MCC Palestine Update #98
March 25, 2004
[Note: the text below is the first of eight entries in a “Palestine Diary” on MCC’s website that will run over a two week period. Other entries will be written by MCC workers Ed Nyce (Bethlehem), Bob Herr (MCC Peace Office) and Molly Graver (MCC UN Office). You can access the Palestine Diary at http://www.mcc.org/palestinediary/]
Sometimes it pays to get an early start. On Monday morning, March 22, I left the house with Sam and Kate a little after 7 am, with them heading to school and me to visit the northern West Bank village of Zababdeh, where MCC's Global Family program provides support for the local Catholic school. If we'd left a half hour later, we'd have been stuck at home most of the morning. As news of Israel's extra-judicial killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin began to spread, demonstrators started coming out onto the streets in our neighborhood on the Mount of Olives. They were met by Israeli police, who eventually dispersed them with tear gas. Many roads in East Jerusalem, including in our neighborhood, were closed down.
While part of me wondered about the wisdom of travelling in the northern West Bank on the day of Sheikh Yassin's assassination, I also did not want the efforts I had made to coordinate passage to go wasted. As travel restrictions on Palestinians have become increasingly tight, international aid organizations such as MCC must coordinate with the Israeli military if we wish to enter the Gaza Strip or parts of the West Bank, such as the Jenin district, where Zababdeh is located. Any worries I had about driving through angry crowds of protestors proved unfounded. Apart from a few burning tires in the road on the way up and a march in Tubas on the way back, the villages I passed through were relatively quiet, with most stores keeping their doors open. When I get back home later in the day, however, I discover that East Jerusalem has completely shut down.
"We weren't sure that you would come!" said Father Aktham, parish priest and headmaster of the Latin Patriarchate School in Zababdeh as I drove up to the church. "We dismissed school after students finished their mid-term exams, because the Palestinian Authority has declared three days of mourning. But there are still students around the school. Let's go talk to them!" MCC's Global Family program provides scholarships to Christian students who otherwise would not be able to afford tuition at this Christian school. Joleen Daibes, a ninth grade girl with four siblings, is a case in point. Joleen's father has been out of work for three years now. The checkpoints, closures and curfews imposed by the Israeli military on West Bank villages such as Zababdeh have resulted in unemployment and poverty levels running well over fifty percent. Father Aktham does a quick calculation, and reports that less than one fourth of the school's budget is covered by tuition payments: fewer and fewer families in Zababdeh find that they can pay the full annual tuition of US$400. Joleen, a star English student and center for the school's girls' basketball team, and her three sisters and one brother, couldn't afford the school without scholarship assistance.
"It's a difficult challenge to preach the Gospel of peace and reconciliation in Palestine today," confesses Father Aktham, as an orderly procession of Muslims and Christians (mostly youth) winds its way through Zababdeh protesting Sheikh Yassin's assassination, a killing that claimed seven other lives. "At the church and at the school, we teach that we can hate what the Israelis are doing, we can hate occupation and dispossession, we can hate killing, but we don't hate Israelis. We're called to teach for a future of peace." If this future seemed farther than ever today in Palestine/Israel, I nevertheless end the day buoyed by Father Aktham's words, rejoicing in the continued Christian witness in this land to the Gospel of peace, justice, and reconciliation.
Below you will find three pieces, all regarding the extra-judicial killing of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin (and the "collateral damage" of seven other persons killed). The first is from Haaretz journalist Amira Hass, while the second and third come from Al-Haq and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the leading Palestinian human rights organizations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, respectively.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Another red line is crossed
By Amira Hass
Haaretz, March 24, 2004
There are four or five people in Gaza who now make up what is known as Hamas leadership. The liquidation of each one of them would ensure greater security, say government, IDF and Shin Bet officials. The liquidation of each one of them, says experience, also justifies the killing of people around him, including aides, bodyguards, relatives, neighbors, children, fellow worshipers. Based on the order to assassinate Ahmed Yassin only after he left the mosque, one may understand that the IDF is convinced it is making an effort to minimise collateral damage. Based on these calculations, the fact that seven men who did not deserve death were killed along with Yassin is evidently no great tragedy. Therefore, if we have five leaders deserving of death, then another 35, or 30, or maybe 48 or even 61 deaths, if you throw in the Islamic Jihad targets, too, evidently is no great tragedy either.
Between each of these targeted assassinations, there are also bound to be botched attempts. Several more people will be killed in these attempts "by mistake." How many? Will it be 14, or 22, including three children? The IDF Spokesman will underscore the danger posed by a deserving-of-death terrorist who managed to slip away, and will itemise the list of terrorist attacks he planned, executed, and will execute. And we'll forget about the wounded baby or the worker who was heading home from the market and was killed (not to mention the people killed at protest demonstrations).
You don't need intelligence reports to realize that as far as Hamas is concerned, Yassin's assassination can be considered a "mega-attack" that will elicit a response of commensurate magnitude. Almost certainly, they will not succeed at getting to a high-ranking Israeli, threats notwithstanding. Conceivably, their objective could be a particularly high number of Israeli civilian casualties, instead. Israeli intelligence efforts are now focusing on exposing attempts to avenge Yassin's blood. These intelligence efforts will generate a succession of new deserving-of-death terrorists. Ten men suspected of planning? Twenty worthy of targeted assassination? Just how many people around them is it permissible to kill or injure? Eighty? One hundred?
Sooner or later, the next reprisal terrorist attack will come. Eleven Israeli victims, or 19, dozens of wounded, harsh scenes from the hospital, suffering of the families - these will prove the murderousness of the Palestinians, who kill Jews simply for being Jews. And this terrorist attack, or the one after it, which we will not forget and not forgive, will make it okay to cross another red line. On Monday, they waited for Yassin to leave the mosque. Is the day far off when the helicopter crew obeys an order to launch a missile or bomb at the mosque itself? After which it will be explained: there were four deserving-of-death terrorists inside, each with four armed escorts, and, anyway, the imam there refers to Jews as monkeys and pigs.
And will the day arrive when an Israeli pilot fires a missile or bomb at a Palestinian mourning procession because marching in its two front rows are ranking members of Palestinian organizations, and right behind them are 30 armed masked men waving Kalashnikovs or Qassam launchers? Will that happen after or before the attack on a Jewish target abroad, which would take place after Hamas understands how hard it is, under conditions of a closure, to execute a local terrorist attack?
That is when the new Hamas leaders will sprout. The fact that the intelligence briefings have yet to include them does not mean they do not exist and are not prepared to take risks, be interviewed on television, and become targets of Israeli assassinations. Will this raise the number of those not-deserving-death in their environs that it is permissible to kill to, say, 100? In response to two Palestinian suicide bombings that will snuff out the lives of 30 Israelis, or 50, and another 45 attacks in preparation and three that were foiled, would the payment of 1,000 Palestinians killed be considered a suitable, logical, acceptable tax?
Israel's military and technological superiority is obvious to every Hamas activist in the Gaza Strip who swears to take revenge. The thousands who are prepared to commit suicide are well aware that they have nil (no real) chance of getting out of the Gaza Strip, and that most of them will be killed before managing to reach a nearby settlement. In Israel, military superiority was once presented as a precondition for any diplomatic settlement. But in effect it is the substitute that makes any diplomatic settlement superfluous.
Consciously or not, this superiority is hidden from the eyes of the average Israeli, who welcomes the assassination of Yassin, but is scared to death of the next terrorist attack. For many, this personal fear is translated into the deceptive sense that Israel itself faces existential threat. The Israeli government seemingly cultivates this fear of
existential threat. Therefore, this personal fear is an important factor in the ability of the Israeli military-intelligence-settlement elite, which is aware of its superiority, to cross another red line. It knows it has the backing of a majority of the Israeli public, which is convinced that this time, but really this time, the targeted assassination will bring us closer to a respite and to Palestinian surrender.
2. Al-Haq
22 March 2004
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Al-Haq condemns the Targeted Assassination of Skeikh Ahmed Yassin, and calls upon the International Community to immediately intervene to protect the Palestinian Civilian Population
Al-Haq condemns today’s killing of the political and spiritual leader of Hamas Sheikh Amed Yassin. In what Israeli Military spokesmen referred to as a targeted attack, Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at 67 year-old Sheikh Yassin as he returned from day-break morning prayers, and directly hit him in his wheelchair, 30-50 metres away from the mosque. Other than Yassin, the indiscriminate killing resulted in 7 more deaths and 20 injuries amongst Palestinian civilians, 5 of which are serious. The events of today took place at a time when no clashes were
reported in the Gaza Strip.
The recent attack on the life of Hamas_ leader Sheik Amed Yassin points
towards a serious escalation in the Israeli killing of Palestinian
political leaders during Israeli military attacks. Officially endorsed
by Israel_s government and military command structures at the highest
levels, Israeli Defence Minister Shaoul Mofaz vowed that Israel will
continue its policy of targeted assassinations as part of a campaign
against Hamas.
On 9 March 2004, following the most recent Israeli attack against the
Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, Al-Haq had warned the international
community in its Action Alert of 9 March 2004, of the deteriorating
situation in the Gaza Strip and the grave consequences of the persisting
Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilian areas. Since Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon indicated his government_s intention to
unilaterally pull-out from the Gaza Strip in December 2003, tens of
Palestinian civilians have been victims of Israeli policy of targeted
assassinations throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
Israel_s practice of wilful killings and targeted assassinations of
Palestinian political leaders constitutes a grave breach of provisions
of humanitarian law. The assassination of Sheikh Yassin is in flagrant
violation of the right to life as stipulated in Article 23 of the Hague
Regulations and Common Article 3 to the Four Geneva Conventions Relative
to the Protection of Civilians in Times of War, both of which reflect
customary international law. The attack signals that Israel failed to
give utmost consideration to the civilian nature and status of
Palestinian residential areas, and therefore to cease all attacks on
them. Furthermore the heavy casualties amongst civilians following the
attack were the direct result of Israel_s excessive and disproportionate
use of force in the vicinity of a mosque, and which took place only
minutes following morning prayers. As an Occupying Power, Israel is
legally obliged to distinguish at all times between civilians and
combatants. The fact that Sheikh Yassin is one of the most prominent
Palestinian spiritual and political leaders shows that this practice is
used in part as a measure of collective punishment and/or intimidation
of the Palestinian civilian population, prohibited under Article 33 of
the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Wilful killings are a grave breach under Article 147 of the Fourth
Geneva Convention, and are war crimes for which there is mandatory
universal jurisdiction. It is high time that the High Contracting
Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention make a serious attempt to uphold
their obligation vis-à-vis the Palestinian civilian populations as
stipulated in Article 146 of the Convention that _[e]ach High
Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons
alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such
grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their
nationality, before its own courts._
The assassination of Sheikh Yassin also constitutes a blatant violation
of international human rights law. In its 2003 Concluding Observations,
the Human Rights Committee had expressed serious concern with _targeted
killings_ of those identified by Israel as suspected _terrorists_ in the
OPT, and deemed it to be an arbitrary denial of the right to life, and a
breach of Israel_s obligation under the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights.
It also confirms Al-Haq_s fears that the actions of the Israeli military
authorities _speak louder than words_ and that their official
proclamations regarding the intention to withdraw from the Gaza Strip
and evacuate existing Israeli settlements are mere rhetoric intended to
divert the attention of the international community from the systematic
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law which they
continue to commit against Palestinian civilians. As the upheaval in the
OPT provoked by the assassination confirms, such actions counter Israeli
claims that they seek to de-escalate the situation and that they are
working towards the achievement of peace and stability in the region.
Al-Haq views with grave concern the assassination of Sheikh Yassin and
others and calls upon:
1. the United Nations (UN) Security Council to convene an emergency
session to fulfil its legal obligations under the UN Charter to maintain
peace and security, in order to respond to the grave consequences of
Israeli deliberate methods of targeted assassinations against
Palestinians.
2. the International community through the UN General Assembly to
intervene with the Israeli authorities to ensure the protection of the
Palestinian civilian population in the OPT
3. the High Contracting Parties to put an end to the consistent
lack of full and fair investigations into ongoing violations committed
by the Israeli authorities by ensuring that their judicial authorities
open prosecution briefs on wilful killings in the Israeli occupied
territories, and to bring those responsible for such grave breaches to
justice.
3. PCHR
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights -Press Release
Ref: 51/2004 Date: 22 March 2004 Time: 08:30 GMT
Israeli Occupying Forces Assassinate Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
In an act of state terrorism, on Monday morning, 22 March 2004, Israeli
occupying forces assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, 66, founder and
political leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), immediately
after he had left the mosque after finishing the dawn prayer. In
addition to Sheikh Yassin, 7 Palestinian civilians, including 3 of
Sheikh Yassin's bodyguards, were killed and 17 others injured, including
two of Sheikh Yassin's sons. This illegal and belligerent act is an
actual implementation of the Israeli authorities' threats to assassinate
Sheikh Yassin, which were recently articulated by Israeli political and
military officials. This is the second use of illegal and excessive
force of its kind committed by Israeli occupying forces against a top
figure in a Palestinian organization, as Israeli occupying forces
previously assassinated the Secretary General of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine Abu 'Ali Mustafa in Ramallah on 27 August
2001.
According to preliminary investigations conducted by PCHR, at
approximately 05:20 on Monday morning, Israeli helicopter gunships
launched 3 missiles at Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, 66, an elderly disabled man,
after he had left the Islamic Association Mosque in the densely
populated al-Sabra neighborhood in the center of Gaza city, after the
dawn payer. Sheikh Yassin was traveling on his wheelchair accompanied
by 3 bodyguards, when one of the missiles directly hit Sheikh Yassin and
his bodyguards. The other two missiles exploded in the surrounding area
and killed 4 other civilians. In addition to those killed, 17 civilians
were injured, including Sheikh Yassin's two sons: 'Abdul Hamid, 33; and
'Abdul Ghani, 29. Four children were among those injured. 'Abdul Hamid
and 5 of the injured remain in serious condition. All of the casualties
were worshippers who had just left the mosque following the dawn prayer.
The other 7 victims killed were identified as:
1. Mo'men Ibrahim al-Yazouri, 28;
2. Rateb 'Abdul Rahman al-'Aloul, 35;
3. Khamis Mushtaha, 32;
4. Ameer Ahmed 'Abdul 'Aal, 25;
5. Rabi' 'Abdul Hai 'Abdul 'Aal, 18, a bodyguard of Sheikh Yassin;
6. Ayoub Ahmed 'Atallah, 26, a bodyguard of Sheikh Yassin;
7. Khalil 'Abdul Elah Abu Jayab, 30, a bodyguard of Sheikh Yassin.
Israeli media reported after the incident that Israeli official sources
announced that the assassination was approved by the Israeli government
and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon himself supervised the attack.
Sheikh Yassin had survived a previous assassination attempt on 6
September 2003, when Israeli warplanes attacked an apartment building in
which Sheikh Yassin and Isma'il Haniya, another leader of Hamas, were
present. The two leaders were lightly injured during that incident.
PCHR strongly condemns this illegal and excessive use of force, which
was committed in the context of the policy of extra-judicial
assassination officially adopted by the Israeli government, in violation
of international law and humanitarian law. PCHR believes that this
horrific act further proves that the Israeli government continues its
aggression contrary to its misleading claims of seeking peace. Such
actions signify that the Israeli government and Prime Minister Sharon
have decided to intentionally escalate tension in the whole region.
PCHR calls upon international community to immediately intervene to
prevent further deterioration in the region and provide protection for
the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who face
the destructive Israeli arsenal that is unwilling to respect
international humanitarian and human rights law.
Thursday, March 25
Thursday, March 11
MCC Palestine Update #97
MCC Palestine Update #97
March 11, 2004
This past Advent season multiple cartoons ran in newspapers locally and worldwide of the wise men, or Mary and Joseph, or Santa Claus stymied trying to enter Bethlehem by an 8 meter high concrete wall. Nitpickers might have complained that the form the separation barrier took around Bethlehem was in the form of razor wire, patrol roads, and electronic fences instead of a concrete wall. The nitpickers, unfortunately, now have no nits to pick, as within the past 10 days Israel has begun installing the 8 meter concrete slabs—the ones that already run through many of East Jerusalem's neighboring villages and around parts of Qalqilyah—in northern Bethlehem. Thanks to walls, fences, and razor wire, the Bethlehem district has been progressively transformed into a prison: speak with anyone in Bethlehem, Christian or Muslim, and the horror and shock at the wall as it goes up is palpable. Bethlehem is being severed from its sister-city of Jerusalem; its economic future is being increasingly constrained; almost all land for urban expansion has been cut off.
The Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), an MCC partner organization located less than two blocks from the new concrete slab barrier, has produced the following resources for background on the separation wall:
1. http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Bethlehem%204-03-04/index.htm
This brief update looks at the construction of the separation wall in northern Bethlehem.
2. http://www.arij.org/Presentations/Unilateral.zip/
This file contains a powerful slide show detailing how the Israeli government's "unilateral separation" plan is a way for Israel to consolidate its occupation of the West Bank.
3. http://www.arij.org/paleye/Segregation-Wall/index.htm
This book-length study examines in meticulous detail how the separation wall is part and parcel of Israeli colonization of the occupied territories and how its construction (coupled with ongoing settlement growth and expansion) is undermining any hope for a peaceful settlement between Palestinians and Israelis.
In these days of walls and fences, it is very easy to give in to despair, hopelessness, even cynicism. A powerful antidote to such temptations is the ongoing witness of the Palestinian churches. In this time of fasting, prayer and penitence, therefore, I have included below the Lenten message from Msgr. Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. This Lent, please join Msgr. Sabbah and the entire Palestinian church in prayer for peace, justice, and reconciliation.
--Alain Epp Weaver
LATIN PATRIARCHATE – JERUSALEM
Message for Lent 2004
Our spiritual life
1. The time of fasting is a time of repentance and return to God. It is a time of presence before God. “The Kingdom of God is among you”, Jesus says. God is present among you. All your life and not just during Lent, should be a time of perpetual purification in order to better perceive God among yourselves and in all His creatures, beginning with every brother and sister who has a part in your daily life.
Fasting is a spiritual path in the life of the believer, in the midst of daily preoccupations and the complexities of life, of its joys and its trials. The Spirit of God that sustains us and gives us the true strength to persevere and remain constant in our daily spiritual combat is our guide in the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth. Thus, every land and every parish might indeed become the abode of God on earth and a holy land.
In the daily life of the believer there is faith. However, there is also a perpetual combat with various challenges, both within us and in every manifestation of evil in our society. After forty days of fasting, the tempter says to Jesus: “Tell these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt 4:3). In Jesus’ response: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”, we understand that material needs need not become an obstacle to listening to the word of God. It is the word that reminds us of God’s presence within us. The construction of God’s Kingdom is to be pursued in all circumstances, whether easy or difficult. God’s grace shall be given us in all circumstances, whether easy or difficult. “My grace is enough for you” (2Cor 12:9), God says to Saint Paul, who was also struggling between weaknesses in the face of evil within himself and the grace of God who had called him to preach the Gospel.
