This week we spent 3 days traveling up north to Haris, Qalqiliya, Tulkarem, and Jayyus. We also attended a tour of the former Palestinian village of Ayn Karin, arranged by Zochrot, a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. (www.nakbainhebrew.org). That was followed by a great tour of Jerusalem by two Israeli peace activists, one a co-founder of Women in Black.
As it approaches the holidays, we wanted to pass on an idea for nativity scene decorations: include a wall around the manager and figures to represent the wall which now divides Bethlehem and Jerusalem
For holiday gifts, check out the Middle East Children’s Alliance Annual Holiday Bazaar with Palestinian Hand-Crafted Gifts, Saturday, December 13, St. Johns Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley (www.mecaforpeace.org)
In this update:
A Family Under Occupation
Desperate to Get to Work
The Israeli Military in the small Village of Haris
Action Alert - Israel is jailing children
A Family Under Occupation
My Arabic teacher had to take his teenage daughter to Jordan for a surgery. The surgery could have been done in near-by Jerusalem, but the Israelis refused to give her permission to enter Jerusalem. Jerusalem is less than 10 miles from Bethlehem and a first rate specialist could have treated her there. However, without permission to pass the checkpoint, the family was forced to travel to Amman, Jordan; a costly and inconvenient alternative.
The surgery has now been completed; the family will be returning by bus or shared taxi. They will wait at the border to re-enter and then pass through several military checkpoints before reaching home. This might take anywhere from 4 to 12 hours, depending on what happens at any of these junctures. This can be an arduous trip for a healthy person. Imagine doing this post surgery!
My teacher is a recently retired school teacher. A kind and dignified man, he is always dressed in a suit jacket, greeting me with a handshake every time we meet. We meet for class in the office space of a local NGO.
The night before he and his daughter left for Jordan I was invited to his home for the evening meal. Continuing my lesson in Arabic, we spoke about the family photos on the wall. After we finished, my teacher was quiet for a moment and then he said in English, “You see my grandfather, my grandfather’s grandfather, his grandfather’s grandfather and their grandfathers before, they are from this place. This is important for you to know. We have been here all this time on this land. It is the Israelis that are taking the land from us.”
Over dinner I asked questions about the nearby illegal settlement of Har Homa. The family told me how they used to walk from their home in Beit Sahour to the nearby green forested hill called Jabal Abu Ghneim. Now the forest is gone, replaced by housing for Jewish-Israelis; off limits to Palestinians, blocked by the apartheid wall and patrolled by the Israeli Military.
The land on which Har Homa is built was confiscated by Israel from the villages of Beit Sahour and Umm Tuba in the early 1990s. Although Palestinian and international protest delayed the project for several years, it did proceed. Just days after the 2007 Annapolis conference, at which Israel pledged to halt settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, it was announced that more housing units would be added to Har Homa.
Euphemistically considered a Jerusalem “suburb” by most Israelis, Har Homa forms the final link in the chain of illegal Israel West Bank settlements which, along with the massive and snaking apartheid wall, cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem.
The family talked about how they used to be able to drive by car to Jerusalem in 10 minutes. Now they can only dream about taking their car to Jerusalem. They must apply for a permit to go for a day visit; easily refused even when you need a surgery.
Going on to describe the permit system, the family shared how just a week ago they wanted to go to the Old City of Jerusalem to worship at the Church of the Holy Sepulchral. It was a special holiday. Everyone in the family was given permission to spend the day in Jerusalem, except the mother. This is not an uncommon occurrence. At other times, the mother will get permission but someone else in the family will not. Rather than leave one person out, they simply do not go. No reason is ever given as to why someone can not have permission.
Desperate to Get to Work
Lara (not her real name) is my neighbor in Beit Sahour. She is my age and is main breadwinner of her family. She feels lucky to have a job in Jerusalem but every three months she must reapply for a permit to enter Jerusalem to go to her job. Every time, Lara worries whether her permit will be renewed.
