BETHLEHEM UPDATES VOLUME # 9 - Part 1

ALERT: ISRAEL ATTACKS GAZA

While writing what follows below, we have learned that Gaza has been bombed by Israel. The latest update is that at least 195 have been killed. We do not know how many more will die from injuries or if there will be more bombing. What is clear - without question – is that a massacre is taking place. We are sickened. This evening we will gather in solidarity with Palestinians in Manger Square, near the Nativity Church, in Bethlehem.

Daily we hear Israeli fighter planes fly overheard. So frequent, this blatant show of force has become more like annoying noise pollution. But this morning, we feel ashamed to have ever felt this way when we know that today they were intended for Gaza.

Please call the local office of your Congressional representatives and senators as well as their DC offices: 202-224-3121.

For Sacramento & Davis, here are the local numbers:

Doris Matsui: (916) 498-5600; Fax: (916) 444-6117

Mike Thompson: (530) 662-5272; Fax: (530) 662-5163

Barbara Boxer: (916) 448-2787; Fax: (916) 448-2563

Dianne Feinstein: (415) 393-0707; Fax: (415) 393-0710

Also please monitor local media to see how they are reporting what is going on in Gaza – call local stations or newspapers if they are not covering this or if their coverage is biased towards Israel. To find out what is going on here, check: http://english.aljazeera.net/



In this Update (Part 1):

- December 29 KDVS Interview

- December 25 Issue of Sacramento News and Review

- Update on local electeds who just returned from Israel

- Our Trip to the Other Side of the Green Line

- Akka (Acre): Separation and Pogrom

- Dinner in Bethlehem



In Part 2, we will report on:

-- A Conversation with Susan Nathan

-- Visiting Palestinian villages from '48

-- Non-violent Resistance in Um Salmuna



KDVS Interview, 8:30am, Monday, December 29

You can hear our interview this Monday, December 29 at 8:30am on Its About You with France Kassing, FM 90.3 (Davis); http://www.kdvs.org/shows/view/show_id/605



Sac News & Review

Please write a letter to the Sacramento News and Review commenting on our story in the December 25 issue (send your letter to: sactoletters@newsreview.com). You can see the article on line at: www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=889307


Unfortunately, the photos included with the article are not from the Bethlehem checkpoint as the editors indicated; we have written to the paper to ask that a correction be issued.



McCarty/Jones update

Upon returning from a delegation to Israel, Sacramento city council person Kevin McCarty has announced he is running for Dave Jones' State Assembly seat. Jones, who is termed out in 2010 is running for State Insurance Commissioner. It is critical that U.S. politicians at all levels of government get the message that allying themselves with Israel's apartheid and occupation does not endear them to voters. If you live in Sacramento, contact McCarty; if you live in California, contact Jones. Express your concern about their going to Israel and ask how this will affect decisions they make as elected officials.

Kevin McCarty: 916-808-7006; KMcCarty@cityofsacramento.org
Dave Jones: 916-319-2009 or 916-324-4676; assemblymember.jones@assembly.ca.gov

(Note: We have had no reply to emails we sent to Dave Jones; we did hear from McCarty's staff that he would be willing to talk with us when we return.)



Impressions from our Trip on the Other Side of the Green Line

As we mentioned in our brief email on December 22, we just visited Akka (Acre), Haifa, Tamra, and Nazareth, all inside the "green line" (the armistice from 1949); this area, currently modern-day Israel is also referred to as '48 or Palestine 48. We also visited the occupied Golan; land that Israel took from Syria in 1967.

Our first encounter on the trip was in Jerusalem with the young Israeli woman at Hertz, where we rented a car. She asked us where we were staying "in Israel". We said that we were staying in the West Bank. She looked confused so we explained that we lived near Bethlehem, in the West Bank. She then said that we could not drive the car there. We asked why not and she said because of "the Arabs". We then showed her the touring map that she had just given us; we pointed out the roads in the West Bank and asked why those roads were on the map if we could not drive on them. She responded, "Because that's Israel" (and indeed, Hertz' touring map of "Israel" makes no distinction between the area inside the green line and the occupied lands – it does however show Gaza as a blank.)

This encounter was consistent with two things we had already heard and would continue to hear from some Israelis. First, that all the land taken by the Zionists in 1948 and the land taken by the Israelis in 1967 (except for the Sinai, which they gave back to Egypt) is "Israel". Second, the people who lived and continue to live on these lands are "Arabs", not Palestinians. These descriptions allow Israel to deny that there are Palestinians who have lived here for hundreds of years AND to deny that they are "occupying" the land of another people.

