Boycott israHell!
Бойкот на израел и печелещите от окупацията! Boycott israHell and those who profit from occupation!
Showing posts with label wall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wall. Show all posts
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Pink Floyd Frontman Targeted By ADL For Criticizing Globalist Military Industrial Complex
Roger Waters: I’m not anti-semitic, I’m anti-occupation
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, Oct 7th, 2010
Legendary Rock group Pink Floyd’s main creative force, Roger Waters, is locked in a fierce battle with the Anti-Defamation League, after the group accused Waters of using anti-semitic imagery in his stage show.
The ADL claims that visuals accompanying the song “Goodbye Blue Sky” on Waters’ latest tour of the seminal 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall, are intended as “a comment about Jews and money.”
The backdrop, which can be seen in the video below, features huge dark bomber planes dropping a series of red symbols, which culminate in a sea of blood on the landscape below.
The symbols include crosses, a hammer and sickle, a crescent and star, a Mercedes logo and a Shell Oil logo, yet the ADL sees the inclusion of a Star of David along with Dollar signs as reprehensible.
“It is outrageous that Roger Waters has chosen to use the juxtaposition of a Jewish Star of David with the symbol of dollar signs.” an ADL statement issued by director Abraham Foxman last week read.
“While he insists that his intent was to criticize Israel’s West Bank security fence, the use of such imagery in a concert setting seems to leave the message open to interpretation, and the meaning could easily be misunderstood as a comment about Jews and money.”
Foxman added that Waters should have “chosen some other way to convey his political views without playing into and dredging up the worst age-old anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews and their supposed obsession with making money”.
Waters has been open about his opposition to the Israeli fence for several years, and has publicly stated that The Wall live show is his form of protest against such imposed barriers.
The iconic song writer hit back at the accusations earlier this week with a letter published in The London Independent, asserting that he is not anti-semitic, but that he is vehemently anti-occupation.
“There are no hidden meanings in the order or juxtaposition of these symbols.” Waters writes.
“The point I am trying to make in the song is that the bombardment we are all subject to by conflicting religious, political and economic ideologies only encourages us to turn against one another, and I mourn the concomitant loss of life.”
The letter goes on to say that “In so far as The Wall has a political message it is to seek to illuminate our condition, and find new ways to encourage peace and understanding, particularly in the Middle East.”
Waters’ response has only encouraged the ADL to continue their accusations, however. In a response to Waters, Foxman writes:
“We have heard from many of your fans who have attended the concerts in the States and were shocked by the decision to immediately follow the Star of David with dollar signs,”
“We would ask, out of sensitivity to those who might be offended, that you change the order of the symbols so that the dollar signs are made to appear elsewhere in the show. For us, it would put this matter entirely to rest.”
Pink Floyd Frontman Targeted By ADL For Criticizing Globalist Military Industrial Complex 140410banner4
Waters isn’t about to do that however, noting that he has had an overwhelmingly positive response to the visuals, particularly from Jewish and Israeli fans.
Waters further commented that in his opinion the ADL intentionally goes after critics of Israel’s foreign policy by using anti-semitism as justification:
“It’s a screen that they hide behind. I don’t think they should be taken seriously on that. You can attack Israeli policy without being anti-Jewish,” Waters told The Independent.
“It’s like saying if you criticise the US policy you are being anti-Christian. I’m critical of the Israeli policy of occupying Palestinian land and their policy of building settlements, which is entirely illegal under international law, and also of ghettoising the people whose land they are building on.
“It’s that foreign policy I’m against. It’s nothing to do with the religion.”
Clearly the ADL did not watch the live show before making the accusations against Waters, or they are once again intentionally seeking to garner media coverage by creating a false impression of the artist’s intention.
As we have documented, the group has a history of attacking politically active groups and individuals as peddlers of hate, often because they simply disagree with government policy. It is no coincidence that the group consistently lands lucrative government contracts and tie-ins.
ADL director Foxman has been described by former colleagues as a loose cannon who routinely “hatches crackpot ideas” and “foolish initiatives” to generate publicity.
——————————————————————
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, Oct 7th, 2010
Legendary Rock group Pink Floyd’s main creative force, Roger Waters, is locked in a fierce battle with the Anti-Defamation League, after the group accused Waters of using anti-semitic imagery in his stage show.
The ADL claims that visuals accompanying the song “Goodbye Blue Sky” on Waters’ latest tour of the seminal 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall, are intended as “a comment about Jews and money.”
The backdrop, which can be seen in the video below, features huge dark bomber planes dropping a series of red symbols, which culminate in a sea of blood on the landscape below.
The symbols include crosses, a hammer and sickle, a crescent and star, a Mercedes logo and a Shell Oil logo, yet the ADL sees the inclusion of a Star of David along with Dollar signs as reprehensible.
“It is outrageous that Roger Waters has chosen to use the juxtaposition of a Jewish Star of David with the symbol of dollar signs.” an ADL statement issued by director Abraham Foxman last week read.
“While he insists that his intent was to criticize Israel’s West Bank security fence, the use of such imagery in a concert setting seems to leave the message open to interpretation, and the meaning could easily be misunderstood as a comment about Jews and money.”
Foxman added that Waters should have “chosen some other way to convey his political views without playing into and dredging up the worst age-old anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews and their supposed obsession with making money”.
Waters has been open about his opposition to the Israeli fence for several years, and has publicly stated that The Wall live show is his form of protest against such imposed barriers.
The iconic song writer hit back at the accusations earlier this week with a letter published in The London Independent, asserting that he is not anti-semitic, but that he is vehemently anti-occupation.
“There are no hidden meanings in the order or juxtaposition of these symbols.” Waters writes.
“The point I am trying to make in the song is that the bombardment we are all subject to by conflicting religious, political and economic ideologies only encourages us to turn against one another, and I mourn the concomitant loss of life.”
The letter goes on to say that “In so far as The Wall has a political message it is to seek to illuminate our condition, and find new ways to encourage peace and understanding, particularly in the Middle East.”
Waters’ response has only encouraged the ADL to continue their accusations, however. In a response to Waters, Foxman writes:
“We have heard from many of your fans who have attended the concerts in the States and were shocked by the decision to immediately follow the Star of David with dollar signs,”
“We would ask, out of sensitivity to those who might be offended, that you change the order of the symbols so that the dollar signs are made to appear elsewhere in the show. For us, it would put this matter entirely to rest.”
Pink Floyd Frontman Targeted By ADL For Criticizing Globalist Military Industrial Complex 140410banner4
Waters isn’t about to do that however, noting that he has had an overwhelmingly positive response to the visuals, particularly from Jewish and Israeli fans.
Waters further commented that in his opinion the ADL intentionally goes after critics of Israel’s foreign policy by using anti-semitism as justification:
“It’s a screen that they hide behind. I don’t think they should be taken seriously on that. You can attack Israeli policy without being anti-Jewish,” Waters told The Independent.
“It’s like saying if you criticise the US policy you are being anti-Christian. I’m critical of the Israeli policy of occupying Palestinian land and their policy of building settlements, which is entirely illegal under international law, and also of ghettoising the people whose land they are building on.
“It’s that foreign policy I’m against. It’s nothing to do with the religion.”
Clearly the ADL did not watch the live show before making the accusations against Waters, or they are once again intentionally seeking to garner media coverage by creating a false impression of the artist’s intention.
As we have documented, the group has a history of attacking politically active groups and individuals as peddlers of hate, often because they simply disagree with government policy. It is no coincidence that the group consistently lands lucrative government contracts and tie-ins.
ADL director Foxman has been described by former colleagues as a loose cannon who routinely “hatches crackpot ideas” and “foolish initiatives” to generate publicity.
——————————————————————
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Up against the wall: challenging Israel's impunity
Jamal Juma', The Electronic Intifada, 24 February 2010
Israeli soldiers guarding a settlement built on the land of the West Bank village of Nilin (Ahmad Mesleh/Stop the Wall)
Six years ago, we were busy preparing for the start of the hearings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The world's highest court was to decide on the legal consequences of Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank, which together with the network of settlements, military zones and Jewish-only roads annexes around 46 percent of Palestinian West Bank land. The court's decision, months later, was clear: Israel's wall is illegal, it needs to be torn down and the international community has an obligation to ensure that it is dismantled.
A victory? Not quite. Until today, neither foreign governments nor the UN have joined the Palestinian communities who have been destroyed by Israel's wall in their efforts to dismantle it. Still, Palestinian villages show incredible perseverance and creativity in protesting the theft of their land and tearing down pieces of the cement blocks or iron fencing. They do so in the face of overwhelming repression.