The criterion of a just Christian life, which is on the path to sanctity, is in the accomplishment of the single commandment that Jesus left us: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 19:19). If we want to know whether we are on the right path or not, we must question ourselves, we must review our positions and our behaviors, in order to see whether we really love our neighbor. It is he or she who shows us and tells us, according to our actions and our feelings with regards to him or her, whether we are on the right path or not. This neighbor is every neighbor without exception, every person in our life, a member of our church or of another church or of another religion. Christian love, conforming to the love of God, has no limits. Jesus says: “You must be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). Elsewhere, he also says: “Love one another just as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). The example that must be imitated is God’s example, nothing less. If Jesus gives us this commandment it means that we are capable of fulfilling it and he will give us the grace to sustain us and make us capable of imitating him. Just as God loves all God’s creatures, so we too love all our brothers and sisters, members of all churches, belonging to all religions.
Fasting is to return to God and thereby to return to all our brothers and sisters. It is to rid ourselves of all the evils that have accumulated in us, so that we acquire the strength of the Spirit in order to be strong in all the areas of our life. The others will then respect our strength, which will be then the fruit of love and not the fruit of pride or the oppression of others.
The conflict in the Holy Land in our lives in these days
2. Lent is a time of sharing. In the difficult times we are living and in face of the various deprivations imposed on many, sharing is a duty. On the other hand, and spiritually speaking, we cannot build up the Kingdom of God that is among us alone. We build it up with all those that suffer. By living, within our souls and within our prayers, the oppression of some and the fears of others and by becoming conscious of our part in the responsibility for putting an end to this, we carry out our Lent. Thus we are involved in constructing the Kingdom of God among us and within our society that is at war.
The circumstances within society that we have to face in the Holy Land are in fact circumstances of war: siege imposed on all, death imposed on some, prison and torture, various deprivations, house demolitions, destruction of agriculture, attacks and killings of innocent victims. In the midst of all this, our life is a difficult and painful search for justice and peace. It is an unceasing demand to put an end to oppression and fear and to the cycle of violence that is their consequence. One day, God will get rid of all these but human beings will do this as well. We will participate with God, each of us, by refusing both the oppression of a people and the spilling of innocent blood, and leaders too, through their wisdom and their lack of vested interests, becoming the servants of the people instead of serving themselves and their own interests.
Those responsible for war in this land seem to be acting in these days as if they were planning for a permanent war and not for a permanent peace. However, the human person in this land is not called to live in a state of permanent war. God has said: Live in the land in peace, peace with God, who chose the land for his abode, and peace with those who live in it. Peace cannot be established while oppression and the violence that results from it continue. Depriving a people of its liberty and of its land is oppression that no conscience can accept. Likewise, no conscience can accept killing innocent people in order to protest oppression. Let us not become twofold victims of the war, first victims of material destruction and second, victims of a hatred that demolishes the human person, Palestinian or Israeli. No person is better than another when he or she is transformed into a carrier of hatred and revenge. Sadly, this is what is happening in this land, holy for the three religions and towards which the entire world looks because it is holy. This is why those who impose oppression have the duty to put an end to it so that the land might then know the security and peace that are so much desired.
Parish priests and men and women religious in the various parishes spend long hours at the military checkpoints in order to carry out their pastoral work in their parishes and throughout the diocese. We say to them: be patient and pray to God for every human person, Palestinian or Israeli. Make your trial a prayer for all, for all those who suffer on both sides of the conflict. Your trial is little compared to death, torture, attacks, demolitions that are faced by so many other victims. Accept these difficulties as a sharing with all the poor ones of this land, to whom God has sent us in order that we might serve them and share in their sufferings and their hopes.
Brothers and sisters,
3. Lent, a time of fasting and prayer, is a time to return to God. It is a time to be conscious of the Kingdom of God that is among us and that we are to establish in our society. It is a time when all believers in God might be filled both by His love and His force.
In the difficulties we face, let us continue to live and to believe. St Cyril of Jerusalem used to say to his faithful, who also were carrying a difficult cross at that time: “Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but hold fast to the same faith in time of persecution also. Do not be a friend of Jesus in time of peace only but also in time of persecution” (St Cyril of Jerusalem, 2nd reading, 4th week of the year).
+ Michel Sabbah, Patriarch
Jerusalem, Ash Wednesday
25.2.2004
March 11, 2004
This past Advent season multiple cartoons ran in newspapers locally and worldwide of the wise men, or Mary and Joseph, or Santa Claus stymied trying to enter Bethlehem by an 8 meter high concrete wall. Nitpickers might have complained that the form the separation barrier took around Bethlehem was in the form of razor wire, patrol roads, and electronic fences instead of a concrete wall. The nitpickers, unfortunately, now have no nits to pick, as within the past 10 days Israel has begun installing the 8 meter concrete slabs—the ones that already run through many of East Jerusalem's neighboring villages and around parts of Qalqilyah—in northern Bethlehem. Thanks to walls, fences, and razor wire, the Bethlehem district has been progressively transformed into a prison: speak with anyone in Bethlehem, Christian or Muslim, and the horror and shock at the wall as it goes up is palpable. Bethlehem is being severed from its sister-city of Jerusalem; its economic future is being increasingly constrained; almost all land for urban expansion has been cut off.
The Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), an MCC partner organization located less than two blocks from the new concrete slab barrier, has produced the following resources for background on the separation wall:
1. http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Bethlehem%204-03-04/index.htm
This brief update looks at the construction of the separation wall in northern Bethlehem.
2. http://www.arij.org/Presentations/Unilateral.zip/
This file contains a powerful slide show detailing how the Israeli government's "unilateral separation" plan is a way for Israel to consolidate its occupation of the West Bank.
3. http://www.arij.org/paleye/Segregation-Wall/index.htm
This book-length study examines in meticulous detail how the separation wall is part and parcel of Israeli colonization of the occupied territories and how its construction (coupled with ongoing settlement growth and expansion) is undermining any hope for a peaceful settlement between Palestinians and Israelis.
In these days of walls and fences, it is very easy to give in to despair, hopelessness, even cynicism. A powerful antidote to such temptations is the ongoing witness of the Palestinian churches. In this time of fasting, prayer and penitence, therefore, I have included below the Lenten message from Msgr. Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. This Lent, please join Msgr. Sabbah and the entire Palestinian church in prayer for peace, justice, and reconciliation.
--Alain Epp Weaver
LATIN PATRIARCHATE – JERUSALEM
Message for Lent 2004
Our spiritual life
1. The time of fasting is a time of repentance and return to God. It is a time of presence before God. “The Kingdom of God is among you”, Jesus says. God is present among you. All your life and not just during Lent, should be a time of perpetual purification in order to better perceive God among yourselves and in all His creatures, beginning with every brother and sister who has a part in your daily life.
Fasting is a spiritual path in the life of the believer, in the midst of daily preoccupations and the complexities of life, of its joys and its trials. The Spirit of God that sustains us and gives us the true strength to persevere and remain constant in our daily spiritual combat is our guide in the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth. Thus, every land and every parish might indeed become the abode of God on earth and a holy land.
In the daily life of the believer there is faith. However, there is also a perpetual combat with various challenges, both within us and in every manifestation of evil in our society. After forty days of fasting, the tempter says to Jesus: “Tell these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt 4:3). In Jesus’ response: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”, we understand that material needs need not become an obstacle to listening to the word of God. It is the word that reminds us of God’s presence within us. The construction of God’s Kingdom is to be pursued in all circumstances, whether easy or difficult. God’s grace shall be given us in all circumstances, whether easy or difficult. “My grace is enough for you” (2Cor 12:9), God says to Saint Paul, who was also struggling between weaknesses in the face of evil within himself and the grace of God who had called him to preach the Gospel.
The criterion of a just Christian life, which is on the path to sanctity, is in the accomplishment of the single commandment that Jesus left us: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 19:19). If we want to know whether we are on the right path or not, we must question ourselves, we must review our positions and our behaviors, in order to see whether we really love our neighbor. It is he or she who shows us and tells us, according to our actions and our feelings with regards to him or her, whether we are on the right path or not. This neighbor is every neighbor without exception, every person in our life, a member of our church or of another church or of another religion. Christian love, conforming to the love of God, has no limits. Jesus says: “You must be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). Elsewhere, he also says: “Love one another just as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). The example that must be imitated is God’s example, nothing less. If Jesus gives us this commandment it means that we are capable of fulfilling it and he will give us the grace to sustain us and make us capable of imitating him. Just as God loves all God’s creatures, so we too love all our brothers and sisters, members of all churches, belonging to all religions.
Fasting is to return to God and thereby to return to all our brothers and sisters. It is to rid ourselves of all the evils that have accumulated in us, so that we acquire the strength of the Spirit in order to be strong in all the areas of our life. The others will then respect our strength, which will be then the fruit of love and not the fruit of pride or the oppression of others.
The conflict in the Holy Land in our lives in these days
2. Lent is a time of sharing. In the difficult times we are living and in face of the various deprivations imposed on many, sharing is a duty. On the other hand, and spiritually speaking, we cannot build up the Kingdom of God that is among us alone. We build it up with all those that suffer. By living, within our souls and within our prayers, the oppression of some and the fears of others and by becoming conscious of our part in the responsibility for putting an end to this, we carry out our Lent. Thus we are involved in constructing the Kingdom of God among us and within our society that is at war.
The circumstances within society that we have to face in the Holy Land are in fact circumstances of war: siege imposed on all, death imposed on some, prison and torture, various deprivations, house demolitions, destruction of agriculture, attacks and killings of innocent victims. In the midst of all this, our life is a difficult and painful search for justice and peace. It is an unceasing demand to put an end to oppression and fear and to the cycle of violence that is their consequence. One day, God will get rid of all these but human beings will do this as well. We will participate with God, each of us, by refusing both the oppression of a people and the spilling of innocent blood, and leaders too, through their wisdom and their lack of vested interests, becoming the servants of the people instead of serving themselves and their own interests.
Those responsible for war in this land seem to be acting in these days as if they were planning for a permanent war and not for a permanent peace. However, the human person in this land is not called to live in a state of permanent war. God has said: Live in the land in peace, peace with God, who chose the land for his abode, and peace with those who live in it. Peace cannot be established while oppression and the violence that results from it continue. Depriving a people of its liberty and of its land is oppression that no conscience can accept. Likewise, no conscience can accept killing innocent people in order to protest oppression. Let us not become twofold victims of the war, first victims of material destruction and second, victims of a hatred that demolishes the human person, Palestinian or Israeli. No person is better than another when he or she is transformed into a carrier of hatred and revenge. Sadly, this is what is happening in this land, holy for the three religions and towards which the entire world looks because it is holy. This is why those who impose oppression have the duty to put an end to it so that the land might then know the security and peace that are so much desired.
Parish priests and men and women religious in the various parishes spend long hours at the military checkpoints in order to carry out their pastoral work in their parishes and throughout the diocese. We say to them: be patient and pray to God for every human person, Palestinian or Israeli. Make your trial a prayer for all, for all those who suffer on both sides of the conflict. Your trial is little compared to death, torture, attacks, demolitions that are faced by so many other victims. Accept these difficulties as a sharing with all the poor ones of this land, to whom God has sent us in order that we might serve them and share in their sufferings and their hopes.
Brothers and sisters,
3. Lent, a time of fasting and prayer, is a time to return to God. It is a time to be conscious of the Kingdom of God that is among us and that we are to establish in our society. It is a time when all believers in God might be filled both by His love and His force.
In the difficulties we face, let us continue to live and to believe. St Cyril of Jerusalem used to say to his faithful, who also were carrying a difficult cross at that time: “Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but hold fast to the same faith in time of persecution also. Do not be a friend of Jesus in time of peace only but also in time of persecution” (St Cyril of Jerusalem, 2nd reading, 4th week of the year).
+ Michel Sabbah, Patriarch
Jerusalem, Ash Wednesday
25.2.2004
Thursday, February 26
MCC Palestine Update #96
MCC Palestine Update #96
February 26, 2004
“I keep the curtains at the window drawn so I don’t have to look out at the fences that separate me from my land,” shared the mayor of Jayyous, a village of 3,000 people in the northern West Bank. During the last part of 2002 and the first part of 2003, the Israeli military constructed its separation barrier next to Jayyous village. As a result, Jayyous is a village today with a very tenuous economic future. Jayyous farmers own 12,500 dunums (1 dunum = ¼ of an acre). 600 dunums were bulldozed under to make way for the separation zone (consisting of barbed wire, foot trace paths, patrol roads, fences with electronic sensors). Another 8600 dunums are now on the western side of the separation zone. Soldiers open a gate in the fences two times a day (unless they don’t, thanks to Jewish holidays, or state holidays, or reasons unknown). In order to pass through the gate to the western side of the wall, one needs a permit issued by the Israeli civil administration of the military government. Obtaining this permit involves arduous bureaucratic procedures reminiscent of a Kafka short story. Many who apply are rejected for unspecified “security” reasons. Sometimes in one family only very young children or elderly persons who cannot carry out taxing agricultural work are given permits, while the healthy-bodied adults are denied them. As at the checkpoints throughout the West Bank, the regime instituted by the soldiers at the gates in the separation zone are arbitrary expressions of the soliders’ supreme power: at Jayyous, for example, farmers may not take their tractors through the gate, nor their sheep (unless they get permits for the sheep); in Falamiyyeh village just north of Jayyous, however, soldiers (at least sometimes) let tractors pass.
I visited Jayyous and Falamiyyeh this past Monday with a colleague from Catholic Relief Services and with videographers in the country who are working on a video sponsored by MCC, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision on the separation wall. We heard from numerous farmers in both communities tell how their livelihoods had been crushed thanks to the barrier. MCC and Catholic Relief Services are joining with the Palestinian Hydrology Group in both communities (and three other nearby towns and villages) to help farmers repair and renovate wells and water networks damaged and destroyed by Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers during the construction of the separation zone. “We sit around all day, looking out towards our land,” shared one farmer. “We see our trees dying. It’s tearing us up inside.”
This past Monday the International Court of Justice began hearing arguments from various parties about the legality of the wall. Israel has refused to attend the hearing, saying that the ICJ has no right to hand down an advisory opinion in this matter. Israel claims that the wall is to protect its citizens from violent attacks, such as the horrific suicide bombing in Jerusalem this week that claimed 8 lives. Some Israelis, however, with whom the film crew has met, disagree: “This wall won’t bring me security. It’s about grabbing land from Palestinians and separating them from one another. That won’t bring me security,” Na’ama Nagar of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, an MCC partner organization, told them.
Even as walls that divide and dispossess are being erected, there are Palestinians and Israelis who are working together for justice, peace and reconciliation. This Lenten season, please remember these peacemakers in your prayers. Pray for a future of bridges instead of walls, that the God who, in Christ, has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile might sustain the efforts of those Palestinians and Israelis who reject the legal, psychological, spiritual and physical walls that have divided and continue to divide the two peoples.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, by a 15-year-old Palestinian girl from the West Bank village of Budrus where the wall is currently being built, explains why the wall is not a security barrier but a land grab. The second, by Haaretz journalist Amira Hass, looks at the tenuous future of communities trapped between the wall and the Green Line or surrounded by walls and fences inside the West Bank; with the Israeli military government demanding that residents of these villages obtain permits simply to remain in their homes, a process fraught with difficulties, the Palestinian fears of “transfer” are becoming increasingly real. Finally, Gideon Levy of Haaretz reports on the wanton, brutal exercise of power at one checkpoint in the northern West Bank.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/7994868.htm
Posted on Fri, Feb. 20, 2004
It exists not for security but for apartheid
Iltezam Morrar
A 15-year-old Palestinian student living in the West Bank
On Monday, the International Court of Justice in the Hague will begin hearings on the wall Israel is building around Palestinian cities and villages. I live in one of them: Budrus, a small village west of Ramallah. It is a very simple life here. Old women and farmers tend their sheep; children go to school, and people live together peacefully. Our village has many olive trees, which are very important for food and oil.
Americans should know that, from our viewpoint, the wall is not a security wall. Security and safety do not come from stealing land (Budrus lost about 80 percent of its village area in 1948, when Israel was formed, and stands to shrink by another 20 percent if the wall goes up). Security does not come from killing or harassing people (there is hardly a family in Palestine without some member who has been killed, hurt or imprisoned) or cutting trees (which Israeli officials have started doing around my village). So this is not a security wall. It is an apartheid wall.
Palestine will be separated into little pieces. Many people will be unable to go to work. Students won't be able to travel to university. After all this, when we are without land or olive trees, unable to work or study, people will leave. That is what the Israeli occupation is for. In 1953, for example, when Ariel Sharon led a military operation resulting in 69 civilian deaths at Qibya, the next village over from us, some people in Budrus were afraid and left. Everything the Israeli government has done is to make the people leave their land.
At the first demonstration to stop the wall in Budrus, only three old women participated with the men. I asked my father if the demonstrations were just for men, and he said no, they were for women as well. Some women and girls came to the next demonstration but left when they didn't see many other women. I told my father that we needed a demonstration only for women, and we made one.
On the first day Israeli officials came to cut the trees, I was at school. I said, "We should go; the land is more important than our exams." We marched to the fields, the boys and then the girls. Soldiers threw tear gas into the middle of us. We carried on; we were still holding our schoolbooks when we came to the Israeli captain. He was very angry and shouted, "Stop here. If you walk one more step, we will hit you." He pushed me, so I stood beside him and shouted "Free, free Palestine."
Because of the occupation, I cannot see my country. I can't travel in my country. It is like a big prison, and the wall will make it worse. If there were no occupation, I could be free. For me, the day my country is free will be my birthday. In the occupation, I have no future.
I want to study to help my country. I want to be a doctor, because here in Palestine, many people get hurt and there are few hospitals or doctors and little medicine. I want four children, but then, I want to be a doctor and will work late nights, so perhaps two is enough.
We don't hate Israelis because they are Israelis. The only thing between us is what we see as their theft of our land. If they gave back our land, nothing would be between us. We need enough land that all the Palestinian refugees who live outside could come and live here. Many Palestinians live in other countries, in tents, with no work.
Peaceful struggle is very important. It is the only way in which we can become free and stop the wall, even if we know the Israeli army does not want peace and will use violence. I think: If I use violence, all the children in Israel will feel in danger and they will use violence. So this makes the two sides always live in violence. It is important to show the world we are a peaceful people and all we want is peace.
The hearings in the Hague are very important even though we are not sure they will stop the wall. It is very important that the international community does something to say the wall should be stopped, even if it doesn't succeed.
2. Has the transfer of enclaves begun?
Haaretz, Feb. 24, 2004
By Amira Hass
"The Tanzim showed up one day," said the woman, 60-ish, the fear visible in her eyes. These are not Fatah people. This is a department within the Civil Administration - "the subcommittee for supervision of the supreme planning council," whose accepted and frightening abbreviation among Palestinian residents of the West Bank is "the Tanzim" (the planning). This is the department that issues demolition orders for Palestinian houses and stop work orders for construction projects.
H.A., an official in the Civil Administration's Tanzim, which the frightened woman was referring to, came twice during the last two months to the small Bedouin town of Arab a-Ramadin, south of Qalqilyah, on December 28, 2003 and on February 10, 2004. He hung up and took down three different kinds of orders: four "stop work orders", six "final stop work and razing orders and two "notices granting the right to object to demolition orders."
The buildings designated for demolition are: tin structure 10x8, tin structure 8x6 and tin structure 12x10, cement block and tin structure 10x10, cement block and tin structure 18x8 and cement block and tin structure 14x8. Two orders dated December 28, 2003 grant the residents a three-day extension to request that another cement block structure not be razed and one to request that the generator building and electricity pylons not be razed. The rest of the buildings in this town are like the structures for which demolition orders were issued: around 10 small, simple concrete structures and another 23 tin huts, that are boiling hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, in which the 250 members of the tribe live.
