Bethlehem News

Public Presentation in Sacramento, July 23rd 2009

2009-07-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

We will give a public presentation on Thursday, July 23. in Sacramento, see below. If you live in the Sacramento area, please spread the word, come and bring friends.
And we are available to speak at house parties, in classrooms, and to groups both in and outside of Sacramento. Contact us to schedule a presentation (mcpd1234@gmail.com; pdmc1234@gmail.com 916-456-1420

Living in Palestine: Witness to Occupation. Sacramento activists Patricia Daugherty and Maggie Coulter share their recent experiences from 8 months in the Middle East including six months in the West Bank and a week in Gaza. Thursday, July 23, 2009, 7pm, Newman Center, 5900 Newman Court, Sacramento, For more information contact: 916-448-7157 or email: mcpd1234@gmail.com

BETHLEHEM UPDATES NUMBER 21, APRIL 18, 2009

2009-04-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

As the sky goes back and forth between late winter and spring, it has been a busy and tragic week. We cannot understand how this grinding and brutal occupation is allowed to continue.
Please help others learn about the situation here by sharing this update with five of your friends, family, co-workers or others.

In this issue:
- Another senseless murder in Bi’lin,
- Planting olive trees as resistance in Artas
- Over our heads settlers destroy water tanks
- Easter Message from our town of Beit Sahour
- Help end the siege on Gaza, go with CodePink May/June www.codepinkalert.org/gaza.

Another senseless murder in Bi’lin
In January, we attended one of the weekly demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall in the small town of Bi’lin. We witnessed and experienced the brutality of the Israeli military in suppressing what began as a peaceful demonstration against Israel’s occupation and theft of Bi’lin’s land for its settlements and apartheid wall, both of which have been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Yesterday, April 17, the Israel military fired a high velocity tear gas projectile that hit and killed 29-year old Basem where he stood on a hill with several journalists. This was the same weapon that hit U.S. citizen Tristan Anderson in Ni’lin on March 13; Anderson remains in critical condition. (FMI: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6185)
Under the Geneva protocols, it is the right of the occupied citizens of Bi’lin to resist the Israeli occupation that has already stolen nearly 60% of their land and threatens to take even more. It is the responsibility of U.S. citizens to demand that our government stop funding the Israeli military and occupation. Join Amnesty International in demanding that the U.S. stop sending arms to Israel. Call President Obama and tell him no more U.S. aid or arms to Israel: 202-456-1111.

Planting Olive Trees in Artas
Yesterday, April 17, we went to Artas, a historic village located just south of Bethlehem. It is home to 4000 people, many of whom still make their living from agriculture. We joined local farmers and other internationals in planting olive trees on the village’s hillsides which Israel wants to steal. Since Israel began its military occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the Israelis have stolen thousands of dunams from Artas for their illegal Jewish-only settlements. The Israeli military has issued an order to confiscate all of Artas remaining agricultural lands, a total of 1700 dunams (over 400 acres). The stolen land would be used to expand the illegal settlement of Efrat for which a huge ugly road has already been ripped into the hillside.
Two years ago, Israeli Occupation Forces destroyed a fruit and nut orchard in Artas in order to put a sewage overflow for the illegal settlement (FMI: www.imemc.org/article/49986).
According to residents, when the overflow is used, untreated sewage pours into Artas’s agricultural valley, threatening its crops and water supply. Townspeople, internationals and Israeli activists had camped out in the orchard for several days to prevent its being destroyed. They were forcibly removed by the Israeli soldiers who arrested several, including Awad, one of the primary organizers.
Awad told us about his imprisonment, humiliation and torture by the Israeli soldiers. The soldiers beat him; they put their feet on his neck; they taunted him. They said he was like a dog. He did not reply. They told him to take his clothes off and when he refused, they unzipped his pants and pulled them down. He told a policy woman that he was thirsty and she said when she came back from the bathroom she would give him something to drink (meaning her urine). He was blind folded and walked around, he tripped and fell and they laughed at time. They dragged him by his collar and walked him into a wall.
As Americans have been shocked and repulsed by Guantanamo, so must we be about the Israeli occupation and human rights violations against the Palestinians. Call your Congressperson and tell them you want an end to U.S. aid to Israel: 202-224-3121.

Over our heads settlers destroy water tanks
Last Tuesday, April 14, in our effort to finally see the tourist sights, we went to Hebron to see visit the Ibrahimi Mosque. The Ibrahimi Mosque was first built in 1206 on a cave believed to hold the tombs of Abraham and his family. Inside it is very beautiful, full of mosaics and colorful marble floors and walls. Outside it is marred by presence of Israeli soldiers manning metal turnstiles.
On February 24, 1994, illegal Israeli settler Barach Goldstein entered the Mosque in his military uniform and opened fire on those praying, killing 52 Palestinians. A physician with a history of refusing to provide medical treatment to Arabs, Goldstein lived in the nearby illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba.
To get to the Mosque, one has to go through the old market of Hebron which has been vandalized and partially destroyed by illegal Jewish-Israeli settlers who have kicked out Palestinian families. The halls of the market are strung with mesh to catch the garbage and cement blocks the Israeli settlers have thrown down on the Palestinians below.
After we visited the Mosque, we returned through the market and visited with two women at a shop. Suddenly we heard a loud crash, we rushed out of the store and were told that settlers were turning over water tanks on the roof of a Palestinian home. Two chairs had been thrown from the roof into the market below.
We were directed up nearby steps to the home. As we rushed up to the roof, we stepped over broken flower pots, spilled dirt and broken glass; water was beginning to come down the stairs. We came out on the roof and water was streaming out of holes that had been punctured in six metal tanks on the roof (see photo at: www.flickr.com/photos/ismpalestine/3443049306)
(More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ismpalestine).
We talked to the mother of the family who had been standing on an outside walkway when she saw several masked settler youth come onto her roof. She was scared and went into the house. The roof is in plain view of a manned Israeli military tower, located about 30 feet away. When we got up to the roof, there were three soldiers in this tower and one young man.
After awhile two armed soldiers came onto the roof from the adjacent building (just as the settlers had done) and questioned the father of the family.
This family is under constant attack by the settlers. We had visited this same home in early December, days after rampaging settlers had set fire to their livingroom.
The Israeli government is responsible for the actions of the settlers who carry out their pogroms against the Palestinians with the protection of the Israeli army. You can take your own personal stand against this racist violence by not buying Israeli goods and asking business that you patronize not to carry products from Israel. Products that have 729 as the first three numbers in the bar code are made in Israel or in illegal Israeli settlements. FMI: www.endtheoccupation.org; www.bdsmovement.org.

Easter Message from our town of Beit Sahour
(Note that in Beit Sahour, Easter includes the Roman Catholic celebration, this year on April 12 and the Greek Orthodox Celebration, this year on April 19.)

Easter Address 2009

On behalf of the Municipality of Beit Sahour, I would like to wish the community of Beit Sahour, the International community, and all Palestinians an enjoyable Easter Holiday.
On this occasion of the Easter Season, I am honored and privileged to address all our community, business leaders, international friends and government officials.
This past year, like the others preceding it, has been filled with hardships, grief and setbacks. Many are unemployed and are having difficulty providing essentials for their families. Our communities, especially our children, are suffering. The lack of: economic and political stability; adequate medical treatment; sufficient infrastructure, such as roads and sewage systems; and resources, such as water have debilitated the fabric of our society and culture.
We have endured the confiscation of our lands, the destruction of our homes, the imprisonment of our people, and the horrendous war against our fellow Palestinians in Gaza. Additionally, the new coalition government of Israel does not bode well for the Palestinian or the Israeli people. I will not lie to you; we have lost much and gained little.
Yes, we are still here, much to the chagrin of the Israeli government. And we will continue to be here; our steadfast presence is our daily act of peaceful resistance to the Occupation and a thorn in Israel’s side. In this steadfast presence we must stand together united, as Palestinians, regardless of faith. We must reach out to one another to heal divisions that separate us for these divisions only serve the Occupier. Divided we are rendered weak, united we are strong,
I am humbled by your strength and perseverance. I am awed by your love of life, family and persistence in pursuing your happiness despite the sad situation in which you find yourselves.
I would like to thank all our international friends, here and abroad, who understand and support our plight. We appreciate the tens of thousands of volunteers around the world are actively working to end the occupation. We are indebted to our donors whose support is critical to the survival of the Palestinian people. We also recognize the sacrifices made by individual internationals along side their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Specifically, I would like to mention Tristan Anderson, an American activist who while peacefully protesting against the Apartheid Wall in Ni’lin was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier with a teargas canister. Tristan is still unconscious in Tal Hashomer Hospital near Tel Aviv. Our prayers and wishes for a speedy recovery to go out to him and his family.
In this Season of Hope and Resurrection, I implore you to sustain hope within your hearts and to believe in the resurrection of an independent State of Palestine.
Lubnah Shomali
Officer of International Relations
Municipality of Beit Sahour, Palestine

Join CODEPINK on Upcoming Trips to Gaza.
CodePink has scheduled two delegations to Gaza: May 28-June 5, 2009 through Egypt and June 5-14, through Israel. In Gaza, we will be hosted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). We will visit schools, hospitals and areas most affected by the Israeli invasion, as well as build an International Friendship Park. If the Egyptian/Israeli governments won’t let us enter Gaza, we will set up camps on the borders with workshops, seminars and actions calling for an end to the siege. Cost for international participants: $600, not including airfare. Some scholarships are available. Can’t go? Please consider a donation to our Lift the Siege Campaign. For more information, e-mail gaza.codepink@gmail.com, call 415-558-5700, or check out www.codepinkalert.org/gaza.

Bethlehem Updates #20: April 12th 2009

2009-04-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

Oh little town of Bethlehem….

…. Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass……. (Luke 2:15)

“Ahalan”, welcome, in Arabic is the immediate greeting to foreigners who come to Bethlehem. A city sacred to Christians in an area also important to Jews and Muslims, Bethlehem, Palestine may soon become one of Sacramento’s sister cities. That is the goal of the Sacramento to Bethlehem Sister City Initiative.

“Because of its historic significance, the name “Bethlehem” is known around the world,” says Brigitte Jaensch, a member of the Initiative. “Yet many people have no idea who lives in Bethlehem, what their lives are like, or how the policies of our government affect them.”

The sister city concept grew out of a “citizen diplomacy initiative” envisioned and encouraged in the years just after the traumas of World War II. Quite simply, these visionaries held the belief that regular citizenry could actually be more effective at diplomacy and “bridge building” than their respective governments.

“Sister City relationships help people understand each other better,” says Bethlehem Mayor Dr. Victor Batarseh. “They further the goal of peace not only for the two cities but all over the world.” Bethlehem currently has sister cities in 24 countries.

"Relating to Bethlehem as a sister city gives Sacramentans a chance to connect to people in a part of the world that is too often misunderstood here, often with tragic consequences there,” says Palestinian-Sacramentan Riad Bahhur, professor of history & coordinator of the international studies program at SCC

Beginning the Connections

Like most immigrants, Palestinian-Sacramentans share their culture, foods and customs with their community. This has included bringing the Ibdaa Dance Troupe from the Dheisha refugee camp in Bethlehem to perform in Sacramento in 1999, 2003, and 2005.

Sacramento is also home to children of Bethlehem’s current mayor, Dr. Victor Batarseh. During a visit in 2000, while visiting his family Mayor Batarseh spoke at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacramento.

In 2004, a Sacramento-based scholarship fund was established to help Palestinian students study at universities in the West Bank and Gaza. More than 70 students, a number from the Bethlehem area, have been awarded scholarships.

The idea for a sister city came after a plea from Bethlehem to the international community. As the Israeli government was finishing the Apartheid (separation) Wall around Bethlehem in 2005, Bethlehem found itself completely surrounded. Declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the 24-foot high concrete Wall snaked into Bethlehem, cutting it off from Jerusalem, and wielding a devastating impact on the city’s business district and tourist industry.

“In a strict and literal sense, it is a ghetto wall, and Bethlehem is a prison town,” said Bethlehem’s Mayor, Dr. Victor Batarseh in a November, 2005 statement to the world. “We have reached a final, tragic level of absurdity that a nation created to free the Jews from captivity has built a prison for Christians and Muslims. “

Referring to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the mayor continued, “We are certain that the wall around our city will also fall. Until that day comes, we need to find a new energy within ourselves, to transcend our ghetto and connect to the world.”

In 2007, the Initiative began sending representatives to the Sacramento Sister City Council meetings. In 2008, a delegation with Sister Cities International (SCI) hand carried a letter from the Sacramento Initiative to Bethlehem’s Mayor Batarseh.

On the Ground in Bethlehem

Last fall, I came to Bethlehem with my partner, to experience life here and work towards a future sister city. With the help of the people of Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, other internationals and our fellow Sacramentans, our Initiative now includes email pen pals, a community garden and composting project, a Bethlehem artist exhibit, and an informational sign board for tourists.

Pen Pals

Pen pals, a long-used form of encouraging cultural exchange, have now become email pals. Currently, junior high school students in the Sacramento area are emailing with 7th and 8th graders in Bethlehem. This is done in the classroom with the help of their teachers.

“Having an email pal helps my students with their English,” says Jizelle Salaman, an English teacher at a local Bethlehem school. “And it gives them another reason to study hard, not just for good marks but so that they can write in understandable English to their new friends in Sacramento. You know, they have so many questions about life in America, they are curious, is life really like what they see on the TV?”

Bethlehem high school students are also very curious about life in the U.S. and would like to have American pen pals. But the Initiative is still searching for a Sacramento High School to support this activity.

When the Bethlehem high schoolers are asked what they what people in America to know about their lives they are quick to respond, “We don’t have freedom, the occupation controls our lives… If you are bored you can’t go someplace to have fun. We can’t go to Jerusalem anymore…. We can’t go to the sea…. The electricity and the water get cut off.” (Before 1967, Bethlehem got water from its own wells; now, Israel controls those wells and Bethlehem has to buy its own water back from Mekerot, the Israeli water company.)

These students are old enough to remember the 2002 Israeli siege on Bethlehem and the 40 days of military curfew.

“My cousin was killed,” says one of the students. “The Israelis told him to open one of the shops. He was very scared. They shot him and then said it was an accident.”

Another student says, “My uncle lives in America.” Searching for the name, “In Flint, Michigan. How far is that from Sacramento?”

Community Garden and Composting

In Sacramento, we are avid gardeners, so finding a way to get our hands in the dirt here was a must. Fortunately, one of our connections here was a young woman who I had met when she was studying at UC Davis. Today she works in Bethlehem at the SOS Children’s Village, a home for children coming from difficult situations.

At our first visit to the SOS, we met Abu Mahmoud who was in charge of the landscaping. On the site were old terraces which had been gardens at one time. It didn’t take much to get him interested in getting a garden going. Two young Germans, who were doing their alternative to military service by volunteering here, offered youthful muscle and energy to prepare the ground for planting.

Using Sister City Initiative donations, we funded a three-bin composting system. With the help of locals and other internationals, we did workshops for the mothers and children at the village. The village is also undergoing renovation which will include innovative water conservation and solar, funded by international donors.

Bethlehem artists included in Second Saturday

At the initiation of Sacramento artist Janice Nakishima, we solicited paintings from Bethlehem artists to be included in her show opening May 9 at the Axis Gallery, 1517 19th Street.

“The reason I want to display some work by Palestinian artists is that I have known of their isolation and some of their difficulties for years,” says Nakashima, “I invited these artists, none of whom I know, to put their artistic expression on a small card. The theme they were asked to respond artistically to was ‘My Life’. I was very pleased with the pieces I received and I hope some day to meet these artists.”

The Bethlehem artists were excited about the display. “We would like to do more of this,” said one. “We are so interested to see what she will do,” said another. “We want to see her work too.”

Tourist Display

One of the many things damaged in the 2002 Israeli invasion of Bethlehem was a large sign board in front of the Bethlehem Peace Center on Manger Square. We proposed to the Mayor and the Bethlehem Peace Center’s director that we renovate the board and install a display to educate tourists about the occupation. They agreed and after many hours of many people’s time, “A Tourist’s Guide to the Occupation” in seven different languages is now being read by tourists from around the world. The sign board and accompanying brochures were funded by donations from people in Sacramento.

Future Plans

We hope one day to bring a delegation of Sacramentans to Bethlehem. It would be great to include teachers, health care providers, lawyers and even students.

We also are excited about a future Palestinian film festival in Sacramento currently under discussion.

A message from Bethlehem

Last December, while Israel was bombing Gaza, I asked the women in my English conversation group what they would like people in Sacramento to know. They gave a response that is almost as common here as the “Ahalan” greeting: “Tell them we are not terrorists… Tell them that we want the occupation to end… Tell them we just want to live our lives and have a good future for our children.”

The Sacramento to Bethlehem Sister City Initiative is one step toward that good future.

Bethlehem Updates Number 19, April 9, 2009

2009-04-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night we heard Ziad, a man in his early 30s speak about his experiences being imprisoned and tortured by the Israelis. His first arrest was in 1995 when he was a student activist at Bethlehem University. As he said, “I was opposed to the occupation and I expressed my feelings against the occupation in peaceful demonstrations”.

He was taken in for “interrogation”, which meant “torture”. “They would try to get you to confess to something”, he explained. “They had various methods, the same as in Guantanamo. Strapping you to a small chair for hours. Tightly handcuffing your hands and then jumping on them. Clamping you into a bent over position that felt like it would break your back. Keeping you awake for days on end with no sleep and one song of hard rock playing over and over again in your ear. They take pleasure in torturing you.”