The year 2004, when the court was deliberating the case, marked the first wave of repression aimed at the grassroots movement mobilizing against the wall. The key features of the Israeli attacks consisted of killings, mass injuries, arrests and collective punishment measures such as curfews, the closing of access to the villages protesting the wall and the denial of permits for farmers and workers to reach their jobs and lands beyond the wall or the "green line," the internationally-recognized boundary between Israel and the occupied West Bank. The villages in northwest Jerusalem bore the brunt of Israeli violence.
Today the movement against the apartheid wall is once again in the crosshairs of Israeli repression.
A wave of serial arrests of well-known grassroots human rights defenders began this past summer and escalated in September 2009. A vocal advocate of Palestinian rights, Mohammed Othman, youth coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, was arrested in September when he returned from a speaking tour in Norway. At the beginning of December, Abdullah Abu Rahmah, a key figure in organizing the weekly protests against the wall in the Palestinian village of Bilin, was arrested during a night raid at his home. In mid-December, I was arrested from my home by Israeli forces and taken to an interrogation center where I was kept for one month and then released without charge -- a reprisal for my public outcry against Israel's policies that have reduced Palestine to a number of isolated Bantustans behind cement walls.
We were all interrogated, threatened and intimidated while held in the deplorable conditions of Israeli jails. Othman was released just a day after me, but Abu Rahmah remains in detention.
Similar scenes are playing out in all villages protesting against Israel's wall across the occupied West Bank. In the Palestinian village of Nilin, to date, Israeli soldiers have shot five persons dead, including a 10-year-old boy, and severely injured almost 500 individuals. Since the beginning of 2010 more than 20 have been arrested.
The arrests do not just focus on active members of the popular committees. Children and minors are particularly targeted because their arrest puts pressure on their families and the community at large. Further, being more vulnerable, Israeli intelligence officers often arrest children to recruit them as collaborators. Lately, in a number of cases, family members of wanted activists have been arrested to pressure those activists to turn themselves in.
Neither I nor other activists in the Stop the Wall Campaign have ever attempted to hide our longtime work as critical voices against Israeli apartheid and the architecture of its occupation. Based on the efforts of the popular committees in each Palestinian village, the Stop the Wall Campaign has been a public and central force of research, analysis and regular news dispatches from our "front line" -- our bodies, our voices and our villages up against the wall.
Popular committees have been the basic structure of Palestinian social and political organizing for generations. The creeping criminalization of this social organizing structure therefore not only infringes our right to freedom of expression and association but risks creating a "politicide" and would, if successful, destabilize Palestinian society at its core. During the last six months, this has become Israel's goal.
In September 2009, at the time when the UN-commissioned Goldstone report was to be officially adopted by the UN Human Rights Council, Palestinian civil society showed its strength in front of Israel and an all-too-compliant Palestinian Authority (PA). The report also contains a chapter describing the sharp increase in Israeli use of force against Palestinians in the West Bank -- especially at demonstrations against the wall -- during and after the Gaza assault.
The Goldstone report also describes the brutal tactics with which the PA attempted to beat down Palestinian internal dissent at the time. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Ramallah-based PA, attempted to suppress the findings of the Goldstone report, which corroborates Palestinian and international eyewitness testimonies of war crimes committed by Israel during its invasion of Gaza last winter. After the PA's action at the Human Rights Council in September 2009, Abbas was met by a hefty uproar within Palestinian society and, eventually, pressured by its own constituents, the PA redacted its position on Goldstone.
Especially now that the president's mandate is expired (since 26 January -- which itself was extended for a year under emergency measures), the PA is keenly aware that it is not strong enough to challenge a united Palestinian society, calling for Israel to be held accountable for its crimes. It is clear that Israel also understands this balance of power and has concluded that Palestinian civil society is a force to be reckoned with and therefore should be weakened, if not eliminated.
In a situation where our top leadership is both de jure out of office and de facto too weak to stand up to Israeli and international pressure to defend our interests, such a weakening of civil society would allow Israel even more room to continue its crimes with impunity.
From the bombs dropped in Gaza on an entrapped civilian population, the repression against human rights defenders and the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, to the broad-daylight theft of land and construction of the wall, Israel remains a state that is not held accountable to international law.
Yet there is a window of opportunity opening up in defense of law and Palestinian human rights. In the coming months, the European Union (EU) and its member states will negotiate a new "Action Plan" to implement the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The fact that this agreement is enacted at all sheds doubts over the acumen of the EU decision-makers: the agreement with Israel seems a contradiction in terms, as article two renders the agreement conditional upon compliance with human rights law and democratic principles. However, to keep a veneer of respect for its own rules and regulations, the EU has started up a "political dialogue" with Israel on its violations of human rights. The result of more than five years of discussions is not only disheartening for Palestinians but also embarrassing for the EU as the only result ever recorded for this "dialogue" is the "willingness" of Israel to talk about the issues.
At last, there seems to be some discontent within EU diplomatic circles about the fact that Israel not only disrespects all human rights and international legal obligations but even imprisons those who try to defend these rights, at a national level and through international advocacy. Yet without sustained civil society pressure, this change in perception will be absorbed into meaningless expressions of "concern," and no action will be taken.
Member states of the EU have given valuable support to the campaign to release Mohammed Othman and myself. Yet far more decisive pressure from Europe needs to be forthcoming, not just from governments but also from European civil society, to force Israel to change its policies. As long as the EU member states uphold their cooperation agreements with Israel, hide the 2004 International Court of Justice decision against the wall under the carpet, and are unwilling to implement the recommendations of the Goldstone report -- even at risk of losing their own credibility -- more Palestinian human rights activists will be arrested, detained, tortured, or killed.
An active civil society is a key component of any democratic society and without it justice in Palestine and the rest of the region will remain as elusive as ever.
Jamal Juma' is a coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign. For more information on the campaign visit stopthewall.org.
Israeli soldiers guarding a settlement built on the land of the West Bank village of Nilin (Ahmad Mesleh/Stop the Wall)
Six years ago, we were busy preparing for the start of the hearings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The world's highest court was to decide on the legal consequences of Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank, which together with the network of settlements, military zones and Jewish-only roads annexes around 46 percent of Palestinian West Bank land. The court's decision, months later, was clear: Israel's wall is illegal, it needs to be torn down and the international community has an obligation to ensure that it is dismantled.
A victory? Not quite. Until today, neither foreign governments nor the UN have joined the Palestinian communities who have been destroyed by Israel's wall in their efforts to dismantle it. Still, Palestinian villages show incredible perseverance and creativity in protesting the theft of their land and tearing down pieces of the cement blocks or iron fencing. They do so in the face of overwhelming repression.
The year 2004, when the court was deliberating the case, marked the first wave of repression aimed at the grassroots movement mobilizing against the wall. The key features of the Israeli attacks consisted of killings, mass injuries, arrests and collective punishment measures such as curfews, the closing of access to the villages protesting the wall and the denial of permits for farmers and workers to reach their jobs and lands beyond the wall or the "green line," the internationally-recognized boundary between Israel and the occupied West Bank. The villages in northwest Jerusalem bore the brunt of Israeli violence.
Today the movement against the apartheid wall is once again in the crosshairs of Israeli repression.
A wave of serial arrests of well-known grassroots human rights defenders began this past summer and escalated in September 2009. A vocal advocate of Palestinian rights, Mohammed Othman, youth coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, was arrested in September when he returned from a speaking tour in Norway. At the beginning of December, Abdullah Abu Rahmah, a key figure in organizing the weekly protests against the wall in the Palestinian village of Bilin, was arrested during a night raid at his home. In mid-December, I was arrested from my home by Israeli forces and taken to an interrogation center where I was kept for one month and then released without charge -- a reprisal for my public outcry against Israel's policies that have reduced Palestine to a number of isolated Bantustans behind cement walls.
We were all interrogated, threatened and intimidated while held in the deplorable conditions of Israeli jails. Othman was released just a day after me, but Abu Rahmah remains in detention.
Similar scenes are playing out in all villages protesting against Israel's wall across the occupied West Bank. In the Palestinian village of Nilin, to date, Israeli soldiers have shot five persons dead, including a 10-year-old boy, and severely injured almost 500 individuals. Since the beginning of 2010 more than 20 have been arrested.
The arrests do not just focus on active members of the popular committees. Children and minors are particularly targeted because their arrest puts pressure on their families and the community at large. Further, being more vulnerable, Israeli intelligence officers often arrest children to recruit them as collaborators. Lately, in a number of cases, family members of wanted activists have been arrested to pressure those activists to turn themselves in.
Neither I nor other activists in the Stop the Wall Campaign have ever attempted to hide our longtime work as critical voices against Israeli apartheid and the architecture of its occupation. Based on the efforts of the popular committees in each Palestinian village, the Stop the Wall Campaign has been a public and central force of research, analysis and regular news dispatches from our "front line" -- our bodies, our voices and our villages up against the wall.