Eight kilometers from the Green Line
The speakers beg that their names be omitted, that whatever they say not be attributed to them and that their photos not be printed in the newspaper. "I just want to get home to be with my family, I don't want them to prevent me from being with my family at home," said one tribe member. They are frightened; they fear possible revenge from the Civil Administration, or in its alternate, euphemistic name, "the Coordination and Liaison Administration," which issues them permits allowing them to be in their homes that are valid for six months. Arab a-Ramadin and another four neighboring Palestinian communities (Arab Abu Farda and the villages of Wadi ar-Rasha, Ras a-Tira and a-Daba) are trapped in one of 80 enclaves, the loops that have been and will be created by the separation fence between them and the Green Line.
These enclave-loops were created in order to ensure that most of the settlements are outside the fence. The enclave of Arab a-Ramadin was created to ensure that Alfei Menashe is outside the fence. The fence - with its barbed wire, ditches, patrol tracks, wide security road and the gates that should open three times a day - creates a loop here that penetrates deep into the West Bank, a distance of around eight kilometers from the Green Line. As in other enclaves, it cuts off residents from their fields, separates clinics and their medical staffs from their patients, grocery stores from their customers, students from their schools. A school and grocery store that were respectively 300 and 700 meters away until a year or two ago, are now several kilometres further away and that in turn also imposes economic hardship on the family: the cost of taxi fares.
Three of the older Bedouin who still tended sheep had to sell them: the enclave does not provide enough space for grazing. The families no longer have the means to regularly purchase fodder for the sheep and goats due to the loss of job opportunities in Israel and the West Bank. All three of the elderly shepherds became physically ill after they sold their flocks.
The IDF and the Civil Administration in October 2003 created a special category for those thousands of Palestinians who live in the area between the fence and the Green Line, which has been officially declared a military area closed to Palestinians, but not closed to Jews: "long-term residents." The regulations that apply to this new category and the fact that the area is a closed military area grant Civil Administration officials full authority to check residency permits once every few months, and to renew or not renew them.
The new category obligates the residents to request an entry permit to those areas for anyone who is not registered with the Israeli authorities as a resident of the enclave: relatives, cab drivers, doctors, sanitation men, teachers, etc. Some receive the permits; others do not. The permits issued to Arab a-Ramadin residents - so that they can stay in their homes inside the closed military area, leave and then return - are valid until April 2004. Tribe members are convinced that if they are quoted, someone in the Civil Administration or the Shin Bet General Security Service, upon whose good graces they depend, will decide "due to security reasons" not to renew their permit to enter their home.
The word "home" prompts tired smiles on the faces of Arab a-Ramadin residents. Their small tin huts and concrete structures are spread over a green hill and its rocky slopes, in between a few sheep pens, small vegetable patches, improvised fences, family diwans (spaces covered with cloth sheets and rugs). They are originally from the Be'er Sheva area and were expelled and fled in 1948. They first settled in the Hebron area and in the mid-1950s headed north with their flocks to the Qalqilyah region. Gradually, and especially after the economic changes sparked by the capture of the territories in 1967, they began to settle down, and attempted to modernize: from tents and a nomadic life of shepherding, they switched to corrugated tin huts, more urban livelihoods such as construction, and started sending their sons and daughters to study in local schools. It was a natural process, not something imposed on them from above. Some of them purchased their lands from the surrounding villages, others leased lands or swapped other parcels of land for the lands here.
Without a master plan
According to some of the final demolition orders, it seem that already in 2000 stop work orders were issued for some of the structures, including the one that houses the electricity generator. Arab a-Ramadin residents always knew that the Israeli authorities did not draw up a master plan for them and that there was no point in submitting requests to build real houses that matched the improved financial situation of several of them and their changed, modern tastes. Because there is no master plan, they also did not connect to the electricity grid - the one that lights up, for example, the neighboring community which has been developing since 1982: Alfei Menashe. They are also not officially connected to the water network: they hooked up a long plastic pipe from the village of Habla. In the summer, the water is boiling. The Oslo Accords designated them as Area C, which is under Israeli civilian and security responsibility. Several demolition and stop work orders were also issued in two nearby places: the village of Wadi ar-Rasha and the corrugated tin hut community of the small Abu Farda tribe. Each one has around 90 residents. Both of them abut Alfei Menashe: one is located adjacent to its industrial zone and the other is adjacent to its western neighborhoods.
When Israel started building the separation fence's loops around them, the workers razed one of Wadi ar-Rasha's barns, built by its owners six years earlier. The reason: It was too close to the fence. In April 2003, when construction of the fence was fully underway, five additional demolition orders arrived in Wadi ar-Rasha: for a concrete structure, for an extension of an existing house and for a large tin structure. And there were another two demolition orders for two barns. This village, like several other neighboring villages, was apparently set up in the 19th century by residents of the village of Tulat, which is located to the east, whose lands officially extend to Jaljuliya in the west. It was a natural process of Palestinian settlement, typical of the rural residents who went with their flocks several kilometers away from the parent community, made homes inside caves and gradually settled in the new location. In recent years, after the Civil Administration issued demolition orders, building extensions intended to ease the crowding in Wadi ar-Rasha were razed.
In the two Bedouin communities and in Wadi ar-Rasha, residents are convinced that the Civil Administration's aim is to eliminate them completely from the area so that Alfei Menashe can develop even more, in the direction of the Green Line. One of the residents points to section six of their residence permit: "this permit does not represent proof of legal rights, including legal ownership or residency rights in the area, whichever is relevant." In other words, say the threatened residents, someone will come tomorrow and say that the land we are living on – not just the house - is not ours and that we are trespassing, that we have to leave.
And indeed, the Civil Administration, in its response to Haaretz, claims "the settlement of the Ramadin tribe, Abu Farda and Wadi ar-Rasha are illegal [the mistakes are in the original - A.H.]. Over the years, orders were issued, as they are issued for all illegal construction." The Civil Administration spokesman also stated that there is no connection between the construction of the fence and the issuing of demolition orders. "This a statutory legal process, civilian, of enforcing the law ... the Civil Administration is charged with enforcing the law as it relates to all matters of illegal construction in Area C of Judea and Samaria."
According to one Arab a-Ramadin resident, a Civil Administration official has tried over the last few months to lobby them to leave the area and settle elsewhere. In her response, the Civil Administration spokesman does not confirm or deny this claim. But, she said, "The Civil Administration is now in the middle of concerted efforts to review the correlation between master plans in Area C and the reality and the needs of the Palestinian population living in the area, in order to find solutions for issues of this nature." The Civil Administration's response also stated that work is now underway to connect the villages to the electricity grid (but in Arab a-Ramadin, for example, they do not know about that and haven't seen any signs that they're being connected to the electricity grid).
The Palestinians in the Alfei Menashe enclave do not believe the Israeli promises. For them, the demolition orders are more tangible than any promise given in response to an Israeli newspaper's query, while the discussions in The Hague are going on. "If they raze all of our tin and cement block structure," says an Arab a-Ramadin resident, "we will move into tents. The way it used to be. And if they want us to go away from here, then please, send us back to our natural place, where we were originally - Be'er Sheva."
3. When soldiers become bullies
By Gideon Levy
Three armed bullies in black ski masks get out of the jeep quickly. One breaks into shouts at the taxi driver who is letting off a female passenger, waving a rifle in the driver's face and ordering him out of the car. The bully then orders the frightened driver to hand over the keys to his taxi and get going. The helpless driver hands over his keys. In a feeble voice he asks if and when he can get his taxi back. "Maybe at the end of the day, maybe Wednesday. We'll see," says the thug, sticking the keys into his pocket, getting back in the jeep and driving away.
Highway bandits in Chechnya? Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Balata? No. The three bullies were Israeli soldiers. They confiscated the car from its owner, as they routinely do, because he let out a passenger on the other side of a blurry yellow line painted onto the Tul Karm road. The road is blocked by an unmanned iron bar. Passengers are supposed to cross on foot, from taxis on one side to taxis on the other - it's not at all clear why - and the drivers know that if they cross the yellow line the soldiers will appear out of nowhere and confiscate the cars or slice the tires. Indeed, one of the soldiers threatened to slice the tires of our car, which was parked past the remnants of the yellow line.
This "battle heritage" is passed down through the Israel Defense Forces without obstruction and all the Palestinians drivers know it. Any time they venture onto one of the few roads left to them in the West Bank, they are taking a risk. Maybe they'll be shot "by mistake," maybe their car will be confiscated for some vague reason. That's why the few roads of the West Bank where Palestinians are allowed to drive are nearly always empty. The driver whose car was confiscated, Samr Abdullah, did not know how to get home.
A brigadier who serves in the territories said in a private conversation on the weekend that the confiscation of cars and ID cards is prohibited by the army. Really? After all, if the army wanted to put an end to it, it could easily do so. The IDF Spokesman's Office also says there is no policy of confiscating cars and if it turns out that the events we witnessed last Sunday happened, "the soldiers will be severely punished."
Is the IDF Spokesman's Office being naive or disingenuous or was this really the first time it heard about soldiers confiscating the keys to a Palestinian car or slashing its tires? It's not clear what's worse. Any soldier nowadays can take any Palestinian car for any reason and for as long as he wants. When every soldier is a king, any group of soldiers can turn into a gang.
Confiscating cars is only one example of how an IDF regime of bullying has emerged and is being strengthened in the territories. There is a great deal of hypocrisy in the talk about how anarchy will reign in the territories after the IDF leaves. The disintegration of the rule of law and order begins inside the army. Every day one can see soldiers confiscating ID cards from residents, making them line up for hours in the sun and rain for no reason whatsoever, and just for the fun of it smashing memorial monuments to Palestinian casualties - like last week in Beir Furik.
In the last three years, an atmosphere of anything goes has taken root in the IDF in the territories. Any soldier can do whatever he feels like to any Palestinian - the incident won't be investigated, the soldier won't be punished.
The disintegration of the rule of law does not stop with the soldiers. Brothers Naim and Ayad Murar, who organized nonviolent demonstrations against the separation fence in Budrus, were arrested a month ago with the intention of throwing them into long months of administrative detention without trial. At the last minute, Ayad was freed by a judge who ruled that nonviolent demonstrations are no cause for administrative detention. But his brother Naim was sent to four months of administrative detention for his "terror-supporting activity." Only due to the intervention of attorneys Tamar Peleg and Yal Barda, and the courageous position taken by Lieutenant Colonel Shlomi Kochav, was Naim freed on the weekend after a month in detention, thus preventing a further disgrace. Serious questions are raised by the arrogance of security officials who wanted to lock people up for attempting to organize nonviolent demonstrations against a fence being built on their property.
There is a direct and disgusting line between the car confiscators and those who jail demonstrators without trial. Both are manifestations of gangland rule. Despite the separation fence, that kind of behavior will inevitably cross the Green Line.
February 26, 2004
“I keep the curtains at the window drawn so I don’t have to look out at the fences that separate me from my land,” shared the mayor of Jayyous, a village of 3,000 people in the northern West Bank. During the last part of 2002 and the first part of 2003, the Israeli military constructed its separation barrier next to Jayyous village. As a result, Jayyous is a village today with a very tenuous economic future. Jayyous farmers own 12,500 dunums (1 dunum = ¼ of an acre). 600 dunums were bulldozed under to make way for the separation zone (consisting of barbed wire, foot trace paths, patrol roads, fences with electronic sensors). Another 8600 dunums are now on the western side of the separation zone. Soldiers open a gate in the fences two times a day (unless they don’t, thanks to Jewish holidays, or state holidays, or reasons unknown). In order to pass through the gate to the western side of the wall, one needs a permit issued by the Israeli civil administration of the military government. Obtaining this permit involves arduous bureaucratic procedures reminiscent of a Kafka short story. Many who apply are rejected for unspecified “security” reasons. Sometimes in one family only very young children or elderly persons who cannot carry out taxing agricultural work are given permits, while the healthy-bodied adults are denied them. As at the checkpoints throughout the West Bank, the regime instituted by the soldiers at the gates in the separation zone are arbitrary expressions of the soliders’ supreme power: at Jayyous, for example, farmers may not take their tractors through the gate, nor their sheep (unless they get permits for the sheep); in Falamiyyeh village just north of Jayyous, however, soldiers (at least sometimes) let tractors pass.
I visited Jayyous and Falamiyyeh this past Monday with a colleague from Catholic Relief Services and with videographers in the country who are working on a video sponsored by MCC, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision on the separation wall. We heard from numerous farmers in both communities tell how their livelihoods had been crushed thanks to the barrier. MCC and Catholic Relief Services are joining with the Palestinian Hydrology Group in both communities (and three other nearby towns and villages) to help farmers repair and renovate wells and water networks damaged and destroyed by Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers during the construction of the separation zone. “We sit around all day, looking out towards our land,” shared one farmer. “We see our trees dying. It’s tearing us up inside.”
This past Monday the International Court of Justice began hearing arguments from various parties about the legality of the wall. Israel has refused to attend the hearing, saying that the ICJ has no right to hand down an advisory opinion in this matter. Israel claims that the wall is to protect its citizens from violent attacks, such as the horrific suicide bombing in Jerusalem this week that claimed 8 lives. Some Israelis, however, with whom the film crew has met, disagree: “This wall won’t bring me security. It’s about grabbing land from Palestinians and separating them from one another. That won’t bring me security,” Na’ama Nagar of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, an MCC partner organization, told them.
Even as walls that divide and dispossess are being erected, there are Palestinians and Israelis who are working together for justice, peace and reconciliation. This Lenten season, please remember these peacemakers in your prayers. Pray for a future of bridges instead of walls, that the God who, in Christ, has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile might sustain the efforts of those Palestinians and Israelis who reject the legal, psychological, spiritual and physical walls that have divided and continue to divide the two peoples.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, by a 15-year-old Palestinian girl from the West Bank village of Budrus where the wall is currently being built, explains why the wall is not a security barrier but a land grab. The second, by Haaretz journalist Amira Hass, looks at the tenuous future of communities trapped between the wall and the Green Line or surrounded by walls and fences inside the West Bank; with the Israeli military government demanding that residents of these villages obtain permits simply to remain in their homes, a process fraught with difficulties, the Palestinian fears of “transfer” are becoming increasingly real. Finally, Gideon Levy of Haaretz reports on the wanton, brutal exercise of power at one checkpoint in the northern West Bank.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/7994868.htm
Posted on Fri, Feb. 20, 2004
It exists not for security but for apartheid
Iltezam Morrar
A 15-year-old Palestinian student living in the West Bank
On Monday, the International Court of Justice in the Hague will begin hearings on the wall Israel is building around Palestinian cities and villages. I live in one of them: Budrus, a small village west of Ramallah. It is a very simple life here. Old women and farmers tend their sheep; children go to school, and people live together peacefully. Our village has many olive trees, which are very important for food and oil.
Americans should know that, from our viewpoint, the wall is not a security wall. Security and safety do not come from stealing land (Budrus lost about 80 percent of its village area in 1948, when Israel was formed, and stands to shrink by another 20 percent if the wall goes up). Security does not come from killing or harassing people (there is hardly a family in Palestine without some member who has been killed, hurt or imprisoned) or cutting trees (which Israeli officials have started doing around my village). So this is not a security wall. It is an apartheid wall.
Palestine will be separated into little pieces. Many people will be unable to go to work. Students won't be able to travel to university. After all this, when we are without land or olive trees, unable to work or study, people will leave. That is what the Israeli occupation is for. In 1953, for example, when Ariel Sharon led a military operation resulting in 69 civilian deaths at Qibya, the next village over from us, some people in Budrus were afraid and left. Everything the Israeli government has done is to make the people leave their land.
At the first demonstration to stop the wall in Budrus, only three old women participated with the men. I asked my father if the demonstrations were just for men, and he said no, they were for women as well. Some women and girls came to the next demonstration but left when they didn't see many other women. I told my father that we needed a demonstration only for women, and we made one.
On the first day Israeli officials came to cut the trees, I was at school. I said, "We should go; the land is more important than our exams." We marched to the fields, the boys and then the girls. Soldiers threw tear gas into the middle of us. We carried on; we were still holding our schoolbooks when we came to the Israeli captain. He was very angry and shouted, "Stop here. If you walk one more step, we will hit you." He pushed me, so I stood beside him and shouted "Free, free Palestine."
Because of the occupation, I cannot see my country. I can't travel in my country. It is like a big prison, and the wall will make it worse. If there were no occupation, I could be free. For me, the day my country is free will be my birthday. In the occupation, I have no future.
I want to study to help my country. I want to be a doctor, because here in Palestine, many people get hurt and there are few hospitals or doctors and little medicine. I want four children, but then, I want to be a doctor and will work late nights, so perhaps two is enough.
We don't hate Israelis because they are Israelis. The only thing between us is what we see as their theft of our land. If they gave back our land, nothing would be between us. We need enough land that all the Palestinian refugees who live outside could come and live here. Many Palestinians live in other countries, in tents, with no work.
Peaceful struggle is very important. It is the only way in which we can become free and stop the wall, even if we know the Israeli army does not want peace and will use violence. I think: If I use violence, all the children in Israel will feel in danger and they will use violence. So this makes the two sides always live in violence. It is important to show the world we are a peaceful people and all we want is peace.
The hearings in the Hague are very important even though we are not sure they will stop the wall. It is very important that the international community does something to say the wall should be stopped, even if it doesn't succeed.
2. Has the transfer of enclaves begun?
Haaretz, Feb. 24, 2004
By Amira Hass
"The Tanzim showed up one day," said the woman, 60-ish, the fear visible in her eyes. These are not Fatah people. This is a department within the Civil Administration - "the subcommittee for supervision of the supreme planning council," whose accepted and frightening abbreviation among Palestinian residents of the West Bank is "the Tanzim" (the planning). This is the department that issues demolition orders for Palestinian houses and stop work orders for construction projects.
H.A., an official in the Civil Administration's Tanzim, which the frightened woman was referring to, came twice during the last two months to the small Bedouin town of Arab a-Ramadin, south of Qalqilyah, on December 28, 2003 and on February 10, 2004. He hung up and took down three different kinds of orders: four "stop work orders", six "final stop work and razing orders and two "notices granting the right to object to demolition orders."
The buildings designated for demolition are: tin structure 10x8, tin structure 8x6 and tin structure 12x10, cement block and tin structure 10x10, cement block and tin structure 18x8 and cement block and tin structure 14x8. Two orders dated December 28, 2003 grant the residents a three-day extension to request that another cement block structure not be razed and one to request that the generator building and electricity pylons not be razed. The rest of the buildings in this town are like the structures for which demolition orders were issued: around 10 small, simple concrete structures and another 23 tin huts, that are boiling hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, in which the 250 members of the tribe live.
Eight kilometers from the Green Line
The speakers beg that their names be omitted, that whatever they say not be attributed to them and that their photos not be printed in the newspaper. "I just want to get home to be with my family, I don't want them to prevent me from being with my family at home," said one tribe member. They are frightened; they fear possible revenge from the Civil Administration, or in its alternate, euphemistic name, "the Coordination and Liaison Administration," which issues them permits allowing them to be in their homes that are valid for six months. Arab a-Ramadin and another four neighboring Palestinian communities (Arab Abu Farda and the villages of Wadi ar-Rasha, Ras a-Tira and a-Daba) are trapped in one of 80 enclaves, the loops that have been and will be created by the separation fence between them and the Green Line.