Torture is used to break your spirit he said and to get people to say anything to get it to stop. They also torture young kids, 11 – 14 who break down easier. Palestinians can be “tried” and “sentenced” as adults at 14; Jewish Israelis are considered adults at 18.

Ziad was held under what is called “administrative detention”, no charges and no specified time limit, although typically a person is held between 3 – 6 months and then the time is renewed. He described going to court with his lawyer, sitting silently watching the military judge and military lawyer talk back and forth, then deciding between themselves what would happen to him. All evidence is secret.

After about 3 months they released him. Ziad continued his activism and was arrested again in 1996, this time he was tortured for two months day and night. Once they did not let him sleep for a week. It was the worst experience of his life. They wanted him to confess to being a terrorist, he was not a terrorist and he refused to say he was. A year later he was arrested again and held for 8 days.

In 2000 after finishing his studies, he went to work for the human rights organization, Al Haq, taking the testimonies and reporting on human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2005 he was “arrested again” and tortured again. This time he was in prison for 2 years. Al Haq initiated a campaign to get him out.

He described going to the Israeli high court and the judge saying he was very dangerous, they could not let him out. A month later he went to the high court again and they released him. “How can I be the very dangerous and then suddenly free to go?” he said. “Their charges are so clearly false.”

He talked about getting out of prison after two years and spending a year to get his daughter to accept him. It was very hard for him, very hard to describe. At times while speaking, he seemed on the verge of tears. He said he is deeply angry – who would not be?

The Israeli system is bad, he said, right now it is very hard on the Palestinians, but eventually it will also destroy Israeli society. They are experts at torture; they have physical and psychological techniques.

There are between nine and eleven thousand Palestinian political prisoners. Their “crime” is resisting the occupation. Under international law, they have committed no crime as the Geneva protocols state that occupied people have a right to resist, including through armed struggle.
The Israeli army arrested 300 people in the West Bank last week. That is 300 more people who will be tortured.

He noted that a group of doctors for human rights had said, the problem with international law and human rights is that one cannot stop genocide or major human rights violations with a group of doctors. It has to involve governments.

Life in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza:

Eleven shot, one in critical condition after settler rampage in Saffa
8 April 2009
Saffa, a village sandwiched between Sourif and Beit Ommar and home to just over 2000 residents, has been the site of overwhelming Israeli military and now settler violence in the last week. Using the death of a teenaged settler on April 2 as a precursor (there has been no evidence that he was killed by someone from Saffa or the nearby villages) the Israeli military has been invading Saffa, declaring curfews, searching homes and otherwise harassing the residents of the entire village in acts of blatant collective punishment for several days. Roadblocks were erected in several different places on April 3 and three homes were taken over by Israeli soldiers, allegedly to ‘protect’ the Palestinian residents from anticipated violence from right-wing extremist settlers from nearby Beit ‘Ayn.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6077

Israel created ‘terror without mercy’ in Gaza
Rory McCarthy | The Guardian
7 April 2009
The Israeli military attacked civilians and medics and delayed - sometimes for hours - the evacuation of the injured during the January war in Gaza, according to an independent fact-finding mission commissioned by Israeli and Palestinian medical human rights groups.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society yesterday said their findings showed Israel’s military committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. In their 92-page report, compiled by five senior health experts from across the world, they documented several specific attacks, with interviews from 44 separate witnesses.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6008

900 dunums of Palestinian land confiscated in Qaryut village
7 April 2009
Israeli forces have started the construction of three new [illegal] roads around the village of Qaryut, located in the Nablus district of the northern West Bank. Qaryut is already surrounded on three sides by illegal Israeli settlements, and the new roads are being built to connect these settlements together and to nearby road 60. Road 60 has been closed to Palestinians since 2000, but has remained open to settlers and the army. The closure of this road has prevented access by farmers to a large amount of agricultural land which, according to Qaryut’s mayor, is now being used by Israeli settlers. Israeli authorities have recently confiscated an additional 900 dunums [225 acres] of agricultural land to build the three new roads. This land belongs to around 150 Palestinian families in Qaryut.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6006

A harsh reality for Palestinians
Ahmad Tibi | The New York Times
6 April 2009
JERUSALEM — The right-wing coalition of the new Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, does not bode well for Palestinians in Israel. With the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister, the extremists are going after the indigenous population and threatening us with loyalty tests and the possibility of “transfer” into an area nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu’s intransigence vis-à-vis Palestinians in the occupied territories is certainly cause for concern. No less concerning is what the Netanyahu-Lieberman combination may mean to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6004

Al-Fakhouri home demolished in East Jerusalem
6 April 2009
On the morning of 6 April, about 150 Israeli soldiers, police & border police came and woke up the 22 members of the Al-Fakhouri family in the Burj Al-Laqlaq neighborhood. The Israeli forces blocked all the entrance roads to the house and occupied three rooftops threatening to arrest anyone who got near the house being demolished.
Around 30 workers destroyed the house in a process taking about 5 hours. The workers left concrete rubble and other debris in the surrounding street. The family was told that for everyday the rubble was left in the streets, the family would be charged 600 shekels on top of paying for the demolition itself.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6044

Lost in the Buffer Zone
Eva Bartlett | Inter Press Service
6 April 2009
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza - “They’re always shooting at us. Every day they shoot at us,” says Alaa Samour (19), pulling aside his shirt to show a scar on his shoulder. Samour said he was shot on Dec. 28 last year by Israeli soldiers positioned along the border fence near New Abassan village, east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.
More: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/5891

Bethlehem News Updates March 29, 2009

2009-04-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Land Day, the 33rd anniversary of Israel’s killing of six young Palestinians who were protesting Israel’s confiscation of Palestinian land in the Galilee. It has also been called as a Global Day of Action for Palestine and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid and occupation. BDS is gaining momentum around the world as effective tool to end the Israeli occupation and apartheid as it did in South Africa. Learn more: www.bdsmovement.org, www.endtheoccupation.org, www.breakthesiege.net, www.bigcampaign.org, www.boycottisraeligoods.org

Weekly Review
It has been a busy couple of weeks for us, with article deadlines, work with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, and finishing our Tourists Guide to the Occupation, now in 7 languages, drawing on translators from three continents! As soon as it is posted on line, we will send you the link. And then there are always the articles and reports by our Palestinians friends that need editing – in fact if any of you is willing to do some editing, let us know!
Our daily lives are full of work of course, but also visiting with new friends here and conversing with the shop keepers and others in our little town of Beit Sahour (right next to the not-so-little town of Bethlehem.
Check out the March 26 issue of Sacramento News and Review for our article, “Right of refusal: For some Israelis, compulsory military service is not an option” http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=932511
In this update, we’d like to give you just some snippets of life here as well as remind you to keep calling Congress 202-224-3121 and the President 202-456-1111

On the Bus to Bethlehem
Taking the bus up to Bethlehem the other day (and I mean up – we normally take the bus there and then walk back – downhill all the way), I chatted with the bus driver. He was probably my age, though looked older (who knows, maybe he was thinking the same about me!) It was the middle of the day and he pointed to the money tray and said, “Six hours for 40 shekels (about $10), that is nothing.”
I nodded and he went on: “You live your life, but it is like you died. You can’t do out, even go to Jerusalem. My father, my grandfather had something but now there is nothing, nothing.”
He started the bus, closed the door and I imagined, as it is painful to do, what it would be like to be him. His family goes back generations and generations here, living through one set of invaders after another. But until the Zionist colonists came, his family was allowed to continue their lives, to get their drinking water from their own well, to own and farm and build on their lands, to have their businesses, to travel, to walk into Jerusalem, to swim in the Dead Sea or visit Nazareth. Now the Israelis prevent or severely restrict all of this.

On the Shared Taxi to Ramallah
The way to Ramallah is long, winding, and steep because the Israelis won’t let Palestinians take the direct route through Jerusalem. It is also over narrow roads, many with large potholes. As any normal driver would, the service (shared-taxi) drivers go around the potholes when they can safely do so, saving their shocks and tires and making the trek less bumpy for their passengers.
So it was when I went to Ramallah this past week. There are two permanent checkpoints, both of which have been fortified since we have been here. We were stopped at the first and asked for our IDs, it went fairly quickly. At the second checkpoint we were motioned off to the side by a soldier and an Israeli police officer approached the driver. The cop was relatively young, I think Russian, probably an immigrant. There was much discussion in what sounded like Hebrew and handing of papers back and forth. Our driver got out, then back in. After at least 15 minutes the Israeli cop handed our driver a piece of paper and we left.
I asked what had happened and then learned that this cop had fined the driver 500 shekels ($125) because he drove around a pothole! This driver was only getting $32 in fares for his now nearly two-hour drive to Ramallah.
This particular cop may have been on a power trip, I have heard many Palestinians say that the soldiers they encounter who are Russian, Druze or Bedouin tend to be the most brutal. However, clearly the Israeli system gives him the leeway to engage in literal highway robbery if he chooses.

On another ride
It is easy to strike up conversations on the service and bus rides. On another recent ride, we struck up a conversation with a young woman who was studying at Al Quds University in the town of Abu Dis. Al Quds, which is Arabic for Jerusalem, used to be a viable part of Jerusalem until the Israelis built the illegal Apartheid wall to cut Al Quds and several small towns off. These villages, whose traditional trade routes were to and from Jerusalem, are now languishing, many businesses have closed.
As we drove along, the young woman chatted about her school and helped Patricia with her Arabic.
One drives quite close to the wall approaching Abu Dis; it is looming, huge, ugly, concrete. We all look over at it and the young woman says quietly, “I hate it.”

And a sample of the week …
Palestinian shepherds resist settler violence and disruption
(29 March 2009) In three recent incidents Palestinian shepherds asserted their right to graze their sheep on their own land, despite Israeli settlers’ attempts to intimidate the Palestinians and disrupt their agricultural work. Palestinians in the South Hebron hills have responded to recent violence and incursions on their lands with a law suit and a nonviolent grazing
action.
For rest of article: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5654
Army incursion in Haris, over 150 minors and youths arrested
(26, March, 2009) A major military operation took place today in Haris between 2am and 5pm. Around 15 jeeps, 2 border police jeeps and vans belonging to Israeli Intelligence Shabak entered Haris and arrested around 150 people including large number of minors.
For rest of article: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5599

Twilight Zone / Live fire By Gideon Levy, Haaretz
(26 March 2009) Young Mahdi Abu Ayash lies in the intensive care unit of Al Ahli Hospital in Hebron, with no chance of a meaningful recovery. Look at the picture and understand - or not. Why was this teenager - who maybe, or maybe not, threw rocks at soldiers who had arrested and beaten two of his friends - shot with live ammunition?
For rest of article: http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2009/03/25/haaretz-the-twilight-zonelive-fire
Another two children killed by Israeli explosive in the Gaza Strip
(21 March 2009) Mohammed Hiji and Ahmed Ishnayawra, both 14 years old according to medical sources, were killed in Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza city, on Saturday 21st of March by what is suspected to be Israeli ordinance, left unexploded after January’s invasion. Mohammed was in the store, where he was working to support his family, as his father is handicapped as a result of an accident that caused him the loss of his right hand.
For rest of article: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/03/5572
Upcoming article on Beit Ommar
On Sunday, March 22, we visited the village of Beit Ommar near Hebron. The May/June issue of BPM will include an article by us about the grim situation there with the army making continual incursions, like this one on March 11:
40 Arrested, Scores Beaten, Dozens of Homes Invaded in Beit Ommar
(11 March 2009) In the early hours on Wednesday, March 11, approximately 15 Israeli military vehicles entered the village of Beit Ommar and began a day-long operation of harassment, violence, and destruction. Scores of soldiers, many with faces painted or ski masks on, began breaking into homes at approximately 1am, tearing rooms apart, breaking furniture, computers, and other electronics, and arresting men aged 11-80.
For rest of article: http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2009/03/13/40-arrested-scores-beaten-dozens-of-homes-invaded-in-beit-ommar

BETHLEHEM UPDATES NUMBER 17, MARCH 15, 2009

2009-04-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

In this update:
- Rachel Corrie and Tristan Anderson
- Demonstrations on Monday, March 16 in Sacramento & San Francisco
- Take action: The U.S. should go to Durban 2
- Quote from Joel Kovel
- Example of creative resistance

Rachel Corrie and Tristan Anderson
On Friday, three days before the sixth anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie by an Israeli soldier in Gaza, U.S. activist Tristan Anderson was shot by an Israeli soldier in the West Bank. Corrie and Anderson are among the many internationals and Palestinians who have protested the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. Since 2000, the Israelis have killed over 6,000 Palestinians and a few of their many international supporters.
Corrie was trying to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home when an Israeli soldier killed her with a bulldozer. Anderson was an international observer at a demonstration against the Apartheid wall in Ni’lin when an Israeli soldier fired a tear gas canister directly at his head using an extended range weapon. The canister smashed into Anderson’s forehead; Israeli soldiers delayed and then finally allowed in the ambulance trying to reach him. Unconscious and bleeding profusely, Anderson was taken to the hospital where he remains in critical condition; we understand he has had significant damage to his frontal lobe. We join others who are very concerned about his survival and whether he will be permanently disabled.
We have seen first hand the aggressiveness of the U.S.-supported Israeli army when we attended a demonstration in Bi’lin where sound bombs and tear gas were followed by rubber coated steel bullets. We were, however, luckier than Tristan.
One of the announcements for demonstrations called in TelAviv today by Israeli activists, exposes the deliberate Israeli Army policy of using lethal weapons: “The ordinary excuses about an unfortunate accident and an investigation in progress will satisfy only those who are willing to lie to themselves.”
Ni'lin is slated to lose approximately 2500 dunums of agricultural land when the construction of the apartheid Wall is completed. (The Wall has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice.) Ni'lin was 57,000 dunums in 1948, reduced to 33,000 dunums in 1967, currently is 10,000 dunums and will be 7,500 dunums after the construction of the Wall. In the past year, four Ni’lin residents have been killed by the Israeli military demonstrating against the confiscation of their land.
Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with live ammunition on 29th July 2008. The following day, Yousef Amira (17) was shot twice with rubber-coated steel bullets, leaving him brain dead. He died a week later on 4 August 2008. Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22), was the third Ni’lin resident to be killed by Israeli forces. He was shot in the back with live ammunition on 28 December 2008. That same day, Mohammed Khawaje (20), was shot in the head with live ammunition, leaving him brain dead. He died three days in a Ramallah hospital.

Demonstrations against the occupation for Rachel and Tristan
On Monday March 16th at 4pm there will be a protest in solidarity with Tristan Anderson (see below) in San Francisco in front of the Israeli Consulate (456 Montgomery St.)
Also on Monday, March 16, 4 - 6pm, there will be a demonstration at the Federal building, 501 I St., Sac, to memorialize Rachel Corrie, killed on this date in 2003 by Israeli forces as she sought to protect Palestinian homes from demolition. Info: Jews Against Zionism, 916-263-9961, j_colbe@yahoo.com

The U.S. Must go to Durban 2: Take Action
Call the White House and tell President Obama that you want the U.S. to participate in the Durban 2 World Conference Against Racism scheduled to be held in Geneva next month (April, 2009).
The U.S. and Israel walked out of the Durban 1 Conference held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, angry that the world was once again linking Zionism and racism. Showing hopeful signs that the Obama presidency would have the courage to stand against racism in all of its forms, the U.S. attended preliminary meetings for Durban 2 last month. As a result of pressure from the Israeli lobby, it is now signaling it will boycott the conference.
Tell President Obama it is critical that the U.S. stop pandering to the Israeli regime, which is killing the Palestinian people while it destroys their communities and livelihoods.
Zionism is a bad idea that has become a racist political ideology; Zionism is not a religion. Speaking against Zionism is speaking against apartheid. Speaking against Zionism is speaking for justice.
White House Comments: 202-456-1111; Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Email through: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Quote:
“Though the anti-bellum south, Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa were full of people who saw the loss of their regime as an annihilation, the vast majority came to eventually approve of the transformation.”
-- Joel Kovel in Overcoming Zionism: Creating A Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine
Creative Resistance
Anti-apartheid activists in Los Angeles set up mock checkpoint
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News
http://www.ime mc.org/article/59313
Friday, March 13, 2009. Dozens of Los Angeles-area Jews, Palestinians and other activists erected a mock checkpoint at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) annual Valley Fundraiser.
They said the checkpoint was meant to protest AIPAC's attempt to steer US policy makers to ignore recent Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
Cars were confronted by people dressed as Israeli soldiers and those attending the event were "allowed to pass through" after receiving a new program for the event
that activists say exposes AIPAC support for Israeli policies which contravene international law. A boisterous crowd also chanted "Angelenos choose a side, human rights or Apartheid!" at AIPAC donors as they approached the hotel entrance.
"At a time when President Obama's administration seeks to restart peace talks with Palestinians and Israelis, AIPAC advocates a one-sided US policy of supporting Israel at any cost," said Julie Hey, a graduate student. "As a Jewish American, I am particularly appalled that my tax dollars are funding Israel's apartheid policies."
AIPAC is self-described as "America's leading pro-Israel lobby," and as such has supported Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, including the use of military checkpoints and the construction of a 450-mile-long wall that has encircled entire communities, leaving Palestinians prisoners in their own land.