Popular committees have been the basic structure of Palestinian social and political organizing for generations. The creeping criminalization of this social organizing structure therefore not only infringes our right to freedom of expression and association but risks creating a "politicide" and would, if successful, destabilize Palestinian society at its core. During the last six months, this has become Israel's goal.
In September 2009, at the time when the UN-commissioned Goldstone report was to be officially adopted by the UN Human Rights Council, Palestinian civil society showed its strength in front of Israel and an all-too-compliant Palestinian Authority (PA). The report also contains a chapter describing the sharp increase in Israeli use of force against Palestinians in the West Bank -- especially at demonstrations against the wall -- during and after the Gaza assault.
The Goldstone report also describes the brutal tactics with which the PA attempted to beat down Palestinian internal dissent at the time. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Ramallah-based PA, attempted to suppress the findings of the Goldstone report, which corroborates Palestinian and international eyewitness testimonies of war crimes committed by Israel during its invasion of Gaza last winter. After the PA's action at the Human Rights Council in September 2009, Abbas was met by a hefty uproar within Palestinian society and, eventually, pressured by its own constituents, the PA redacted its position on Goldstone.
Especially now that the president's mandate is expired (since 26 January -- which itself was extended for a year under emergency measures), the PA is keenly aware that it is not strong enough to challenge a united Palestinian society, calling for Israel to be held accountable for its crimes. It is clear that Israel also understands this balance of power and has concluded that Palestinian civil society is a force to be reckoned with and therefore should be weakened, if not eliminated.
In a situation where our top leadership is both de jure out of office and de facto too weak to stand up to Israeli and international pressure to defend our interests, such a weakening of civil society would allow Israel even more room to continue its crimes with impunity.
From the bombs dropped in Gaza on an entrapped civilian population, the repression against human rights defenders and the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, to the broad-daylight theft of land and construction of the wall, Israel remains a state that is not held accountable to international law.
Yet there is a window of opportunity opening up in defense of law and Palestinian human rights. In the coming months, the European Union (EU) and its member states will negotiate a new "Action Plan" to implement the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The fact that this agreement is enacted at all sheds doubts over the acumen of the EU decision-makers: the agreement with Israel seems a contradiction in terms, as article two renders the agreement conditional upon compliance with human rights law and democratic principles. However, to keep a veneer of respect for its own rules and regulations, the EU has started up a "political dialogue" with Israel on its violations of human rights. The result of more than five years of discussions is not only disheartening for Palestinians but also embarrassing for the EU as the only result ever recorded for this "dialogue" is the "willingness" of Israel to talk about the issues.
At last, there seems to be some discontent within EU diplomatic circles about the fact that Israel not only disrespects all human rights and international legal obligations but even imprisons those who try to defend these rights, at a national level and through international advocacy. Yet without sustained civil society pressure, this change in perception will be absorbed into meaningless expressions of "concern," and no action will be taken.
Member states of the EU have given valuable support to the campaign to release Mohammed Othman and myself. Yet far more decisive pressure from Europe needs to be forthcoming, not just from governments but also from European civil society, to force Israel to change its policies. As long as the EU member states uphold their cooperation agreements with Israel, hide the 2004 International Court of Justice decision against the wall under the carpet, and are unwilling to implement the recommendations of the Goldstone report -- even at risk of losing their own credibility -- more Palestinian human rights activists will be arrested, detained, tortured, or killed.
An active civil society is a key component of any democratic society and without it justice in Palestine and the rest of the region will remain as elusive as ever.
Jamal Juma' is a coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign. For more information on the campaign visit stopthewall.org.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Will Egypt's underground wall end the Gaza tunnel trade?
Lina Attalah
Equipment used to construct the wall on the Egyptian border with Gaza. (Lina Attalah)
Driving parallel to the borderline between Egypt and Gaza, one can spot the machinery behind the conspicuous wall construction project meant to stop ongoing smuggling through underground tunnels.
Some 80 meters away from the borderline, there were two cranes and a spiral driller. Four trucks loaded with sand and two with iron panels had just arrived on site. The usual silence of the borderland is broken by the sounds of this equipment and the few workers around them. People in the area say the wall will be dug between 18 and 25 meters deep and will extend all the way between the Egyptian-controlled Rafah and the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossings with Gaza.
The wall is meant to hack the tunnel structures, which extend from the Egyptian side of the border to the Gaza's side for distances that range between 400 meters and 1,700 meters. With many prohibitions on the ground, the tunnels have become a lucrative underground alternative. The wall construction portrays the depth of this underground urbanism, bringing the conflict between smugglers and the security to the forefront.
According to smugglers in the area, the process kicked off 25 days ago, when workers came to uproot the few olive trees lined up on the construction site. The wall basically consists of a series of iron panels placed along the 13.8-kilometer borderline. The panels are overlapping and held together with molded steel connections. Smugglers said the panels will also include sensors to detect any movement. A faint hope for smugglers remained as they thought they could still run their tunnels underneath this 20-meter wall.
However, the water element is what has convinced many that the wall will be invincible.
No happy ending
Seated together around the fire in a traditional Bedouin maqad (get-together), a group of smugglers in the Mahdeya village, near Rafah, spoke about water extension of the wall and its perils. "We saw the pipes in the past few days," said one of them. "Each is around six inches, 30 meters deep, and they will be placed at around a 20-centimeter distance from each other. They will be connected to a horizontal pipe which will pump water from the sea." Such construction makes it impossible to dig tunnels underneath the iron panels.
In a coffeehouse in the Masoura district, two kilometers away from the borderline, smugglers also shared their thoughts about an ominous post-wall future. One of them who partially owns a tunnel, also foresaw the perils of the water. "Not only will our business be hurt, but the underground water of the area will be disrupted as well, with salt water being pumped into it. This is our sole source of agricultural and drinking water," he said. The area lives on an underground fresh water canal that extends from the Sheikh Zuyawid town to Rafah in the northern Egyptian Sinai.
The implementers of the wall project have never been officially disclosed. Local sources say that it's the Arab Contractors, a leading Egypt-based construction firm in the Middle East and Africa, that is handling the operation. Attempts to get verification from the company were to no avail. Smugglers said that the iron bars in use are imported and transferred via the Alexandria port. Trucks seen transferring the panels to the construction site had Alexandria license plates on them.
Some press reports state that there is official American technical assistance in the wall construction. Embassy officials have previously told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that at the request of the Egyptian government, the US has been sharing its technical expertise and knowledge in tunnel detection since late 2007. When asked about the wall proper, a US Embassy spokesman told Al-Masry Al-Youm, "We are not involved in the construction of any barrier on the Egyptian border, however, we do recognize Egypt's right to protect its border."
Self-protection is the argument in use by the Egyptian government in explaining the wall construction, besides reaffirmations that the wall is built on Egyptian land, and hence it is a sovereign act. Minister of State for Legal Affairs Moufid Shehab said in a report published this week in the local media that the wall was a legitimate national defense mechanism against arms smuggling and terrorism. The official religious establishment has also voiced its support for the move, amid protests from the opposition.
But smugglers in Rafah do not think of the wall as the happy ending of the border turmoil. "Remember when Gazans flooded the border in January 2008? The same will happen when this wall is complete," said the smuggler in the maqad. In January 2008, gunmen in Gaza shot at positions on the borderline, breaking it open before hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, an incident that Egypt considered a threat to its national security. "The next war will be fought in Sinai," said the smuggler, warning of a possible conflict between Egyptian security and Hamas fighters. "This is exactly what Israel wants."
The smuggler in the coffee shop who runs a tunnel foresaw the collapse of his business. "When I learned about the water pipes, I knew that this puts an end to our business. There are no alternatives," he said. According to him, before the tunnel business flourished during the total closure of the Gaza Strip with Hamas' takeover in 2007, people in the area used to live on loans for agricultural projects in the nearby Egyptian city of Ismailiya. But nothing beat the lucrative tunnel business.
He estimated thousands of tons of goods moving through the tunnels every month. A ton of cement costs its trader $500 to cross, and a sac of 35 kilos of food items costs $15 on average. Digging a tunnel costs around $60,000 and many tunnels from the Gaza end fork into more than one end on the Egyptian side. Everyone on the Egyptian side is involved in this underground economy, from owning tunnels, to trading goods through them and transferring commodities and money. Even women get paid for packaging sacks of goods and sewing them. "Tunnels have become our streets," said the smuggler. In a previous encounter, another smuggler said, "tunnels are underground supermarkets."
