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Posted on Monday, 5 March, 2007 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
Amana, the settlement arm of Gush Emunim, is sponsoring a tour or settlers to canvas the United States in search of funding to continue construction of colonies on stolen Palestinian Land, outside of Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
As part of their sales pitch, Amana representatives say that government subsidy cuts have made purchasing homes in the area increasingly costly, so that young families can no longer afford to buy there. They have warned of a potential “population freeze,” which they say could jeopardize the settlement movement.
“It is within your power to help this Zionist powerhouse remain steadfast in its ascent – to create a positive trend where no political party in Israel has succeeded through policy or politics, and to leave your thumbprint on the destiny of Israel,” the promotional material reads.
Ah, you to can make a quick buck Middle East Real Estate and help bring fund some ethnic cleansing. U.S. Embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle described the investment prospect as a “huge risk.” So much for American policy on Messionistic property speculaton. — Link
Posted on Sunday, 21 January, 2007 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
From Aljazeera
I was afraid to go to school, because of the little anti-Semites who used to lay in ambush on the way and beat us up. How is that different from a Palestinian child in Hebron?
— Yosef Lapid, chairman of
Yad Vashem,
Israel’s largest Holocaust memorial
ALSO SEE:
Posted on Monday, 5 June, 2006 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
Translated by Rann
A young American woman will not participate in the Zionist Birthright-Israel
project, after she requested a tour of refugee camps and villages in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Eli Bradnestein
June 4, 2006
As part of the Birthright-Israel program the state of Israel tries to implant some Zionism in young people from abroad and to bring them on a 10-day tour of Israel. Recently, the directors of the program decided to cancel the participation of one young American woman. The reason: she planned to hop over for a visit to the PA at the end of the trip.
The young woman, named Sierra, planned to go on a 6-day tour organized by a competing organization called ‘Birthright Unplugged’. “The purpose of the visit in Israel is to learn from both sides, the Israeli and the Palestinian about their situation,” said Sierra. “I wanted to travel to Israel to learn and to deapen my ties with Jewish culture and religion, and also to
learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not through some organization or the media.” Sierra added that she does not consider this to be a reason to cancel her arrival.
The tour of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) includes visits to villages and refugee camps and meetings with residents of the OPT and Israeli leftists. Birthright Unplugged usually recruits its participants from among those who come to Israel for free through Birthright-Israel. They charge around US$300 for the visit to the OPT.
“We started this program so that tour participants could meet Palestinians and learn from them first-hand about the situation in Israel and Palestine and so that they can use their knowledge to bring positive change to the world”, said Hannah Mermolstein, one of the founder of the organization, “in preventing Sierra from taking part in this educational experience, Birthright Israel only proves our necessity all the more strongly.”
A number of American Jews have already donated the cost of Sierra’s flight so that she can participate in the tour of the OPT.
The marketing director of Birthright-Israel, Gidi Mark said that “we supply an educational tour to young Jews that have never been to Israel before and want to familiarize them with Israel and the traditions of the Jewish people.”
Mark emphasized that “we will not take those who are merely looking for funding for a plane ticket to actually got to the OPT. There are enough who just want to come and get to know Israel.”
Posted on Sunday, 5 February, 2006 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
By Mr. Yalla
in Hebron
(map from CNN)
When Baruch Marzel’s son and three friends of his walks the streets of Tel Rumeida, Hebron, armed with sticks and looking to pick a fight, it is considered provocative to film them with a video camera, soldiers tried to explain to Human Rights Workers after two of them were physically attacked by the quartet. The soldier commented, “it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t filmed them”. How provoked should Palestinians feel, who have to face threats from armed settlers on their way home from work?
Baruch Marzel, a.k.a “Mr. Hebron”, is a fanatic fundamentalist leader of a recently formed Israeli religious right-wing political party, “Hazit”, and is currently running for the Knesset. Hazit’s websites declares that “expelling the enemy [the Arabs] is moral.
The Torah of Israel is the primary source of human morality, and according to one of its mitzvahs, Israel must conquer and liberate the Land [Israel and the occupied territories].” Hazit leaves no doubt regarding their standpoint on ethnical cleansing and divine right to other people’s land. Baruch Marzel himself lives in the Tel Rumeida settlement in Hebron, on stolen Palestinian land, is one of the ideological leaders and most prominent figures in his extremist settler community.
When Palestinian children walk to school in Tel Rumeida, settler children often throw stones at them. The residents of Beit Hadassah settlement, opposite the school are provoked when they see Arabs pass outside their windows. How provoked should Palestinian children feel, when they get stones thrown at them on their way to school?
The notion of provocation implies a certain normality. It also implies a stability or a status quo, that can be violated. In the violation lies the provocation. The settlers of Hebron have managed to distort this normality, and forced all others involved to accept their irrationality and their violence as something of the ordinary.
Hebron Settler kids show how they greet the locals. (from FaildMessiah)Having international Human Rights Workers (HRW’s) living in Tel Rumeida, documenting the inability and unwillingness of Israeli Authorities to deal with the violent acts of settlers, is considered provocative by the Kiriat Arba Police and the Israeli Defense Forces. This is why they falsely accuse the HRW’s of assault, intimidating harassing them and their Palestinian neighbors, raid their apartment, and deport them. How provoked should an HRW feel when he or she gets deported, guilty of using a video camera, a pen, and his or her own body as a human shield to support Palestinians in Tel Rumeida?