Bethlehem News Update Number 16, March 8, 2009

2009-03-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Bethlehem News Update Number 16, March 8, 2009

In this update:
- A reminder to call
- Endorsing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Efforts
- Families send messages to their loved ones who are political prisoners of Israel
- A farmer watches the Israeli’s kill his olive trees

It seems to have turned almost overnight from winter to spring. It is much warmer and there are wildflowers popping up on green patches. We wish the change in seasons would also bring a change in the news from Gaza, where the U.S.-funded Israeli military continues to kill and terrorize the population and the Israelis are still delaying supplies from getting in.
Yesterday we went to Jenin to meet students at the university there who are receiving scholarships through the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Like most of the West Bank, the distances are not huge, but the driving time is long because of checkpoints, road closures, and poor roads. (The Israeli occupation keeps the roads its illegal settlers and military use in good repair, while it restricts Palestinian’s from repairing their roads.) Jenin is in the north of the West Bank; surrounded by beautiful farm land and hills that this time of the year are very green. One can even travel some distance without seeing any menacing illegal settlements.
A colleague of ours here, Mazin Qumsiyeh also took a drive yesterday,and listened to a radio program that aired Palestinian families sending messages to their loved ones who are being held as political prisoners by the Israelis. Below we have included his moving account. It is followed by this morning’s sad report of farmer whose trees are killed before his eyes.

A Reminder: Call Congress: 202-224-3121; call Obama: 202-456-1414
During this past week, there were Apartheid Week activities on many college campuses in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and other countries (http://www.apartheidweek.org). The organizers were successful at educating many of their fellow students and others about the reality of the Israeli occupation and apartheid. In your message to Congress and Obama this week, you can tell them (once again) that you want all U.S. aid to Israel ended until Israel ends its apartheid, occupation and violation of the human rights of the Palestinians. You can also ask if they were able to attend any Apartheid Week activities and refer them to the website (www.apartheidweek.org) if they weren’t!

Endorsing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Efforts
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, to end the disastrous era of Israel’s apartheid and occupation, builds on the successful strategy that helped end apartheid in South African. In the wake of the brutal Israeli assault on Gaza, the BDS campaign has gained new momentum. March 30 has been called as a Global Day of Action on BDS by last month’s World Social Forum
Please encourage the organizations you belong to and work with to endorse the BDS campaign: http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52. You can also sign on as an individual endorser.

Families talk to their loved ones: political prisoners of Israel
Driving from Beit Sahour to Birzeit yesterday, I was listening to a program on radio Falastin titled “Wala Budda LilQayd An Yankasir”. The term is a verse from a poem that roughly translates to “the chain is destined to be broken”. The program is a lifeline for the nearly 13,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails, [allowing them] to hear from their families outside the prison walls.
Since visitation rights are routinely denied or highly restricted, family members call in and have three minutes to say something on air. For those prisoners who have access to radio, it is a way to [at least] hear their loved ones. I listened for nearly one hour to impassioned messages and harrowing stories. All the voices I heard were of women.
One woman started her message by saluting women prisoners on International women’s day.
Another woman started with questions [to her husband] that will get no answers perhaps until the next personal encounter: “How is your health?” “How is your spirit?” “How are they treating you?” “Are you eating well?” She then put her five-year-old child on the phone who said “I miss you daddy,” and “don’t worry, mom puts on her seat belt and drives slowly.”
[And then a woman said]: “How are you my son? Inshallah [God Willing] your health is good. Inshallah your spirit is good. Inshallah you will be returned to us safe and sound. Your father’s funeral went well. Everyone in town came. He died 15 minutes before I arrived home from visiting you. (She breaks down crying and the announcer gently encourages her and then she continues). Everyone was there everyone took care of him. I pray to God every day to bring you back to me. I had your father and I had you. I need you my son. I miss you my son….”
[excerpted from email by Mazin Qumsiyeh]

A farmer watches the Israelis kill his olive trees
March 8, 2009, Ras 'Atiya, Qalqilya region: A Palestinian farmer has had a heart attack while Israeli forces cut down olive trees on his and other farmers' lands in the village of Ras Tira, Qalqilya region. He was immediately taken to hospital.
Two Israeli and three international Human Rights Workers (HRWs), from the US, Denmark and Sweden, have also been arrested and taken to an Israeli police station in the settlement of Qedumim after they joined villagers from Ras at Tira, Wadi Ar-Rasha and Dhab'a in protest over the Israeli destruction of the region's olive trees.
Residents from the area, joined by Israeli and international HRWs, were protesting the cutting down of olive trees due to the Israeli plans to change the route of the Apartheid Wall in the area. As the trees were being cut, villagers and HRWs demonstrated, while Israeli forces fired tear-gas into the crowds.
"The Israeli forces are chaining up the trees and cutting them down,” [reports activist Tom Patterson, a U.S. activist with the International Solidarity Movement.] “Just before, they gave everyone five minutes to leave the area, but then straight away went and took the Israelis and internationals. Women from the village have just come out to the fields and are throwing shoes at the soldiers. Israel is destroying more of the village's land for the settlements."
The villages of Ras at Tira, Wadi Ar-Rasha and Dhab'a are completely surrounded by both Israel's Apartheid Wall and the illegal Israeli settlements of Alfe Menashe.
[From www.palsolidarity.org]

Three Actions for Peace & Justice - February 27, 2009

2009-03-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

1) URGENT ACTION: Stop the Ethnic Cleansing of Jerusalem & Repression

These threatened home demolitions could take place this weekend, so please call now!

The Israeli military is poised to demolish 88 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem as part of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign, a violation of human rights and international law. Nearly 2000 people would be made homeless by these demolitions. FMI: http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=675

The demolitions are part of stepped-up repression by Israel, now led by an extreme right wing government. In Gaza, Israel is refusing entry to human rights monitors while its military is continuing to kill and wound civilians. In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers are shooting unarmed demonstrators and abducting children and adults from their homes. Those abducted are held under administrative detention, with no charges; some report being tortured.
FMI: http://www.palsolidarity.org; http://www.btselem.org/English

Please call immediately and demand an end to Israel's demolishing of homes, ethnic cleansing, attacks on civilians, and abductions.

Congress: Also, tell your Congress person you want NO more U.S. aid to Israel.
Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121
District offices: Matsui: 916-498-5600; Thompson: (707) 226-9898

President Obama: Also tell him you want NO more U.S. military or economic aid to Israel.
Comments: 202-456-1111; Switchboard: 202-456-1414;
Email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Israeli Consulate: 456 Montgomery St # 2100, San Francisco, CA 94104;
(415) 844-7500; Consul General Akiva Tor: concal.sec@sanfrancisco.mfa.gov.il

2) TAKE ACTION: Call for International Investigation of Israeli War Crimes
Tell Amnesty International you support their call for “a comprehensive international investigation that looks at all alleged violations of international law”.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/time-accountability-human-rights-abuses-gaza-and-southern-israel

3) TAKE ACTION: Support Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Campaign
Like South Africa, Israeli apartheid and occupation can be ended by collective world action through boycott, divestment and sanctions. Learn more about this international effort, become an endorser and encourage the organizations to which to you belong to endorse. See: http://www.bdsmovement.net

BETHLEHEM UPDATE #14, FEBRUARY 17, 2009

2009-02-18T05:19:00.000-08:00

Back in Bethlehem

Since our return to Palestine from Jordan at the end of January, we are finding our days very full. Much of this work involves moving along Sacramento to Bethlehem Sister City projects which include: refurbishing a prominently-located signboard to educate tourists about the occupation, making connections between school children in Sacramento and in Bethlehem, and a garden and composting project with the children of the SOS Children's Village of Bethlehem. Our efforts have been greatly augmented by a woman who has just come back to her roots in Beit Sahour from Michigan.

Last week Patricia planted olive trees in a Bethlehem-district village which is threatened by an encroaching illegal settlement, a bypass road and an Israeli military outpost. This is essentially the situation for all the land in the West Bank outside of Palestinian city or town centers. Palestinians are being squeezed into existing urban areas, enclosed and cut off from each other by the Apartheid Wall, fences, Jewish-only bypass roads and the ever growing illegal Jewish-only settlements constructed on confiscated (stolen) land.

Just two days ago on February 15, the Israeli online Daily Haaretz reported Israeli plans to seize 420 acres of Palestinian-owned lands in Bethlehem for the expansion of the illegal Israeli Jewish only settlement of Efrat. Efrat, of course, is built entirely upon stolen Palestinian land. About a month ago, Efrat settlers trespassed onto the lands of the Palestinians village of Artas and uprooted 120 olive trees; a huge economic loss for the traumatized villagers.

Israel has a number of ways to confiscate or limit Palestinians' access to their land. One is to "claim" that it is not in use - even while Israel creates the barriers and dangers to reach the land. When we first arrived last fall, we helped harvest olives in an area that just a few weeks later was ravaged by illegal Israeli settler rampages in Hebron. These attacks made world headlines. Most don't.

Accompanying farmers in their fields is important witness and support of daily nonviolent struggle against the Israeli military occupation. You can learn more about this at: http://www.jai-pal.org Please contact Patricia for further information: pdmc1234@gmail.com

Increasing Repression in a No-Justice System
As we have mentioned in past updates, repression here in the West Bank has increased in conjunction with the massive assault on Gaza. (The attacks and siege on Gaza continue.) Since the beginning of 2009, there has been a sharp increase in Israeli Occupation Forces raiding, detaining and arresting West Bank Palestinians (repression against Palestinian-Israelis has also increased). Dozens of West Bank children have been detained or arrested for allegedly throwing stones. (In January there were several protests against the massacre of Gaza that ended up at the wall, where indeed, some young people did throw stones at the Apartheid Wall. This is the same wall that was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.)

Last Thursday Patricia spent the day in the Ofer Israeli Military Court. There she witnessed first hand how these teens are treated during "their day in the military court." Beyond the shock that they are children being held without charge, without contact with parents for up to 8 days, it is abundantly clear that the Occupier's system assumes guilt by accusation. The next shock is that lawyers for these children are essentially placed in a situation of obtaining the best plea bargain arrangement for them. To argue innocence is to effectively ensure that their inevitable sentence will be longer. Patricia plans to continue researching and writing about the situation of Palestinian Children Political Prisoners.

Iraqi Refugees Report on their Homeland
While we were in Jordan last month, we were able to meet with Iraqis refugees living in Amman. Now in her thirties, Najlaa Wahwah and her family left Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. She now works with Direct Aid which helps Iraqi refugee families with specific health care needs, like cancer treatment and surgery.
Although some Iraqis who fled the country were able to retain their wealth, the situation for most Iraqi refugees in Jordan is difficult and often desperate, Najlaa explains. They face discrimination, many don't get the services they should receive as refugees, and many live in poverty.
A few days earlier we had met an American woman living in Amman. She told us to come to the Saturday market in the old city. There we would find once-well-off Iraqis selling their family treasures for a pittance (a doleful bargain).
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled the country since the U.S. first attacked militarily in 1991; followed up by more than a decade of deadly sanctions and the 2003 invasion. There are now over 2 million refugees in the neighboring countries and another estimated 2 million Iraqis are internally displaced.
Faiza Al Araji, 54, left Iraq in 2005 after her son was kidnapped; she now has asylum in Jordan. She works with an NGO that helps Iraqi refugee children. (Faiza spoke in Sacramento in early 2000 as part of a national tour sponsored by Global Exchange.)
Faiza gets most of her information about Iraq from Iraqis who are still there. "You have to find the news from different aspects," Najlaa notes. "You can't trust any one news source."
While both women said that security had improved in some areas of Iraq, both also painted a bleak picture.
"The basic infrastructure is still not functioning," says Najlaa. "The soil and water are contaminated with chemicals from the U.S. weapons including enriched uranium and phosphorus."
"The last time I was in Iraq was November, 2006 and it was very sad," laments Faiza. "Villages have been destroyed. Life is hard. The environmental pollution from the war has caused a high number of cancers. I have talked to doctors at the Al Mauser Hospital for Children in Baghdad and they say they are seeing a high rate of birth defects."
"There are no jobs," reports Najlaa. "Although schools and universities are now open, there are two million illiterate children in Iraq. There are also 5 million orphans, 2 million widows, and 1 million disabled people." (This in a county of approximately 28 million people.)
Not only did the U.S. severely damage Iraq physically, it also has devastated the society. Both women were horrified at the recent executions of professors, doctors, and scientists. While they had heard a number of theories about who was doing the killing and their motives, the result is to prevent Iraq from regaining any normalcy.
We have seen the political demography go from non-religious to a religious one," says Najlaa. "We hope with time this will change again to what Iraqis use to before, asking about qualification regardless what the religion is."
Both commented that the U.S. has fomented the dissent between Sunni and Shia with neighborhoods that were once mixed, now have physical barriers between newly segregated religious groups.
"Inside the U.S., they say 'united we win', but in Iraq, they say 'divide them'" says Faiza, a Shia married to a Sunni. "If the U.S. wants to split up Iraq, they will just install more of their puppets."
Neither was optimistic about Iraq's government. "The Iraqi government has no control; it is isolated in the green zone," explains Faiza. "The leaders are corrupt, including the Kurd leaders."
"We still don't have freedom in Iraq," says Najlaa. She noted that while under Saddam Hussein, there also was no freedom, at least "we did have good medical care and good education as well, both free. Now the economic situation is very bad, the basics were destroyed."
"In the mid-1970s, Iraq had the highest living standard in the Middle East," said Faiza. "Now it is occupied and lost so many good people. The U.S. has destroyed Iraq and wants to keep it backward."
"I was in Italy at the end of 2007 at an international women's conference where participants were talking about the dark era in Brazil and Argentina and in Somalia since 1990," said Faiza. "The U.S. got rid of the government, created a civil war. Now life is ruined in Somalia. A whole generation is lost. There I saw the future of Iraq. It is the same procedures and same hands."

************

Printed in the Davis Enterprise, Sunday, February 8, 2009:

Reporting from Palestine

"The Israeli state has dishonored the holocaust and the people who hid Jews to save their lives. They would be horrified at what Israel has done to the Palestinians." Susan Nathan, British-born Jewish-Israeli author of The Other Side of Israel.

For 3 weeks, beginning December 27, Israel carried out a full scale, nearly round-the-clock military assault (air, ground, and sea) on the entire population of the Gaza strip. Despite Israel's having barred journalists from Gaza before and during the assault, the horrific scenes of suffering, destruction and carnage could not be hidden.

The world watched while Israel massively bombed the densely populated area, destroying municipal buildings, police stations, media buildings, UN schools, hospitals, ambulances, mosques, universities and thousands of homes. Nothing was spared and nowhere was safe for the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza who live in an area about the size of Sacramento.

Gazans have long suffered Israeli aggression. Eighty percent are refugees from the violence and expulsions of 1948 and 1967. The history of Israeli military assaults, incursions, extrajudicial killings, kidnappings is too long to list here. And the history of Palestinian resistance to Israel's colonial occupation and military rule could also fill volumes. In June 2008, a ceasefire was negotiated that was to include Israel's lifting of its crippling siege on Gaza. Israel failed to comply, but the fragile ceasefire still held for nearly 6 months until Israel broke it in early November. Homemade rockets from Gaza followed.

For more than 18 months, Israel has effectively imprisoned Gaza, limiting fuel, food, medicines and other essentials. The suffering caused by this "low intensity warfare" has been well documented by aid agencies and human rights organizations. Even now, during this time of extreme and dire need, Israel refuses to lift its deadly blockade, hindering humanitarian relief and rebuilding efforts, guaranteeing further loss of life.

Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur, said that Israel's actions against the besieged Gazans were reminiscent of "the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto." Falk, a Jewish-American, was one of the first to condemn the Israeli assaults on Gaza as "war crimes," also condemning nations, like the United States, which provide military support to Israel and participate in the siege on Gaza.

Palestinians in the militarily occupied West Bank watched the news nonstop, helpless to do much else. "Only God is with them," said one woman to me tearfully, "They are utterly alone!" On an evening when images of white phosphorus bombs raining over Gaza were being televised, I entered my corner vegetable stand. The grocer was holding back tears and rage. I speak very little Arabic but understood when he said to me pointing at the TV, "this is against international law!" Of the over 1300 people killed in Gaza, an estimated third were children; the overwhelming majority of the over 5000 wounded are civilians. (Three Israeli civilians and ten soldiers were killed; 230 soldiers were injured.)

Protests of Israel's assault erupted all over the world, including in Palestine. Here in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and the police responded with repression and violence. In January, dozens of Palestinian children were abducted by soldiers from their homes in the middle of the night, most for throwing stones at the Apartheid Wall. (The 26-foot wall was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in July 2004, a ruling that has been completely ignored by Israel and the U.S. as Israel continues its planned 400 mile path through illegally confiscated Palestinian land.)

United Nations, Amnesty International, the International Committee for the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups are calling for a thorough investigation and appropriate prosecution of Israel's conduct as allegations of Israeli war crimes continue to mount.

If there is any hope to be found in this sickening massacre, it is that perhaps the world has had enough of turning a blind eye to Israel's decades of illegal occupation and brutality against the Palestinians. This recent horror may finally end Israel's impunity as prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are preparing charges against Israeli military leaders. Prominent Jewish activists such as Naomi Klein and others are joining the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

This will not happen easily. Neither Israel nor the United States are signatories to the International Criminal Court. Political courage is in short supply. In the midst of this most recent assault on the essentially defenseless Palestinian population, the U.S. Congress responded by overwhelmingly passing a resolution stating that Israel has a right to protect itself. Not surprising since the same Congress approved billions for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

But we can no longer just watch. The Geneva Conventions arose from a global awakening after atrocities of Nazi Germany. If "never again" is to mean anything at all, it must apply to every situation where crimes against humanity are being committed, including those committed by Israel and the U.S.