"This wall will make no one happy," said Youssef, seated behind an olive tree he planted in front of his house, facing the construction site of the iron wall, dubbed "the wall of shame" by Egyptian opposition and Gaza activists.
Lina Attalah is a senior reporter for Al-Masry Al-Youm English, where this article was originally published.
Equipment used to construct the wall on the Egyptian border with Gaza. (Lina Attalah)
Driving parallel to the borderline between Egypt and Gaza, one can spot the machinery behind the conspicuous wall construction project meant to stop ongoing smuggling through underground tunnels.
Some 80 meters away from the borderline, there were two cranes and a spiral driller. Four trucks loaded with sand and two with iron panels had just arrived on site. The usual silence of the borderland is broken by the sounds of this equipment and the few workers around them. People in the area say the wall will be dug between 18 and 25 meters deep and will extend all the way between the Egyptian-controlled Rafah and the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossings with Gaza.
The wall is meant to hack the tunnel structures, which extend from the Egyptian side of the border to the Gaza's side for distances that range between 400 meters and 1,700 meters. With many prohibitions on the ground, the tunnels have become a lucrative underground alternative. The wall construction portrays the depth of this underground urbanism, bringing the conflict between smugglers and the security to the forefront.
According to smugglers in the area, the process kicked off 25 days ago, when workers came to uproot the few olive trees lined up on the construction site. The wall basically consists of a series of iron panels placed along the 13.8-kilometer borderline. The panels are overlapping and held together with molded steel connections. Smugglers said the panels will also include sensors to detect any movement. A faint hope for smugglers remained as they thought they could still run their tunnels underneath this 20-meter wall.
However, the water element is what has convinced many that the wall will be invincible.
No happy ending
Seated together around the fire in a traditional Bedouin maqad (get-together), a group of smugglers in the Mahdeya village, near Rafah, spoke about water extension of the wall and its perils. "We saw the pipes in the past few days," said one of them. "Each is around six inches, 30 meters deep, and they will be placed at around a 20-centimeter distance from each other. They will be connected to a horizontal pipe which will pump water from the sea." Such construction makes it impossible to dig tunnels underneath the iron panels.
In a coffeehouse in the Masoura district, two kilometers away from the borderline, smugglers also shared their thoughts about an ominous post-wall future. One of them who partially owns a tunnel, also foresaw the perils of the water. "Not only will our business be hurt, but the underground water of the area will be disrupted as well, with salt water being pumped into it. This is our sole source of agricultural and drinking water," he said. The area lives on an underground fresh water canal that extends from the Sheikh Zuyawid town to Rafah in the northern Egyptian Sinai.
The implementers of the wall project have never been officially disclosed. Local sources say that it's the Arab Contractors, a leading Egypt-based construction firm in the Middle East and Africa, that is handling the operation. Attempts to get verification from the company were to no avail. Smugglers said that the iron bars in use are imported and transferred via the Alexandria port. Trucks seen transferring the panels to the construction site had Alexandria license plates on them.
Some press reports state that there is official American technical assistance in the wall construction. Embassy officials have previously told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that at the request of the Egyptian government, the US has been sharing its technical expertise and knowledge in tunnel detection since late 2007. When asked about the wall proper, a US Embassy spokesman told Al-Masry Al-Youm, "We are not involved in the construction of any barrier on the Egyptian border, however, we do recognize Egypt's right to protect its border."
Self-protection is the argument in use by the Egyptian government in explaining the wall construction, besides reaffirmations that the wall is built on Egyptian land, and hence it is a sovereign act. Minister of State for Legal Affairs Moufid Shehab said in a report published this week in the local media that the wall was a legitimate national defense mechanism against arms smuggling and terrorism. The official religious establishment has also voiced its support for the move, amid protests from the opposition.
But smugglers in Rafah do not think of the wall as the happy ending of the border turmoil. "Remember when Gazans flooded the border in January 2008? The same will happen when this wall is complete," said the smuggler in the maqad. In January 2008, gunmen in Gaza shot at positions on the borderline, breaking it open before hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, an incident that Egypt considered a threat to its national security. "The next war will be fought in Sinai," said the smuggler, warning of a possible conflict between Egyptian security and Hamas fighters. "This is exactly what Israel wants."
The smuggler in the coffee shop who runs a tunnel foresaw the collapse of his business. "When I learned about the water pipes, I knew that this puts an end to our business. There are no alternatives," he said. According to him, before the tunnel business flourished during the total closure of the Gaza Strip with Hamas' takeover in 2007, people in the area used to live on loans for agricultural projects in the nearby Egyptian city of Ismailiya. But nothing beat the lucrative tunnel business.
He estimated thousands of tons of goods moving through the tunnels every month. A ton of cement costs its trader $500 to cross, and a sac of 35 kilos of food items costs $15 on average. Digging a tunnel costs around $60,000 and many tunnels from the Gaza end fork into more than one end on the Egyptian side. Everyone on the Egyptian side is involved in this underground economy, from owning tunnels, to trading goods through them and transferring commodities and money. Even women get paid for packaging sacks of goods and sewing them. "Tunnels have become our streets," said the smuggler. In a previous encounter, another smuggler said, "tunnels are underground supermarkets."
"This wall will make no one happy," said Youssef, seated behind an olive tree he planted in front of his house, facing the construction site of the iron wall, dubbed "the wall of shame" by Egyptian opposition and Gaza activists.
Lina Attalah is a senior reporter for Al-Masry Al-Youm English, where this article was originally published.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
A Year End request from EI: help us break the information siege
List Information, including one-click unsubscription, is located at the end of this message. Remove unsubscribe link when forwarding to avoid accidental unsubscription by your recipient.)
__
Dear Friends,
Over the past few days, I have been in Cairo with more than 1,300 people from 43 countries, as part of the Gaza Freedom March. Part of the reason I personally decided to go Gaza is to meet some of the individuals in Gaza who have written for The Electronic Intifada (EI), and to see and hear for myself how people there continue to struggle and survive in the wake of last year's Israeli attack amid a tight blockade calculated to make recovery, reconstruction and civilized life impossible.
In face of the Egyptian government's efforts to prevent us from reaching Gaza, marchers have been staging peaceful actions to highlight the devastating effects of the ongoing blockade of Gaza and to demand the border be opened.
This experience has brought home to me the importance of the work The Electronic Intifada team does to break the information siege every day, by ensuring that the voices and stories of Palestinians in Gaza and throughout Palestine are not silenced, and that the incisive, prescient and independent analysis you can't get anywhere else continues on EI.
While I have been in Cairo, my EI team colleagues have continued their work, as they do every day, to bring a first class publication to thousands of people around the world. Your support is critically important to this effort. If you have not already done so, please consider making a donation to EI before the close of the year so that we can remain strong in 2010.
To learn more about how your support makes our award-winning coverage of Palestine possible, please see our 2009 Appeal: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10951.shtml
To make a tax-deductible donation now, go to:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=10090
With best wishes for the new year
Ali Abunimah
On behalf of The Electronic Intifada Team
--
To find out about other EI/eIraq lists available, see: http://lists.electronicintifada.net/mail.cgi
SUPPORT OUR PROJECT: Our work needs funding. We accept donations via credit card and cheque. U.S. donations are tax deductible. More information can be found at: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2162.shtml
__
Dear Friends,
Over the past few days, I have been in Cairo with more than 1,300 people from 43 countries, as part of the Gaza Freedom March. Part of the reason I personally decided to go Gaza is to meet some of the individuals in Gaza who have written for The Electronic Intifada (EI), and to see and hear for myself how people there continue to struggle and survive in the wake of last year's Israeli attack amid a tight blockade calculated to make recovery, reconstruction and civilized life impossible.
In face of the Egyptian government's efforts to prevent us from reaching Gaza, marchers have been staging peaceful actions to highlight the devastating effects of the ongoing blockade of Gaza and to demand the border be opened.
This experience has brought home to me the importance of the work The Electronic Intifada team does to break the information siege every day, by ensuring that the voices and stories of Palestinians in Gaza and throughout Palestine are not silenced, and that the incisive, prescient and independent analysis you can't get anywhere else continues on EI.
While I have been in Cairo, my EI team colleagues have continued their work, as they do every day, to bring a first class publication to thousands of people around the world. Your support is critically important to this effort. If you have not already done so, please consider making a donation to EI before the close of the year so that we can remain strong in 2010.
