal repression of nonviolent protest in Hebron or the rest
of the West Bank.
Either Theroux is unaware or uninterested in the fact that Adeeb and
Abdallah Abu Rahmah, two prominent leaders of the weekly non-violent
protests in the village of Bil’in, were both in jail (along with around 8,000
other Palestinian political prisoners) at the time his crew was filming in
the town (Adeeb has since been released; Adballah remains
incarcerated despite condemnation from Amnety International and
Baroness Catherine Ashton, EU High Represenative). They were
imprisoned for the crime of organising peaceful demonstrations.
Instead Theroux has this to say at the demonstration: “injuries to both
sides are not uncommon.” This is a classic example of bias dressed up
as balance. When Palestinians demonstrate in Bil’in – and many other
West Bank villages – they are fired upon by heavily armed Israeli
soldiers and border police. Sometimes young Palestinians throw rocks at
these soldiers. It doesn’t take a genius to guess which side incurs the
overwhelming majority of injuries and has a monopoly on fatalities.
Which brings us to the passing reference to “one unlucky protestor”,
killed in Bil’in when a tear gas canister was fired at his chest. This
phrasing and brevity is not only insulting to the memory of Basem Abu
Rahmah but also woefully characteristic of Theroux’s capacity to appear
objective whilst deftly (inadvertently or deliberately, I wonder) letting
Israel off the hook. The incident he refers to was not an accident, but a
crime, since the army’s practice of using canisters as over-sized bullets
is well documented and harrowing footage of the shooting disproves any
suggestion that Basem posed a threat to anyone. (The Israeli army did
not stop there, of course, but also killed Basem’s sister, Jawaher at the
beginning of this year. Was she too just “unlucky”?)
Perhaps even more disturbingly, Theroux is taken to an East Jerusalem
house that’s been “acquired” by “Jewish concerns” – this is the
description given by Daniel Luria, an Australian Zionist who has moved
to Israel and works for a group called Atterit Cohanim – an organisation
which, although Theroux fails to mention it, is regularly involved in
evicting Palestinians. A Palestinian man who lives next door shouts that
although a couple of houses were indeed sold, the one they visit has
been occupied by force while the owners were “out at a wedding”. A
identical-sounding case was reported in the mainstream media – yet
Theroux fails in the most basic responsibility of a journalist: to establish
the objective truth. If this is indeed the same house, Theroux could and
should have done much more than challenge Luria weakly, query the
general principle and ask about the exact nature of the families
departure and why so many of their belongings remained in the house.
True, Luria’s silence on this point is telling but Theroux’s stand-offish,
subtle approach verges here on wilful mystification. It’s baffling that
when the facts are so readily available he either doesn’t do his research
or doesn’t see fit to reveal clearly and unequivocally to his audience the
horrible truth behind the acquisition of this property.
The Palestinian man living next door who brands Luria a liar, is one of
few voices from ‘the other side’ who appear in the documentary. Is
Theroux just not that interested in Palestinians’ daily suffering and
bravery? Or is he just out to make an hour of light entertainment TV,
based on a ‘point-and-stare-at-the-freaks’ formula with minimal factual
content? Whatever his real agenda, the Palestinians interviewed –
almost all at times of acute stress – generally acquit themselves well.
This is despite Theroux’s best efforts to elicit anti-Semitism rants - even
the youth who says that he “will always hate Israel” seems to have
reasonable justification for doing so: the Israeli state has stolen his land,
killed his friend and destroyed his life.
Meanwhile, Jawad Siyam, director of the Wadi Hilweh information centre,
patiently explains the contradiction of settlers claiming they wish to live
together with Palestinians yet bringing armed guards with them. When
Theroux tries to elicit sympathy for the settlers, Jawad points out that
they often use fake documents – accepted as valid by the racist judicial
system - to steal Palestinians homes. Theroux’s perverse attempt to
portray oppressors as victims falls flat on its face.
At times you begin to tire of this awkward Englishman, who feebly
attempts to engage in debate but seems to know nothing of the history
of the conflict he has walked into. Theroux looks absolutely absurd,
chumming up to Israeli soldiers who have just been pursuing young
children and when he returns to Silwan saying he is “hoping to get close
to the action” it’s hard not to conclude that he is merely an occupational
tourist. Though it’s clear he intends well – challenging a settler in Hebron
for instance - Theroux displays a worrying lack of understanding of the
Palestinian cause. He thinks he is criticising the Israeli army in An Nabi
Saleh when he speaks of “the futility of trying to bring the town to
order”, but it doesn’t seem to occur to him to ask why the soldiers are
there in the first place – or whether the ‘disorder’ could merely be a
product of their presence.
Because of his political naivety, he almost misses the point entirely. He
notes that a settler’s car has a police escort; he sees a settler rally
“organised by a fringe of the religious right and yet fully protected by
the army”; Luria tells him that the government pay for “security” for the
settlers in East Jerusalem and that housing there is state-subsidised; all
these observations point to the crux of the problem. Yet the fact that the
Israeli government enables, supports and allows the activities of the
settlers he interviews cannot be explored in the narrow scope of
Theroux’s programme. His voyeuristic fascination with strange people
leads to a fatal lack of depth. Unlike the Westboro Baptist Church, who
can safely be portrayed as a tiny group of oddballs, Israeli setters cannot
be reduced to an isolated group of religious fanatics because of the
incredible levels of support they receive from government and from rich
American Zionist groups.
An Independent review called the programme “a strong argument for
atheism”, while the Guardian praises Theroux for “wisely” avoiding the
political situation. However, examining Israeli settlers outside of the
political context of the Israeli state is like trying to understand Israel’s
power and Palestinians’ oppression without referring to the complicity of
North America. To Theroux’s credit, his talent for appearing
disingenuous does expose the settlers’ racism and their uniquely
tormented psyche, accurately described as “somewhere between
embittered and entitled”. Luria, for instance, believes in an “intrinsic”
inability for Jews and non-Jews to live together. (If only the programme
editors could have juxtaposed this with the words of Basem Tamimi’s
from An Nabi Saleh, who tells Theroux that his message for an Israeli
soldier called Danny, who regularly terrorises his village is: “…if you
remove the occupation from your head, and your mind and your
mentality, then you will be a human, and we will be friends.”)
Most disturbingly, he elicits from an agitated Luria, an extremely
revealing statement: “We either pack our bags and go back to the ovens
of Auschwitz, and I’ll go back to the shores of Australia, or this is our
land and it means fighting for it…tactics have changed but it’s still a war
of survival for the Jewish people...”. Not an uncommon sentiment to hear
expressed by an Israeli settler, this perspective illustrated how
psychologically damaged many settlers are. But the “ultra” Zionists that
Theroux concentrates on are arguably less of a problem than the
(slightly) milder, (slightly) saner Zionists in the Israeli government.
Theroux laudably ends on this important point, asking Luria if he is a
religious extremist, to which the indignant response is: “Not in the
slightest…if I am an extremist then millions of citizens and residents of
Jerusalem…and the whole of the state of Israel are also, therefore,
extremists.”
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