2009-02-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

picasaweb.google.com/pdmc1234/CheckpointForSNR?authkey=N9Sn1m04Ybw&feat=directlink

Take Action:

2009-02-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

Gaza is in the grip of a human-made humanitarian crisis. Thousands of tons of food, medical and emergency shelter aid including blankets and mattresses, donated by countries including the United States and aid organizations, is being denied entry through crossings by both the Israeli and Egyptian governments. The Israeli navy is blockading Gaza's sea front, preventing boats from delivering supplies Gaza, including a Lebanese ship with badly needed plasma.

Call the White House, the Israeli Consulate, the Egyptian consulate, and Congress and demand that:
- Israel and Egypt open all border crossings to Gaza,
- Israel stop its blockade of the sea access to Gaza, and
- Israel end all military action against Gaza (and its occupation of Palestine).

Remind President Obama and Congress that a third of all U.S. foreign aid goes to Israel and Egypt so the U.S. is clearly in a position to put effective pressure on both countries to stop this ongoing assault on the people of Gaza.

White House
President Barak Obama, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414, FAX: 202-456-2461
Email through website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Israeli Consulate
Consul General of Israel, 456 Montgomery Street #2100, San Francisco, CA 94104
Tel: (415) 844-7500 | Fax: (415) 844-7555,| sf@israeliconsulate.org
Consul General, Akiva Tor, (415) 844-7501, concal.sec@sanfrancisco.mfa.gov.il
For urgent press inquiries, IsraelConsulate.Press@gmail.com
Office of Public Affairs, (415) 844-7506, paffairs@sanfrancisco.mfa.gov.il

Egyptian Consulate
The Egyptian Consulate General, 3001 Pacific Ave., San Francisco, CA 94115
Tel: 415-346-9700 / 346-9702, Fax 415-346-9480, email: egypt@egy2000.com

Congressional Switchboard
All Senators and Representatives can be reached through 202-224-3121

More Information:
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/02/5020
Urgent call from Gaza to all social movements: Open Gaza Borders!
International Solidarity Movement, 4 February 2009

Bethlehem Updates Number 13, February 3, 2009

2009-02-03T14:32:00.000-08:00

For those of you in Sacramento/Davis, don't miss the opportunity to hear Israeli peace activist Shachaf Polakow speak about his work with Anarchists Against the Wall, tomorrow, Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 7pm at 909 12th Street, Sacramento; FMI 916 717-2751 or 916-448-7157

In this update:

Travels in Jordan
Crossing the border/ Re-Entry
A Ride to Ramallah
Take Action
Travels in Jordan
For the most part we were tourists in Jordan, taking in the sleepy town beach town of Aqaba, hiking around the seven pillars of wisdom at Wadi Rum, trekking into and around the ancient city of Petra (first built around 800 BCE), wading in a hot springs-fed stream between the Kings and the Dead Sea highways, floating in the Dead Sea, and poking around the crusader castles in Shobak and Kerak and the Roman ruins in Amman, Jerash, and Umm Qays.
Reading the history of some of these ancient enclaves, I reflected on the brutality of the marauding armies and the hard, perhaps-slave, labor that went into building such fortresses and tombs. For a moment, I would lapse into thinking that civilization had advanced since then, but in the next moment, I would remember Gaza, which was still being bombed, and the occupations of Palestine and Iraq and would sadly realize that instead of advancing, the invading Crusaders and Romans and had been replaced by the U.S. and Israel.
In our hotel in Amman, we met a Palestinian mother and three children who had immigrated to Norway from Gaza six years ago. The mother and two daughters had gone to visit relatives in Gaza last summer and were trapped there when Israel closed the borders. In a mixture of Norwegian, Swedish, Arabic, and English we talked to the family. Keeping a hold on all of their passports, the 21-year old son had come from Norway to bring his mother and sisters back when they were able to get out of Gaza after the bombing stopped.
The mother described how she and the daughters huddled with 23 other family members in the garage of the extended family's three storey house. They had been able to get some food supplies before the bombing started, but for the next 22 days, they did not leave home. A pregnant family member had gone to work the first day of Israel's assault; she bled to death after her workplace was hit. Water and electricity was available 1-2 hours on some days and not at all on others; sleep was equally scarce as Israel's nearly round-the-clock attacks kept everyone on alert. While their family home had not been hit, neighboring yards and homes were set on fire by bombs.
In Amman, we also met with some Iraqis, part of the estimated 100,000 – 250,000 who fled to Jordan escaping the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. They told us that has there are 4 million orphaned children in Iraq, one million disabled, and two million widows.
Jordan is also home to Palestinians who were forced from their lands by Zionists in 1948 and Israelis in 1967. An estimated 60-70% of Jordan's approximately 6.2 million people are Palestinian.

Crossing the Border
We returned from Jordan on January 29. That morning, we left Amman a little after 9am and arrived at a parking lot on the Jordan side of the Allenby border crossing around 10:15am. We changed taxis and drove less than five minutes to the first border stop. The protocol was not clear, but we found an entrance to a building and figured out to go to one window; the border staff looked at our passports and sent us to a window opposite them; there our passports were taken and we were directed to the window along side where we paid our exit fee (our passports were passed from the one window to the next and then returned to us). We proceeded outside where people were waiting in various locations. After asking several people, we figured out that there was one bus for Palestinian ID holders (who did not have a foreign passport) and one for those with foreign passports.
(We had befriended a couple of Swedes who shared our taxi from Amman. We went through the window series before they did and were waiting outside for them to join us. After 45 minutes or so, they came out with a couple of the Jordanians border staff who had told them that their passports had apparently been misstamped when they came into the Akaba airport. Instead of correcting the problem, the border staff were sending the Swedes to a different border crossing, the Sheikh Hussein bridge, about an hour and a $40 taxi-ride away.)
At 11:30am, a bus pulled up and we joined several others in piling on our luggage and climbing aboard. This bus took us through a series of Jordanian checks, one of which involved collecting all the passports on the bus. After some delay, the bus proceeded across the Allenby bridge to the occupied Palestine side, a distance of perhaps 1 kilometer, a cost of about $6, and a length of over 30 minutes.
When the bus came to a stop everyone piled out, collected their luggage and then joined what seemed like a free-for-all as people jostled to hand their luggage and passports to Israeli attendants. Some attendants would set the luggage down with the passports on top, after a few minutes, another attendant would put labels on the luggage and passports and hand the passports back while the luggage disappeared through what looked like a metal detector. The haphazardness did not appear to provide any security to owners of the luggage, instead it seemed to provide ample opportunity for tampering by the authorities.
Passport in hand, we entered a large room and eventually got into a line where a very polite young Israeli woman asked us some questions about where we were going etc. We mentioned friends we were going to stay with, whom Patricia described as "elderly", I objected to this characterization which made the young woman laugh, in turn making us feel a little bit relaxed. She took our passports and told us to wait. We noted Palestinians who were not receiving the same treatment as another not-so-polite young Israeli woman yelled at a mother and her child.
After some time an also polite young Israeli man came and asked us some questions, then disappeared. Sometime later he reappeared and told us to go back in line. Eventually our passports were stamped, our photographs and finger prints of both forefingers take. We then moved into the next room to collect our luggage. Along the way, we saw individual Palestinians entering what looked like small rooms; we thought these might be where the interrogations we had heard about took place. By this time it was about 3:15pm. We took a short and expensive bus to nearby Jericho and then a shared taxi to Bethlehem after being charged more than double the normal rate (this applied to all of the passengers, not just us).
This border crossing took nearly 5 hours, probably a short time if you were Palestinian.

Re-Entry
As much as we would have liked our vacation to coincide with one for our friends in all of historic Palestine, it did not. The day after our return, I joined local villagers, international accompaniers, and Israelis with Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) at the weekly protest against the apartheid wall and land seizures in Umm Salamuna.
In a loud voice, I said to the armed Israeli soldiers standing behind the razor wire they had erected, that they should try something different by going home and leaving the people in the village in peace. Some soldiers had told the village mayor that they were blocking the road for the safety of the village children. Speaking in English and Arabic, the mayor told them he did not believe they were concerned about the safety children or they would not be bombing Gaza. One of the AATW activists also spoke to them in Hebrew. I noted no reaction on their part to any of what we said.
After the demonstration, the internationals accompaniers related how soldiers had been invading nearby villages in the middle of the night, taking away children, some of whom reported being forced to stand under cold water for two hours. They also reported that the soldiers had taken a 13-year old disabled boy in the middle of the night.
Israel's attack on Gaza, planned six months ago according to a Haaretz' article, has now killed 1314 and wounded 5300, most of whom are civilians. Three Israel civilians and 10 soldiers were killed; 230 were wounded. Over 2000 sites were hit in Gaza; thousands of Gazans are homeless. Since the fragile ceasefire, Israel has continued with sporadic bombing causing more injuries and damage. There have also been rockets fired from Gaza with no reported injuries.
Israel's damage to Gaza's buildings and infrastructure is estimated in the billions of dollars. Instead of making even a small step toward addressing the root cause of the problem by opening the borders to Gaza, Israel instead is keeping Gaza under siege, refusing to let in desperately needed building materials. As a result, thousands in Gaza are living in makeshift shacks and tents without water, electricity or basic services.
While we were away, Israeli soldiers continued killing, kidnapping and destroying the homes of West Bank Palestinians. Reports are available at www.imemc.org and www.palsolidarity.org. See also www.electronicintifada.net

A Ride to Ramallah
I have only gone to Ramallah by shared taxi vans, but the way is familiar. Take the bus from the Souq in Beit Shaour to the Bethlehem bus terminal, get on the shared taxi and take it back past the Souq on the way out of town. Beit Sahour gives way to a few patches of open land and then villages; soon you're headed down the steep road into Wadi Nar. Although the pavement has cross slashes to offer more traction, I have seen cars spinning their wheels when it is wet. The road continues past dry hills sides, some dotted with Bedouin homes. It comes into Abu Dis where the wall cut off the town and the university from Jerusalem, which is just on the other side.
At some point along the way, passengers pass their fares to the driver who glances back and forth from the road to make change. We pass stumps of olive trees – an abandoned orchard I assumed. Seat belts get buckled as the van heads onto the road which is shared with the Israelis who occupy the increasingly more visible illegal hilltop settlements. More buildings line the sides of the road and the wall pokes out again near the Kalandia checkpoint. Soon the buildings of Kalandia become those of Ramallah.
At the beginning of this week, I was offered a ride to Ramallah by the husband of a colleague. Born in Beit Sahour in the 1950s, he had spent his youth in the West Bank under Jordanian rule. Since the Israeli occupation started in 1967, he had seen its creeping oppression, evident along the drive we were taking.
He pointed out the current dump site for the Bethlehem district, much easier to see from his front window than the vans. It is a old site, where garbage is piled on the ground with no liner to prevent seepage into the ground water. And it is occupied – the Israelis control it, dumping the trash from their illegal settlements and charging the Palestinians to dump trash from their towns. Not too far away were piles of old cars – dumped by Israel, he explained.
The olive stumps were the handiwork of Israelis, they did not want orchards near the road as they could pose a security risk.
When he was a boy, his family would walk to Jerusalem on a weekend day; it might take a couple of hours. Now the wall, illegal settlements, and settlement roads block the way. Not to mention that Israel now won't let Palestinians who do not live in Jerusalem (and therefore have Jerusalem IDs) go to Jerusalem except with special permits, which are difficult to get.
Bethlehem is on one side of Jerusalem and Ramallah is near another side. To go directly from one to the other used to take 15 or 20 minutes he told me. With the apartheid wall, the Palestinians are routed in a huge circle so it takes more than an hour, checkpoint stopping time not included. There is a plan to re-route the Palestinians off of the road they now share with Israelis to another route that would even further lengthen the trip.
As we approached Kalandia, he pointed toward the wall and told me that there was an airport on the other side. It used to serve people in the area, but the wall severed it from the Palestinians.
The few Bedouins are left from thousands who used to live in the area before Israel forced them out. Many were relocated to the desert where their homes are routinely demolished by the Israelis.
He was dressed in a suit and tie to attend meetings with local government officials. I thought about how back in California, he and I might be co-workers going to talk to some city or county about their solid waste management issues. As we talked, I kept thinking, what it would be like to be him, to be a Palestinian who has seen so much taken away by the Israelis. Who knows the Israelis want all the land with no Palestinians. Who knows they have had the upper hand for his lifetime, stealing land, rights, livelihood, and even life.
At some point, I wanted to shift from an increasing sense of hopelessness, so I asked him how he thought the situation might be able to change. He said that as terrible as Gaza was, the reaction of the world did give him hope: to hear about Jewish women in Canada occupying the Israeli embassy; to see cracks in political support for Israel evidenced by France and Turkey, and to know that internationals were looking at filing criminal charges against Israel.
He hopes the boycott, divestment and sanctions effort will become stronger and force a change as it did in South Africa. He also is hopeful that the election of Obama will make a difference. It might, I commented, but only if people in the U.S. keep up the pressure for a different U.S. foreign policy. One that truly promotes human rights and democratic principles, not mass killing, occupation, and apartheid.

Take Action
Keep calling your Congress members (202-224-3121) and demand that the U.S. stop supporting Israel's apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.
Share our updates and articles with others. Our most recent article was published on January 29 in the Sacramento News and Review: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=901082
Don't buy Israeli products; if the first three numbers of the bar code are 729, it was made in Israel.
Talk to people about the situation. Have people over and show the film Occupation 101 (you can borrow a copy from SacPeace, sacpeace@dcn.org, 916-448-7157.

Bethlehem Updates Volume 11, January 11, 2009

2009-02-01T00:28:00.000-08:00

"I have five children that are very worried about me, but I told them, you can sit on your couch and watch these atrocities on the television, or you can choose to take action to make them stop."
--Fouad Ahidar, a member of the Belgian Parliament who will be onboard the FreeGaza boat, the Spirit of Humanity, in response to concerns that Israel may attack the unarmed ship which is set to leave Cypress for Gaza tomorrow morning.
As we write, the death toll in Gaza nears 900, approximately 85% of which are civilians. We were disgusted by Friday’s Congressional resolution supporting Israel’s continuing murder of Gazans. Among the accomplices to this war crime are California’s Senators Boxer and Feinstein and representatives Matusi and Thompson. Hedging it bets perhaps, also on Friday, the US abstained from the 15-member UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza; 14 in favor. The bottom line remains the same for Gaza: as this is being written, the Israelis are still bombing.
Please see our “15 Things You can do to Save the people of Gaza” on our blog: bethlehemnarratives.blogspot.com
In this update:
- Creative demonstrations in Bi’lin and Um Salmuna
- Vulnerable at the Checkpoint
- Positive action: boycott, divestment, sanctions
- Briefs: news & commentary on Gaza

Bi’lin
Bi’lin is a small town near Ramallah. Israel has stolen nearly 60% of the town’s land for illegal settlements and the apartheid wall (right now in Bi’lin, the “wall” is a fence with razor wire.) The town has obtained rulings from the Israeli Supreme Court that hold some hope that the village may get some land back. The Court’s rulings do not, however, stop the Israeli army from making incursions into Bi’lin or attacking the town’s people during their weekly demonstration against the barrier and occupation.
We joined the protest in Bi’lin on January 9; it was directed against the Israeli massacre in Gaza. Demonstrators, including the local people, internationals, and Israeli activists, dressed as concentration camp victims of the Nazi holocaust, wearing stripped prison-type suits. Instead of the yellow Star of David badge, they wore yellow cut-outs of Gaza. People chanted, “Stop the holocaust” as we made our way towards the barrier, a chain link fence with razor wire.
Armed Israeli soldiers were gathered on a hillside behind the fence. We were nervous about what to expect, but did not have to wait long. Suddenly we were surrounded by deafening whistles of sound waves. I had heard about sound grenades, so kept looking around for something on the ground, but the intense noise seemed like it was everywhere. Plugging my ears with my fingers did reduce it considerably, but that made picture taking impossible, so I stuffed tissue in my ears, which was not as effective. (Some of our photos are at: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/01/3883)
The army soon started thrown smoke grenades; at first people backed off because they thought this was tear gas. Soon enough the tear gas canisters came flying, a new experience for both of us. Breathing through our scarves helped, but when we got too close, our eyes and faces started to burn. We backed off and I took out a bottle of water. Someone immediately told me not to drink it as tear gas is water soluble and it would burn in my throat.
The army advanced across the fence, some of the young men in the village started to sling stones at them. More tear gas, more advances of the army, then we would run for cover, then stop when the army seemed to have stopped, then more gas and more advances and another run for cover.
Eventually the army started shooting, but by then we and most of the village had retreated to the center. We later heard that the army had used a new type of bullet, called “0.2” that contained an unknown chemical substance and that several demonstrations were shot with these new round and green bullets that explode upon impact. One was taken to Ramallah Hospital after the bullet went through his leg. The army also fired rubber coated steel bullets, injuring a photographer from Al Jazeera International and two locals, one of them a child. The soldiers came into the village and arrested and later released three people from the village and two Israeli activists.
Bi’lin is one of many villages being strangled by the implements of Israeli occupation: the wall, settlements, by-pass roads, checkpoints, and military incursions. Yet the villagers persist, native Palestinian Davids and peace & justice seeking Israelis against the Goliath of zionist Israel, armed to the teeth and willing to destroy.