The needed permit allows her to line up early each morning at the checkpoint with hundreds of other workers, walk single file through a metal barred passage way that is not unlike a long cattle chute. The turnstile allows only one at a time to pass into a chamber where she then passes through a metal detector and her belongings are screened. Sometimes she is asked to step inside a room to be “wanded” and patted down. Then she gathers her belongings and waits single file to present her green I.D card and permit to the young and armed Israeli soldier encased in a structure that is likely bullet-proof. The soldier then instructs her to place her hand on a finger print reader.
The amount of time this takes can vary and sometimes the checkpoint is closed without notice. Once through she can stay for the day only. She is not allowed to stay over night and if caught she can be fined and jailed by Israel.
For the past week Lara has become increasingly worried. Today she tells me that her permit expires in 10 days and she still has not yet heard if it will be renewed. Six months ago, it was not. She relates the nightmare of those three months when she had to find alternative “illegal” routes into work. These routes not only eat up the money she earns each day, she risks arrest if she is caught. If arrested, she will never have another permit to enter Jerusalem. Even if she could have done without the money during these three months there is no guarantee that her job will be held for her. I have no choice but the “pray,” she says. Pray that her permit will be renewed and if not, that she can find and pay for another way to get to work.
The Israeli Military in the small Village of Haris
Last week we visited the International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) based in the small village of Haris in the Salfit district of the West Bank. The mission of IWPS is to “provide international accompaniment to Palestinian civilians, document and nonviolently intervene in human rights abuses, support acts of nonviolent resistance to end the brutal and illegal military Occupation and oppose the Apartheid Wall.” (www.iwps.info)
The Salfit district has numerous illegal settlements which form a network extending deeply into the Palestinian West Bank, surrounding and consuming Palestinian village lands. Built on stolen Palestinian West Bank land for Jewish-Israelies, the local Palestinian population is strictly forbidden entrance into these settlements. Palestinians are also forbidden to be on certain bypass roads that connect Israel to these illegal settlements, even though these roads were carved from Palestinian agricultural lands.
The resulting loss of land coupled with the limited and difficult access to their remaining land and markets are an increasingly impossible burden for the local Palestinian population. With a limited permit, some Palestinians find employment in the settlements for daily work. Their entrance is highly controlled and they are paid a fraction the wage of an Israel to do the dirty or dangerous work.
As you walk down the main street of the small village of Haris you can look over your shoulder and spot the military watch tower. Military presence is a constant here. The combination of the military occupation, apartheid state, and land theft is increasing strangulation of the Palestinian population. The forces at work here constitute low intensity war fare and ethnic cleansing, essentially a continuation of the 1948 al-Nakba which forced ¾ of the native population from their lands.
In the late afternoon, as three of us internationals strolled through town chatting with children, we suddenly heard the escalating yells of “Jaesh” (Arabic for Army) as everyone ran for cover. Immediately the street was empty except for us and we watch a green Israeli humvee and jeep approach.
As one of the army vehicles stopped beside us, a door cracked slightly and a young soldier yelled at us, “Get out of here, they will kill you!” Incredulous, we couldn’t help but laugh. The door closed and they continued down the street. Immediately there was a storm of rocks thrown by children at the army vehicles. We realized that we were only in danger if we were near the army!
What took place was a kind of cat and mouse game. The soldiers provoked the rock throwing by entering the village and once the rocks had been thrown the soldiers had “justification” to arrest the school aged rock-throwers.
We did not know why they had entered the village. We decided to stay on the street (safely tucked away from any rocks) and observe.
The army spent about an hour and a half driving back and forth on the main street. The rocks had long since ceased, we heard from people whispering to us from their homes that the children were safely in the mosque or in the stores. A few older men begin to walk on the street again.
The soldiers stopped several more times to threaten us that the police are coming. They never got out nor did we follow their demand to come closer to them. Two more vehicles arrived. Finally they left as inexplicably as they had come; no police ever came.