These enclave-loops were created in order to ensure that most of the settlements are outside the fence. The enclave of Arab a-Ramadin was created to ensure that Alfei Menashe is outside the fence. The fence - with its barbed wire, ditches, patrol tracks, wide security road and the gates that should open three times a day - creates a loop here that penetrates deep into the West Bank, a distance of around eight kilometers from the Green Line. As in other enclaves, it cuts off residents from their fields, separates clinics and their medical staffs from their patients, grocery stores from their customers, students from their schools. A school and grocery store that were respectively 300 and 700 meters away until a year or two ago, are now several kilometres further away and that in turn also imposes economic hardship on the family: the cost of taxi fares.
Three of the older Bedouin who still tended sheep had to sell them: the enclave does not provide enough space for grazing. The families no longer have the means to regularly purchase fodder for the sheep and goats due to the loss of job opportunities in Israel and the West Bank. All three of the elderly shepherds became physically ill after they sold their flocks.
The IDF and the Civil Administration in October 2003 created a special category for those thousands of Palestinians who live in the area between the fence and the Green Line, which has been officially declared a military area closed to Palestinians, but not closed to Jews: "long-term residents." The regulations that apply to this new category and the fact that the area is a closed military area grant Civil Administration officials full authority to check residency permits once every few months, and to renew or not renew them.
The new category obligates the residents to request an entry permit to those areas for anyone who is not registered with the Israeli authorities as a resident of the enclave: relatives, cab drivers, doctors, sanitation men, teachers, etc. Some receive the permits; others do not. The permits issued to Arab a-Ramadin residents - so that they can stay in their homes inside the closed military area, leave and then return - are valid until April 2004. Tribe members are convinced that if they are quoted, someone in the Civil Administration or the Shin Bet General Security Service, upon whose good graces they depend, will decide "due to security reasons" not to renew their permit to enter their home.
The word "home" prompts tired smiles on the faces of Arab a-Ramadin residents. Their small tin huts and concrete structures are spread over a green hill and its rocky slopes, in between a few sheep pens, small vegetable patches, improvised fences, family diwans (spaces covered with cloth sheets and rugs). They are originally from the Be'er Sheva area and were expelled and fled in 1948. They first settled in the Hebron area and in the mid-1950s headed north with their flocks to the Qalqilyah region. Gradually, and especially after the economic changes sparked by the capture of the territories in 1967, they began to settle down, and attempted to modernize: from tents and a nomadic life of shepherding, they switched to corrugated tin huts, more urban livelihoods such as construction, and started sending their sons and daughters to study in local schools. It was a natural process, not something imposed on them from above. Some of them purchased their lands from the surrounding villages, others leased lands or swapped other parcels of land for the lands here.
Without a master plan
According to some of the final demolition orders, it seem that already in 2000 stop work orders were issued for some of the structures, including the one that houses the electricity generator. Arab a-Ramadin residents always knew that the Israeli authorities did not draw up a master plan for them and that there was no point in submitting requests to build real houses that matched the improved financial situation of several of them and their changed, modern tastes. Because there is no master plan, they also did not connect to the electricity grid - the one that lights up, for example, the neighboring community which has been developing since 1982: Alfei Menashe. They are also not officially connected to the water network: they hooked up a long plastic pipe from the village of Habla. In the summer, the water is boiling. The Oslo Accords designated them as Area C, which is under Israeli civilian and security responsibility. Several demolition and stop work orders were also issued in two nearby places: the village of Wadi ar-Rasha and the corrugated tin hut community of the small Abu Farda tribe. Each one has around 90 residents. Both of them abut Alfei Menashe: one is located adjacent to its industrial zone and the other is adjacent to its western neighborhoods.
When Israel started building the separation fence's loops around them, the workers razed one of Wadi ar-Rasha's barns, built by its owners six years earlier. The reason: It was too close to the fence. In April 2003, when construction of the fence was fully underway, five additional demolition orders arrived in Wadi ar-Rasha: for a concrete structure, for an extension of an existing house and for a large tin structure. And there were another two demolition orders for two barns. This village, like several other neighboring villages, was apparently set up in the 19th century by residents of the village of Tulat, which is located to the east, whose lands officially extend to Jaljuliya in the west. It was a natural process of Palestinian settlement, typical of the rural residents who went with their flocks several kilometers away from the parent community, made homes inside caves and gradually settled in the new location. In recent years, after the Civil Administration issued demolition orders, building extensions intended to ease the crowding in Wadi ar-Rasha were razed.
In the two Bedouin communities and in Wadi ar-Rasha, residents are convinced that the Civil Administration's aim is to eliminate them completely from the area so that Alfei Menashe can develop even more, in the direction of the Green Line. One of the residents points to section six of their residence permit: "this permit does not represent proof of legal rights, including legal ownership or residency rights in the area, whichever is relevant." In other words, say the threatened residents, someone will come tomorrow and say that the land we are living on – not just the house - is not ours and that we are trespassing, that we have to leave.
And indeed, the Civil Administration, in its response to Haaretz, claims "the settlement of the Ramadin tribe, Abu Farda and Wadi ar-Rasha are illegal [the mistakes are in the original - A.H.]. Over the years, orders were issued, as they are issued for all illegal construction." The Civil Administration spokesman also stated that there is no connection between the construction of the fence and the issuing of demolition orders. "This a statutory legal process, civilian, of enforcing the law ... the Civil Administration is charged with enforcing the law as it relates to all matters of illegal construction in Area C of Judea and Samaria."
According to one Arab a-Ramadin resident, a Civil Administration official has tried over the last few months to lobby them to leave the area and settle elsewhere. In her response, the Civil Administration spokesman does not confirm or deny this claim. But, she said, "The Civil Administration is now in the middle of concerted efforts to review the correlation between master plans in Area C and the reality and the needs of the Palestinian population living in the area, in order to find solutions for issues of this nature." The Civil Administration's response also stated that work is now underway to connect the villages to the electricity grid (but in Arab a-Ramadin, for example, they do not know about that and haven't seen any signs that they're being connected to the electricity grid).
The Palestinians in the Alfei Menashe enclave do not believe the Israeli promises. For them, the demolition orders are more tangible than any promise given in response to an Israeli newspaper's query, while the discussions in The Hague are going on. "If they raze all of our tin and cement block structure," says an Arab a-Ramadin resident, "we will move into tents. The way it used to be. And if they want us to go away from here, then please, send us back to our natural place, where we were originally - Be'er Sheva."
3. When soldiers become bullies
By Gideon Levy
Three armed bullies in black ski masks get out of the jeep quickly. One breaks into shouts at the taxi driver who is letting off a female passenger, waving a rifle in the driver's face and ordering him out of the car. The bully then orders the frightened driver to hand over the keys to his taxi and get going. The helpless driver hands over his keys. In a feeble voice he asks if and when he can get his taxi back. "Maybe at the end of the day, maybe Wednesday. We'll see," says the thug, sticking the keys into his pocket, getting back in the jeep and driving away.
Highway bandits in Chechnya? Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Balata? No. The three bullies were Israeli soldiers. They confiscated the car from its owner, as they routinely do, because he let out a passenger on the other side of a blurry yellow line painted onto the Tul Karm road. The road is blocked by an unmanned iron bar. Passengers are supposed to cross on foot, from taxis on one side to taxis on the other - it's not at all clear why - and the drivers know that if they cross the yellow line the soldiers will appear out of nowhere and confiscate the cars or slice the tires. Indeed, one of the soldiers threatened to slice the tires of our car, which was parked past the remnants of the yellow line.
This "battle heritage" is passed down through the Israel Defense Forces without obstruction and all the Palestinians drivers know it. Any time they venture onto one of the few roads left to them in the West Bank, they are taking a risk. Maybe they'll be shot "by mistake," maybe their car will be confiscated for some vague reason. That's why the few roads of the West Bank where Palestinians are allowed to drive are nearly always empty. The driver whose car was confiscated, Samr Abdullah, did not know how to get home.
A brigadier who serves in the territories said in a private conversation on the weekend that the confiscation of cars and ID cards is prohibited by the army. Really? After all, if the army wanted to put an end to it, it could easily do so. The IDF Spokesman's Office also says there is no policy of confiscating cars and if it turns out that the events we witnessed last Sunday happened, "the soldiers will be severely punished."
Is the IDF Spokesman's Office being naive or disingenuous or was this really the first time it heard about soldiers confiscating the keys to a Palestinian car or slashing its tires? It's not clear what's worse. Any soldier nowadays can take any Palestinian car for any reason and for as long as he wants. When every soldier is a king, any group of soldiers can turn into a gang.
Confiscating cars is only one example of how an IDF regime of bullying has emerged and is being strengthened in the territories. There is a great deal of hypocrisy in the talk about how anarchy will reign in the territories after the IDF leaves. The disintegration of the rule of law and order begins inside the army. Every day one can see soldiers confiscating ID cards from residents, making them line up for hours in the sun and rain for no reason whatsoever, and just for the fun of it smashing memorial monuments to Palestinian casualties - like last week in Beir Furik.
In the last three years, an atmosphere of anything goes has taken root in the IDF in the territories. Any soldier can do whatever he feels like to any Palestinian - the incident won't be investigated, the soldier won't be punished.
The disintegration of the rule of law does not stop with the soldiers. Brothers Naim and Ayad Murar, who organized nonviolent demonstrations against the separation fence in Budrus, were arrested a month ago with the intention of throwing them into long months of administrative detention without trial. At the last minute, Ayad was freed by a judge who ruled that nonviolent demonstrations are no cause for administrative detention. But his brother Naim was sent to four months of administrative detention for his "terror-supporting activity." Only due to the intervention of attorneys Tamar Peleg and Yal Barda, and the courageous position taken by Lieutenant Colonel Shlomi Kochav, was Naim freed on the weekend after a month in detention, thus preventing a further disgrace. Serious questions are raised by the arrogance of security officials who wanted to lock people up for attempting to organize nonviolent demonstrations against a fence being built on their property.
There is a direct and disgusting line between the car confiscators and those who jail demonstrators without trial. Both are manifestations of gangland rule. Despite the separation fence, that kind of behavior will inevitably cross the Green Line.
Friday, February 13
MCC Palestine Update #95
MCC Palestine Update #95
February 13, 2004
“The Government of Israel does not believe that pilgrims and tourists have normal cause to visit Gaza.” That’s what an official from the Israeli Embassy in Great Britain told a Catholic priest who had called to inquire about troubling new Israeli regulations that were being handed to many international visitors upon their arrivals in Israel, informing them that entry into “Palestinian Authority” areas—Bethlehem, Gaza, Ramallah, Jericho—was forbidden without prior written authorisation. The Israeli official denied that the regulations applied say, to tourists and pilgrims wishing to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but only to Gaza. With the pattern of the past years having been one of increased restrictions on movement, and with the fences and walls Israel is erecting in the West Bank progressively giving it the capability it has in Gaza of enclosing entire populations, one can legitimately be sceptical that, in the future, entry to Bethlehem and Jericho, say, will not become difficult to impossible. For now, however, it’s abundantly clear that Israel plans to place severe limits on internationals wishing to enter the Gaza Strip. Diplomats, aid workers (including MCCers), UN staff usually can gain access, even if they have their stories of frustration. Others, however, will most likely be turned away.
On February 10, 2004, MCC workers accompanied a group of students and professors from Eastern Mennonite University, in the country as part of a cross-cultural semester in the Middle East. The group has been staying in the Bethlehem area (and thus in “Area A,” in violation of the regulations as spelled out in the recent travel warning), enjoying Palestinian hospitality, attending lectures, being immersed in the historical, social, religious, and political complexities of Palestine/Israel. The past several times EMU groups have been in the country, they have incorporated trips to Gaza, where they met with MCC mission partners.
This week the group was to have visited the local Catholic church and school in Gaza and children’s centers operated by the Culture and Free Thought Association in the refugee camps of the southern Gaza Strip. Despite the fact that I had been in repeated contact with the Israeli military officials at the Erez crossing point into the Gaza Strip, furnishing them weeks in advance with the passport information for each member of the group, the group was denied entry, simply told that authorisation had not been granted; over an hour of follow-up phone calls were in vain.
We at MCC are very disturbed by this denial of entry to the EMU group. We believe that Christians have very compelling reasons to visit the Gaza Strip (beyond enjoying the sea, which is lovely, the food, which is delicious, and visiting Byzantine, Crusader, Mamluke, and Ottoman-era churches, mosques, and baths). Christians should be allowed to visit the Gaza Strip in order to be in spiritual solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ who worship at Gaza’s Orthodox, Catholic, and Baptist churches. Christians should be allowed to visit the Gaza Strip as a show of support to Christian institutions such as the Near East Council of Churches and the Ahli Arabi Hospital. Christians should be allowed to visit non-Christian Organisations, such as the Culture and Free Thought Association, who join with Christian Organisations such as MCC to promote the development of healthy, thriving communities. [Persons of other faiths, of course, would have other valid reasons for wanting to visit Gaza.]
Any claims that restrictions on entry into the Gaza Strip are motivated by security are suspect at best. Israel tightly controls the Gaza Strip, with all passage in and out going through multiple passport controls, with baggage checks and metal detectors. Meanwhile, Israeli officials say, tourists and pilgrims can still go into Bethlehem (from which, for the time being, it is possible, with some determination, to exit without being subject to Israeli checks). It is hard to escape the conclusion that Israel’s primary motivation for keeping internationals out of the Gaza Strip is to reduce the number of people who witness Israeli policies of dispossession in practice. The Gaza Strip is constantly stereotyped: its people are terrorists, its cities and refugee camps are squalid, etc. Visits by tourists and pilgrims to the Strip are concrete ways of breaking down such inaccurate portrayals. The current Israeli government, however, appears much less intent on fostering bridge-building than on shoring up psychological, legal, and concrete walls that generate hate.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, by Amira Hass of Haaretz, critically dissects the claim made by Israeli National Security Advisor Giora Eiland that “The planners of the fence failed to predict its effects on innocent Palestinians.” The problem was not one of a failure of prediction, but rather a failure to care. The second, again by Hass, looks at life in the village of Budrus, west of Ramallah and only a few kilometres east of the “Green Line” between Israel and the West Bank; the separation wall, as Hass describes, will have a devastating effect on this community. In the final piece, US commentators Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibisih take a critical look at the rhetoric and the reality of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposed evacuation of Gaza Strip settlements.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Failed predictions, Haaretz, Feb. 11, 2004
By Amira Hass
"The planners of the fence failed to predict its effects on innocent Palestinians," National Security Advisor Giora Eiland told a high-level diplomatic-security forum in Germany this week (Haaretz, February 9). Like Eiland, other Israeli representatives are now trying to convince the western countries and the United States in particular that the route of the separation fence is a human, localized and almost chance error that can be corrected to minimize the damage.
We have a new sentry to blame for what has gone wrong: the rather anonymous planners of the separation fence. Some sort of personal, individual limitation caused them to fail and not to predict the extent to which "the lives of innocent people would be affected" by the construction of the fortifications, which has destroyed and is destroying wells that are essential to agriculture, is uprooting tens of thousands of olive trees and other trees and is wiping out hundreds of greenhouses in which thousands of people have invested the savings of years.
One really does need special analytical powers to predict that caging thousands of people behind iron gates and stationing 19-year-old soldiers to open them, if they feel like it, two or three times a day - would have a deleterious affect on studies at schools and universities, sabotage medical treatment for cancer and kidney patients and split up families. After all, only especially creative minds could have guessed that it would be very hard for 260,000 people to maintain "a normal fabric of life" in the 81 enclaves of various sorts that the fence creates. Eighty-one enclaves that separate them from neighboring villages, from the provincial towns and from the rest of the West Bank, shutting them in behind barbed wire fences and guard towers and excavations and double fences and bureaucratic-military systems of permits to go in and out of the enclaves that are needed by garbage collectors and doctors, family members and teachers.
The truth is that what was hard to predict was the international shock at the fence. United States National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is not pleased (and not only the United nations General Assembly) and Western diplomats are saying things in inner conclaves, especially when it turns out that development projects that had been funded by their countries have been destroyed under the fence's bulldozers.
The European countries are opposed to holding the deliberations at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but they too have reservations about the fence's route and the damage it causes. Television channels around the world are showing documentary films about the fence and its ills, and it isn't possible to keep repeating the chorus that the motives are anti-Semitic. If it were not for all this, it is doubtful that various representatives of the state - like the Prosecutor's Office and before that, military sources - would be hinting about a change in the route of the fence and admitting a failure to "predict" how bad the damage would be to the innocent. They simply did not care about the damage.
After all, the kinds of damage that the fence is causing are not new. The Israeli occupation regime has been testing them successfully for 37 years now, sometimes in the name of security and sometimes in the name of the Jewish people's right to preferential rights in this country.
Neither the Meridor committee nor the Oslo agreement did away with the Israeli habit of harming the Palestinians' rights to water, land, freedom of movement, earning a living and development.
By the second half of 2002 it was already possible to know that the route of the fence was far from the Green Line (pre-Six Day War border), that it creates enclaves and that it harms the "vegetable garden" of the Palestinian economy. But at that time it was hard to bring to the Israeli media - which evinced no interest in the matter at that stage - reports about the extent of the fence's damage to the civilian population. The data and the reports on massive confiscations and uprooting of trees that were published by various Palestinian Organisations were not read in Hebrew. B'Tselem published its first position paper in September, 2002, which warned of the implications of the route of the fence, including a mortal blow to Palestinian life. Who remembers?
By the middle of 2003 the planners of the route of the fence had full backing - from the political system, from the print and the electronic media, from the street and from key figures in the Israeli peace camp. The idea of the fence, without going into detail, offered people frightened by the suicide terror attacks a hope that their personal security was achievable with no connection to any political solution. It offered a refuge from the disturbing knowledge that Israel is evading an offer of a sustainable political, humane, rational solution that the Palestinians can accept.
The military plan to build elevated bridges and sunken roads between the enclaves is a bone thrown to international public opinion and another vain solution offered to the Israelis that diverts attention from the essence. The planners of the route that harms the Palestinians are doing this on behalf of the state of Israel, which almost unhindered has built in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip a regime of Jewish superiority that inevitably violates the rights of the Palestinian individual and collective. Key parts of Israeli society have become blind to the damage, and the occupation regime is as much taken for granted as the sunrise in the east.
2. The village against the fence, Haaretz, Feb. 11, 2004
By Amira Hass
A serious-looking black dog, whose eyes looked almost hollow, freely crossed the naked strip of land west of the villages of Qibiya and Budrus, which stretches from the village of Rantis, about five
kilometers to the north.
A young resident of Qibiya guiding the visitors among the olive groves and fruit orchards of his village, up to the route of the fence, hastened to cross the ditch that has already been dug on both sides of the route, and to disappear among the trees. It was soon clear why – an Israeli security vehicle was approaching from the north toward those walking on the exposed strip, as soon as it detected them.
The vehicle stopped and two men got out. One, the shorter and older, carrying a rifle, was from Kfar Yonah; the second was from a Bedouin community in the Galilee. The one with the rifle angrily demanded that the visitors who came on foot leave immediately, or he would call the police so they would explain, if you insist, that this is a closed military area, even if he had no papers to prove it. His friend, who served in the army for seven years and was discharged half a year ago, calmed things down before they heated up.