Um Salmuna
For the past two years, the villagers of Um Salmuna have been demonstrating against the apartheid wall under construction that will sever their community and the surrounding small villages from the major road that connect them with Hebron and Bethlehem. When finished, this wall will cut the Bethlehem district in two, separating the east and the west sides. In order to get to Bethlehem, the villagers will have to take a much longer route or pass through an Israeli controlled checkpoint which can be closed at any time for any length of time by the Israeli military. It is part of a massive illegal land grab by the Israelis of a huge section of the Bethlehem district.
The villagers have been holding a creative non-violent protest every Friday. On December 26, Patricia went with other international activists. A “bride” and her female attendants came from a neighboring village to meet the “groom” and his attendants in Um Salmuna. Between the couple was a razor wire barrier erected by Israeli soldiers to stop the demonstrators. The soldiers pushed back the women coming with the bride so that they could not get to the barrier. The soldiers then shot off a sound grenade and started pushing the razor wire towards the people on the side with the groom.
The bride’s group negotiated with the soldiers to go around the razor wire to the groom’s side. Their coming together was greeted with cheers and speeches. The speakers were then detained by the Israeli soldiers and their ID cards taken. What difficulties lay in store for them is not clear.

Vulnerable at the Checkpoint
I have been to Ramallah twice in the last week. The road is long, windy and in parts very steep and dangerous – there is a shorter and safer way, through Jerusalem, but it is closed to West Bank Palestinians.
In the last few days, the Israeli army has made more permanent structures for two major checkpoints between Bethlehem and Ramallah. When I returned last Wednesday, as the van I was in went through, I noticed a car parked near the checkpoint on the opposite side from us. The doors and trunk were open and there were backpacks on the ground. About five feet away, there were 3 or 4 young men lined up with their backs to the car, standing behind them was an Israeli soldier with a gun; another soldier or two were near the car. The absolute vulnerability of these young men hit me in an instant – these Israeli soldiers could shoot them with absolutely no repercussions because they are Palestinian. (See Shraga Elam’s piece below.)
We went through the same checkpoint on Friday night and there were long lines of cars. We were in line 15 minutes or so when we finally got up to the booth. All of our documents were collected (our passports and the Palestinians ID cards). Our passports were handed back and the van pulled forward and parked on the side. We were puzzled as we waited again – then we realized that the Israeli solders had taken all of the Palestinian IDs and had not yet given them back.
These two illegal checkpoints, like nearly all of the 600+ Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank are between Palestinian towns. They should not even exist, much less be used to delay and harass. Their goal is not security; their goal is to make life increasing difficult for the Palestinian people.
Next time you drive from Sacramento to Davis or between any two close towns, imagine what it would be like if all the traffic were stopped and everyone in every vehicle forced to show identification, which if taken would mean more of a delay. And imagine this would happen every time you went between those two places, both going and returning. And imagine if you lived in one place and worked or went to school or had family or had to see a doctor or go to a hospital in the other.

It Worked to End Apartheid in South Africa – it can work to end it in Palestine
This week, we met with Palestinian and international activists working on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (bdsmovement.net), a positive step that people can take to move Israel to make ‘justice’ with the Palestinian people whose lives, homes, lands, and human rights they have been taking since 1948.
Timely for us, author Naomi Kline wrote about the BDS campaign this week in the Nation: “It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.” (See her article: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090126/klein?rel=hp_picks)
We hope to write more about this in future reports.

Briefs: News & Analysis on Gaza
Below are a few of the many recent news articles and analyses of the situation in Gaza. For on the ground coverage, see www.palsolidarity.org which includes the reports of 8 internationals inside Gaza. To know what the world knows, see http://english.aljazeera.net

IOF Operations in Gaza Continue; More Civilians Killed and Civilian Premises Destroyed
(January 11, 2009, 1pm) ….According to Al Mezan's careful monitoring, the IOF has killed at least 842 Palestinian in the Gaza Strip since the start of its Operation Cast Lead on 27 December 2009. …The Center estimates that between 200 and 230 children have been killed. Many of those have still been under the rubble of houses under areas under IOF's invasion. Moreover, tens of children who were killed on the first day of the attacks have not yet been verified; therefore, the Center prefers to wait until they are accounted for properly. …Al Mezan estimates that at least 85% of the casualties were civilian non-combatants.
http://www.mezan.org/site_en/press_room/press_detail.php?id=948

U.S. seeks ship to move arms to Israel
By Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tonnes of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.
U.S. seeks ship to move arms to Israel…
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L9736369.htm
Human Rights Watch: “Israel is using white-phosphorus against Gaza”
(Saturday January 10, 2009) by Saed Bannoura
Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that the Israeli Army is using White Phosphorus in its artillery shells against the Gaza Strip. Researchers of HRW said that they observed on January 9th and January 10th, several artillery shells fired by the Israelis near Gaza and Jabalia, and that these shells apparently included white-phosphorus…
http://www.imemc.org/article/58420
"Passive" refusal is not enough to prevent war crimes
By Shraga Elam
This I know from my own experience as a young Nahal soldier in the Six Day War of 1967. [This war was the start of Israel illegal occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan] We were attached to a makeshift Golani battalion whose commander was Lieutenant-Colonel Ganz (I don't remember his first name) and we were part of the force that occupied Nablus. We were at the outskirts of the city when the commander brought to us a group of young Palestinian civilians. He claimed that they were Jordanian soldiers who had discarded their uniforms. Therefore, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Ganz, they were to be treated as spies, meaning that they were to be executed, and he ordered us to do so.
We refused to obey to this manifestly illegal order, but then two of our platoon (one was Sergeant Ilan Polivoda) volunteered to slaughter the poor guys. We were shocked and we felt that by our refusal in the battlefield we had done our utmost as simple soldiers vis-à-vis the
Lieutenant-Colonel. We were not aware of the illegality of the order and merely reacted according to our feelings and upbringing….
http://shraga-elam.blogspot.com/2009/01/passive-refusal-is-not-enough-to.html
Sderot War Diary
By Nomika Zion, (One of the founders of Kol Aher, which means “another voice”, a group of Jewish-Israelis living near the Gaza Strip who are attempting to build a human bridge of understanding and solidarity with Gaza residents.) [Sderot is a Jewish-Israeli town that was built on the lands of the Palestinian village of Najd, which was ethically cleansed in 1948; see: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Gaza/Najd]
(Sderot, 8 January, 2009)…. The current bloodbath in Gaza is not in my name and not for my security. Destroyed homes, bombed schools, thousands of new refugees - are not in my name and not for my security. In Gaza there is no time for burial ceremonies now, the dead are put in refrigerators in twos, because there is no room. Here their bodies lay, policemen, children, and our nimble reporters play acrobatically with Hasbara [explanation] strategies in view of “the images that speak for themselves”. Pray tell me, what is there to “explain”? What is there to explain? …
http://villagesgroup.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/a-sderot-woman-speaks-out-against-gaza-war
No Other Option?!
By Sam Bahour
(January 10, 2009) I watch in shock, like the rest of the world, at the appalling death and destruction being wrought on Gaza by Israel; and still it does not stop. Meanwhile, we see a seemingly never- ending army of well-prepared Israeli war propagandists, some Israeli government officials, and many other people self-enlisted for the purpose, explaining to the world the justifications for pulverizing the Gaza Strip, with its 1.5 million inhabitants…
I am a Palestinian American based in Al-Bireh, the sister city of Ramallah in the West Bank. I can see how an observer from abroad could be blind to the facts, given the blitz of Gaza war propaganda orchestrated by the Israeli military. But I know better. Like all other Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, I am not an observer from abroad. We live every day under the bitter burden of Israeli military occupation and we know that this question, presented as rhetorical --did we really have an option? -- has a rational answer. Allow me, from my vantage point as an economic development professional, to touch on some of the other options that could have been chosen….
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/10/no_other_option
Israel Is Committing War Crimes
Hamas's violations are no justification for Israel's actions.
By George E. Bisharat
Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html

15 things YOU can do to save the people of Gaza:

2009-01-07T05:31:00.000-08:00

1) Get informed. Here are some good links:
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main (Reports from internationals inside Gaza)
http://english.aljazeera.net
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/F1EC67EF7A498A30C125752D005D17F7?opendocument Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations
http://electronicintifada.net

More clear reports and analyses of the situation:
http://darwiniana.com/2008/12/30/talking-points-on-gaza/
http://www.alternativenews.org/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/29/israel-gaza-attack-shifa-hospital
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/12/view_from_a_pal/
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/gaza-voices-american-silence
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-true-story-behind-thi_b_153825.html
http://imeu.net/news/printer0015233.shtml
www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein01012009.html

2) Contact your elected representatives at least twice a week and demand that they take action to end Israel's assault on Gaza and its ongoing violence against the Palestinians through its occupation and apartheid. All members of Congress and the Senate can be reached at: 202-224-3121. Also contact your local electeds and ask them to issue public statements.

3) Contact President-Elect Obama and ask him to issue a statement calling for Israel to end its bombing and siege on Gaza http://change.gov/page/content/contact

4) Every day have a conversation with at least 2-3 people about what is going on in Gaza and urge them to take action.

5) Monitor and contact local media. Write letters to editors or op eds (Sac Bee www.sacbee.com/326/story/19629.html; oped@sacbee.com; SacNewsRev: sactoletters@newsreview.com; Davis: www.davisenterprise.com/forms_submitletter.php) sactoletters@newsreview.com. Call or write local TV and radio stations (you can get a list from the yellow pages, smartpages.com, or search engines).

6) Organize and/or participate in demonstrations, vigils, sit-ins teach-ins, speakers, films and other public actions and events. Check with www.sacpeace.org or www.davispeace.org for Sacramento & Davis peace events.

7) Pass out flyers or join leafleting efforts of other groups to distribute information about Palestine and Gaza in your community, asking people to take action (www.sacpeace.org).

8) Hold a house party to inform friends, neighbors, family, and others about Gaza and also to raise funds for Gaza (see next item).

9) Donate to get direct aid to Gaza. We can recommend the Middle East Children's Alliance: http://www.mecaforpeace.org/article.php?id=364

10) Don't buy Israeli products (and ask others not to). If the first three numbers of the bar code are "729", the product was made in Israel. For more information, see www.BDSmovement.net

11) Invite a speaker to your workplace, club, place of worship, union. For speakers in the Sacramento area, email sacpeace@dcn.org.

12) Wear a Palestinian head scarf (kaffeyah) or a black arm band; these can also help start conversations.

13) Visit Palestine! (Email us for suggestions, mcpd1234@gmail.com)

14) Think of more things you can do to end the Israeli siege and save the people of Gaza.

15) Pass this message on to others!

Bethlehem News Updates Volume 10, January 3, 20

2009-01-07T05:23:00.000-08:00

In this update:

- Gaza briefing. As we send this, Israel has begun a ground invasion.
- Bethlehem brief
- Visiting Villages of '48
- Boycott L'Oreal Products << www.BDSmovement.net >>

As we send this, Israel's genocidal assault on the people of Gaza continues; ground troops have invaded. There are eight International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers on the ground in Gaza. They all came on the Free Gaza Boats (www.freegaza.org). We urge you to read their eyewitness reports at: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main. A particularly powerful one from the Italian volunteer is at: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/01/vittorio-arrigoni-writes-from-gaza/.

Look for our report in the upcoming January 8 Sacramento News and Review.

Even if you have already contacted Congress (202-224-3121) please call again AND ask you friends, family and co-workers to do the same. The Gazan people are utterly alone! Only international pressure will stop the Israeli killing machine at this point.

There have been several good reports written about what is going on. Here are a few:

The injured were lying there asking God to let them die, Fikr Shaltoot
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/29/israel-gaza-attack-shifa-hospital

Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood, Mustafa Barghouthi
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/12/view_from_a_pal/

Gaza Voices, American Silence, Ken Ring,

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/gaza-voices-american-silence

Israel Over-reaches, Nadia Hijab, http://imeu.net/news/printer0015233.shtml

If Hamas did not Exist, Jennifer Loewenstein, www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein01012009.html;

Bethlehem Brief:

The electricity was going on and off yesterday. Our town of Beit Sahour, has not been receiving water and we know of some homes that have run out of their storage capacity and they have been without water for three days. We are very fortunate that our house has a well. (Essentially no new wells can be dug by Palestinians because Israel restricts them digging deep enough to reach one of the aquifers. Cisterns, however, are legal) Ultimately, Israel controls both the electricity and water to the West Bank.
The Bethlehem checkpoint was closed for Palestinians again for 48 hours beginning yesterday, preventing thousands of workers from getting to their jobs. After the Gaza assault started, tour companies cancelled holiday stays in Bethlehem, another hit against the already-weak economy here.
In the last week, we know personally of two European women who were stripped searched at the airport when leaving Israel.

Visiting the Villages of '48: Ain Hood, Ain Hood Jadeed, Al Majedel, Ma'lul

In our last update we promised to describe our travels though the Galilee. With the events in Gaza, it is difficult to concentrate on anything but Gaza. However, we also know that what is happening in Gaza today is part of decades of strategic and continued assault on Palestinians – first carried out by Zionist militias in 1948 and since then by the state of Israel. Even as we are shocked and sicken by what is happening, we painfully aware that this is yet another horrific chapter of the same story.
Keep this in mind as we describe finding the remains of destroyed Palestinian villages of 1948 in the Galilee. Hold the images of the frightened, suffering and dieing Gazans, 80% of whom are refugees; forcibly transferred from their native lands. (In 1948, an estimated 800,000 Palestinians were killed, fled in fear, or were forcibly removed their homes and lands by the Zionist militias.)
As you witness on your TV screen the rubble of Gazan buildings bombed today, we would like you to also think about the covered and hidden remains of the approximately 500 destroyed Palestinian cities and villages of 1948. And then ask yourself is it possible that what is happening in Gaza now could also be forgotten by the world; an erased history, forgotten, distorted, twisted.
Of course, we all know that history is written by those that conquer. While many keep repeating that the issue of Israel/Palestine is very complicated, this much, this fact, is very simple. Palestinians were forcibly removed and continue to be removed, either by restriction, theft or death, from their land.
The Galilee is located in the north part of the current state of Israel. It is home to a small Palestinian majority. An area that was to have largely remained Palestinian under the 1947 UN partition plan, the Palestinians who live there managed to escape transfer in 1948. For more information about Palestinian villages, see www.palestineremembered.com
There are about 1.5 million Palestinians living inside modern day Israel, about 20% of the total Israeli population. Although they are now Israeli citizens, they lived under martial law until 1966 (Israel still maintains repressive emergency laws) and today they live a separate and unequal existence to the Jewish citizens of Israel. The Palestinians citizens of Israel live mainly in three areas - the Galilee, the Triangle (a small area that lies along the upper western side of the West Bank), and the Negev. Approximately 10% live in encampments and unrecognized villages, about 8% live in "mixed" towns where they are a minority. The remaining Palestinian population of Israel lives in exclusively "Arab" cities and villages. A third of these Palestinians are internally displaced persons, refugees of 1948 or from Israel transfer policies of the 1950's. Although Palestinians make up 20% of the population, they own only 3% of land in the current state of Israel. Most of their property was confiscated by the Israeli authorities, which involved laws that effectively "legalized" state theft of their lands.
In many ways, traveling through the Galilee feels very much like being in the Occupied West Bank - without the Apartheid Wall and checkpoints. Jewish only cities look very much like the illegal Jewish only settlements that are now ubiquitous in the West Bank. Palestinian cities and villages are readily recognizable from a distance. Witness the density of the buildings with little or no open space as expansion is prohibited Israeli authorities, and the mosque or steeple.

Ein Houd and Ein Houd al Jadida: Occupation and Marginalization

Ein Houd is on of the few Palestinian villages to have escaped demolition in 1948; its entire population however, was forced out. The majority were expelled, moving through several internment camps, to the West Bank and Transjordan. Most of them (and their descendents) now live in the Jenin Refugee camp or in Jordan. A small minority managed to escape expulsion and fled about 1 kilometers away (as the crow flies). They named this place Ein Houd al Jadida (New Ein Houd)
While international law recognized in 1948 their right to return, they have never been allowed to do so. Instead, in the early 1950's it was transformed into a exclusively Jewish Israeli artist's colony and the name was hebrew-ized into Ein Hod. Artists live in some of the old Palestinian homes. Near the entrance is a larger than life metal sculpture of a naked woman and a full clad man - a culturally-offensive slap-in-the face to the people from whom the town was stolen. Even more offensive, the mosque is now a trendy cafe. We asked a few puzzled people where the mosque was and were referred to a longtime town resident who would only talk about the historic plight of Jews, refusing to even acknowledge the native inhabitants in whose stolen home he now lived.
We left and traversed a windy bumpy, narrow road to Ein Houd al Jadida (New Ein Houd). The village, until recently, was "unrecognized" which meant they were deprived of all basic public services; water, electricity, roads, etc. Donkeys were the main transportation until the late 1980s. At that point the villagers began to pressure Israel to recognize them and grant them normal rights. The response was immediate; the application of a policy of intimidation. Demolition notices were posted. Since all the buildings were constructed while the community was "unrecognized" the permit procedures had not been done and so all the homes were "illegal." Villagers had to channel their energy into saving their homes instead of becoming "recognized. Finally in 1994, the received "recognition" but nothing has changed. In fact, the initial land they were recognized as owing has now been re-surveyed and halved, the land going for a national park. That at least brought asphalt to the steepest parts of the road.