The Kiriat Arba Police and the Israeli Defense Forces have not only adopted the tilted reality promoted by the settlers, and are acting within its boundaries. They have also contributed to its creation, and are contributing to uphold it.
When a large group of settler visitors, some wearing ski-masks to cover their faces, rampage the streets of Tel Rumeida throwing paint-bombs and stones, and hitting whoever gets in their way, it is considered provocative to be in their way. Police explained to HRW’s who tried to protect the Palestinian residents in the area that they shouldn’t be on the streets; that their presence was what had agitated the settlers and could cause further riots. How provoked should Palestinian men and women feel when they are attacked by settler mobs in the middle of the street they live on?
In this distorted reality of the Hebron settlers, a violent act in itself is not a problem, but the excuse the violator uses to explain the attack, however racist, crazy or extreme this excuse may be. Applying the same logic in other situations would result in, for example, accusing a rape victim of dressing to sexy, or a school kid of talking too much before he is hit in the face by a teacher.
A few days after a Palestinian family moved in to a house adjacent to the Tel Rumeida settlement, they had their windows smashed by a mob of settlers, who were clearly provoked by the presence of their new neighbors. The family turned off the lights, locked their door and pretended not to be home while the settlers screamed insults at them from the outside. “It’s like living in a prison”, said the mother in the family after the attack. How provoked should she feel for not daring to let her child play outside anymore?
The mere existence of Arabs in Hebron is a provocation and a reasonable excuse to act violently against them, according to Baruch Marzel and his likes. In a worst case scenario, this provocation could cause settlers to attack and even kill the Palestinians. How provoked should a Palestinian feel by living in a sealed off area, passing through a checkpoint twice a day, having his ID checked at will by any soldier at any time, not being able to use a car or open shops in the neighborhood due to military orders, being ignored by the police after being attacked by settlers and knowing that their next door neighbor constantly conjures to take over their house?
Like children, Hebron settlers are not accountable for their violent acts. In the racist framework that they have created, attacking a person is not something provocative, provided that the person attacked is of a certain ethnic origin. When will Baruch Marzel and his violent friends start to be treated as the accountable and responsible adults that they are?
Posted on Wednesday, 21 December, 2005 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
This from Ha’aretz Daily
Settlers aren’t the only ones building outposts in the West Bank: Palestinians from the village of Bil’in, near Ramallah, on Wednesday set up a caravan on land isolated from the village by the separation fence.
Israel Defense Forces troops are gearing up to evacuate the caravan, military sources say.
Dozens of Bil’in residents, accompanied by Israeli and international activists, set out Wednesday morning to place the caravan on land adjacent to the settlement of Upper Modi’in.
Mohammed Khateb, a member of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall, said that the container was placed on land belonging to a village resident and comes with a building permit from Bil’in village council.
The fence cuts village residents from approximately half of their lands.
Khateb also said that the committee intends to establish a “center for the joint struggle for peace,” where the caravan stands.
Bil’in has become the symbol of the struggle against the separation fence, serving as the site of dozens of joint Palestinian-Israeli demonstrations in the past year. Some of the demonstrations have ended in violent altercations with security forces.
Dealing with the caravan is liable to be an embarrassment for the IDF and the Civil Administration. The container is adjacent to the Matityahu East neighborhood of Upper Modi’in, where hundreds of illegal housing units have recently been constructed.
Akiva Eldar of Haaretz recently exposed the Civil Administration’s admission that 750 housing units had been built illegally with no permits whatsoever. The caravan, which arrived Wednesday from inside Israel, is standing approximately 100 meters away from the Matityahu East construction site.
According to the law, the Civil Administration can take down the container within a month of its placement with no need for legal proceedings. But the IDF is well aware that if this is done, the Palestinians will formally accuse the Civil Administration of discrimination in hurrying to dismantle a lone Palestinian caravan while ignoring hundreds of illegal units in an adjacent Jewish neighborhood.
“Private Palestinian land is in question here, not state land. The village council approved setting up a caravan and thus this is a legal structure,” said attorney Michael Sepharad, who represents the village residents.
“This will be blatant proof of the fact that there is selective law enforcement if they deal with the poor caravan before the hundreds of housing units built illegally in Upper Modi’in,” he added.
Sepharad submitted a letter in the name of Peace Now to the Civil Administration demanding a halt to the construction within a week. At the end of this time, Sepharad writes in the letter, he will turn to the Supreme Court.
Civil Administration sources said that the construction in Upper Modi’in is indeed illegal and “the head of the Administration is examining its options to address the situation.”
As for the caravan, military sources say the army has no intention of violently struggling with the residents, but say that the container will be taken down.
The same sources say that they are aware that as soon as the caravan is dismantled, they will need to explain to the court why they are rushing to act against illegal Palestinian construction while taking their time in dealing with unlawful building by settlers.
Some photos from P: Here, here, here, and here.
Posted on Sunday, 27 November, 2005 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share
Kids have always had trouble getting to school in Hebron, whether it’s due to irratable settlers not liking having to share their own private “Greater Israel” or soldiers whose job it is to generally keep life unbearable for the occupied locals. The BBC has a powerful collection of photos about what kids and teachers face as they try to get to school.
Palestinian teachers have been holding classes in the road outside an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron in protest at intrusive searches of children going to school.
Here, a couple of soldiers attempt to call recess.
LINK: In pictures: Palestinian student protest
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