By then it was dark, but we proceeded to take some pictures and to hear the stories of the previous night’s vandalism carried out by nearby settlers. Car tires had been slashed, a car window broken and graffiti in Hebrew written on one of the homes.
Early the next morning we awoke to the phone. The father of a boy arrested during the night wanted the IWPS to come to his home. We dressed and went to the house to hear the story and make a report. Two children, one 17 and one 14, were taken by the army in the early hours of the morning.
The fathers are anxious and tired looking. As we listened, it was clear that they assumed from past experiences that the children were likely being beaten even as we sat there talking to them. The fathers were not told where their sons were taken nor given any way to find out. The IWPS gave them some numbers to call which they did. They then left to a nearby town where they thought the boys might be incarcerated.
Update about the boys:
As of this writing the 17 year old has been released. The 14 year old is still being held and his parents have not been able to see or talk to him. After being held in the Ariel police station the child was taken to an Israeli army base. Apparently, from there he was sent to a prison in Israel. According to Israeli military law, Palestinians (even children and adolescents) can be held for 12 days before being brought before a judge and knowing the charges against them. Israeli military law also allows for something called “administrative detention” in which the charges can be secret or the detainee is considered a “security threat.”
Action Alert - Israel is jailing children:
According to the 11/27/08 report of the Defense of Children International-Palestine (DCI-Pal) at least 578 Palestinians are currently being held without charge or in administrative detention. Of the 578, eight are children and two are 16 year old girls from Bethlehem.
Palestinians held in administrative detention – even children and adolescents - can be held or up to 6 months. They can be held again, and again, indefinitely, for six month periods without any formal charges against them, if they are considered a “security threat.” Both of the teenage girls are being held in a prison in Israel. For more information, see www.mecaforpeace.org/article.php?id=355:
ACT NOW TO SUPPORT SALWA AND SARAH:
Register your outrage to imprisonment without trial. PLEASE WRITE to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities demanding: the immediate release of all administrative detainees in the absence of valid legal charges, or, if such charges exist, bring them before an impartial, independent, competent and fair tribunal and guarantee their procedural rights at all times.
In particular letters should be addressed to:
Major General Gadi Shamni.
Commander, West Bank
Central Commander Office
64, Military Mail 02367 – IDF, Israel
Fax: +972 2 5305741
President Shimon Peres
President of the State of Israel
The Office of the President
3 Hanassi Street, Jerusalem 92188, Israel
Fax: +972 2 561 1033 or +972 2 566 4838
email: public@president.gov.il president@president.gov.il s_peres@netvision.net.il
www.president.gov.il
Ehud Barak
Minister of Defence
Ministry of Defence, 37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya, Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
Fax: +972 3 691 6940
Email: minister@mod.gov.il
PLEASE WRITE TO the International Bar Association (IBA), asking its members and Human Rights Institute to put pressure on the Israeli Bar Association to ensure that all subjects under Israeli jurisdiction be granted the basic principles of rule of law - transparent processes which do not allow for arbitrary justice or governance - to which the IBA's Human Rights Institute (HRI) claims to be dedicated to: "The HRI is now a leading voice in the promotion of the rule of law worldwide." Please send your letters of concern to the Director of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association, Fiona Paterson, and copy it the Chairs of the Council, Ambassador Emilio Cardenas (Argentina) and Justice Richard Goldstone (South Africa).
Fiona Paterson
Director of Human Rights Institute. International Bar Association
10th Floor. 1Stephen St
London, W1T 1AT
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7691 6868
Fax: +44 (0)20 7691 6544
Israeli Embassies and Consulates in your own country
A directory of Israeli embassies can be found on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To access it, please go to the following link: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Sherut/IsraeliAbroad/Continents/
Kindly inform us of any action taken by copying Addameer at addameer@p-ol.com so we can keep track of the letters of support.
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