Al Mujaydil: Destroyed and occupied

We arrived to Nazareth after dark and found our way up a hill to the convent where we were staying. In the morning we met with the director of the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Displaced Persons in Israel, Dahoud Badr, himself a refugee from the village of Al Ghabsiya. Dahoud told us about his organization, which started in 1992 to help Palestinian-Israeli refugees be able to return to their villages and lands (from which they were ethnically cleansed, starting in 1948). Some villages were completely destroyed, evidence of their existence remains. Over the remains of others, Israeli colonial settlements were built. Dahoud sugested a few villages in the area that we could visit.
With the help of a young Palestinian-Israeli man we met at a gas station, we were able to find the Palestinian church that was damaged, but left staying from the village of Al Mujaydil. Most the village refugees went to Nazareth and petitioned the new Israeli government to come back. Israel told the Christians among them that they could return; and the Christians said they would not return without their Muslim townspeople. Today the church has been repaired and is operational, Father Jack, its Palestinian priest, holds regular services. Nearly all his parishioners are Palestinian-Israelis, most live in Nazareth, a few kilometers away. They are not allowed to live in the exclusively Jewish city built on the village's land. Occasionally he receives Russian immigrants who come to church in disguise; pretending to be Jews so that Israel would let them emigrate, these church-goers are in fact Christians.
Israel built the settlement of Migdal Ha'emeq on the grave of Al Mujaydil starting in the 1950s. The French company L'Oréal opened a factory there in 1999. One of the ways to oppose the Israel's apartheid and occupation is to join the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. Begin by boycotting L'Oréal products, which include the L'Oréal Paris; Garnier; Maybelline New York; Softsheen, Carson; CCB Paris brands. See below for a message from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee about this boycott. Or visit: www.BDSmovement.net Note that Israel products have a barcode that begins with 729.

Ma'lul: In Ruins

Without the very detailed hand-drawn map from Father Jack to Ma'lul, we would not have found the village. There are no signs to Ma'lul and although it happens to be fairly near a major road it is hidden from sight. In the 1950s it was common practice for Israelis to plant fast growing pine trees that effectively covered up destroyed villages. The Jewish National Fund collected money for trees through the "Plant a Tree in Israel" campaign.
As we approached on a dirt road, we drove along an electric fence with dogs chained on the side opposite us; they were allowed to run on a short tether. On the fence were yellow signs that said "Warning Mines" on them. We did not understand what these meant until we traveled the next day to the occupied Golan and realized these were land mines left by the Israelis; in the occupied Golan, there are 76 minefields, some inside Arab towns which have killed children. It is utterly barbaric that Israel planted and then left these land mines.
We then spotted two buildings, ruins of churches; the mosque had been completely destroyed. Ma'lul was a village of 800 people. Some of its stolen land was used for a military base and some went to the Israeli settlement of Migdal Ha'emeq.
We met a Palestinian family gathering a special wild green for cooking. They told us that some of their neighbors were from this village. "There are 500 stories like this one," the father of the family said, referring to the estimated number of Palestinian villages that were ethnically cleansed in 1948.
We stayed at Ma'lul until the twilight edged closer to night. The more we explored, the more we discovered building foundations, cisterns, shapes of doorways, colored tiles; features describing a life lived here. And not that long ago……
Why would anyone question their right to return? For more information about the Villages of '48, see www.palestineremembered.com and www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?lang=english

BETHLEHEM UPDATES VOLUME # 9 - Part 1

2008-12-27T08:56:00.000-08:00

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.

ALERT UPDATE

2008-12-17T07:25:00.000-08:00

UPDATED ALERT: Sacramento electeds Dave Jones and Kevin McCarty visit Israel
Dec 17, 2008. Assembly member Dave Jones (who represents Sacramento in the State Assembly) has returned. If you have not already done so, please call his office and ask to speak with him. Ask for details about the trip he has just taken to Israel, including who paid for it, what he did and saw and who he met with. Ask why he went and how it relates to and will influence his actions as your assembly member. Ask if he got a “balanced” view by also spending time with Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and apartheid. Ask him if he has read his constituents (i.e. our) blog: http://bethlehemnarratives.blogspot.com
Dave Jones: Capitol office: 916-319-2009 (District office: 324-4676); please follow-up your call with an email to him (and ask for a written response): assemblymember.jones@assembly.ca.gov
Sacramento City council member Kevin McCarty is still here as far as we know.
Please call him at 916-808-7006 if you have not already done so. Say you heard he is in Israel and ask that he meet with his constituents Maggie Coulter and Patricia Daugherty, who are living in the West Bank near Bethlehem (very close to Jerusalem). You can give him our cell phone 059 802 5761 (country code is 972) and email mcpd1234@gmail.com
Please follow-up your call to Kevin McCarty with an email: KMcCarty@cityofsacramento.org.. Tell him you would like a full report of his trip here as soon as he returns, including who paid for the trip, what they did, and who they met with. Ask why he went and how it relates to and will influence his actions as your city council person. Ask if he got a “balanced” view by also spending time with Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and apartheid. Please refer him to our blog, http://bethlehemnarratives.blogspot.com.
Ask both Jones and McCarty to issue a public statement condemning the Israeli Foreign Minister’s call for ethnic cleansing (see alert below).

BETHLEHEM NEWS VOLUME #8, December 15, 2008

2008-12-16T01:52:00.000-08:00

In this issue:

Two important alerts

A great gift

In the News

Brave farmers

ALERT: Sacramento electeds, Kevin McCarty and Dave Jones in Israel

We just learned that our Sacramento city council person, Kevin McCarty and our California Assemblyperson Dave Jones are in Israel attending an Israeli business conference. Please call their offices immediately and say you heard they are in Israel and ask that they meet with their constituents Maggie Coulter and Patricia Daugherty, who are living in the West Bank near Bethlehem (very close to Jerusalem). You can give them our cell phone 059 802 5761 (country code is 972) and email mcpd1234@gmail.com
Kevin McCarty 916-808-7006
Dave Jones: Capitol office: 916-319-2009 (District office: 324-4676);
Also tell them that you hope they have gotten a "balanced view" by spending time with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and with Palestinian-Israelis. Ask them to issue a public statement about the Israeli Foreign Minister's call for ethnic cleansing (see alert below). Tell them you would like a full report of their trip here as soon as they return, including who paid for the trip, what they did, and who they met with.

Please refer them to our blog, http://bethlehemnarratives.blogspot.com.
Please follow-up your phone calls to them with emails: KMcCarty@cityofsacramento.org; assemblymember.jones@assembly.ca.gov.

ALERT: Israeli Call for Ethnic Cleansing

It was very disturbing to hear the December 11 public comments of Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, that Arabs in Israel will not have any place in the Jewish state after a Palestinian state is established. This call by an Israeli government official for ethnic cleansing is absolutely barbaric and should be immediately denounced by the international community, including our government. At a minimum, this would affect a fifth of Israel's population: the nearly 1.5 million Palestinians living as Israeli citizens inside Israel's borders established by the 1949 armistice ("the green line"). (There are an additional approximately 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 in the West Bank).

Please call Doris Matsui, Mike Thompson or your representative and Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (or your state senators), 202-224-3121 and tell them to issue a public statement condemning Livni's comments and calling for an end to Israel's occupation and apartheid. Tell them this is one more reason why the U.S. must sending aid and selling or giving weapons to Israel.

A great gift: Palestinian Olive Oil: In Sacramento/Davis, call to order, contact Zohreh 916-631-0565; totalhood@aol.com. Others, contact Paul (510) 236-5338 or larudee@pacbell.net. Proceeds support the International Solidarity Movement and Free Gaza.

In the News: Sample of life under occupation

Human Rights Reporter barred entry into Israel: Dec. 14, 2008. Israeli Occupation Authorities denied entry to and deported United Nations Special Reporteur, Professor Richard Falk who was appointed to report on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. This was Falk's first official visit. (aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=193842)

Palestinian Political prisoners: On Dec 15, 2008, Israel released 230 Palestinian political prisoners; approximately 11,000 are still being held in Israeli jails, many held without charges. (www.imemc.org/article/58016)

Some of the recent Israeli Military Invasions in West Bank:

On Dec.15, 2008, the Israeli military detained three Palestinian residents of Bethlehem after Israeli soldiers ransacked their homes. (www.imemc.org/article/58014)

On Dec. 14, 2008, the Israeli military invaded several neighborhoods in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. (www.imemc.org/article/58010)
On Dec. 13, Israeli soldiers detained 10 residents from the village Zabouba and deployed patrols across the Kufer Ra'y village. (www.imemc.org/article/58010)
On Dec. 13, Israeli soldiers in Hebron shot a Palestinian child in the head, seriously wounding him in Hebron. (www.imemc.org/article/58000)

Brave Farmers

Al-Walaja

On Friday, Dec. 12, Maggie visited a farmer from the village of Al-Walaja, south of Jerusalem. Zionist militias destroyed the original village in 1948; the residents fled, but rebuilt the village nearby. It was illegally occupied in the 1967 Israeli-land seizure and half of it was illegally annexed to Jerusalem. Starting in 1987, Israel banned new construction and has demolished homes in addition to destroying nearby forest land. Israel now plans to build its illegal apartheid wall on the village lands, which would completely surround the village, isolating it from the rest of the world. The villagers are challenging this in the Israeli courts.

From the farmer's land, we could see the illegal Israeli settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo topping the hillsides across the valley. I had come to join Palestinian, Israeli and international volunteers who are helping plant trees, maintain the terraces, improve the watering system, and create a presence on the land as part of the resistance to Israel's destructive plans.

Some of the volunteers were with Anarchists Against the Wall (www.awalls.org) who are currently doing a US speaking tour and will be in California in January & February (hopefully in Sacramento on February 4, 2009, email sacpeace.org for more info.)

The village is near the Cremisan Winery, part of the Silesian Order of the Roman Catholic Church. The winery has not been active in opposing wall; you can email and ask them to get involved: www.cremisan.org/html/contact_us.html

Nahhalin

On Saturday, Dec. 13, we visited a farmer from the nearby village of Nahhalin, which is also struggling to survive, surrounded by illegal settlements and military installations. To help preserve his land, Daoud Nassar has enlisted the help of international volunteers; for more information, see his website, www.tentofnations.org. Nassar is also trying to help city dwelling Palestinians get reconnected to the land.

The Israelis will not allow him to have running water or electricity or add or expand the two small buildings on the site. The Israeli military could come at any time and destroy any new structures, including the chicken coops and composting toilets. Fortunately the site has a cistern, which is refilled by rain water (so far very scarce this year).

Nassar described how about six months ago, a woman from a nearby Israeli settlement came on the land while he was giving a workshop. He was talking about the lack of water when the woman interrupted him. She stood up and said, "You have no water, but up there [in the settlement], we have swimming pools." She later told him that she had lived in the settlement for nine years and had just realized she had neighbors (the Palestinians). Hopefully this relationship will develop and this woman will become part of the active resistance to Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Bil'in

This past Friday, Dec. 12, villagers in Bil'in (east of Ramallah) and their international supporters held their weekly demonstration against the apartheid wall and Israel's stealing of their land. Activists reported that the Israeli soldiers responded to the peaceful demonstration by throwing tear gas and aiming their guns at the village's children. Many of the people in the village no longer have an income source since half the village lands have been confiscated and there are very limited employment opportunities. For more information, see, www.bilin-ffj.org. We have not yet been to Bil'in, but have talked to other internationals who have and we do hope to go there soon.

BETHLEHEM UPDATES VOLUME 7, DECEMBER 8, 2008

2008-12-12T10:34:00.000-08:00

Today in the News: Settlers Invade Mosque on Holy Day
Today is the Eid Al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday. In an-all-too-familiar show of racism and religious intolerance, dozens of armed Israeli setters stormed a Mosque south of Nablus, attacking the Imam. Fortunately no one was killed, no thanks to the Israeli army, who protect the illegal Jewish-only settlements and aid and abet the settlers’ crimes against the native Palestinian population.

More Holiday Ideas:
1) Send Doris Matsui, Mike Thompson, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein (or your representatives and senators) a holiday letter to their district offices, asking them to stop supporting the occupation of Palestine. Ask them to refuse to take money from AIPAC or any Israeli lobby; ask them to put a statement on their website opposing aid to Israel and the occupation; ask them to go visit Gaza and the West Bank. Send them clips from our reports or from the reports of groups like the Ecumenical Accompaniment Project (www.eappi.org), the International Women’s Peace Service (www.iwps.info) or the Michigan Peace Team, (www.mptinpalestine.blogspot.com). Follow-up your letter with a phone call in a week or two to ask them what they are doing to end the occupation of Palestine and stop the siege on Gaza.
2) As part of holiday letters that you send to friends and family, include information about what is going on today in Bethlehem (and the rest of Palestine). Ask them to take action.
3) Support Palestinian farmers and the work of the International Solidarity and Free Gaza Movements by buying Palestinian olive oil. It is a great and year-round gift. For folks in the Sacramento area, contact Zohreh Whitaker 916-631-0565 or totalhood@aol.com. The 750ml bottles of delicious olive oil are $18. If you don’t live in the Sacramento/Davis area, call or email the ISM: larudee@pacbell.net; 510-232-2500.

Hebron Update
On Saturday (12-6-08), we went to Hebron to meet with human rights activists and see some of the damage from the settler pogrom that took place on Thursday (see our 12-5 alert). We went to the house that the settlers had been illegally occupying for about 18 months before the Israel army finally evicted them on Thursday. (We had been to the house for a demonstration a few weeks ago.) Next to the house is a cemetery that the settlers had vandalized. We also saw one destroyed car; a total of 18 vehicles were reported burned or damaged by the settlers in Thursday’s pogrom. We met two young Palestinian boys, one of whom had been injured in an attack by settlers on a local store; the other was injured by settlers when he was playing in front of his house.
We also went to the downtown area to see one of the 5 houses that settlers had set on fire. There is a heavy Israeli military presence in Hebron, but besieged residents reported that the Israeli army did nothing to stop the settler’s attacks. This was made very clear to us as there was a military outpost right next to the burned house we were visiting. A soldier standing in the outpost was close enough to speak to us as we stood right outside a room that had been burned.
On November 16, 2008, the Israeli court had ordered the Israeli settler family to leave the house. We heard from several people that by delaying the court ordered eviction for almost three weeks, the Israeli army gave settlers in the area time to prepare an attack on Hebron. In fact, in the wake of the eviction, there were settler attacks against Palestinians all over the West Bank. Settlers blocked roads and stoned Palestinian cars near Jericho, Nablus, Qalqilyia, and Huwara. This flare of pogroms is part of the ongoing harassment by Israel against the native Palestinians.

Villagers Resist the Taking of their Lands
There are several villages actively struggling to stop or undo the Israeli land theft that has cut them off from their livelihoods, including Burqa, Ni’lin, Bi’lin, and Jayyus. Demonstrations in all of these villages have been attended by local people, other Palestinians, internationals, and Israeli peace & justice activists.
Jayyus, a village of 3500, is near the 1948-armistice line in the West Bank. When Israel constructed its illegal apartheid wall, it uprooted several hundred of Jayyus’s olive trees. Since 2003, the residential part of Jayyus has been on the east side of the wall and most of its agricultural lands are on the west side. Israel has taken over the village’s water supply, allowing villagers very limited access to their wells through a locked gate that is under control of the Israeli military. To get to their trees, local farmers have to get Israeli permits. Only a limited number are issued – usually to old men, and rarely to young, more able-bodied men in the family. Some farmers haven’t been able to obtain permits for three years and if a farmer doesn’t work his land for three years, it’s confiscated by Israel.
In November, instead of waiting for a pending court decision, the Israeli military began re-routing part of the existing apartheid wall, a maneuver that will confiscate approximately 150 more acres than the former route, plus four village wells (We’ve heard it’s not unusual for the military to preempt or ignore court orders.) .
In response, Jayyus villagers held a non-violent demonstration on Friday November 14. A friend of ours with the Michigan Peace Team (MPT) attended. She stood arm-in-arm with a group of village women facing the young Israeli soldiers chanting in Arabic, “No, no to the Wall.” (A full account of this moving story and pictures are at www.mptinpalestine.blogspot.com)
At the demonstration the following week, November 21, our friend again went and reported: “The previous week the demonstration barely moved past the village limits. This week they arrived at the gate that had been closed to them for so long. This gate is the most relevant symbol of the occupation to the people who have been denied access to their own property. It is a barrier to a decent livelihood. The people can view their confiscated olive groves and citrus trees but not approach them to cultivate or tend the land. Their fertile land is lying fallow on the other side of the fence. For years they have been forced to stop at this point. However, on this warm, November, Friday afternoon, there was the possibility of something different. Someone climbed the fence. Someone else broke the lock. …They stepped over the line and onto the military road. Their resistance to years of occupation and humiliation targeted the gate, the closest part of the apartheid wall.”
Then electric sensors went off, alerting the soldiers, who then forced the demonstrators back toward the village using gunfire and tear gas. The village was put under curfew. Some internationals accompanying villagers home got arrested. (FMI: See the above blog.)
On November 28, we headed for Jayyus from Tulkarem in a collective taxi we shared with local Stop-the-Wall activists (see www.stopthewall.org) to attend the third demonstration. But there was a new military checkpoint at the base of the road going up to the village, which sits on a hill. The soldiers told us it was a closed military zone and that no internationals were allowed in, so we got out of the taxi.
We spent half an hour or so talking with three 18-19 year-old soldiers. One said God had given Israel the land. Another said that no power that takes land gives it back. The third one said if they weren’t there, the Palestinians would push the Israelis out. Two said that they didn’t like what they were doing, but had to join the army and were just doing what they were told. They said they’d tried to be nice to the Palestinians. We talked about the Nuremberg principles, that one can’t just follow orders. They said they hadn’t heard about those. We talked about what happened in 1948 and 1967, and what is going on today. We suggested they read Ilan Pappe’s book, the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. (After we returned home, we were heartened to hear some young Israelis are refusing to go into the military; see www.december18th.org)
We left the soldiers and walked away on a dirt road into the olive grove. We met two Palestinian boys going to the village by a different route and followed them. Once in the village we heard explosions. According to a Ecumenical Accompaniment Project Palestine-Israel (EAPPI) report, the demonstration was mostly peaceful. The village elders kept young boys from throwing stones as the demonstration moved from the center towards the wells. When the demonstration began to break up and people moved back to the center of the village, some of the boys did throw stones. The Israeli soldiers began shooting rubber-coated steel bullets and throwing tear gas canisters and sound bombs. (There are EAPPI volunteers throughout the West Bank as well as in Israel, accompanying people in danger and reporting on human rights violations. EAPPI has had a volunteer team in Jayyus since 2004; see team reports at www.eappi.org.)
This past Friday, December 5, the Jayyus villagers decided not to hold a demonstration.