The one with the rifle asserted that the presence of cameras encourages people to come and demonstrate, and that's how the waves of riots begin. "Isn't it you, by your work, who are causing the waves of rioting?" he asked, and the question wasn't quite understood. What are you talking about, we are doing our work, explained the younger man. And of course I support the fence, so I won't explode with my family in a restaurant.
The "riots" the two were talking about are a series of demonstrations against the fence that have been held by the residents of Budrus for about a month. "We decided that unlike other places until now, where international peace activists conducted the battle against the fence and the Palestinians supported them, we, the residents of Budrus, would wage our own battle."
Those are the words of Ayad Murar, 42, a veteran Fatah activist, who with his brother Naim was among the founders of the popular committee in the village "for the struggle against the apartheid wall." The popular committee, he says, emphasized to the people that the battle against the bulldozers and the many soldiers and police who protect them must be conducted without violence.
Curfew and arrests
All residents answered the call to demonstrate - young and old, men and women. What began as a strike along the route of the fence reached a climax on December 30. Somebody saw a bulldozer approaching the olive grove. The speaker in the mosque quickly announced it, and everyone who was in the village ran westward, toward the grove.
School children ran out of the classrooms, books in hand. Tear gas, rubber bullets and blows did not stop the villagers, who dispersed and returned to stand or to sit in front of the soldiers and the police, on the ground. Eyewitnesses say that the female students sat in front of the many soldiers, who retreated to their jeeps. The appearance of several television cameras helped.
During the following days, the Israel Defense Forces imposed a curfew on the village in order to prevent the residents from going out to demonstrate. Mainly young men violated the curfew and walked to the olive grove, to prevent the bulldozers from doing their work. Up to this week, the bulldozers have not returned to work - after they already uprooted about 60 olive trees. The people of Budrus attribute this to their stubbornness and determination.
A few days after this demonstration, the IDF arrested Naim Murar. He was released on January 11, but didn't manage to be home for more than three days when the army came again to arrest him and his brother Ayad. The military prosecutor demanded that they be placed under administrative detention.
In the military court at the Ofer army base, the judge, Major Adrian Agassi, decided to release Ayad. "I found it proper to intervene in the decision of the military commander," ruled Agassi in his decision. "After all, we cannot allow the military commander to use his authority to order the administrative detention of a person only because of this activity [against the fence]. In my opinion, this is a mistaken decision that did not stem from clear security considerations."
But the judge decided to approve the decision of the military commander to place Naim Murar under administrative detention. As is customary in administrative detention, only the judge was allowed to peruse the classified documents given to him by members of the Shin Bet security services, and according to these documents, "the intelligence material attributes to him activity in support of terror, in the context of the Tanzim organization."
But in Budrus people are convinced that the second detention of Naim Murar - like that of eight other activists against the fence - is an attempt to dismantle the opposition in the village. From Budrus' threatened olive grove sounds of firing can be heard - sounds of training exercises. They come from the Adam military base, which is a few dozen meters to the west, 20-30 meters west of the Green Line.
In Budrus they believe that because of this army base, which is a few dozen meters from the Green Line, the route of the fence was pushed straight into the beautiful olive grove that they have been nurturing for decades. Budrus lost most of its lands in 1948 - many thousands of dunams, some count up to 20,000, remained on the western side of the Green Line.
Some land remained in the demilitarized zone, which both Israeli and Jordanian forces were forbidden to enter. Since 1967, say the villagers, the demilitarized zone has become Israeli, and they weren't allowed to return to work their land there as well.
The route that is planned according to the map of the Israeli security services looks as though it is right on the Green Line. But in reality, all the difference lies in several dozen meters east of the Green Line. Now, of the 5,000 dunams that remain to the approximately 1,400 residents of Budrus, they estimate that they will lose about one fifth.
Some of this land is being confiscated for the fence itself, part of the area of the village will remain behind the fence - between the fence and the Green Line. The villagers estimate that 3,000 olive trees, which cover an area of about 5,000 dunams, will be lost under the teeth of the bulldozers or will be trapped in areas where entry is forbidden.
They figure that the "fence" - namely, two ditches that will be dug on both sides of it, and the two barbed wire fences, and the electronic fence with the sensors, and the patrol roads between them, and the watchtowers - will almost touch some of the most western houses in the village, including the school.
Imprisoned enclave
The occupation and preparation of the land here, west of Kibiya and Budrus, are being carried out in the context of the second stage of the building of the security fence. According to the plan, and as long as it has not been decided or proved otherwise, in the context of this stage two Palestinian enclaves will be created west of Ramallah.
These are two out of 81 Palestinian enclaves that have been created and will be created all along the fence, which are discussed in the report by B'Tselem. Some will be between the fence and the Green Line, some in small "loops" created by the fence, and some will be the result of "secondary obstacles," as the army puts it.
Budrus is one of the nine Palestinian villages that will find themselves in an enclave with an area of 53.2 square kilometers. These villages include Luban al Gharabiyeh, Rantis, Shuqba, Qibiya, Shabtin, Budrus,
Midya, Na'lin and Dir Kadis. The village of Midiya will be surrounded on all sides by the separation fence, as in a loop.
According to the map of the Israeli security services, one could have concluded immediately that an enclave would be created here. The routes of the western and eastern fences are the same color, as though there is no difference between them.
Military spokesman did in fact explain to members of the support unit of the Palestinian negotiating division that the eastern fence would not be similar to the western one, and would apparently be composed of what is called a "secondary obstacle" (a system of ditches and barbed wire fences) and an eastern gate on the roads to Ramallah and the villages surrounding it - which would be locked and blocked off only in case of security alerts. But in any case, this promise does not reassure the village residents, who know that they are losing thousands of dunams of their land.
In the past three years they have already had a taste of checkpoints that prevented their access to the neighboring villages or to the district center, Ramallah. And even if the gate or the gates in the eastern, "secondary" fence are open most of the time - in Rantis, Budrus and the other villages they point to the maps and to the new political geography that is being created before their eyes.
The two small Palestinian enclaves that are being created west of Ramallah leave two large settlement blocs outside of them, which cut deep into the Palestinian territory and are joined within Israel itself,
until one can no longer see that there was a Green Line.
"That's why we are fighting against this fence," says Ayad Murar from his home, talking about this new geography. "It is part of our struggle for a peaceful solution to the conflict - the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel."
Between November and December 2003, military orders began to be posted in the Rantis, Budrus and other villages, regarding the "temporary" seizure of land (until December 2005) for military purposes. According to these orders, which are signed by the chief of Central Command Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, the width of the strips of land confiscated from the villages will range from 68 to 490 meters. The entire length of the (primary and secondary) fence that will surround the nine villages in the enclave - 32.2 kilometers.
Meanwhile, some of the residents of Budrus continue to sneak into Israel on foot, to make a living, mainly in construction. Others, who have lost their jobs in Israel in recent years, have found various jobs in the Ramallah area. But if they are closed within an enclave, they are liable to lose these places of work. Palestinian employers cannot withstand the frequent incidents of lateness caused by the blocks and the checkpoints.
"Come to live in Ramallah, or leave the job," they are told. Grocery store owners are feeling the difference. People come in infrequently, buy on credit, they buy only what is essential. It's hard to imagine what else will happen when the large olive grove is crushed beneath the teeth of the bulldozers or is swallowed up on the other side of the fence, and when it won't be possible to work in Israel at all any longer.
3. Chicago Tribune
February 6, 2004
What does Sharon's latest settlement move mean for Israel?
By Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's announcement that he plans to remove virtually all Israeli settlers from the occupied Gaza Strip has caused a shock wave in Israel.
Has some sudden epiphany convinced Sharon that the settlements are the key obstacle to peace and that Israel's future is jeopardized by the continued attempt to incorporate occupied Palestinian territories into a greater Israel?
Many Israelis, especially in the military, have long felt that the Gaza settlements are pointless, and a massive drain on national resources for no serious purpose. The small Gaza settlements are purely symbolic, in stark contrast to the massive settlements on the West Bank, which have literally reshaped the landscape and are designed also to transform its demographic and political realities, making Israel's control permanent.
While Sharon talks about removing settlements in Gaza, he is continuing to build them all over the West Bank, because he has no intention of permitting a real Palestinian state to be constructed.
One of the main reasons President Bush's "road map" for peace failed was that Sharon reneged on promises that he would start removing new settlement "outposts." Instead, he made a show of removing a few small, uninhabited sites, while setting up many more new ones and expanding dozens of major settlements up and down the West Bank.
Since Sharon broke those promises, Israel has announced thousands of new settler housing units. It recently allocated $1 million for yet another Jewish-only road in the West Bank, this one to connect an outpost settlement to a school run by an extremist Israeli group the U.S. State Department has formally designated as a terrorist organization.
Sharon's announcement could simply be a ploy to offset scandals at home, and growing pressure on Israel abroad, by trying to create the impression that he is taking some far-reaching initiative without intending to actually do anything.
Within Israel, his proposal has divided the opposition.
The right now is split between those who see him as a traitor to the cause of settling all of "Eretz Yisrael," or the Land of Israel, and those who see him as a pragmatist who can make tough decisions. Some on the left mistrust him completely, while others, like Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, welcome his proposals.
Sharon's announcement has also drawn international attention away from the appalling separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.
Sharon probably does intend to remove the settlements from Gaza, although his strategic vision has only been hinted at.
His spokesman Raanan Gissin explained that "Sharon envisages territorial exchanges with the Palestinians as part of future permanent arrangements, under which Arab Israeli localities would pass under the sovereignty of the latter, while Jewish settlements [in the West Bank] would be integrated into
Israeli territory."
Sharon seems to be looking for a way to keep control of the West Bank--hence all the new settlements and the separation wall deep inside Palestinian territory--but maintain a Jewish majority among citizens of Israel.
Twenty percent of Israel's citizens are Arabs. Gissin is proposing to strip at least some of them of their citizenship and transfer their villages to a Palestinian mini-state within a greater Israel.
From what we can piece together from his actions and statements, Sharon's vision includes offloading to a faux Palestinian state the burden of Gaza, political responsibility for Palestinians in the West Bank, and a significant number of Israeli citizens of Arab origin as well.
Such an arrangement would closely resemble efforts by South Africa's apartheid rulers to maintain white rule and strip black citizens of their rights as South Africans by creating ostensibly independent states for them known as Bantustans.
That ploy failed disastrously because the international community saw this deception for what it was, while the injustices it created on the ground led to ever more determined protest and resistance.
It appears that Sharon is hoping to pull the same trick and get away with it.
Ali Abunimah is a political analyst based in Chicago. Hussein Ibish is communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
February 13, 2004
“The Government of Israel does not believe that pilgrims and tourists have normal cause to visit Gaza.” That’s what an official from the Israeli Embassy in Great Britain told a Catholic priest who had called to inquire about troubling new Israeli regulations that were being handed to many international visitors upon their arrivals in Israel, informing them that entry into “Palestinian Authority” areas—Bethlehem, Gaza, Ramallah, Jericho—was forbidden without prior written authorisation. The Israeli official denied that the regulations applied say, to tourists and pilgrims wishing to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but only to Gaza. With the pattern of the past years having been one of increased restrictions on movement, and with the fences and walls Israel is erecting in the West Bank progressively giving it the capability it has in Gaza of enclosing entire populations, one can legitimately be sceptical that, in the future, entry to Bethlehem and Jericho, say, will not become difficult to impossible. For now, however, it’s abundantly clear that Israel plans to place severe limits on internationals wishing to enter the Gaza Strip. Diplomats, aid workers (including MCCers), UN staff usually can gain access, even if they have their stories of frustration. Others, however, will most likely be turned away.
On February 10, 2004, MCC workers accompanied a group of students and professors from Eastern Mennonite University, in the country as part of a cross-cultural semester in the Middle East. The group has been staying in the Bethlehem area (and thus in “Area A,” in violation of the regulations as spelled out in the recent travel warning), enjoying Palestinian hospitality, attending lectures, being immersed in the historical, social, religious, and political complexities of Palestine/Israel. The past several times EMU groups have been in the country, they have incorporated trips to Gaza, where they met with MCC mission partners.
This week the group was to have visited the local Catholic church and school in Gaza and children’s centers operated by the Culture and Free Thought Association in the refugee camps of the southern Gaza Strip. Despite the fact that I had been in repeated contact with the Israeli military officials at the Erez crossing point into the Gaza Strip, furnishing them weeks in advance with the passport information for each member of the group, the group was denied entry, simply told that authorisation had not been granted; over an hour of follow-up phone calls were in vain.
We at MCC are very disturbed by this denial of entry to the EMU group. We believe that Christians have very compelling reasons to visit the Gaza Strip (beyond enjoying the sea, which is lovely, the food, which is delicious, and visiting Byzantine, Crusader, Mamluke, and Ottoman-era churches, mosques, and baths). Christians should be allowed to visit the Gaza Strip in order to be in spiritual solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ who worship at Gaza’s Orthodox, Catholic, and Baptist churches. Christians should be allowed to visit the Gaza Strip as a show of support to Christian institutions such as the Near East Council of Churches and the Ahli Arabi Hospital. Christians should be allowed to visit non-Christian Organisations, such as the Culture and Free Thought Association, who join with Christian Organisations such as MCC to promote the development of healthy, thriving communities. [Persons of other faiths, of course, would have other valid reasons for wanting to visit Gaza.]
Any claims that restrictions on entry into the Gaza Strip are motivated by security are suspect at best. Israel tightly controls the Gaza Strip, with all passage in and out going through multiple passport controls, with baggage checks and metal detectors. Meanwhile, Israeli officials say, tourists and pilgrims can still go into Bethlehem (from which, for the time being, it is possible, with some determination, to exit without being subject to Israeli checks). It is hard to escape the conclusion that Israel’s primary motivation for keeping internationals out of the Gaza Strip is to reduce the number of people who witness Israeli policies of dispossession in practice. The Gaza Strip is constantly stereotyped: its people are terrorists, its cities and refugee camps are squalid, etc. Visits by tourists and pilgrims to the Strip are concrete ways of breaking down such inaccurate portrayals. The current Israeli government, however, appears much less intent on fostering bridge-building than on shoring up psychological, legal, and concrete walls that generate hate.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, by Amira Hass of Haaretz, critically dissects the claim made by Israeli National Security Advisor Giora Eiland that “The planners of the fence failed to predict its effects on innocent Palestinians.” The problem was not one of a failure of prediction, but rather a failure to care. The second, again by Hass, looks at life in the village of Budrus, west of Ramallah and only a few kilometres east of the “Green Line” between Israel and the West Bank; the separation wall, as Hass describes, will have a devastating effect on this community. In the final piece, US commentators Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibisih take a critical look at the rhetoric and the reality of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposed evacuation of Gaza Strip settlements.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Failed predictions, Haaretz, Feb. 11, 2004
By Amira Hass
"The planners of the fence failed to predict its effects on innocent Palestinians," National Security Advisor Giora Eiland told a high-level diplomatic-security forum in Germany this week (Haaretz, February 9). Like Eiland, other Israeli representatives are now trying to convince the western countries and the United States in particular that the route of the separation fence is a human, localized and almost chance error that can be corrected to minimize the damage.
We have a new sentry to blame for what has gone wrong: the rather anonymous planners of the separation fence. Some sort of personal, individual limitation caused them to fail and not to predict the extent to which "the lives of innocent people would be affected" by the construction of the fortifications, which has destroyed and is destroying wells that are essential to agriculture, is uprooting tens of thousands of olive trees and other trees and is wiping out hundreds of greenhouses in which thousands of people have invested the savings of years.
One really does need special analytical powers to predict that caging thousands of people behind iron gates and stationing 19-year-old soldiers to open them, if they feel like it, two or three times a day - would have a deleterious affect on studies at schools and universities, sabotage medical treatment for cancer and kidney patients and split up families. After all, only especially creative minds could have guessed that it would be very hard for 260,000 people to maintain "a normal fabric of life" in the 81 enclaves of various sorts that the fence creates. Eighty-one enclaves that separate them from neighboring villages, from the provincial towns and from the rest of the West Bank, shutting them in behind barbed wire fences and guard towers and excavations and double fences and bureaucratic-military systems of permits to go in and out of the enclaves that are needed by garbage collectors and doctors, family members and teachers.
The truth is that what was hard to predict was the international shock at the fence. United States National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is not pleased (and not only the United nations General Assembly) and Western diplomats are saying things in inner conclaves, especially when it turns out that development projects that had been funded by their countries have been destroyed under the fence's bulldozers.
The European countries are opposed to holding the deliberations at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but they too have reservations about the fence's route and the damage it causes. Television channels around the world are showing documentary films about the fence and its ills, and it isn't possible to keep repeating the chorus that the motives are anti-Semitic. If it were not for all this, it is doubtful that various representatives of the state - like the Prosecutor's Office and before that, military sources - would be hinting about a change in the route of the fence and admitting a failure to "predict" how bad the damage would be to the innocent. They simply did not care about the damage.
After all, the kinds of damage that the fence is causing are not new. The Israeli occupation regime has been testing them successfully for 37 years now, sometimes in the name of security and sometimes in the name of the Jewish people's right to preferential rights in this country.
Neither the Meridor committee nor the Oslo agreement did away with the Israeli habit of harming the Palestinians' rights to water, land, freedom of movement, earning a living and development.
By the second half of 2002 it was already possible to know that the route of the fence was far from the Green Line (pre-Six Day War border), that it creates enclaves and that it harms the "vegetable garden" of the Palestinian economy. But at that time it was hard to bring to the Israeli media - which evinced no interest in the matter at that stage - reports about the extent of the fence's damage to the civilian population. The data and the reports on massive confiscations and uprooting of trees that were published by various Palestinian Organisations were not read in Hebrew. B'Tselem published its first position paper in September, 2002, which warned of the implications of the route of the fence, including a mortal blow to Palestinian life. Who remembers?
By the middle of 2003 the planners of the route of the fence had full backing - from the political system, from the print and the electronic media, from the street and from key figures in the Israeli peace camp. The idea of the fence, without going into detail, offered people frightened by the suicide terror attacks a hope that their personal security was achievable with no connection to any political solution. It offered a refuge from the disturbing knowledge that Israel is evading an offer of a sustainable political, humane, rational solution that the Palestinians can accept.
The military plan to build elevated bridges and sunken roads between the enclaves is a bone thrown to international public opinion and another vain solution offered to the Israelis that diverts attention from the essence. The planners of the route that harms the Palestinians are doing this on behalf of the state of Israel, which almost unhindered has built in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip a regime of Jewish superiority that inevitably violates the rights of the Palestinian individual and collective. Key parts of Israeli society have become blind to the damage, and the occupation regime is as much taken for granted as the sunrise in the east.
2. The village against the fence, Haaretz, Feb. 11, 2004
By Amira Hass
A serious-looking black dog, whose eyes looked almost hollow, freely crossed the naked strip of land west of the villages of Qibiya and Budrus, which stretches from the village of Rantis, about five
kilometers to the north.
A young resident of Qibiya guiding the visitors among the olive groves and fruit orchards of his village, up to the route of the fence, hastened to cross the ditch that has already been dug on both sides of the route, and to disappear among the trees. It was soon clear why – an Israeli security vehicle was approaching from the north toward those walking on the exposed strip, as soon as it detected them.