To learn more about how your support makes our award-winning coverage of Palestine possible, please see our 2009 Appeal: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10951.shtml
To make a tax-deductible donation now, go to:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=10090
With best wishes for the new year
Ali Abunimah
On behalf of The Electronic Intifada Team
--
To find out about other EI/eIraq lists available, see: http://lists.electronicintifada.net/mail.cgi
SUPPORT OUR PROJECT: Our work needs funding. We accept donations via credit card and cheque. U.S. donations are tax deductible. More information can be found at: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2162.shtml
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Egypt starts building steel wall on Gaza Strip border
By Christian Fraser
BBC News, Cairo
There are thought to be hundreds of tunnels along the border Egypt has begun constructing a huge metal wall along its border with the Gaza Strip as it attempts to cut smuggling tunnels, the BBC has learned.
When it is finished the wall will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long and will extend 18 metres below the surface.
The Egyptians are being helped by American army engineers, who the BBC understands have designed the wall.
The plan has been shrouded in secrecy, with no comment or confirmation from the Egyptian government.
The wall will take 18 months to complete.
For weeks local farmers have noticed more activity at the border where trees were being cut down, but very few of them were aware that a barrier was being built.
'Impenetrable'
That is because the barrier, made of super-strength steel, has been hidden deep underground.
The BBC has been told that it was manufactured in the US, that it fits together in similar fashion to a jigsaw, and that it has been tested to ensure it is bomb proof.
It cannot be cut or melted - in short it is impenetrable.
Intelligence sources in Egypt say the barrier is being sunk close to the perimeter wall that already exists.
They claim 4km of the wall has already been completed north of the Rafah crossing, with work now beginning to the south.
The land beneath Egypt and Gaza resembles a Swiss cheese, full of holes and tunnels through which the Palestinians smuggle the everyday items they are denied by the blockade.
But the Israelis say the tunnels are also used to smuggle people, weapons, and the components of the rockets that are fired at southern Israeli towns.
The wall is not expected to stop all the smuggling, but it will force the Palestinians to go deeper and it will likely cut the hundreds of superficial tunnels closer to the surface that are used to move the bulk of the goods.
BBC News, Cairo
There are thought to be hundreds of tunnels along the border Egypt has begun constructing a huge metal wall along its border with the Gaza Strip as it attempts to cut smuggling tunnels, the BBC has learned.
When it is finished the wall will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long and will extend 18 metres below the surface.
The Egyptians are being helped by American army engineers, who the BBC understands have designed the wall.
The plan has been shrouded in secrecy, with no comment or confirmation from the Egyptian government.
The wall will take 18 months to complete.
For weeks local farmers have noticed more activity at the border where trees were being cut down, but very few of them were aware that a barrier was being built.
'Impenetrable'
That is because the barrier, made of super-strength steel, has been hidden deep underground.
The BBC has been told that it was manufactured in the US, that it fits together in similar fashion to a jigsaw, and that it has been tested to ensure it is bomb proof.
It cannot be cut or melted - in short it is impenetrable.
Intelligence sources in Egypt say the barrier is being sunk close to the perimeter wall that already exists.
They claim 4km of the wall has already been completed north of the Rafah crossing, with work now beginning to the south.
The land beneath Egypt and Gaza resembles a Swiss cheese, full of holes and tunnels through which the Palestinians smuggle the everyday items they are denied by the blockade.
But the Israelis say the tunnels are also used to smuggle people, weapons, and the components of the rockets that are fired at southern Israeli towns.
The wall is not expected to stop all the smuggling, but it will force the Palestinians to go deeper and it will likely cut the hundreds of superficial tunnels closer to the surface that are used to move the bulk of the goods.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
End the Siege of Gaza: action in your community and news from Congress
Dear Milena,
Last Friday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced H.Res.867, calling on the Obama Administration to "oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration" of the Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report. Currently, 43 Representatives already have signed on to the resolution as co-sponsors.
If passed, this dangerous resolution would instruct the Obama Administration to continue its attempts to shield Israel from accountability for the war crimes it committed, as documented by the Goldstone Report, before, during, and after its assault on the Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009. The resolution also undermines the Obama Administration's rhetorical support for the universality of human rights and its stated commitment to holding human rights violators accountable. In addition, it contains numerous inaccuracies about and misleading characterizations of the Goldstone Report.
We hear that a vote on this resolution may take place as soon as next week. Please take a minute to contact your Representative and ask him/her not to cosponsor or vote for H.Res.867 by clicking here.
Now, with some Members of Congress attempting to shield Israel from accountability for the crimes it committed before, during, and after its most recent assault on the Gaza Strip, it is more important than ever to take action.
Now-December: Take Action with Congress
You can directly rebut Congressional attempts to bury the Goldstone Report in three ways. Take action now by emailing your Representative to tell her/him that the Goldstone Report is fair and worthy of further consideration and that s/he should not cosponsor or vote for H.Res.867. Click here to send this email. Next, join human rights advocates across the country in a Congressional Call-in Day on Tuesday, November 3rd. Call your Member of Congress and tell her/him to support human rights and accountability by supporting the Goldstone Report. You can reach your Members of Congress via the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202)224-3121; just ask the operator to connect you to your Representative's office. You can find out who your Representative is by clicking here. You can also meet with your Members of Congress in-person to discuss accountability and ending the siege of Gaza between now and December. Please use our Congressional action tools to request a meeting, prepare for the meeting, and share the results with national organizers working to end the siege of the Gaza Strip.
November 5th: Media Action Day
November 4th marks one full year since the Israeli military broke the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Use this occasion to get our message about ending the siege of the Gaza Strip into the media. Use our talking points and media resources as inspiration for your actions. Publicize your event using our guidelines for pitching a story to your local media outlets. Respond to stories in local media by using our letter-to-the-editor guide. Make your own media online using blogs and Twitter. Find resources for these suggested actions, and much more by clicking here.
November 2-8: Take Action in Your Community
Host or attend an event to raise awareness in your own community. There are lots of ways to educate your community and share options for action with your friends and family. You can host a film screening with a community organization or in your own home. You might prefer to show public support by planning a vigil or rally to end the siege of Gaza. Another option is to organize a panel or host a speaker to discuss the siege of the Gaza Strip. Click here for a list of experts willing to participate in panels and talks to end the siege of Gaza. Check out our other ideas and resources for hosting your own event by clicking here. If you don't have the capacity to organize your own event, click here to find out about events already planned in your area.
December 27-January 2: Take Action in the Gaza Strip
Join Palestinians and international human rights activists in the Gaza Strip on the anniversary of Israel's 2008/9 assault, dubbed "Operation Cast Lead." Internationals participating in the Gaza Freedom March will meet in Cairo on December 27th and cross into the Gaza Strip together. On December 31st, internationals will join Palestinians in demanding an end to Israel's blockade during a mile-long march for freedom. Click here to get more information about the Gaza Freedom March, including registration, fundraising ideas, and who else is going on the trip.
November 9-15: Week of Action Against Israel's Apartheid Wall
Keep the momentum going by participating in the 7th annual International Week Against the Apartheid Wall. While occupation is manifested differently in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, it is the root of the problem in all of these places. The call for the 7th annual Week of Action Against the Apartheid Wall was issued by a coalition of Palestinian village popular committees affected by the wall. Use this occasion, which coincides with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, to get Israel's apartheid wall into the media. Please check out our resources for action and education about Israel's apartheid wall by clicking here.
Last Friday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced H.Res.867, calling on the Obama Administration to "oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration" of the Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report. Currently, 43 Representatives already have signed on to the resolution as co-sponsors.
If passed, this dangerous resolution would instruct the Obama Administration to continue its attempts to shield Israel from accountability for the war crimes it committed, as documented by the Goldstone Report, before, during, and after its assault on the Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009. The resolution also undermines the Obama Administration's rhetorical support for the universality of human rights and its stated commitment to holding human rights violators accountable. In addition, it contains numerous inaccuracies about and misleading characterizations of the Goldstone Report.
We hear that a vote on this resolution may take place as soon as next week. Please take a minute to contact your Representative and ask him/her not to cosponsor or vote for H.Res.867 by clicking here.
Now, with some Members of Congress attempting to shield Israel from accountability for the crimes it committed before, during, and after its most recent assault on the Gaza Strip, it is more important than ever to take action.
Now-December: Take Action with Congress
You can directly rebut Congressional attempts to bury the Goldstone Report in three ways. Take action now by emailing your Representative to tell her/him that the Goldstone Report is fair and worthy of further consideration and that s/he should not cosponsor or vote for H.Res.867. Click here to send this email. Next, join human rights advocates across the country in a Congressional Call-in Day on Tuesday, November 3rd. Call your Member of Congress and tell her/him to support human rights and accountability by supporting the Goldstone Report. You can reach your Members of Congress via the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202)224-3121; just ask the operator to connect you to your Representative's office. You can find out who your Representative is by clicking here. You can also meet with your Members of Congress in-person to discuss accountability and ending the siege of Gaza between now and December. Please use our Congressional action tools to request a meeting, prepare for the meeting, and share the results with national organizers working to end the siege of the Gaza Strip.