What has happened here
In the US, we had heard people say that Israel had essentially made Swiss cheese of the West Bank of Palestine. But it was a concept hard to grasp on a visceral level.
The history and numbers do provide a framework; see “Brief History” below. A current West Bank map is also helpful; see the UN website www.ochaopt.org.
But there is nothing like being here and seeing one hill after another topped with a settlement or military tower. Or driving past the long blade of the Ari’el settlement, started in 1978, which now cuts through nearly half the West Bank, having stolen 3400 acres from Palestinian villages. Or seeing the ugly apartheid wall that surrounds, divides, and cuts off Palestinian villages and towns from each other. Or seeing how the Israeli army has split the tiny town of Shufa in half, blocking off the road that connects the lower from the upper part. But here also is resistance, as the Israeli peace group, Anarchists Against the Wall once again removes the army’s barriers across the Shufa road. And with resistance in Palestine and around the world, there is hope that the insanity of occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing can be ended.

Brief History
In 1948, the Zionists took 78% of the land of historic Palestine (the 1947 UN partition would have given them 51%). In that first land grab, the Zionist militias ethnically cleansed about three quarters of the population, driving an estimated 800,000 people from 475 villages, most of which were destroyed. Those refugees fled to neighboring countries, to the West Bank and Gaza and to other villages inside what is called the “green-line” established by the 1948 armistice.
The next major wave of land theft was in 1967 when Israel attacked Jordan, Egypt, and Syria and took lands from all of them, including the West Bank, Gaza, land in what is now southern Lebanon, the Golan, and the Sinai. More than 400,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and lands; about half of those were already refugees from 1948. The Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1980-82, but the rest is still illegally occupied by Israel. In violation of the Geneva Convention, Israel began almost immediately to illegal build settlements for Jewish-Israelis only in Gaza and the West Bank; illegal settlement building started in the Golan in the 1970s. Although Israel pulled its settlements out of Gaza in 2005, it continues a devastating de facto occupation.
The illegal settlements were built around Jerusalem, forming a ring which now almost encircles the city – part of Israel’s goal to take the entire city. Other settlements are built along hilltops, penetrating the West Bank. The combination of settlements, roads to them (most of which are for Israeli-Jews only), Israeli military zones, and the apartheid wall started in 2002 and now 575 kilometers long, has now claimed 3,350 square kilometers, 57% of the Palestinian West Bank.
The apartheid wall, declared “contrary to International Law” in 2004 by the International Court of Justice, is concrete in some places, up to 8 meters high (the Berlin wall was 4 meters), and is electronic fencing in other areas, topped with razor wire. It is monitored by military observation towers. On the roads that Palestinians are still allowed to use between their villages, there are about 600 established Israeli military checkpoints as well as impromptu ones. Vehicles and pedestrians can be stopped and searched at any check point; the checkpoints can also be closed for short or long periods of time.
Within the remaining illegally occupied lands, Israel imposes curfews, illegally demolishes Palestinian homes, illegally destroys Palestinian agriculture and infrastructure, has confiscated Palestinian resources (water, trees, etc.), militarily invades at will, and controls the air space and the borders. Israel also allows and facilitates Jewish-Israeli settlers in their occupying of Palestinian homes and buildings outside of established settlements. Since the Nakbah of 1948, the Israelis have uprooted 1,350,000 trees and destroyed more than 70,000 houses. They have also killed thousands of Palestinians, wounded half a million, and imprisoned tens of thousands of political prisoners.

BETHLEHEM UPDATES VOLUME 6, DECEMBER 1, 2008

2008-12-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

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.

BETHLEHEM NEWS, Volume 5, NOVEMBER 23, 2008

2008-12-12T10:30:00.000-08:00

In this update:
Take Action: Gaza
Hike down the Wade Qelt
Background information on the Bedouin

Gaza
Background
Although occupied Gaza is less than 40 miles, as the crow flies, from where we are living, it seems like a continent away. We have not been there. Palestinians in the West Bank are not allowed to visit Gaza and the Gazans are not allowed in the West Bank.
The Gaza Strip, about 25 miles long and 3 – 7 miles wide, home to about 1.5 million people, is Israel’s Warsaw ghetto. Like the West Bank, Gaza was seized by Israel in 1967 and has been illegally occupied since then. Most of its residents are refugees from villages less than 50 kilometers away. More than 80% are dependent on UN and foreign aid for their survival; half the population is unemployed.
Even though Israel removed its illegal settlements from Gaza in 2005, they completely control the borders and the air space, including everything that goes in or comes out. Israel withholds food, water, cooking fuel, medicines, etc. and invades at will. Gaza is surrounded on three sides by electric fences; the fourth side is the Mediterranean which is controlled by the Israeli Navy.
Current Situation
Since November 8, Israel has prevented journalists from entering Gaza. This has been protested by the Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times, ABC News, BBC News, CNN and others in a November 19 letter to Israel's prime minister.
From a UN statement issued November 18: “The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called today for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. “By function of this blockade, 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months. This is in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must end now,” she said.” (See www.un.org link below.)
On November 18, Israeli Naval commandos kidnapped 15 Palestinian fishermen and 3 internationals who were accompanying them. The fishermen who were fishing in internationally recognized Gazan territorial waters. The fishermen have been released but their boats have been confiscated. As of this writing, Israel is in the process of deporting the internationals who had originally come on the Free Gaza boats (www.freegaza.org).
TAKE ACTION: Contact your Congressperson and Senators, 202-224-3121 and tell them that the U.S. can no longer support Israel’s crimes against humanity against the Palestinians. Tell them you want the U.S. government to put pressure on Israel to: immediately end its blockade against and control over Gaza; return or replace the illegally seized boats; and let Gazan fisherman pursue their livelihood by staying out of their waters. Tell them you want all U.S. aid, loans, and sales to Israel stopped immediately until Israel ends its occupation of Palestine, provides all Israel citizens, irrespective of religion, with full and equal rights, and honors the right of refugees to return.
For more information:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=28983&Cr=palestin&Cr1=
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/21/us_activist_detained_in_israeli_jail

Hike Down the Wadi Qelt
We heard about the Wadi Qelt from a British chap who is working on a nearby permaculture farm. He was going to take his visiting mum to see this national treasure – a gorge carved in eroding sandstone layers. The aqueous artist left stalactites and stalagmites formations along the sides in some places and dotted others with caves that were home to earlier peoples. Along the more gradual slopes above the canyon, snakes a narrow aqueduct that carries spring water for several miles down to Jericho on the floor of the Jordan Valley. The first aqueduct was built between 300 and 60 BC. It has been rebuilt many times since then, including the many bridges that carry it over the narrow side canyons
We got to the trailhead by taking a collective taxi towards Jericho and having the driver let us off in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere – dry hills in every direction. We followed the scant signs until we came to what was apparently the main entrance where some decorated camels were available for rides and a Bedouin man was selling kaffeyahs. As we talked with the man, we became very aware of how thin he was and how bad his teeth were. At some point we learned his age and were shocked to hear he was only 30. We bought a kaffeyah which our new friend then wrapped around on Patricia’s head to protect her from the sun.
Proceeding down then across the upper canyon, we found the aqueduct and then followed it for the next few hours as we made our way to Jericho. The landscape was dominated by the dry hills with trees growing where water escaped from the aqueduct. Though we did see goats, there seemed to be little for them to eat. As we walked along, we saw a few metal shacks and corrals, presumably those of Bedouin (see below for more info on the Bedouin). We met two Bedouin women who had ridden their donkeys down the slopes to the aqueduct. They burst into laugher seeing Patricia’s kaffeyah head gear, something only worn by men here. But between giggles, they motioned for us to have a drink from the aqueduct.
Along the way we saw beautiful birds with bright blue wings that we had never seen before and as we approached St George’s Monastery, we suddenly saw lots of hedgehogs running along the canyon walls. The Monastery itself was first established in the 5th century, built into the canyon walls; like the aqueduct, it has been rebuilt over time. In front of the monastery, we met more Bedouins, offering donkey rides. One of them, another thin young man, said that the Israelis had destroyed the road which used to bring tourists from Jericho up to the monastery. As a result few tourists now come.
Jericho
By the time we walked into Jericho, it was too late to get a service back to Bethlehem. The way the services work is that they fill up the van, usually 7 passengers, before they leave. After a half hour of waiting with one other person, we asked a young man (who was waiting for another service, going elsewhere, to fill up), what happens if they don’t fill the van. They don’t go was the answer. He then suggested we try to find a Bethlehem taxi and see if we could go with them on their return trip. (These would have been taxis that took people to the Allenby bridge where they would cross over into Jordan. Palestinians going outside the country usually go through Jordan, since most would have to get special permits to leave from Tel Aviv. Of course, they could be prevented from leaving by the Israelis at the border or prevented from entering Jordan by the Jordanians - we have heard stories of both.)
The returning taxi route did not work either, so we found a hotel of sorts to spend the night. The next day an elderly gentleman, Yassar, offered us a ride to the ruins of Hisham’s palace, built in the 700s. He drove us through the two large refugee camps on the outskirts of Jericho, unlike the refugee “camps” in Bethlehem which are dense, but have permanent structures, these had a mix of buildings and make-shift shacks. We saw one which had a mattress for part of the roof.
Yassar seemed to be happy to drive us around Jericho, charging much less than a private cab, so we asked if he could take us down to the Jordan River. No, he explained, the area is sealed off by the Israeli military. Well, how about the Dead Sea, that was only a few kilometers away. No, he explained, he couldn’t do that either because of the Israelis – best to take an Israeli bus from Jerusalem. And yes, with a wave of our blue U.S. passports, we who had been here just over a month, can travel where we like (except to Gaza). Not so Yassar, who has lived in Palestine his entire life and whose birthright it should be.
The return trip took us through two checkpoints. Everyone’s ID was inspected at the first. There were long lines at the second, while chatting Israeli soldiers periodically would wave on another car to let it go from one Palestinian town to another. The occupation is insane.

Background on the Bedouin (from Palestine & Palestinians, a book produced by the Alternative, Tourism Group):
“Most of the Bedouin were expelled from the Negev at the beginning of the 1950s and resettled mainly east of Hebron and … between Jerusalem and Jericho. [Since] 1967, they have been constantly displaced towards the worst land, and far from water sources. The occupation authorities confiscated their land under the pretext that it was uncultivated, although it was clear that it was Bedouin pastureland. First transferred into military zones, many of these territories were later used for Jewish settlements…. In 1977, in the middle of the ‘peace process’, … hundreds of [Bedouin] were forcibly resettled on the outskirts of al-Azariya, overlooking the municipal garbage dump. Others, in Anata, are now losing land to the Wall there and many of their shacks have recently been demolished by the Israeli authorities.
“The pastoral way of live of the Bedouins continues but on a much smaller scale because of the drastic reduction in pastureland. Flocks once numbering over 20,000 head are now less than 4,000 and the Bedouin who used until recently to provide 60% of the meat and dairy products of the Palestinian economy are now hard hit. In addition, water scarcity (water has to be bought from tankers) limits the number of animals that can be raised.” [In addition, Bedouin are not allowed to sell their meat or dairy products in Israel, Jerusalem the West Bank or Gaza], effectively outlawing the chief source of Bedouin livelihood.”

Upcoming: In this next week, we are off to Nablus and the villages of Haris and Jayyous. Haris is surrounded by settlements. The villagers in Jayyous are trying to prevent the Israelis from building the apartheid wall through their village, cutting of nearly 1400 acres of their agricultural land. There have been many demonstrations in Jayyous; on Friday, villagers took down a portion of the wall. The Israeli army put the town under curfew. A friend of ours, from Michigan was arrested while accompanying people from the village to their homes after curfew.

BETHLEHEM NEWS, VOLUME 4, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2008

2008-12-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

This week we will limit our update to describing our visit on Friday to Wadi Fukeen. It encapsulates the bittersweet experience of Palestine: the persistent hope, tenacity and grace in the jaws of a virulent Israeli occupation of land theft, settlement building, environmental damage and ethnic cleansing.
Wadi (Arabic for valley) Fukeen is located in the Bethlehem district. As the crow flies, it is almost as close to the old city of Jerusalem as it is to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Distances are not far here – but for Palestinians this does not equate with ease of movement. For nearly all Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem might as well be in California as they are not allowed to travel there without a difficult-to-get Israeli-issued permit (*more info below).
We had received two invitations to visit Wadi Fukeen, one from the young woman studying about the environment, mentioned in last week’s update and one from a young man who was working the hotel where a conference we attended was held. As we made plans to visit, we realized that we also had another contact (from Sacramento), an Israeli peace activist working with the people of Wadi Fukeen.
We took a Bethlehem taxi, which, because it had Palestinian license plates, could only travel a few miles of the well-maintained settlement bypass road, before being diverted off to a poorly maintained road to the village. The bypass road, which continued on to the illegal Israeli only settlement, Beitar Illit, was built on land stolen from Bethlehem district towns and villages. And the Jewish-only settlement itself was built on stolen land from the villages of Wadi Fukeen and Nahhalin.
As we traveled down the potholed, single lane road, we passed through ancient terraced hills of olive trees into a small beautiful fertile valley; stone farm houses formed the central village. Further on were fields planted with lush vegetables tucked in on the valley floor. Since this is a dry place, seeing these beautiful green vegetables was quite a sight!
But the other sight from which one can not escape is the massive and looming settlement snaking along the length of the ridge and spilling down towards the village homes. Everyone in the village has lost land to this illegal settlement and the land theft continues. As your eye follows the settlement along the ridge you see more housing units being constructed. Beyond that, one sees where the hill has been leveled flat for more construction. Rocks and dirt scraped from the hill were pushed into the next valley, covering olive groves belonging to the village of Nahhalin. While building of the illegal Israeli settlements continues unabated, construction in the Palestinian villages is completely restricted by Israel. Our Israeli contact told us that recently, when villagers asked the Israeli authorities what land they might be able to build on in the future, they were told that all the remaining available land would be taken for the settlement.
It is difficult to comprehend how Palestinians cope with this ever-present threat to their future and that of their children. Looking at the scar left from bulldozing the ridge top, we were reminded of Har Homa, the huge illegal settlement we see everyday from Bethlehem. Har Homa used to be covered with a forest; it had been designated by Israeli as a “nature preserve”, a euphemism for land they would eventually steal. Just 10 years ago the Israelis mowed down the trees, flatted the hill top and replaced the forest with what looks like a concrete jungle. It must have been sickening for the families of Bethlehem to watch, unable to change the outcome. This all took place in plain view from the Church of the Nativity as did the construction of the huge cement apartheid wall that presumably provides security to the settlement.
After sage tea and delicious baked flat bread of zataar (like oregano) and cheese, we went off to see the vegetable fields, meeting and talking with people along the way. Wadi Fukeen is blessed by 11 natural springs. These flow into a series of rectangular collection pools from which water is let out as needed to irrigate the fields. This is traditional farming method.
Settlers have come into the village, taken off their clothes and gone swimming in the pools, contaminating the water. Villagers have posted signs in Hebrew asking them not to do this. We have heard stories of deliberate contamination of the water by settlers in other areas of the West Bank In the past, Wadi Fukeen’s spring water was potable – but we were told that it is no longer safe to drink, in part due to the settler contamination. Now villagers must buy their drinking water from Mekorot, the Israeli water company that basically steals the water from the deep aquifer that is under the Palestinian West Bank. (Palestinians are not allowed to drill wells without Israel’s permission.)
Our village friends pointed out a large open pipe below the settlements. The pipe is an overflow for the settlement sewage (which is set up to be piped to Jerusalem for treatment). When the system overflows, raw sewage comes out of the pipe, down the hillside, contaminating the vegetable fields below. The farmers have tried to ameliorate the problem by building large raised beds and diverting the source of contamination away from the beds. However, as we write this we just received an email saying that the sewage is flowing again
The trip home
After more tea and gifts of vegetables we prepared to return to Bethlehem. In the center of the village we met up with school kids from the Aida Refugee Camp (in Bethlehem) on an afternoon field trip. A wonderful outing for kids living in very cramped conditions next to the Apartheid Wall, which cut off the last remaining near-by open space for them - an olive grove. (see ** below for more on Aida Camp) The kids and adults were waiting for their bus which had a flat tire, so we tagged along to wait, chatting more with our young village friends and playing with the kids. It was nearly dark when the bus finally came.
As the bus bumped down the road and we watched a harvest moon rise, suddenly the bus came to a halt with a repeated whisper of “Jaysh” (Arabic for army – the Israeli soldiers). All the men were ordered off the bus, both Palestinians and internationals. An armed Israeli soldier got on the bus walking down the aisle; at one point some of his gear got caught the hair of a little girl. The children were quiet. The young men got back on and we proceeded. Then suddenly there was crying and screaming! The bus lurched to a stop again. Children were running in the aisle. Patricia (who was in the back of the bus) heard several yell, “grenade!” The children were helped to file off the bus. Several had to be held tightly and consoled as they were screaming in pure terror. Thankfully, it soon it became clear that it was just a bus malfunction. A hole had blown in the heating system and steam had gushed out. But these are children who have witnessed Israeli military incursions into their camp – into their homes. A grenade on the bus after the soldier walked down the aisle was a real possibility in their minds.
We finished the day by attending a sister city event in the Bethlehem Peace Center. (Czestochowa, Poland to Bethlehem, Palestine) The Representative of the Republic of Poland to the Palestinian National Authority talked about Poland’s connection to Palestine, as two peoples who have been occupied, had their people killed and their land stolen. He offered his hope that Palestine, like Poland would also one day have its freedom from occupation and its lands restored.