The vehicle stopped and two men got out. One, the shorter and older, carrying a rifle, was from Kfar Yonah; the second was from a Bedouin community in the Galilee. The one with the rifle angrily demanded that the visitors who came on foot leave immediately, or he would call the police so they would explain, if you insist, that this is a closed military area, even if he had no papers to prove it. His friend, who served in the army for seven years and was discharged half a year ago, calmed things down before they heated up.
The one with the rifle asserted that the presence of cameras encourages people to come and demonstrate, and that's how the waves of riots begin. "Isn't it you, by your work, who are causing the waves of rioting?" he asked, and the question wasn't quite understood. What are you talking about, we are doing our work, explained the younger man. And of course I support the fence, so I won't explode with my family in a restaurant.
The "riots" the two were talking about are a series of demonstrations against the fence that have been held by the residents of Budrus for about a month. "We decided that unlike other places until now, where international peace activists conducted the battle against the fence and the Palestinians supported them, we, the residents of Budrus, would wage our own battle."
Those are the words of Ayad Murar, 42, a veteran Fatah activist, who with his brother Naim was among the founders of the popular committee in the village "for the struggle against the apartheid wall." The popular committee, he says, emphasized to the people that the battle against the bulldozers and the many soldiers and police who protect them must be conducted without violence.
Curfew and arrests
All residents answered the call to demonstrate - young and old, men and women. What began as a strike along the route of the fence reached a climax on December 30. Somebody saw a bulldozer approaching the olive grove. The speaker in the mosque quickly announced it, and everyone who was in the village ran westward, toward the grove.
School children ran out of the classrooms, books in hand. Tear gas, rubber bullets and blows did not stop the villagers, who dispersed and returned to stand or to sit in front of the soldiers and the police, on the ground. Eyewitnesses say that the female students sat in front of the many soldiers, who retreated to their jeeps. The appearance of several television cameras helped.
During the following days, the Israel Defense Forces imposed a curfew on the village in order to prevent the residents from going out to demonstrate. Mainly young men violated the curfew and walked to the olive grove, to prevent the bulldozers from doing their work. Up to this week, the bulldozers have not returned to work - after they already uprooted about 60 olive trees. The people of Budrus attribute this to their stubbornness and determination.
A few days after this demonstration, the IDF arrested Naim Murar. He was released on January 11, but didn't manage to be home for more than three days when the army came again to arrest him and his brother Ayad. The military prosecutor demanded that they be placed under administrative detention.
In the military court at the Ofer army base, the judge, Major Adrian Agassi, decided to release Ayad. "I found it proper to intervene in the decision of the military commander," ruled Agassi in his decision. "After all, we cannot allow the military commander to use his authority to order the administrative detention of a person only because of this activity [against the fence]. In my opinion, this is a mistaken decision that did not stem from clear security considerations."
But the judge decided to approve the decision of the military commander to place Naim Murar under administrative detention. As is customary in administrative detention, only the judge was allowed to peruse the classified documents given to him by members of the Shin Bet security services, and according to these documents, "the intelligence material attributes to him activity in support of terror, in the context of the Tanzim organization."
But in Budrus people are convinced that the second detention of Naim Murar - like that of eight other activists against the fence - is an attempt to dismantle the opposition in the village. From Budrus' threatened olive grove sounds of firing can be heard - sounds of training exercises. They come from the Adam military base, which is a few dozen meters to the west, 20-30 meters west of the Green Line.
In Budrus they believe that because of this army base, which is a few dozen meters from the Green Line, the route of the fence was pushed straight into the beautiful olive grove that they have been nurturing for decades. Budrus lost most of its lands in 1948 - many thousands of dunams, some count up to 20,000, remained on the western side of the Green Line.
Some land remained in the demilitarized zone, which both Israeli and Jordanian forces were forbidden to enter. Since 1967, say the villagers, the demilitarized zone has become Israeli, and they weren't allowed to return to work their land there as well.
The route that is planned according to the map of the Israeli security services looks as though it is right on the Green Line. But in reality, all the difference lies in several dozen meters east of the Green Line. Now, of the 5,000 dunams that remain to the approximately 1,400 residents of Budrus, they estimate that they will lose about one fifth.
Some of this land is being confiscated for the fence itself, part of the area of the village will remain behind the fence - between the fence and the Green Line. The villagers estimate that 3,000 olive trees, which cover an area of about 5,000 dunams, will be lost under the teeth of the bulldozers or will be trapped in areas where entry is forbidden.
They figure that the "fence" - namely, two ditches that will be dug on both sides of it, and the two barbed wire fences, and the electronic fence with the sensors, and the patrol roads between them, and the watchtowers - will almost touch some of the most western houses in the village, including the school.
Imprisoned enclave
The occupation and preparation of the land here, west of Kibiya and Budrus, are being carried out in the context of the second stage of the building of the security fence. According to the plan, and as long as it has not been decided or proved otherwise, in the context of this stage two Palestinian enclaves will be created west of Ramallah.
These are two out of 81 Palestinian enclaves that have been created and will be created all along the fence, which are discussed in the report by B'Tselem. Some will be between the fence and the Green Line, some in small "loops" created by the fence, and some will be the result of "secondary obstacles," as the army puts it.
Budrus is one of the nine Palestinian villages that will find themselves in an enclave with an area of 53.2 square kilometers. These villages include Luban al Gharabiyeh, Rantis, Shuqba, Qibiya, Shabtin, Budrus,
Midya, Na'lin and Dir Kadis. The village of Midiya will be surrounded on all sides by the separation fence, as in a loop.
According to the map of the Israeli security services, one could have concluded immediately that an enclave would be created here. The routes of the western and eastern fences are the same color, as though there is no difference between them.
Military spokesman did in fact explain to members of the support unit of the Palestinian negotiating division that the eastern fence would not be similar to the western one, and would apparently be composed of what is called a "secondary obstacle" (a system of ditches and barbed wire fences) and an eastern gate on the roads to Ramallah and the villages surrounding it - which would be locked and blocked off only in case of security alerts. But in any case, this promise does not reassure the village residents, who know that they are losing thousands of dunams of their land.
In the past three years they have already had a taste of checkpoints that prevented their access to the neighboring villages or to the district center, Ramallah. And even if the gate or the gates in the eastern, "secondary" fence are open most of the time - in Rantis, Budrus and the other villages they point to the maps and to the new political geography that is being created before their eyes.
The two small Palestinian enclaves that are being created west of Ramallah leave two large settlement blocs outside of them, which cut deep into the Palestinian territory and are joined within Israel itself,
until one can no longer see that there was a Green Line.
"That's why we are fighting against this fence," says Ayad Murar from his home, talking about this new geography. "It is part of our struggle for a peaceful solution to the conflict - the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel."
Between November and December 2003, military orders began to be posted in the Rantis, Budrus and other villages, regarding the "temporary" seizure of land (until December 2005) for military purposes. According to these orders, which are signed by the chief of Central Command Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, the width of the strips of land confiscated from the villages will range from 68 to 490 meters. The entire length of the (primary and secondary) fence that will surround the nine villages in the enclave - 32.2 kilometers.
Meanwhile, some of the residents of Budrus continue to sneak into Israel on foot, to make a living, mainly in construction. Others, who have lost their jobs in Israel in recent years, have found various jobs in the Ramallah area. But if they are closed within an enclave, they are liable to lose these places of work. Palestinian employers cannot withstand the frequent incidents of lateness caused by the blocks and the checkpoints.
"Come to live in Ramallah, or leave the job," they are told. Grocery store owners are feeling the difference. People come in infrequently, buy on credit, they buy only what is essential. It's hard to imagine what else will happen when the large olive grove is crushed beneath the teeth of the bulldozers or is swallowed up on the other side of the fence, and when it won't be possible to work in Israel at all any longer.
3. Chicago Tribune
February 6, 2004
What does Sharon's latest settlement move mean for Israel?
By Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's announcement that he plans to remove virtually all Israeli settlers from the occupied Gaza Strip has caused a shock wave in Israel.
Has some sudden epiphany convinced Sharon that the settlements are the key obstacle to peace and that Israel's future is jeopardized by the continued attempt to incorporate occupied Palestinian territories into a greater Israel?
Many Israelis, especially in the military, have long felt that the Gaza settlements are pointless, and a massive drain on national resources for no serious purpose. The small Gaza settlements are purely symbolic, in stark contrast to the massive settlements on the West Bank, which have literally reshaped the landscape and are designed also to transform its demographic and political realities, making Israel's control permanent.
While Sharon talks about removing settlements in Gaza, he is continuing to build them all over the West Bank, because he has no intention of permitting a real Palestinian state to be constructed.
One of the main reasons President Bush's "road map" for peace failed was that Sharon reneged on promises that he would start removing new settlement "outposts." Instead, he made a show of removing a few small, uninhabited sites, while setting up many more new ones and expanding dozens of major settlements up and down the West Bank.
Since Sharon broke those promises, Israel has announced thousands of new settler housing units. It recently allocated $1 million for yet another Jewish-only road in the West Bank, this one to connect an outpost settlement to a school run by an extremist Israeli group the U.S. State Department has formally designated as a terrorist organization.
Sharon's announcement could simply be a ploy to offset scandals at home, and growing pressure on Israel abroad, by trying to create the impression that he is taking some far-reaching initiative without intending to actually do anything.
Within Israel, his proposal has divided the opposition.
The right now is split between those who see him as a traitor to the cause of settling all of "Eretz Yisrael," or the Land of Israel, and those who see him as a pragmatist who can make tough decisions. Some on the left mistrust him completely, while others, like Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, welcome his proposals.
Sharon's announcement has also drawn international attention away from the appalling separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.
Sharon probably does intend to remove the settlements from Gaza, although his strategic vision has only been hinted at.
His spokesman Raanan Gissin explained that "Sharon envisages territorial exchanges with the Palestinians as part of future permanent arrangements, under which Arab Israeli localities would pass under the sovereignty of the latter, while Jewish settlements [in the West Bank] would be integrated into
Israeli territory."
Sharon seems to be looking for a way to keep control of the West Bank--hence all the new settlements and the separation wall deep inside Palestinian territory--but maintain a Jewish majority among citizens of Israel.
Twenty percent of Israel's citizens are Arabs. Gissin is proposing to strip at least some of them of their citizenship and transfer their villages to a Palestinian mini-state within a greater Israel.
From what we can piece together from his actions and statements, Sharon's vision includes offloading to a faux Palestinian state the burden of Gaza, political responsibility for Palestinians in the West Bank, and a significant number of Israeli citizens of Arab origin as well.
Such an arrangement would closely resemble efforts by South Africa's apartheid rulers to maintain white rule and strip black citizens of their rights as South Africans by creating ostensibly independent states for them known as Bantustans.
That ploy failed disastrously because the international community saw this deception for what it was, while the injustices it created on the ground led to ever more determined protest and resistance.
It appears that Sharon is hoping to pull the same trick and get away with it.
Ali Abunimah is a political analyst based in Chicago. Hussein Ibish is communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Friday, January 30
MCC Palestine Update #94
MCC Palestine Update #94
January 30, 2004
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the one issue that continues to dominate the thoughts and efforts of people here--Palestinians, Israelis, and others--who work for peace and reconciliation is the ongoing construction of the separation zone throughout the occupied Palestinian territories.
In February, the International Court of Justice will hear arguments regarding the legality (or, more precisely, the lack thereof) of the separation wall being built. Israel is trying to sell its walls, barbed wire, and electronic fences to the world as a “terror-prevention fence,” arguing that the zone is merely a temporary security measure. A visit to any of the communities that are being devastated by the separation wall should be enough to dispel any illusion that, from the Israeli perspective, the walls and fences are temporary; at a time of economic and budgetary crisis in the country, Israel is sinking millions of dollars into the construction of the separation zone. The walls and fences, coupled with the “unilateral separation” or “unilateral Disengagement” plan that the Sharon government is promoting, are designed to solidify the gains of Israeli colonization of the occupied territories while absolving it of any responsibility for the population of the occupied territories (leaving the international community to pump in relief aid to keep the Palestinian economy from complete collapse). Palestinian and Israeli proponents of peace and reconciliation, of course, also believe that the wall is temporary, but temporary because injustice will not endure forever. Over the coming months, expect to keep hearing news about the wall as it tightens its grip on Palestinian communities and to hear stories of Palestinians and Israelis who oppose the wall.
The Israeli “peace bloc,” Gush Shalom, has put together helpful material explaining why the wall is not a “security fence,” available at http://www.gush-shalom.org/security/english.html
For a look at why these fences are walls are “bad fences that make bad neighbors,” visit http://www.nad-plo.org/f1.php
MCC Project Updates
*On January 16, 2004, workers with Zochrot, an Israeli organization dedicated to promoting serious conversation within Israel about Israel's responsibility for the Palestinian refugee crisis and about durable solutions for Palestinian refugees, met with two people in two communities inside Israel, one Jewish and one Palestinian. Eytan Bronstein, director of Zochrot who also works as a youth coordinator at the School for Peace at Neve Shalom/Wahat el-Salam, joined a Palestinian-Israeli (Palestinian living inside Israel with Israeli citizneship) colleague, Nada Matta, on visits to Kibbutz Bir'am and the village of Jish.
Kibbutz Bir'am was built on lands belonging to the villagers of Bir'im, a Palestinian village whose residents were evacuated by the Israeli military in 1948, with promises that they would be allowed to return. In 1951, former residents of Bir'im and of another village, Ikrit, petitioned the Israeli High Court, asking to be allowed back to their homes. The High Court ruled that the villagers could return, providing that no "emergency decree" had been issued against the villages. The Israeli military soon issued such decrees, and in 1953 it blew up the homes in Bir'im, leaving only one of the village's two churches standing. The former residents of Bir'im, many of whom ended up in Jish, were classified by the new State of Israel as "present absentees," and their lands were turned over by the Israeli "Custodian of Absentee Property" to Kibbutz Bir'am.
In the first ever such encounter between internally displaced Palestinians and members of Jewish communities built on their lands, Zochrot trainers will facilitate an encounter between eight former residents of Bir'im, now in Jish, and eight residents of Kibbutz Bir'am, in which participants will talk about their histories, their present lives, and their hopes for the future. "This is a very exciting project," shares Bronstein. "Facing the refugee issue is very difficult for us as Israelis, but we have to do it for the sake of peace and reconciliation." Bronstein and Matta will conduct several preparatory meetings with the two groups alone, leading up to a weekend encounter March 5 and 6 in Nazareth. Zochrot workers are also working with two other communities—the Israeli Jewish agricultural town of Yaad and refugees from the village of Mi'ar--in preparation for another possible encounter. These encounters supplement Zochrot's ongoing work of conducting tours for Israeli Jews to the sites of destroyed Palestinian villages and of placing signs in Hebrew and in Arabic with the names of former streets, homes, and public buildings.
*Mennonite Central Committee and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees have been assisting 21 Palestinian farmers in the southern West Bank city of Halhul to prepare their land for cultivation and to plant it with fruit and nut trees. The farming families, all of whom live at or close to the poverty line, were chosen to participate in the project based on their willingness to commit their labor and their limited financial resources to cultivating thirty acres of stony land, building retaining walls to prevent soil erosion, and digging cisterns to collect rainwater. In late January, farmers began planting the newly reclaimed land with over 5,000 fruit and nut seedlings, including apple, almond, pomegranate, and peach seedlings. 'This project represents a real step towards financial security for us,' shared Ashraf al-Masri, one of the participating farmers. MCC contributed US$125,000 this past year towards this project. This past year was the third year of a three-year partnership with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees to assist economically vulnerable farming communities: other communities that benefitted from the project were Khirbet Abu Falah village near Ramallah in 2002 and the villages of Raba' and Zababdeh in the northern West Bank in 2001.
Below you will find two pieces. The first, by Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy, looks at how the great Palestinian city of Nablus is dying, as its historic buildings are destroyed, its intrastructure ruined, its citizens captive to frequent curfews, invasions and increasing lawlessness, and its economy in tatters. In the second piece from CounterPunch, Israeli air force pilot Yonathan Shapiro shares why he joined the ranks of the Israeli pilots who refuse to fly missions into the occupied territories; Shapiro’s reflections highlight that the character of Israeli combat in the occupied territories is a far cry from a “just war” (what Israeli military doctrine calls “purity of
Arms”).
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Only the knafeh is still sweet
By Gideon Levy
Haaretz, 25 January 2004
NABLUS, West Bank - The knafeh here is still the best in the world, living up to its reputation. In the early evening, Abu Salha's pastry shop, by the side of the road that climbs to the Refidiya neighborhood, is deserted, the shelves almost empty. A salesperson wearing transparent gloves slices the traditional sweet oriental hot cheese delicacy, the taste of which is the only thing that remains unchanged in this beaten and battered city.From one visit to the next, one sees Nablus declining relentlessly into its death throes. This is not a village that's dying behind the concrete obstacles and earth ramparts that cut it off from the world; this is a city with an ancient history, which until just recently was a vibrant, bustling metropolis that boasted an intense commercial life, a large major university, hospitals, a captivating urban landscape and age-old objects of beauty.An hour's drive from Tel Aviv, a great Palestinian city is dying, and another of the occupation's goals is being realized. It's not only that the splendid ancient homes have been laid waste, not only that such a large number of the city's residents, many of them innocent, have been killed; the entire society is flickering and will soon be extinguished. A similar fate has visited Jenin, Qalqilyah, Tul Karm and Bethlehem, but in Nablus the impact of the death throes is more powerful because of the city's importance as a district capital and because of its beauty. A cloud of dust and sand envelops the city, which gives the impression of being a combat zone during a cease-fire; its roads are scarred, its electricity poles and telephone booths are shattered, government buildings have been reduced to heaps of rubble. But the true wound lies far deeper than the physical destruction: an economic, cultural and social fabric that is disintegrating and a generation that has known only a life of emptiness and despair. More than any other place in the territories, a state of anarchy is palpably close here.There is no city as blocked and sealed as Nablus. For the past three and a half years it has been impossible to maintain even a semblance of ordinary day-to-day life here. It is impossible to leave or enter. Some 200,000 people are prisoners in their city. The checkpoints at Beit Iba, Azmurt and Hawara, which cut off the city from all directions, are the strictest roadblocks in the West Bank. Even women in labor and elderly people have a hard time crossing, and most of the city's residents no longer even try.Nablus also suffers from a very large number of casualties. In the latest Israel Defense Forces operation in the city, which was given the devilish name of "Still Waters," no fewer than 19 civilians were killed, six of them children, and 200 were wounded, according to a report of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. These are the dimensions of a large-scale terrorist attack, only without the public attention, and it's all happening in a period of significant respite in Palestinian terrorism. Who is going to investigate this wholesale killing and the killing of children, including Mohammed Aarj, 6, who was shot while standing in his yard, eating a sandwich? Afterward, the IDF refused to allow an ambulance to evacuate him, according to the Palestinians.Atrocities have been perpetrated here under cover of the total media disregard of the events, residents of Nablus claim. Neighbors saw Abud Kassim being held by soldiers, and then a gunshot was suddenly heard: he was killed in his yard; Ala Dawiya was found dead with nine bullets in his chest; Fadi Hanani, Jibril Awad and Majdi al-Bash were shot to death at short range, according to the testimonies; the civilian Muain al-Hadi and his cousin Basel were ordered to escort Israeli soldiers as a "human shield," contrary to the explicit ban on the use of this procedure. No one in Israel heard about any of these events and no one will investigate them.Within this reality live tens of thousands of people who have done no wrong. What's being inflicted on them is known as collective punishment and it is considered a war crime. They get up in the morning without knowing what the IDF has wrought in their city during the night and what it will do during the day. Most residents have long since lost their livelihood. Of course, it's possible to argue that they brought it all on themselves because of the terrorist attacks that originated in the city, but that argument cannot justify all the killing and wrongdoing. In the meantime, despite everything, some people are still buying delightful knafeh from Abu Salha.