The taking and destruction of Palestinian lands, homes and villages in 1948 is not ancient history, it is a current reality. As we saw on our trip, those villages exist today, though many are in ruins. And the people who lived in those villages and their children and grandchildren also still live today, most of them relatively close by inside '48, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, or in refugee camps in bordering countries. Like native peoples everywhere, the Palestinians have a right to be here with full rights and they have the right to return to the homes and lands they were forcefully kicked out of. And as we also witnessed on our trip, even Palestinians living as Israeli citizens do not have equal rights with Jewish-Israelis.



Akka: Separation and Pogrom

Akka is a port city on the Mediterranean, less than an hour's drive from the Lebanese border. A very old city, Akka is mentioned in Egyptian writings from the 9th century BC; it saw the coming and going of Alexander the Great, the Greeks, the Crusaders, and the Ottomans. In 1948, Akka was attacked by the Zionists militias; most of the native Palestinians fled either before or during the attack. Those that remained were confined to the old walled city. The Israeli government illegally took the homes and property outside of the wall; today this area is predominately Jewish-Israeli, including many newly arrived Jewish (or newly converted Jewish) immigrants.

Today Akka has one of the highest rates of unemployment inside the green line; it is a city of about 46,000 people, approximately one-third of whom are Palestinian-Israelis. In October of this year (2008), Jewish-Israelis attacked their Palestinian fellow townspeople in a vicious pogrom after a Palestinian-Israeli drove his car through a Jewish-Israeli neighborhood to pick up his daughter on the eve of the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. For the next few days, huge gangs of Jewish-Israelis wandered the streets, attacking Palestinian-Israelis and torching their homes, cars and businesses. The Israeli media reported that many in the Jewish-Israeli mobs chanted "Death to the Arabs". FMI, see: electronicintifada.net/v2/article9895.shtml

We came to Akka primarily because a U.S. friend of ours was born here; he was 9 years old in 1948 when his family fled to Lebanon to escape the Zionist militias. This was a story we would hear again and again. The proprietor of a local hostel told us how his family had fled in 1948 when he was still a toddler. An aunt stayed and in a couple of years smuggled the family back into Akka. Had she not been a very strong and determined woman, he noted, they might still be refugees in Lebanon. Not all of his family managed to come back, however, including a sister who had recently died. He had not been able to see her for many years and was not able to go to her funeral. Likewise she had not been able to come to see her father when he died in Akka.

The next day we met a man of similar age in Haifa who related almost the same painful story of expulsion and of families unable to visit one another. Both of these men, and others, also described the discrimination against Palestinians inside Israel, despite the fact that they are Israel citizens. This includes geographic segregation of Palestinian-Israelis which facilitates the unequal government expenditures on schools, infrastructure, and other services. It also includes unequal treatment by the police, who failed to adequately protect Palestinian-Israelis in the October pogrom.

Not only are Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians kept apart, Palestinians are separated and kept apart from each other. It is very difficult and sometimes impossible for Palestinian-Israelis to visit Palestinians in the West Bank; it is now impossible for them to visit Palestinians in Gaza, and virtually impossible for them to visit Palestinian refugees living in neighboring countries.

The man we met in Haifa said that two years ago he had gone with a group of Palestinian-Israelis to the West Bank in order to connect with Palestinians living there. He said they took gifts and a message, that we are your brothers and sisters, we have not forgotten you.



More to come on the trip: Conversation with Susan Nathan, visiting Palestinian villages from '48, and the Occupied Golan.



Dinner in Bethlehem

Last night, we had dinner with a Palestinian family in Bethlehem. One of the sons works at a produce stand where we shop; we have gotten to know him over the last few weeks and he invited us to have dinner with his parents and four brothers. We enjoyed great food and laughter with them; we also shared some of their sadness. The parents became refugees in 1948, kicked out of their villages by the Zionist militias. The mother's brother is being held in an Israeli prison and she has not been able to see him for 7 years. They live in a three room place -- all the sons sleep in the living room. Only the youngest boy can visit Jerusalem, because the Israelis won't allow young Palestinian men in. The young man who invited us is the same age as Patricia's son; he works 6 1/2 days a week to help support the family; he earns about $15 a day. He studied to be an electrician, but was not able to find work in his field.

Dinner with this family gives us seven more reasons why the Israeli apartheid and occupation must be ended now.