November 5th: Media Action Day
November 4th marks one full year since the Israeli military broke the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Use this occasion to get our message about ending the siege of the Gaza Strip into the media. Use our talking points and media resources as inspiration for your actions. Publicize your event using our guidelines for pitching a story to your local media outlets. Respond to stories in local media by using our letter-to-the-editor guide. Make your own media online using blogs and Twitter. Find resources for these suggested actions, and much more by clicking here.
November 2-8: Take Action in Your Community
Host or attend an event to raise awareness in your own community. There are lots of ways to educate your community and share options for action with your friends and family. You can host a film screening with a community organization or in your own home. You might prefer to show public support by planning a vigil or rally to end the siege of Gaza. Another option is to organize a panel or host a speaker to discuss the siege of the Gaza Strip. Click here for a list of experts willing to participate in panels and talks to end the siege of Gaza. Check out our other ideas and resources for hosting your own event by clicking here. If you don't have the capacity to organize your own event, click here to find out about events already planned in your area.
December 27-January 2: Take Action in the Gaza Strip
Join Palestinians and international human rights activists in the Gaza Strip on the anniversary of Israel's 2008/9 assault, dubbed "Operation Cast Lead." Internationals participating in the Gaza Freedom March will meet in Cairo on December 27th and cross into the Gaza Strip together. On December 31st, internationals will join Palestinians in demanding an end to Israel's blockade during a mile-long march for freedom. Click here to get more information about the Gaza Freedom March, including registration, fundraising ideas, and who else is going on the trip.
November 9-15: Week of Action Against Israel's Apartheid Wall
Keep the momentum going by participating in the 7th annual International Week Against the Apartheid Wall. While occupation is manifested differently in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, it is the root of the problem in all of these places. The call for the 7th annual Week of Action Against the Apartheid Wall was issued by a coalition of Palestinian village popular committees affected by the wall. Use this occasion, which coincides with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, to get Israel's apartheid wall into the media. Please check out our resources for action and education about Israel's apartheid wall by clicking here.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Israeli forces arrest anti-wall organizer
Press Release, Addameer, 25 September 2009
Mohammad Othman (Stop the Wall)
Addameer expresses its concern at the arrest and detention of human rights defender and activist Mohammad Othman on 22 September 2009. Mohammad, 33, originally from Jayyus village, is a human rights activist and a volunteer with the grassroots Stop the Wall Campaign.
At 8:00 am, on 22 September 2009, Mohammad arrived at the Allenby Bridge Crossing. He was returning home, to the West Bank, via Jordan, from his travels in Norway where he attended several speaking events and advocacy meetings. At the Israeli border control, Mohammad's passport was taken away, and he was asked to wait on the side. Mohammad waited until 10pm at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing without any information for the reasons of his detention. At 10pm, he was arrested and transferred to Huwwara provisional detention center, located on the outskirts of Nablus. Two days later, on 24 September, he received a visit from an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate and was allowed to see a lawyer. Since the moment of his arrest, he has not been either questioned or interrogated once. Mohammad is due to appear before the military court on Tuesday, 29 September 2009.
Addameer believes that Mohammad Othman's arrest is related to his human rights activism. In the last few years, Mohammad has been extremely active in his lobbying and advocacy efforts by briefing activists and officials, locally and internationally, on Israel's illegal construction of the Apartheid Wall, informing the media on daily developments and monitoring human rights violations in wall-affected villages.
This is not the first time that the Israeli authorities have attempted to deter Mohammad from his human rights work. On 18 February 2009, during a night incursion and mass arrest of youth in Jayyus village, located in Qalqiliya governorate, the Israeli soldiers raided several houses, including that of Mohammad. They confiscated documents and information related to his advocacy against the Annexation Wall. In an interview given to Stop the Wall on 15 June 2009, Mohammad stated: "in my house, they took all the information about the Wall, information that had been collected from 2002-2009, CDs, boxes, pictures."
Addameer stresses that Mohammad's case is not isolated. In a report ("Repression allowed, Resistance denied") jointly published with Stop the Wall last July, Addameer argues that arrests of demonstrators and human rights defenders is a strategy designed to stifle activism and deter Palestinians from participating and organizing weekly protests against the Apartheid Wall, as a form of resistance to land confiscation. Collective punishment, including night raids and curfews, as well as individual threats of detention are also often applied. There is strong evidence that the Israeli Occupying Forces target the more active youth for arrest, such as the members of youth committees, but also members of popular committees, in order to break up protests and create disunity.
Most recently, in a similar event, on 20 July 2009, Mohammad Srour, a member of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Nilin, another village affected by the construction of the Annexation Wall, was detained by Israeli border officials while crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan and taken to Ofer prison for interrogation. He was released on bail three days later. Although Srour was not charged, the courts said they were likely going to charge him, but they did not say on what grounds he was to be charged, or when. No court date has been set for his reappearance. In its final report submitted to the Human Rights Council, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict expressed its concern that his detention "may have been a consequence of his appearance before the Mission." Indeed, on 6 July 2009, together with an Israeli activist, Srour testified before the Mission in Geneva and described the fatal shooting of two Nilin residents, by Israeli forces during a demonstration against the conflict in Gaza in Nilin on 28 December 2008. This arrest, like the arrest of Mohammad Othman, is an indication of the increasing oppression of Palestinian communities engaging in ongoing protest against the Wall. Addameer is alarmed at the growing number of arrests of human rights defenders and protestors against the Apartheid Wall and stresses that such arrests are in violation to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and infringe on everyone's "right to freedom of opinion and expression" and the "right to freedom of assembly."
Addameer strongly condemns Mohammad Othman's arbitrary arrest and detention, and calls for his release. At the same time, Addameer reiterates its call to establish real mechanisms to protect the popular resistance against the Annexation Wall and their right to freedom of assembly.
Mohammad Othman (Stop the Wall)
Addameer expresses its concern at the arrest and detention of human rights defender and activist Mohammad Othman on 22 September 2009. Mohammad, 33, originally from Jayyus village, is a human rights activist and a volunteer with the grassroots Stop the Wall Campaign.
At 8:00 am, on 22 September 2009, Mohammad arrived at the Allenby Bridge Crossing. He was returning home, to the West Bank, via Jordan, from his travels in Norway where he attended several speaking events and advocacy meetings. At the Israeli border control, Mohammad's passport was taken away, and he was asked to wait on the side. Mohammad waited until 10pm at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing without any information for the reasons of his detention. At 10pm, he was arrested and transferred to Huwwara provisional detention center, located on the outskirts of Nablus. Two days later, on 24 September, he received a visit from an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate and was allowed to see a lawyer. Since the moment of his arrest, he has not been either questioned or interrogated once. Mohammad is due to appear before the military court on Tuesday, 29 September 2009.
Addameer believes that Mohammad Othman's arrest is related to his human rights activism. In the last few years, Mohammad has been extremely active in his lobbying and advocacy efforts by briefing activists and officials, locally and internationally, on Israel's illegal construction of the Apartheid Wall, informing the media on daily developments and monitoring human rights violations in wall-affected villages.
This is not the first time that the Israeli authorities have attempted to deter Mohammad from his human rights work. On 18 February 2009, during a night incursion and mass arrest of youth in Jayyus village, located in Qalqiliya governorate, the Israeli soldiers raided several houses, including that of Mohammad. They confiscated documents and information related to his advocacy against the Annexation Wall. In an interview given to Stop the Wall on 15 June 2009, Mohammad stated: "in my house, they took all the information about the Wall, information that had been collected from 2002-2009, CDs, boxes, pictures."
Addameer stresses that Mohammad's case is not isolated. In a report ("Repression allowed, Resistance denied") jointly published with Stop the Wall last July, Addameer argues that arrests of demonstrators and human rights defenders is a strategy designed to stifle activism and deter Palestinians from participating and organizing weekly protests against the Apartheid Wall, as a form of resistance to land confiscation. Collective punishment, including night raids and curfews, as well as individual threats of detention are also often applied. There is strong evidence that the Israeli Occupying Forces target the more active youth for arrest, such as the members of youth committees, but also members of popular committees, in order to break up protests and create disunity.