2. CounterPunch.org, January 23, 2004
Each Day the Government Becomes More Dictatorial: An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
By YONATHAN SHAPIRA
I am Yonathan, one of the initiators and signatories raeli pilot’s letter. Until some weeks ago I was a pilot and active leader in a squadron of “Blackhawk” helicopters in the air force. On the eve of last Yom Kippur I was called for an interview with the commander of the air force, wherein he told me that I was dismissed and that I was not a pilot anymore in the Israeli air force and all this because I announced that I will not agree to take part in obeying illegal and immoral orders.
And now during the last few months the commander of the air force has been making the rounds of the bases and the flight crews and announcing that a large and powerful organization supports our group, and the military will find it and expose it to all. On this present festive occasion, I want to disclose to you who this large and powerful body is. It is an organization on whose knees we grew up and were educated on.
I want to read to you two of the basic values of--the Israel Defense Forces.
Human Dignity: The IDF and its soldiers are obliged to honor human dignity. Each human being should be respected, regardless of his race, creed, nationality, gender, status or his social role.
Purity of arms: The soldier will use his weapons and his might only to achieve his objective, to the degree that this is required for the purpose, and will retain his humanity even during battle. The soldier will not use his weapons and his might to hurt persons who are not fighters, or prisoners, and will do everything in his power to prevent an assault on their life, their body or their property.
Let’s go back now to the night between 22 to 23 of July 2002. It is late at night, the F16 squadron is at the air force base. The crew which is on-call consists of a pilot and a navigator. Scramble to Gaza. Waiting for the order to attack. The order is received. The bombs are dropped. Landing. De-briefing, and return to routine.
On this specific mission a one-ton bomb was dropped (equal to a hundred suicide bombs) on a house in the Al-Deredg quarter in Gaza, one of the most crowded neighborhoods in Gaza, indeed in the whole world. During this action 14 human beings were killed and more than 150 others were wounded. Four families, 9 children, 2 women and 2 men, were wiped out by the crew of the airplane that executed this mission and hit the target in the full belief that they were defending Israelis. They honestly believed this.
This is what Dan Halutz (commander of the air force) had to say about the mission: “I declare that everything taking place before the mission is justified according to my moral compass…”
And to the pilots he said: “Sleep well tonight … you executed this mission perfectly.”
We did not sleep well that night, and we continued not to sleep when:
On August 31, 2002--when Darama was annihilated and with him 4 children.
On April 8, 2003--when Arbid and Al-Halabi were annihilated and with them 2 children and 5 adults.
On June 10, 2003--During an attempt to annihilate Rantisi, a girl, a woman and 5 men were killed.
On June 11, 2003--when Abu-Nahal was annihilated and with him 2 women and 5 men.
On June 12, 2003--when Salah Taha and with him a one-year old infant, a woman and 5 men were annihilated. And more, and more...
And also three months ago in a blitz of five attacks 2 wanted persons were wiped out and with them another 12 innocent people. Minister Effi Eitam and high officers in the IDF do not like the expression ‘innocent Palestinians’, they prefer to call them “bystanders”. Altogether 211 persons were killed in the action, among these about half (86) onlookers.
And what kind of security did we get in return? Attacks and more attacks, we in our Apache and they in their suicide bombs, together in a dance of madness towards suicide.
So we did not sleep at night and we wrote this letter:
“We, air force pilots in reserve duty, who were raised on the values of Zionism, sacrifice and contributing to the State of Israel, we have always served on the front lines, willing to perform any assignment, difficult or simple, in order to protect the State of Israel and to strengthen her.
“We, veteran pilots and active pilots together, who served and still serve the State of Israel during long weeks each year, object to perform illegal and immoral orders of attacks that the State of Israel performs in the territories.
“We, who were raised to love the State of Israel and to contribute to the Zionist enterprise, refuse to take part in the attacks of the air force in concentrations of civilian population.
“We, for whom the IDF and the air force are inseparable parts of us, refuse to continue and harm innocent civilians.
“These actions are illegal and immoral and are a direct result of the ongoing occupation, which corrupts Israeli society as a whole.
“The continuation of the occupation delivers a mortal blow to the security of the State of Israel and to her moral strength.
“We who serve as active pilots--fighters, leaders, and instructors of the next generation of pilots--declare hereby that we shall continue to serve in the IDF and the air force in every assignment in the defense of the State of Israel."
We spoke to more than a hundred pilots, among them veteran commanders in the air force, many were afraid to sign but supported our idea--and as proof: nobody leaked even a word. And maybe it is important to tell you on this occasion in short who signed the letter. This is an opportunity to get to know some of those “traitors who aided terrorism.”
I will start with the active pilots: Major Yotam--active Apache-pilot Captain Tomer--active F-16-pilot Captain Ran--active fighter-navigator Captain Zur--active F-16-navigator Captain Alon--active Blackhawk-pilot Captain Amnon--active Blackhawk-pilot Captain Yonathan--active Blackhawk-pilot Captain Asaf--active F-15-pilot and instructor in the field of fighting at the school of flying Lieutenant-colonel Eli--fighter pilot and active instructor at the school of flying Brigadier-general Yiphtah Spector--fighter pilot and active instructor at the school of flying.
An additional 20 veteran pilots joined this initiative, fighters who flew in the wars of Israel, some of which were more justified and some less justified. Amongst these pilots: Colonel and doctor Yigal Shohat--fighter pilot who was in Syrian captivity and later served as chief medical doctor of the air force. Lieutenant-colonel Yonathan Shahar--fighter pilot and flight commander in the six days war. Lieutenant-colonel Abner Raanan--fighter pilot who was awarded the Israel Prize for Security for developing intelligent weapons systems. Professor Motti Peri--helicopter pilot and today head of the economy faculty at the Hebrew University. Professor Nahum Karlinski--fighter pilot and historian at Ben-Gurion University. Lieutenant Yoel Pieterberg--senior test-pilot in the air force, amongst the founders of the first Apache squadron, leader of the Cobra squadron in the Lebanon war, and awarded a medal by the chief of staff, one of the planners and executors of the ‘Karin A’ mission. Captain Moshe Bukayi--transport pilot who was awarded a citation for Courage during the Sinai War. Major Hagai Tamir--fighter pilot and architect was also the outstanding trainee during Dan Halutz’s pilots training course.
Two weeks after publication of the pilots’ letter a report appeared in the “Seven Days” supplement of “Yedioth Aharonoth” newspaper, wherein five brigade commanders, colonels in the professional army, photographed in uniform and carrying weapons, declare their support for Sharon, the settlers and the policy of annihilations. Knesseth Member Yuval Steinitz and his friends raised no hue and cry on this occasion. Even the Minister of Defense did not call them supporters of terrorism, and did not decry the fact that they expressed their opinion while in uniform.
Why?
Because they represent the consensus. They support the government. A government which from day to day becomes less and less democratic, and more dictatorial.
If we were to ask a citizen who lives in a state which turned into a dictatorship, at what moment exactly did this happen? He would not be able to give an answer. It is a incremental process, often much of which is hidden from view.
But there are elements that are not hidden and I would like to give an example: A few months ago the Chief of Staff (a person in uniform) declared that every member of Hamas is a target for annihilation.
With your permission I would like to read you the response of the army spokesman and the army prosecutor, regarding complaints addressed to the IDF a decade ago, in the year 1993. At the time the prosecutor and spokesperson claimed that role of the ‘Mista’Aravim’ unit is not to annihilate:
“The IDF dismisses this claim absolutely. There was not, and there will not be any policy or reality in the IDF of intentional annihilation of wanted persons. The instructions for opening fire are twofold: ... the principle of the sanctity of life is a basic value in the IDF. There is no change whatsoever, and there will be no change in this matter.”
So what does this statement suggest? Have we not crossed the red line? Or can we perhaps continue a bit further? Many people say that we have not yet reached the red line and that for the time being one must not refuse...we must continue to obey. And this position reminds me of the red water line of the Sea of Galilee. Every time the level of water in the lake crosses the red line we lower it a little.
When my country finds itself in the situation similar to a plane in a wild nose-dive towards the ground, I have three options: I can jump out, and leave Israel. I can continue indifferently to let the plane dive and crash bringing about everybody’s death or I can pull the stick with all my legal strength, and try to save myself from crashing. We are about to crash. So we pulled the stick and people asked us how we could do this considering that terrorism is rampant in the streets. And I reply--you are right, and regretfully I know this from close up.
For the past years I have volunteered for ‘Sela’--an organization helping new immigrants who are victims of terrorism, I assisted the wounded during their period of recovery, and I guided groups of orphans and of bereaved family members.
Each person is a world unto him or herself and each bereavement has many circles of grief and hurt, like a small stone thrown into the water gives rise to nearly interminable rings. Grief, pain, want, anger, despair and more ... so we must fight this criminal terrorism.
If I must kill a suicide bomber on his way to a terrorist attack, and even pay with my life for this, in the knowledge that I save other human lives--I will do this with all my heart. But none of the so-called selective annihilations was directed against a terrorist on his way to an attack (and the IDF corroborates this).
So we must fight terrorism, but at the same time we must fight not to become more and more like the terrorists. The fact that buses explode here, does not justify Sharon, Mofaz and Air Force Chief Dan Halutz decision to ‘unintentionally’ kill nine children in their sleep, and to sow terror in a population of millions who live under a reign of closures, curfews and checkpoints.
A population enclosed by walls and camps, under the guns of an enormous and frightening army, equipped to the teeth with jet-planes which shake the skies, and attack-helicopters who time and again send rockets into cars and into the windows of houses, in crowded and destitute cities.
So I said that I would with all my heart sacrifice my life to stop, even with my own body, a suicide terrorist, and maybe the time has come to speak about my faith. After all, what are we talking about? That we lost our faith in a system that sends us to enforce a scandalous and doubted policy.
We do not believe the head of State, the Minister of Defense and the highest of our commanders, when they send us to send rockets to places where, afterwards, we learn that we killed women and children. When Air Force Chief Dan Halutz lies to the press--then nonsense is written in the newspapers. But when Dan Halutz lies to the pilots--innocent citizens are killed, or, as we call them today: “non-involved” persons. (quoted from the ‘Terminator’).
An army consisting of fighters who are not convinced of the rightness of their way, is a weakened army! A pilot who leaves on an assignment, must be able to trust the system, to be 100 percent sure that it weighed the strategic, tactical, and morally right considerations.
The pilot has practically no way of knowing what is hidden behind the target he aims at. And it is naive to require of him to decide in real time to determine whether he considers the order fit or not to execute--because in real time it is extremely difficult to make such considerations.
In addition, pilots have to know these days another crucial fact. They should know the nauseating statistics of the assignments they are being sent to carry out. Fifty percent of those killed as a result of “selective extermination” missions in populated areas are innocent civilians. When one suppresses in the planning and execution the practically certain result of fifty percent civilian casualties, then the “pure intentions” of the planners is no longer pure; it is tainted.
I would like to quote from a recent article, was initiated by the air force spokesperson, in which Apache-pilots (not refusers) were interviewed about the dilemma’s facing them: An experienced helicopter pilot told the interviewer: “It is likely that in another couple of years I’ll say to myself: you are an idiot, you crossed red lines”.
Another pilot spoke about a set of values which underwent change in the last two years:
“I would not have believed that I would send rockets into Jenin, Gaza and Tulkarem, and I am doing it. Maybe they’ll send me to shoot rockets at Umm-El-Fahm (an Israeli city)? Today this looks crazy, but it might happen in another year. Perhaps we’ll shoot rockets at Arafat’s office, maybe a rocket at Arab houses in Jaffa--this is the kind of thing that I believe I will not do. But today I shoot rockets 100 meter away from people, just to get them to disperse, and two years ago I would not have entertained the thought that I would carry out such actions; we have become indifferent.”
Yet another pilot says: “Sometimes I come from a debriefing after a successful extermination and I know up front that the countdown for another attack has started”.
I have seen much blood lately during my service in the squadron. In between dropping commando troops at the outskirts of cities in the West bank, I had to evacuate dozens of wounded, including IDF soldiers and civilians, some of them children who were suffered horrible wounds. At times we would evacuate the wounded to a hospital, scrub the blood from the floor of the helicopter, and return to bring more.
And I ask myself--why? Are we really so obtuse and naive to think that we can repress 3.5 million people who have lost all fear of death? Aren’t we going crazy too? Apparently we are.
It seems to me that we are a society in an advanced psychotic state, a kind of split personality and the only way many of us survive is to close up and to disappear into our own bubble. And if anything is really worthwhile blowing up--it is this bubble.
How can we blow up the bubble? Very simple--get to know the facts.
So let’s briefly examine what has happened to us in the past three years? In the territories: 2289 Palestinians have been killed in the territories by Israeli security forces, amongst them 439 minors under the age of 18. At least 128 Palestinians have been put to death without trial by Israel.In the course of their execution 88 additional Palestinians were killed. 32 Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians. 9 foreign nationals were shot and killed by bullets from Israeli security forces. 196 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians. 180 members from the Israeli security forces were killed by Palestinians. 86 Palestinians were killed by Palestinians on suspicion of collaboration with Israel. 29 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian security forces.
In Israel: 377 Israeli civilians, 80 members of the security forces and 32 foreign civilians were killed by Palestinian inhabitants of the territories. 48 Palestinians were killed by the security forces. The IDF confirms that among the 2289 Palestinians that were killed by our forces only 550 were bearing arms or were fighters. What happened to the remaining 1739?
Before I finish, I would like to share with you some hair-raising moments from the last two difficult months: During the interview of my dismissal I sat opposite the commander of the air force and I heard him say repeatedly with burning eyes that all the missions we performed, including the most difficult ones, are highly moral, and even Professor Asa Kasher agrees. Further on in the conversation and by his own initiative Dan Halutz, Commander of the air force and candidate for the office of Vice Chief of Staff –spelled out before me the value of blood as he sees it--in descending order, from Jewish blood down to the blood of a Palestinian.
I have heard many infantry soldiers say, and to my deep regret I have also read in a letter that was sent by one of the pilots who objects to our acts, that “our heroism today in the air force of 2003 is not to endanger our lives either under anti-aircraft fire or when fighting enemy aircraft; our heroism today is expressed in that we succeed to overcome the catastrophic feelings that arise in us as a result of our being ‘professional assassins’ in the service of the State of Israel. Our heroism is to overcome all this with courage, and to get up every morning with a renewed choice to be good soldiers who are willing and ready to take upon ourselves any mission.”
This same shift of responsibility from the shoulders of the soldier and its exchange for a sense of fulfillment of “valor” in coping with his difficult task, is what enables pilots to perform the worst crimes against humanity.
January 30, 2004
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the one issue that continues to dominate the thoughts and efforts of people here--Palestinians, Israelis, and others--who work for peace and reconciliation is the ongoing construction of the separation zone throughout the occupied Palestinian territories.
In February, the International Court of Justice will hear arguments regarding the legality (or, more precisely, the lack thereof) of the separation wall being built. Israel is trying to sell its walls, barbed wire, and electronic fences to the world as a “terror-prevention fence,” arguing that the zone is merely a temporary security measure. A visit to any of the communities that are being devastated by the separation wall should be enough to dispel any illusion that, from the Israeli perspective, the walls and fences are temporary; at a time of economic and budgetary crisis in the country, Israel is sinking millions of dollars into the construction of the separation zone. The walls and fences, coupled with the “unilateral separation” or “unilateral Disengagement” plan that the Sharon government is promoting, are designed to solidify the gains of Israeli colonization of the occupied territories while absolving it of any responsibility for the population of the occupied territories (leaving the international community to pump in relief aid to keep the Palestinian economy from complete collapse). Palestinian and Israeli proponents of peace and reconciliation, of course, also believe that the wall is temporary, but temporary because injustice will not endure forever. Over the coming months, expect to keep hearing news about the wall as it tightens its grip on Palestinian communities and to hear stories of Palestinians and Israelis who oppose the wall.
The Israeli “peace bloc,” Gush Shalom, has put together helpful material explaining why the wall is not a “security fence,” available at http://www.gush-shalom.org/security/english.html
For a look at why these fences are walls are “bad fences that make bad neighbors,” visit http://www.nad-plo.org/f1.php
MCC Project Updates
*On January 16, 2004, workers with Zochrot, an Israeli organization dedicated to promoting serious conversation within Israel about Israel's responsibility for the Palestinian refugee crisis and about durable solutions for Palestinian refugees, met with two people in two communities inside Israel, one Jewish and one Palestinian. Eytan Bronstein, director of Zochrot who also works as a youth coordinator at the School for Peace at Neve Shalom/Wahat el-Salam, joined a Palestinian-Israeli (Palestinian living inside Israel with Israeli citizneship) colleague, Nada Matta, on visits to Kibbutz Bir'am and the village of Jish.
Kibbutz Bir'am was built on lands belonging to the villagers of Bir'im, a Palestinian village whose residents were evacuated by the Israeli military in 1948, with promises that they would be allowed to return. In 1951, former residents of Bir'im and of another village, Ikrit, petitioned the Israeli High Court, asking to be allowed back to their homes. The High Court ruled that the villagers could return, providing that no "emergency decree" had been issued against the villages. The Israeli military soon issued such decrees, and in 1953 it blew up the homes in Bir'im, leaving only one of the village's two churches standing. The former residents of Bir'im, many of whom ended up in Jish, were classified by the new State of Israel as "present absentees," and their lands were turned over by the Israeli "Custodian of Absentee Property" to Kibbutz Bir'am.
In the first ever such encounter between internally displaced Palestinians and members of Jewish communities built on their lands, Zochrot trainers will facilitate an encounter between eight former residents of Bir'im, now in Jish, and eight residents of Kibbutz Bir'am, in which participants will talk about their histories, their present lives, and their hopes for the future. "This is a very exciting project," shares Bronstein. "Facing the refugee issue is very difficult for us as Israelis, but we have to do it for the sake of peace and reconciliation." Bronstein and Matta will conduct several preparatory meetings with the two groups alone, leading up to a weekend encounter March 5 and 6 in Nazareth. Zochrot workers are also working with two other communities—the Israeli Jewish agricultural town of Yaad and refugees from the village of Mi'ar--in preparation for another possible encounter. These encounters supplement Zochrot's ongoing work of conducting tours for Israeli Jews to the sites of destroyed Palestinian villages and of placing signs in Hebrew and in Arabic with the names of former streets, homes, and public buildings.