* Israelis are can visit Wadi Fukeen in the Palestinian West Bank. However, Israel forbids the people of Wadi Fukeen to travel in Israel without a permit. In reality, these are rarely given except in extenuating circumstances like an illness requiring hospital treatment.

** Aida camp is one of three refugee camps in the Bethlehem district. We have mentioned Dheisheh camp (the largest) in past updates. These refugee camps have been in existence since 1948 when upwards of 800,000 Palestinians (3/4 of the population) were either forcibly expelled or forced out in fear for their lives in the months before and after Israel declared itself a state.

BETHLEHEM NEWS VOLUME 3, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2008

2008-12-12T03:22:00.000-08:00

Highlights this week:
- Encountering Settlers in Hebron
- A Young Student and the environment
- Activist work
- Gardening
- A real danger of being in Palestine
- Update on the tortoise(s)
- Entertaining the locals: Patricia learns Arabic
- Ethnic Cleansing

Encountering Settlers in Hebron
Last Sunday we attended a protest near a Hebron-area house illegally occupied by Israeli settlers (these were the same settlers who had defaced the Muslim cemetery as noted in our last report). We joined several other internationalists and a lot of Palestinian kids waving flags, chanting and holding signs saying Free Palestine. The Israeli army arrived, followed by the Israeli police; the settlers came out and were yelling at the demonstrators and also at the soldiers and police. One of the women, probably in her late 30s or early forties yelled “Auschwitz” at us and grabbed a Palestinian flag from one of the kids – she then gave it to one of the settler kids who burned it. The army and police pushed the Palestinian demonstrators back; after a hour or so, the demonstrators left. The next night the settlers attacked Palestinian families, beating them up in their homes.
The settler woman’s reference to the Nazi holocaust underscores the blindness and hypocrisy the Israeli occupation. We heard later of some settler graffiti in Hebron which said: “Arabs to the gas chamber” and we saw graffiti in Hebrew, which one of the people we were with translated: “What is the difference between a trampoline and an Arab? When you jump on the trampoline, you take your shoes off.”
On Tuesday, we went to the center of Hebron where some years ago, Israeli settlers illegally took over the second floor of buildings above the city’s historic market marketplace. The Israeli army came in to protect the illegal settlers; they closed off the streets, preventing shop keepers from coming to their stores. The army later opened the area, but most shop keepers have not come back as they and their customers are afraid of the settlers who are still there. The settlers throw garbage and rocks on the Palestinians who walk by; the locals have hung nets across the very narrow streets to protect themselves. We have some pictures of this that we hope to post on the internet soon.
See Ethnic Cleansing below.
A Young Student and the Environment
We have been experiencing and learning about environmental issues this week, including solid waste disposal, air pollution, and lack of water and water treatment. On Thursday, Maggie took the bus to Ramallah to meet with an environmental toxicologist who talked about both the issues and how the Israeli occupation has made it very difficult to go forward with solutions. On the trip home, smoke from burning garbage wafted through the bus while she chatted with a young woman who was majoring in environmental studies at Bier Zeit University.
This young woman said that she and her friends wanted to make their homes more “green”. She was very interested in bioremediation for grey water, composting, and sustainable agriculture. Her youthful energy was exciting to observe. Then, at some point she lowered her voice and said, “But, you know it is very hard for us Palestinians”. The conversation turned to the occupation, the wall, and then the impact on young people. She said people study hard but then can’t find jobs. The occupation has a stranglehold on the Palestinian economy; this is another part of Israel’s ethnic cleaning by making life intolerable for Palestinians. She invited us to visit her village, Wade Fukeen, which is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements and faces constant harassment by settlers.
FMI on environmental issues here, go to: www.arij.org
Activist Work
Ush Ghrab - We have been working with other local activists in maintaining a community presence in Ush Ghrab, an area on the outskirts of our town, Beit Sahour, which is being threatened by settlers from illegal settlements in the area. Our local group has painted over the settler graffiti. Today they held a successful family oriented gathering there. Patricia attended and said it was very hopeful: lots of Palestinian families enjoying themselves on their land: kids were flying kites over the old military buildings on the site; and no Israeli settlers or soldiers showed up. FMI: www.advocacynet.org/blogs/index.php/2008/10/14/beit-sahour-residents-take-action-to-sav?blog=145
Editing – Thanks to spell check, we have been able to expand our editing of news releases and articles for some local NGOs. They have invited us to write our own articles as well.
Social Work Proposal – We may be helping with a project through the social workers union focused on continuing education, licensing and other issues. Any social workers who are interested in this, please let us know!!
Gardening
Patricia spent a couple of days this week helping with the new community garden at the SOS Village in Bethlehem (one of our Sister City projects). With kids from the village, the village gardener, two German young men who are doing their alternative to military service by volunteering at SOS, and other volunteers, they were able to get most of the trash out of the plot selected for the garden. They have planted some favas, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, and arugula. She will be going with the gardener to visit Bustan Qaraqa, a permaculture project started by some Brits on the east edge of Beit Sahour.
Our own garden is coming along slowly; the favas we planted are about 3 inches high. We are watering it with grey collected from our sinks and shower.

A real “danger” of being in Palestine
When we left to come here, we vowed that we would both shed some unwanted pounds. Upon arrival, our peace activist friends in Jaffa made us scrumptious meals. The first weekend we were here in the West Bank, the mayor of Bethlehem and his wife took us out to a lovely 3-hour meal, the beginning of the end of our diets (as well as our introduction to Arak – a delicious licorice drink). In this last week alone, we have been invited to two Palestinian homes for huge dinners AND have been taken out twice to delicious meals. It took Maggie several minutes to convince her Ramallah host that she simply could not be trusted with a large tray of pastries. As soon as she sat down on the bus back from Ramallah, the young student mentioned above, offered her a falafel. Fortunately, we have also made friends with produce vendors, so we do have lower cal options. (However, today Patricia is supposed to visit a nearby family to learn to make a special kind of bread laced with olive oil and stuffed with Zatar and cheese.)
Update on the tortoise(s)
At a conference last week, we met a young woman from California who is interning with the Environmental Education Center located in nearby Beit Jala. She took us on a tour of the site, where they have a native garden, a natural history museum, and historic terraces planted with fruit and nut trees. (Terracing is how Palestinians have farmed for years on the steep stony slopes – the terraces hold the water, making efficient use of the rain and holding top soil in place.
When we came to the Center, we immediately thought of our tortoise and what a great home it would make for her (instead of being penned in a small area of essentially bare dirt.) Our landlord agreed that she could go and the Center agreed to take her. Friday morning, a woman from the Center stopped by to pick her up. When we crawled into her hiding place, we discovered she was not alone! So now both tortoises have gone to live in this more natural setting.

Entertaining the locals: Patricia learns Arabic
Patricia has found a good Arabic instructor, a retired gentleman who half of Beit Sahour seems to have had as a high school teacher! She is learning more every day, to the amazement and amusement of those we encounter. The family we visited the other night was teaching her to use the word headache and she said to one of them (in Arabic): “Your head is hurting me” which sent them into peals of laughter.
Ethnic Cleansing
The Israeli army and the settlers are the essential enforcers of Israel’s unspoken policy of ethnic cleansing. When Israel unilaterally declared itself a state in 1948, it took more land than would it would have been granted under the UN partition. As we have noted in previous emails, the new state immediately engaged in a massive ethnic cleansing, driving an estimated 800,000 Palestinians from their villages. In 1967, Israel attacked its neighbors and illegally seized land from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. This was the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank (where we now live) and also the Golan Heights in Syria. Since then, Israel has continue ethnic cleansing through its military occupation, the building of illegal settlements, supporting settler invasions, building the apartheid wall, and militarily controlling the all Palestinian movement inside the occupied lands and between those lands and other countries.
To learn more: read Israeli author Ilan Pappe’s book, the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine; www.decolonizing.ps

BETHLEHEM NEWS VOLUME 2 SATURDAY NOV 1, 2008

2008-12-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

BETHLEHEM NEWS VOLUME 2 SATURDAY NOV 1, 2008

CORRECTION to error in last report:
By the end of 2007 there were 120 illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem. ( see www.btselem.org)
There are another 16 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem ( The Civic Coalition to defend Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem) with ongoing property confiscation. Additionally, there are 220 illegal "outposts" (www.arij.org. Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem). Outposts typically spawn from the illegal settlements, many of which began as outposts themselves.

NARRATIVE: Olive picking in Hebron:

On October 31^st we traveled to Hebron and met up with ISM (International Solidarity Movement - see * below for more) volunteers to accompany farmers in the olive harvest.

By shared taxi and on foot we arrived at our Palestinian farmer's field sandwiched between a large multistory home illegally occupied by Israeli settlers and the formidable and illegal Israeli settlement of Qiryat Arba. (see** below for more) In order to reach the field we had to pass by the occupied home, easily identified by the dozen or so Israeli flags, through an adjacent Palestinian cemetery. Most of the head stones had been smashed and covered in blue paint as a result of settler vandalism. (see *** below for more)

Almost as soon as we arrived, Israeli police showed up and said we had to leave. We were a group of 8 internationals (ages 20ish to 60ish) along with extended Palestinian family members, including young children. The police said the farmer could stay but we had to go. As a few of us engaged with the police the rest continued to pick. Stating that he had orders from above, the head policeman demanded that we get down from the trees. We asked for the paper stating we had to stop. He then said the army was coming. We asked, "Do you really think we are some kind of threat?" They said "No." Then the head policeman stated we had to leave for our own safety. "Safety from who?" we asked.

We never received an answer but of course the only threat to our safety and that of the farmer would have come from the Israeli settlers. Somewhere in this exchange one of the police told us that the only place he could feel safe was in here in Israel. The cruel irony being that he was the one heavily armed and he was not in fact in Israel but standing on Palestinian land.

A couple of us challenged the police about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and how this is being viewed negatively by more and more people throughout the world.. We noted that apartheid and occupation did not make anyone safer. Finally, certainly more annoyed than convinced, they told us to just go pick our olives. Which we did!

The police stayed for an hour or so chatting and smoking in their group. The army never came. The sun was pleasant, we were given a delicious meal in the field prepared by the family and we managed to harvest 8 or 9 trees before we had to head back to Bethlehem.

WHY ACCOMPANY AN OLIVE HARVEST?
Olive farmers and their families face increasing obstacles with each year's harvest. Israel's persistent construction of the illegal apartheid wall steals and/or separates Palestinian farmers from their lands. Farmers with land that has not been destroyed or confiscated by Israel (for settlements, the apartheid wall or by-pass roads) can face time consuming detours and/or be forced to apply for permission from the Israeli military to reach their land. Farmers and their families also face violent and erratic behavior by some Israeli settlers. The idea of accompaniment – similar to accompaniment projects in Central America - is to provide an international presence of witness and hopefully deterrence of attacks or harassment.

FOR MORE:

*ISM maintains a house/office in Hebron where international accompaniment of the harvest (as well as other activities of nonviolent resistance to the occupation) is coordinated by Palestinians.

**All Israel settlements in the West Bank (including Jerusalem) violate international law. Given the name "settlers," they could be more accurately described as "colonizers" or "invaders," they receive subsidies by the Israeli government (with the help of US tax dollars) to live in these illegal settlements. http://www.btselem.org/english/Settlements/Migration.aspand

***We hope to be able to blog soon so that we can share our pictures

BETHLEHEM NEWS VOLUME 1 OCTOBER 23, 2008

2008-12-10T06:39:00.000-08:00

BETHLEHEM NEWS VOLUME 1 OCTOBER 23, 2008

Greetings all!

We arrived in TelAviv on October 16 and spent a couple of nights at the Old Jaffa Hostel. Jaffa is a community adjacent to TelAviv in which both Palestinians and Israeli Jews are living. We met with a couple of peace activists, Elana and David Wesley who are planning a speaking tour to the US next spring. David has written a book about the discriminatory treatment of Palestinians inside Israel. They came to Israel in the 1950s from the US as part of a Zionist youth group to work in a kibbutz. Over time they learned that Palestine was not, in the words of Golda Meir, “a land without people for a people without land”. They have been active in the peace movement for many years now.

On October 18 we headed for Beit Sahour (part of greater Bethlehem) in the West Bank, part of occupied Palestine. Since it was Saturday, none of the Israeli public transportation was running (there were LOTS of buses the day before); the only available transport were taxis and shared taxis (vans which fill up with people going towards a similar destination; they cost considerably less than taxis.) Through a taxi and shared taxi combo, we got to the check point between Jerusalem and the West Bank. The check point was empty except for a couple of Israeli soldiers who inspected our passports. We later learned that this check point had been closed to Palestinians for several days (tourist buses and non-Palestinians were allowed to cross, however.)

In our first couple of days, friends here took us to see the apartheid wall that snakes through the area. The wall is a barrier erected on Palestinian land confiscated by the Israelis; its purpose is to surround and isolate Palestinian villages. Israeli soldiers control passage through the wall with check points, restricting Palestinians’ ability to move, to get to work, to conduct any kind of business or trade, to get to school, to visit family or friends, to get to the hospital, etc.. When we visited one of the local health clinics, we were told about people dying at the checkpoints en route to the hospital.

The apartheid wall is one readily visible features of the ongoing Israeli illegal confiscation of Palestinian land. Another such feature are the looming illegal Israeli settlements, often built on hills; they are part of Israel’s ongoing colonization of Palestine. One near here used to be a forest and was supposed to be a nature preserve. Israel cut down all the trees and erected the settlement Har Homa. This is one of 18 or 19 such settlements in the West Bank, some of which are only partially occupied. Many of the occupants are immigrants that Israel has allowed in from Russia and other places in an attempt to maintain a majority of the population; they are given significant financial incentives to move to the settlements. These immigrants are allowed in but Palestinians who were evicted from their lands first by Zionist colonists and then by the unilaterally declared state of Israel, are not.

Part of the occupation means that Israeli soldiers can enter Palestinian communities and homes at any point and terrorize people. We went to see a house that was bombed by the Israeli police the weekend before we arrived. They apparently had some issue with the owner, who was not home. They surrounded the house with several jeeps and entered the home, at that time there was an older woman and two children inside. They told them to leave, then shot up the house and set off bombs inside which blew holes in the ceilings and knocked out walls, windows and doors. We later talked to a journalist who said he was not allowed on site – he said if he tried to go to film there, he would be shot.

We have not seen soldiers on the streets since we have been here. But when we did some editing for the International Middle East Media Center (www.imemc.org), we learned about 15 reports of incursions by Israeli soldiers into Palestinian homes and communities in the last week. Such incursions result in the killing, wounding and abducting of Palestinians, including children. We were shocked to learn that since the beginning of this year, there have been at least 2074 abductions of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers.

Despite the occupation, apartheid wall, land grabs, and threatened land grabs, since we have been here, we see people in the Bethlehem district working, going to school, and conducting their lives. We have heard reports of other places where things have been very shut down by the Israelis so that even daily commerce cannot happen. Bethlehem may be spared some of this because it is such a tourist destination. There are bus loads of tourists every day visiting the Church of the Nativity and other sites. While this does help the Bethlehem economy, it is hard for us to know what these tourists understand about the history or affects of the occupation.

There are many NGOs operating in this area promoting health care, culture, agriculture, the environment, etc. Yesterday and today there is an olive harvest festival with events and booths going on in Manger Square (near the Nativity church). Today we attended a conference with local mayors talking about sustainability in the areas of environment, economy, and social structures. Regardless of the aim of their plans and projects, every speaker acknowledged that the biggest barrier to sustainability was the occupation.

What we have experience thus far is a very warm welcome from the many Palestinians we have met. People have been generous with their time in helping us get around and get settled.

We still have somewhat sporadic access to email, but hope this will change in the next few days.

Until our next update,

Maggie and Patricia

PS We are sending this from a local computer shop. The owner says that it used to take 25 minutes to drive to Ramallah but now with the checkpoints it takes 2, 4 or more hours. He also said that the occupation makes business very slow and many people are unemployed.