Most recently, in a similar event, on 20 July 2009, Mohammad Srour, a member of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Nilin, another village affected by the construction of the Annexation Wall, was detained by Israeli border officials while crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan and taken to Ofer prison for interrogation. He was released on bail three days later. Although Srour was not charged, the courts said they were likely going to charge him, but they did not say on what grounds he was to be charged, or when. No court date has been set for his reappearance. In its final report submitted to the Human Rights Council, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict expressed its concern that his detention "may have been a consequence of his appearance before the Mission." Indeed, on 6 July 2009, together with an Israeli activist, Srour testified before the Mission in Geneva and described the fatal shooting of two Nilin residents, by Israeli forces during a demonstration against the conflict in Gaza in Nilin on 28 December 2008. This arrest, like the arrest of Mohammad Othman, is an indication of the increasing oppression of Palestinian communities engaging in ongoing protest against the Wall. Addameer is alarmed at the growing number of arrests of human rights defenders and protestors against the Apartheid Wall and stresses that such arrests are in violation to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and infringe on everyone's "right to freedom of opinion and expression" and the "right to freedom of assembly."
Addameer strongly condemns Mohammad Othman's arbitrary arrest and detention, and calls for his release. At the same time, Addameer reiterates its call to establish real mechanisms to protect the popular resistance against the Annexation Wall and their right to freedom of assembly.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Universal jurisdiction once again under threat
Sharon Weill and Valentina Azarov, The Electronic Intifada, 10 June 2009
Pressure is being exerted on the Spanish government to amend its legislation regarding universal jurisdiction.
Currently, the fate of one of the only remaining venues that offers a redress mechanism for Palestinians is at stake. It is one that can bring accountability of Israeli officials and decision-makers who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The amendment of universal jurisdiction laws, often incommensurably restricting access to these mechanisms, is at variance with the effect of certain crimes on humanity as a whole, on which the notion of universal jurisdiction is premised. The pressure exerted on the Spanish government to amend its law is an example of the regrettable phenomenon of the weakening of international law at the price of the individual.
On 22 July 2002, around midnight, an Israeli Air Force plane dropped a one-ton bomb on Gaza City's al-Daraj neighborhood, one of the most densely-populated residential areas in the world. The military objective of this operation was to target and kill Hamas' former military leader in the Gaza Strip, Salah Shehadeh, who at that time was in his house with his family. As a result of the operation, Shehadeh and 14 civilians were killed, most of them children and infants, and 150 persons were injured, about half of them severely. Houses in the vicinity were either destroyed or damaged. Seven members of the Matar family, whose neighboring house was totally destroyed, were among the casualties.
More than six years later, in Madrid, just a few days after Israel's most recent invasion of Gaza ended, Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles decided to open a criminal investigation on the basis of universal jurisdiction against seven Israeli political and military officials who were alleged to have committed a war crime -- and possibly a crime against humanity -- in the course of that operation. The officials included Dan Halutz, then Commander of the Israeli Air Forces; Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, then Israeli Defense Minister; Moshe Yaalon, then Israeli army Chief of Staff; Doron Almog, then Southern Commander of the Israeli army; Giora Eiland, then Head of the Israeli National Security Council; Michael Herzog, then Military Secretary to the Israeli Defense Ministry; and Abraham Dichter, then Director of the General Security Services.
Although the allegations in the action referred only to war crimes, the court stated that the facts could amount to more serious crimes than what was initially claimed -- namely, crimes against humanity. This preliminary legal assessment motivated the legal team to work toward basing a new charge. The lawyers announced that they would redouble their efforts to demonstrate that the al-Daraj bombing was part of a policy of "widespread and systematic" attacks directed against a civilian population, fitting the definition of a crime against humanity.
As the request for Israel to provide information on the existence of any judicial proceedings concerning the military operation was not answered and the state expressed its unwillingness to cooperate with the legal team, the Spanish court thereby ruled that the investigation be conducted by the Spanish jurisdiction. On the same day the decision concerning the commencement of the investigation was rendered, Israeli officials sent a 400-page document to the Spanish legal team, stating that the facts of the complaint regarding the operation were subject to proceedings in Israel, and therefore the Spanish court should have declined to exercise jurisdiction.
The proceedings in Israel
The army's internal investigation found that the collateral damage was caused because of an intelligence failure, and therefore was not anticipated by military decision-makers. Yesh Gvul, an Israeli pacifist movement, asked the military advocate general, and later the state advocate general, to open a criminal investigation against those who planned and executed the operation. After their request was denied by the prosecution authorities, Yesh Gvul and five other well-known Israeli actors filed a petition to the Israeli high court in September 2003. The high court finally held a hearing in the Shehadeh case nearly four years later on 17 June 2007.
The court was due to examine whether the bombing of the Shehadeh house from the air could constitute a war crime, which therefore required a criminal investigation to be opened. However, the high court did not make a decision and instead shifted the responsibility by recommending that an "objective and independent body" examine the incident.
On 23 January 2008, an "objective and independent" commission of inquiry into the killing of Salah Shehadeh was appointed by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It was composed of three members, two of then former Israeli generals and a former official from the General Security Services. The structure, nature and mandate of this commission were to be entirely determined by the state -- the very body whose actions were to be investigated. Moreover, it was mandated to function as a military inquiry, while the procedure, testimonies and even the final report were to remain confidential and thereby inadmissible before a court of law. The commission could only provide non-binding recommendations directly to the military. As of today, the commission has yet to complete its mandate.
Back to Spain
On 2 April 2009, following the delivery of the document by Israel to the Spanish court, the Spanish public prosecutor submitted a request for the court to decline competence over the case, since parallel proceedings were taking place in Israel.
Despite the political inconvenience in upholding its previous stand, on 4 May 2009, the court forcefully rejected the prosecutor's request to decline competence. The court found that the procedure, and decisions made by the Israeli military advocate attorney general, the high court and the Committee of Inquiry, did not satisfy the constitutional right to effective protection by an independent and impartial court. It upheld that the decisions of the prosecution authorities, which endorsed an internal military probe, could not be perceived as independent and impartial, nor could the commission of inquiry that was appointed by the prime minister and functioned under the discretion of the executive branch. The Spanish court equally noted that an overarching deficiency of Israel's decisions was that none of them provided a detailed legal assessment of the facts. This ruling was immediately appealed, and the case is still pending.
The Israeli media portrayed the Spanish procedure as a "cynical attempt by the Palestinian plaintiffs to exploit the Spanish judicial system in order to advance a political agenda against Israel;" an issue, as the press appreciated, that should have been resolved through diplomatic channels. The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on 4 May 2009: "I intend to appeal to the Spanish foreign minister, the Spanish minister of defense and, if need be, the Spanish prime minister, who is a colleague of mine, in the Socialist International, to override the decision."
Spain and universal jurisdiction
Spain is one of the most important contributing actors to the securing of accountability of international crimes, principally due to its state-of-the-art universal jurisdiction legislation. The Spanish judiciary was the one that initiated the procedure against Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, in 1998, and it is currently investigating dozens of other cases. One of the specific features of the procedure in Spain is that the victims themselves can initiate the investigation, and directly submit their complaint to the court, thus avoiding political obstacles that usually exist if it is the national prosecutor or the police who determine what cases are to be investigated. Further, Spanish law does not require the presence of the foreign suspects for the commencement of the judicial investigation. However, trials in the absence of the accused are prohibited in Spain.
Following political pressure from the governments of Israel, China (regarding an ongoing investigation accusing its former foreign minister of committing genocide in Tibet) and the US (for two cases against US officials alleging torture), on 19 May 2009 the Spanish parliament passed a resolution backing a proposed amendment to the Spanish universal jurisdiction legislation. The amendment limits the legislation's exercise to cases with a Spanish victim, or some other connection such as when the suspect is present on Spanish soil. It is not clear if the proposed amendments would apply to ongoing cases once in force. It is hoped that if the law is modified, victims can still initiate judicial investigations.
In 2003, Belgium faced a similar situation. It was bullied into changing its law and procedure, following Israeli and US pressure concerning the complaints brought against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In response, Washington threatened to move NATO headquarters from Brussels. In contrast, when a judicial arrest warrant was issued against Israeli Major General Doron Almog in 2005, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared his intention to modify the United Kingdom's laws on universal jurisdiction. Four years later, no such amendment has even been proposed to the UK Parliament.
Amendments to universal jurisdiction laws, as well as the actual initiation of investigations by the state prosecutors, have historically been markedly affected by public opinion and action. Pressure of such kind stands to be the most effective means of ensuring that justice is achieved for the victims, and the law is upheld against those who have violated it. This is particularly important when international war crimes and crimes against humanity are at issue. Governments and the international community should be mindful of this reality, in which the law is politicized in order to be evaded, and act upon it (a sample letter to government officials and contact information is provided by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights). We must, in any way possible, ensure that all necessary measures are taken to guarantee respect of the most fundamental pillars of international law.
Sharon Weill is a PhD candidate in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), University of Geneva, and lecturer in IHL. Valentina Azarov is a Legal Researcher with HaMoked - Center for the Defence of the individual and author with the International Law Observer.