*Mennonite Central Committee and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees have been assisting 21 Palestinian farmers in the southern West Bank city of Halhul to prepare their land for cultivation and to plant it with fruit and nut trees. The farming families, all of whom live at or close to the poverty line, were chosen to participate in the project based on their willingness to commit their labor and their limited financial resources to cultivating thirty acres of stony land, building retaining walls to prevent soil erosion, and digging cisterns to collect rainwater. In late January, farmers began planting the newly reclaimed land with over 5,000 fruit and nut seedlings, including apple, almond, pomegranate, and peach seedlings. 'This project represents a real step towards financial security for us,' shared Ashraf al-Masri, one of the participating farmers. MCC contributed US$125,000 this past year towards this project. This past year was the third year of a three-year partnership with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees to assist economically vulnerable farming communities: other communities that benefitted from the project were Khirbet Abu Falah village near Ramallah in 2002 and the villages of Raba' and Zababdeh in the northern West Bank in 2001.
Below you will find two pieces. The first, by Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy, looks at how the great Palestinian city of Nablus is dying, as its historic buildings are destroyed, its intrastructure ruined, its citizens captive to frequent curfews, invasions and increasing lawlessness, and its economy in tatters. In the second piece from CounterPunch, Israeli air force pilot Yonathan Shapiro shares why he joined the ranks of the Israeli pilots who refuse to fly missions into the occupied territories; Shapiro’s reflections highlight that the character of Israeli combat in the occupied territories is a far cry from a “just war” (what Israeli military doctrine calls “purity of
Arms”).
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Only the knafeh is still sweet
By Gideon Levy
Haaretz, 25 January 2004
NABLUS, West Bank - The knafeh here is still the best in the world, living up to its reputation. In the early evening, Abu Salha's pastry shop, by the side of the road that climbs to the Refidiya neighborhood, is deserted, the shelves almost empty. A salesperson wearing transparent gloves slices the traditional sweet oriental hot cheese delicacy, the taste of which is the only thing that remains unchanged in this beaten and battered city.From one visit to the next, one sees Nablus declining relentlessly into its death throes. This is not a village that's dying behind the concrete obstacles and earth ramparts that cut it off from the world; this is a city with an ancient history, which until just recently was a vibrant, bustling metropolis that boasted an intense commercial life, a large major university, hospitals, a captivating urban landscape and age-old objects of beauty.An hour's drive from Tel Aviv, a great Palestinian city is dying, and another of the occupation's goals is being realized. It's not only that the splendid ancient homes have been laid waste, not only that such a large number of the city's residents, many of them innocent, have been killed; the entire society is flickering and will soon be extinguished. A similar fate has visited Jenin, Qalqilyah, Tul Karm and Bethlehem, but in Nablus the impact of the death throes is more powerful because of the city's importance as a district capital and because of its beauty. A cloud of dust and sand envelops the city, which gives the impression of being a combat zone during a cease-fire; its roads are scarred, its electricity poles and telephone booths are shattered, government buildings have been reduced to heaps of rubble. But the true wound lies far deeper than the physical destruction: an economic, cultural and social fabric that is disintegrating and a generation that has known only a life of emptiness and despair. More than any other place in the territories, a state of anarchy is palpably close here.There is no city as blocked and sealed as Nablus. For the past three and a half years it has been impossible to maintain even a semblance of ordinary day-to-day life here. It is impossible to leave or enter. Some 200,000 people are prisoners in their city. The checkpoints at Beit Iba, Azmurt and Hawara, which cut off the city from all directions, are the strictest roadblocks in the West Bank. Even women in labor and elderly people have a hard time crossing, and most of the city's residents no longer even try.Nablus also suffers from a very large number of casualties. In the latest Israel Defense Forces operation in the city, which was given the devilish name of "Still Waters," no fewer than 19 civilians were killed, six of them children, and 200 were wounded, according to a report of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. These are the dimensions of a large-scale terrorist attack, only without the public attention, and it's all happening in a period of significant respite in Palestinian terrorism. Who is going to investigate this wholesale killing and the killing of children, including Mohammed Aarj, 6, who was shot while standing in his yard, eating a sandwich? Afterward, the IDF refused to allow an ambulance to evacuate him, according to the Palestinians.Atrocities have been perpetrated here under cover of the total media disregard of the events, residents of Nablus claim. Neighbors saw Abud Kassim being held by soldiers, and then a gunshot was suddenly heard: he was killed in his yard; Ala Dawiya was found dead with nine bullets in his chest; Fadi Hanani, Jibril Awad and Majdi al-Bash were shot to death at short range, according to the testimonies; the civilian Muain al-Hadi and his cousin Basel were ordered to escort Israeli soldiers as a "human shield," contrary to the explicit ban on the use of this procedure. No one in Israel heard about any of these events and no one will investigate them.Within this reality live tens of thousands of people who have done no wrong. What's being inflicted on them is known as collective punishment and it is considered a war crime. They get up in the morning without knowing what the IDF has wrought in their city during the night and what it will do during the day. Most residents have long since lost their livelihood. Of course, it's possible to argue that they brought it all on themselves because of the terrorist attacks that originated in the city, but that argument cannot justify all the killing and wrongdoing. In the meantime, despite everything, some people are still buying delightful knafeh from Abu Salha.
2. CounterPunch.org, January 23, 2004
Each Day the Government Becomes More Dictatorial: An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
By YONATHAN SHAPIRA
I am Yonathan, one of the initiators and signatories raeli pilot’s letter. Until some weeks ago I was a pilot and active leader in a squadron of “Blackhawk” helicopters in the air force. On the eve of last Yom Kippur I was called for an interview with the commander of the air force, wherein he told me that I was dismissed and that I was not a pilot anymore in the Israeli air force and all this because I announced that I will not agree to take part in obeying illegal and immoral orders.
And now during the last few months the commander of the air force has been making the rounds of the bases and the flight crews and announcing that a large and powerful organization supports our group, and the military will find it and expose it to all. On this present festive occasion, I want to disclose to you who this large and powerful body is. It is an organization on whose knees we grew up and were educated on.
I want to read to you two of the basic values of--the Israel Defense Forces.
Human Dignity: The IDF and its soldiers are obliged to honor human dignity. Each human being should be respected, regardless of his race, creed, nationality, gender, status or his social role.
Purity of arms: The soldier will use his weapons and his might only to achieve his objective, to the degree that this is required for the purpose, and will retain his humanity even during battle. The soldier will not use his weapons and his might to hurt persons who are not fighters, or prisoners, and will do everything in his power to prevent an assault on their life, their body or their property.
Let’s go back now to the night between 22 to 23 of July 2002. It is late at night, the F16 squadron is at the air force base. The crew which is on-call consists of a pilot and a navigator. Scramble to Gaza. Waiting for the order to attack. The order is received. The bombs are dropped. Landing. De-briefing, and return to routine.
On this specific mission a one-ton bomb was dropped (equal to a hundred suicide bombs) on a house in the Al-Deredg quarter in Gaza, one of the most crowded neighborhoods in Gaza, indeed in the whole world. During this action 14 human beings were killed and more than 150 others were wounded. Four families, 9 children, 2 women and 2 men, were wiped out by the crew of the airplane that executed this mission and hit the target in the full belief that they were defending Israelis. They honestly believed this.
This is what Dan Halutz (commander of the air force) had to say about the mission: “I declare that everything taking place before the mission is justified according to my moral compass…”
And to the pilots he said: “Sleep well tonight … you executed this mission perfectly.”
We did not sleep well that night, and we continued not to sleep when:
On August 31, 2002--when Darama was annihilated and with him 4 children.
On April 8, 2003--when Arbid and Al-Halabi were annihilated and with them 2 children and 5 adults.
On June 10, 2003--During an attempt to annihilate Rantisi, a girl, a woman and 5 men were killed.
On June 11, 2003--when Abu-Nahal was annihilated and with him 2 women and 5 men.
On June 12, 2003--when Salah Taha and with him a one-year old infant, a woman and 5 men were annihilated. And more, and more...
And also three months ago in a blitz of five attacks 2 wanted persons were wiped out and with them another 12 innocent people. Minister Effi Eitam and high officers in the IDF do not like the expression ‘innocent Palestinians’, they prefer to call them “bystanders”. Altogether 211 persons were killed in the action, among these about half (86) onlookers.
And what kind of security did we get in return? Attacks and more attacks, we in our Apache and they in their suicide bombs, together in a dance of madness towards suicide.
So we did not sleep at night and we wrote this letter:
“We, air force pilots in reserve duty, who were raised on the values of Zionism, sacrifice and contributing to the State of Israel, we have always served on the front lines, willing to perform any assignment, difficult or simple, in order to protect the State of Israel and to strengthen her.
“We, veteran pilots and active pilots together, who served and still serve the State of Israel during long weeks each year, object to perform illegal and immoral orders of attacks that the State of Israel performs in the territories.
“We, who were raised to love the State of Israel and to contribute to the Zionist enterprise, refuse to take part in the attacks of the air force in concentrations of civilian population.
“We, for whom the IDF and the air force are inseparable parts of us, refuse to continue and harm innocent civilians.
“These actions are illegal and immoral and are a direct result of the ongoing occupation, which corrupts Israeli society as a whole.
“The continuation of the occupation delivers a mortal blow to the security of the State of Israel and to her moral strength.
“We who serve as active pilots--fighters, leaders, and instructors of the next generation of pilots--declare hereby that we shall continue to serve in the IDF and the air force in every assignment in the defense of the State of Israel."
We spoke to more than a hundred pilots, among them veteran commanders in the air force, many were afraid to sign but supported our idea--and as proof: nobody leaked even a word. And maybe it is important to tell you on this occasion in short who signed the letter. This is an opportunity to get to know some of those “traitors who aided terrorism.”
I will start with the active pilots: Major Yotam--active Apache-pilot Captain Tomer--active F-16-pilot Captain Ran--active fighter-navigator Captain Zur--active F-16-navigator Captain Alon--active Blackhawk-pilot Captain Amnon--active Blackhawk-pilot Captain Yonathan--active Blackhawk-pilot Captain Asaf--active F-15-pilot and instructor in the field of fighting at the school of flying Lieutenant-colonel Eli--fighter pilot and active instructor at the school of flying Brigadier-general Yiphtah Spector--fighter pilot and active instructor at the school of flying.
An additional 20 veteran pilots joined this initiative, fighters who flew in the wars of Israel, some of which were more justified and some less justified. Amongst these pilots: Colonel and doctor Yigal Shohat--fighter pilot who was in Syrian captivity and later served as chief medical doctor of the air force. Lieutenant-colonel Yonathan Shahar--fighter pilot and flight commander in the six days war. Lieutenant-colonel Abner Raanan--fighter pilot who was awarded the Israel Prize for Security for developing intelligent weapons systems. Professor Motti Peri--helicopter pilot and today head of the economy faculty at the Hebrew University. Professor Nahum Karlinski--fighter pilot and historian at Ben-Gurion University. Lieutenant Yoel Pieterberg--senior test-pilot in the air force, amongst the founders of the first Apache squadron, leader of the Cobra squadron in the Lebanon war, and awarded a medal by the chief of staff, one of the planners and executors of the ‘Karin A’ mission. Captain Moshe Bukayi--transport pilot who was awarded a citation for Courage during the Sinai War. Major Hagai Tamir--fighter pilot and architect was also the outstanding trainee during Dan Halutz’s pilots training course.
Two weeks after publication of the pilots’ letter a report appeared in the “Seven Days” supplement of “Yedioth Aharonoth” newspaper, wherein five brigade commanders, colonels in the professional army, photographed in uniform and carrying weapons, declare their support for Sharon, the settlers and the policy of annihilations. Knesseth Member Yuval Steinitz and his friends raised no hue and cry on this occasion. Even the Minister of Defense did not call them supporters of terrorism, and did not decry the fact that they expressed their opinion while in uniform.
Why?
Because they represent the consensus. They support the government. A government which from day to day becomes less and less democratic, and more dictatorial.
If we were to ask a citizen who lives in a state which turned into a dictatorship, at what moment exactly did this happen? He would not be able to give an answer. It is a incremental process, often much of which is hidden from view.
But there are elements that are not hidden and I would like to give an example: A few months ago the Chief of Staff (a person in uniform) declared that every member of Hamas is a target for annihilation.
With your permission I would like to read you the response of the army spokesman and the army prosecutor, regarding complaints addressed to the IDF a decade ago, in the year 1993. At the time the prosecutor and spokesperson claimed that role of the ‘Mista’Aravim’ unit is not to annihilate:
“The IDF dismisses this claim absolutely. There was not, and there will not be any policy or reality in the IDF of intentional annihilation of wanted persons. The instructions for opening fire are twofold: ... the principle of the sanctity of life is a basic value in the IDF. There is no change whatsoever, and there will be no change in this matter.”
So what does this statement suggest? Have we not crossed the red line? Or can we perhaps continue a bit further? Many people say that we have not yet reached the red line and that for the time being one must not refuse...we must continue to obey. And this position reminds me of the red water line of the Sea of Galilee. Every time the level of water in the lake crosses the red line we lower it a little.
When my country finds itself in the situation similar to a plane in a wild nose-dive towards the ground, I have three options: I can jump out, and leave Israel. I can continue indifferently to let the plane dive and crash bringing about everybody’s death or I can pull the stick with all my legal strength, and try to save myself from crashing. We are about to crash. So we pulled the stick and people asked us how we could do this considering that terrorism is rampant in the streets. And I reply--you are right, and regretfully I know this from close up.
For the past years I have volunteered for ‘Sela’--an organization helping new immigrants who are victims of terrorism, I assisted the wounded during their period of recovery, and I guided groups of orphans and of bereaved family members.
Each person is a world unto him or herself and each bereavement has many circles of grief and hurt, like a small stone thrown into the water gives rise to nearly interminable rings. Grief, pain, want, anger, despair and more ... so we must fight this criminal terrorism.
If I must kill a suicide bomber on his way to a terrorist attack, and even pay with my life for this, in the knowledge that I save other human lives--I will do this with all my heart. But none of the so-called selective annihilations was directed against a terrorist on his way to an attack (and the IDF corroborates this).
So we must fight terrorism, but at the same time we must fight not to become more and more like the terrorists. The fact that buses explode here, does not justify Sharon, Mofaz and Air Force Chief Dan Halutz decision to ‘unintentionally’ kill nine children in their sleep, and to sow terror in a population of millions who live under a reign of closures, curfews and checkpoints.
A population enclosed by walls and camps, under the guns of an enormous and frightening army, equipped to the teeth with jet-planes which shake the skies, and attack-helicopters who time and again send rockets into cars and into the windows of houses, in crowded and destitute cities.
So I said that I would with all my heart sacrifice my life to stop, even with my own body, a suicide terrorist, and maybe the time has come to speak about my faith. After all, what are we talking about? That we lost our faith in a system that sends us to enforce a scandalous and doubted policy.
We do not believe the head of State, the Minister of Defense and the highest of our commanders, when they send us to send rockets to places where, afterwards, we learn that we killed women and children. When Air Force Chief Dan Halutz lies to the press--then nonsense is written in the newspapers. But when Dan Halutz lies to the pilots--innocent citizens are killed, or, as we call them today: “non-involved” persons. (quoted from the ‘Terminator’).
An army consisting of fighters who are not convinced of the rightness of their way, is a weakened army! A pilot who leaves on an assignment, must be able to trust the system, to be 100 percent sure that it weighed the strategic, tactical, and morally right considerations.
The pilot has practically no way of knowing what is hidden behind the target he aims at. And it is naive to require of him to decide in real time to determine whether he considers the order fit or not to execute--because in real time it is extremely difficult to make such considerations.
In addition, pilots have to know these days another crucial fact. They should know the nauseating statistics of the assignments they are being sent to carry out. Fifty percent of those killed as a result of “selective extermination” missions in populated areas are innocent civilians. When one suppresses in the planning and execution the practically certain result of fifty percent civilian casualties, then the “pure intentions” of the planners is no longer pure; it is tainted.
I would like to quote from a recent article, was initiated by the air force spokesperson, in which Apache-pilots (not refusers) were interviewed about the dilemma’s facing them: An experienced helicopter pilot told the interviewer: “It is likely that in another couple of years I’ll say to myself: you are an idiot, you crossed red lines”.
Another pilot spoke about a set of values which underwent change in the last two years:
“I would not have believed that I would send rockets into Jenin, Gaza and Tulkarem, and I am doing it. Maybe they’ll send me to shoot rockets at Umm-El-Fahm (an Israeli city)? Today this looks crazy, but it might happen in another year. Perhaps we’ll shoot rockets at Arafat’s office, maybe a rocket at Arab houses in Jaffa--this is the kind of thing that I believe I will not do. But today I shoot rockets 100 meter away from people, just to get them to disperse, and two years ago I would not have entertained the thought that I would carry out such actions; we have become indifferent.”
Yet another pilot says: “Sometimes I come from a debriefing after a successful extermination and I know up front that the countdown for another attack has started”.
I have seen much blood lately during my service in the squadron. In between dropping commando troops at the outskirts of cities in the West bank, I had to evacuate dozens of wounded, including IDF soldiers and civilians, some of them children who were suffered horrible wounds. At times we would evacuate the wounded to a hospital, scrub the blood from the floor of the helicopter, and return to bring more.
And I ask myself--why? Are we really so obtuse and naive to think that we can repress 3.5 million people who have lost all fear of death? Aren’t we going crazy too? Apparently we are.
It seems to me that we are a society in an advanced psychotic state, a kind of split personality and the only way many of us survive is to close up and to disappear into our own bubble. And if anything is really worthwhile blowing up--it is this bubble.
How can we blow up the bubble? Very simple--get to know the facts.
So let’s briefly examine what has happened to us in the past three years? In the territories: 2289 Palestinians have been killed in the territories by Israeli security forces, amongst them 439 minors under the age of 18. At least 128 Palestinians have been put to death without trial by Israel.In the course of their execution 88 additional Palestinians were killed. 32 Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians. 9 foreign nationals were shot and killed by bullets from Israeli security forces. 196 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians. 180 members from the Israeli security forces were killed by Palestinians. 86 Palestinians were killed by Palestinians on suspicion of collaboration with Israel. 29 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian security forces.
In Israel: 377 Israeli civilians, 80 members of the security forces and 32 foreign civilians were killed by Palestinian inhabitants of the territories. 48 Palestinians were killed by the security forces. The IDF confirms that among the 2289 Palestinians that were killed by our forces only 550 were bearing arms or were fighters. What happened to the remaining 1739?
Before I finish, I would like to share with you some hair-raising moments from the last two difficult months: During the interview of my dismissal I sat opposite the commander of the air force and I heard him say repeatedly with burning eyes that all the missions we performed, including the most difficult ones, are highly moral, and even Professor Asa Kasher agrees. Further on in the conversation and by his own initiative Dan Halutz, Commander of the air force and candidate for the office of Vice Chief of Staff –spelled out before me the value of blood as he sees it--in descending order, from Jewish blood down to the blood of a Palestinian.
I have heard many infantry soldiers say, and to my deep regret I have also read in a letter that was sent by one of the pilots who objects to our acts, that “our heroism today in the air force of 2003 is not to endanger our lives either under anti-aircraft fire or when fighting enemy aircraft; our heroism today is expressed in that we succeed to overcome the catastrophic feelings that arise in us as a result of our being ‘professional assassins’ in the service of the State of Israel. Our heroism is to overcome all this with courage, and to get up every morning with a renewed choice to be good soldiers who are willing and ready to take upon ourselves any mission.”
This same shift of responsibility from the shoulders of the soldier and its exchange for a sense of fulfillment of “valor” in coping with his difficult task, is what enables pilots to perform the worst crimes against humanity.
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