Pressure is being exerted on the Spanish government to amend its legislation regarding universal jurisdiction.
Currently, the fate of one of the only remaining venues that offers a redress mechanism for Palestinians is at stake. It is one that can bring accountability of Israeli officials and decision-makers who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The amendment of universal jurisdiction laws, often incommensurably restricting access to these mechanisms, is at variance with the effect of certain crimes on humanity as a whole, on which the notion of universal jurisdiction is premised. The pressure exerted on the Spanish government to amend its law is an example of the regrettable phenomenon of the weakening of international law at the price of the individual.
On 22 July 2002, around midnight, an Israeli Air Force plane dropped a one-ton bomb on Gaza City's al-Daraj neighborhood, one of the most densely-populated residential areas in the world. The military objective of this operation was to target and kill Hamas' former military leader in the Gaza Strip, Salah Shehadeh, who at that time was in his house with his family. As a result of the operation, Shehadeh and 14 civilians were killed, most of them children and infants, and 150 persons were injured, about half of them severely. Houses in the vicinity were either destroyed or damaged. Seven members of the Matar family, whose neighboring house was totally destroyed, were among the casualties.
More than six years later, in Madrid, just a few days after Israel's most recent invasion of Gaza ended, Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles decided to open a criminal investigation on the basis of universal jurisdiction against seven Israeli political and military officials who were alleged to have committed a war crime -- and possibly a crime against humanity -- in the course of that operation. The officials included Dan Halutz, then Commander of the Israeli Air Forces; Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, then Israeli Defense Minister; Moshe Yaalon, then Israeli army Chief of Staff; Doron Almog, then Southern Commander of the Israeli army; Giora Eiland, then Head of the Israeli National Security Council; Michael Herzog, then Military Secretary to the Israeli Defense Ministry; and Abraham Dichter, then Director of the General Security Services.
Although the allegations in the action referred only to war crimes, the court stated that the facts could amount to more serious crimes than what was initially claimed -- namely, crimes against humanity. This preliminary legal assessment motivated the legal team to work toward basing a new charge. The lawyers announced that they would redouble their efforts to demonstrate that the al-Daraj bombing was part of a policy of "widespread and systematic" attacks directed against a civilian population, fitting the definition of a crime against humanity.
As the request for Israel to provide information on the existence of any judicial proceedings concerning the military operation was not answered and the state expressed its unwillingness to cooperate with the legal team, the Spanish court thereby ruled that the investigation be conducted by the Spanish jurisdiction. On the same day the decision concerning the commencement of the investigation was rendered, Israeli officials sent a 400-page document to the Spanish legal team, stating that the facts of the complaint regarding the operation were subject to proceedings in Israel, and therefore the Spanish court should have declined to exercise jurisdiction.
The proceedings in Israel
The army's internal investigation found that the collateral damage was caused because of an intelligence failure, and therefore was not anticipated by military decision-makers. Yesh Gvul, an Israeli pacifist movement, asked the military advocate general, and later the state advocate general, to open a criminal investigation against those who planned and executed the operation. After their request was denied by the prosecution authorities, Yesh Gvul and five other well-known Israeli actors filed a petition to the Israeli high court in September 2003. The high court finally held a hearing in the Shehadeh case nearly four years later on 17 June 2007.
The court was due to examine whether the bombing of the Shehadeh house from the air could constitute a war crime, which therefore required a criminal investigation to be opened. However, the high court did not make a decision and instead shifted the responsibility by recommending that an "objective and independent body" examine the incident.
On 23 January 2008, an "objective and independent" commission of inquiry into the killing of Salah Shehadeh was appointed by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It was composed of three members, two of then former Israeli generals and a former official from the General Security Services. The structure, nature and mandate of this commission were to be entirely determined by the state -- the very body whose actions were to be investigated. Moreover, it was mandated to function as a military inquiry, while the procedure, testimonies and even the final report were to remain confidential and thereby inadmissible before a court of law. The commission could only provide non-binding recommendations directly to the military. As of today, the commission has yet to complete its mandate.
Back to Spain
On 2 April 2009, following the delivery of the document by Israel to the Spanish court, the Spanish public prosecutor submitted a request for the court to decline competence over the case, since parallel proceedings were taking place in Israel.
Despite the political inconvenience in upholding its previous stand, on 4 May 2009, the court forcefully rejected the prosecutor's request to decline competence. The court found that the procedure, and decisions made by the Israeli military advocate attorney general, the high court and the Committee of Inquiry, did not satisfy the constitutional right to effective protection by an independent and impartial court. It upheld that the decisions of the prosecution authorities, which endorsed an internal military probe, could not be perceived as independent and impartial, nor could the commission of inquiry that was appointed by the prime minister and functioned under the discretion of the executive branch. The Spanish court equally noted that an overarching deficiency of Israel's decisions was that none of them provided a detailed legal assessment of the facts. This ruling was immediately appealed, and the case is still pending.
The Israeli media portrayed the Spanish procedure as a "cynical attempt by the Palestinian plaintiffs to exploit the Spanish judicial system in order to advance a political agenda against Israel;" an issue, as the press appreciated, that should have been resolved through diplomatic channels. The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on 4 May 2009: "I intend to appeal to the Spanish foreign minister, the Spanish minister of defense and, if need be, the Spanish prime minister, who is a colleague of mine, in the Socialist International, to override the decision."
Spain and universal jurisdiction
Spain is one of the most important contributing actors to the securing of accountability of international crimes, principally due to its state-of-the-art universal jurisdiction legislation. The Spanish judiciary was the one that initiated the procedure against Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, in 1998, and it is currently investigating dozens of other cases. One of the specific features of the procedure in Spain is that the victims themselves can initiate the investigation, and directly submit their complaint to the court, thus avoiding political obstacles that usually exist if it is the national prosecutor or the police who determine what cases are to be investigated. Further, Spanish law does not require the presence of the foreign suspects for the commencement of the judicial investigation. However, trials in the absence of the accused are prohibited in Spain.
Following political pressure from the governments of Israel, China (regarding an ongoing investigation accusing its former foreign minister of committing genocide in Tibet) and the US (for two cases against US officials alleging torture), on 19 May 2009 the Spanish parliament passed a resolution backing a proposed amendment to the Spanish universal jurisdiction legislation. The amendment limits the legislation's exercise to cases with a Spanish victim, or some other connection such as when the suspect is present on Spanish soil. It is not clear if the proposed amendments would apply to ongoing cases once in force. It is hoped that if the law is modified, victims can still initiate judicial investigations.
In 2003, Belgium faced a similar situation. It was bullied into changing its law and procedure, following Israeli and US pressure concerning the complaints brought against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In response, Washington threatened to move NATO headquarters from Brussels. In contrast, when a judicial arrest warrant was issued against Israeli Major General Doron Almog in 2005, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared his intention to modify the United Kingdom's laws on universal jurisdiction. Four years later, no such amendment has even been proposed to the UK Parliament.
Amendments to universal jurisdiction laws, as well as the actual initiation of investigations by the state prosecutors, have historically been markedly affected by public opinion and action. Pressure of such kind stands to be the most effective means of ensuring that justice is achieved for the victims, and the law is upheld against those who have violated it. This is particularly important when international war crimes and crimes against humanity are at issue. Governments and the international community should be mindful of this reality, in which the law is politicized in order to be evaded, and act upon it (a sample letter to government officials and contact information is provided by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights). We must, in any way possible, ensure that all necessary measures are taken to guarantee respect of the most fundamental pillars of international law.
Sharon Weill is a PhD candidate in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), University of Geneva, and lecturer in IHL. Valentina Azarov is a Legal Researcher with HaMoked - Center for the Defence of the individual and author with the International Law Observer.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Four injured and dozens suffered teargas inhalation during International Children’s Day demonstration in Bil’in
10 April
Following Friday prayers in Bil’in today, residents held a protest against the wall and settlement building. A group of children from the village were at the front of the protest holding Palestinian flags and banners remarking International Children’s Day. Some banners said “It’s our right to live safely”, “The wall kills our hopes and dreams”, “Settlements and the wall leave us with no future”. There were also pictures of children with the caption “Wanted by the Israeli occupation for resisting the wall”.
The protest began in the center of the village and was joined by international and Israeli activists. The demonstration headed towards the Apartheid Wall, which is built on Bil’in’s land. An Israeli army unit had been stationed behind the wall since early morning and prevented the crowd from going through the gate. The army fired tear gas canisters to disturb the crowd, causing dozens to suffer gas inhalation, and they injured four young’s, one of them journalist his name Mohammed Muhesen working in AP, Kubi from Israel, Abdullah Aburahma, and Adeeb Aburahma.
On the other hand, the Israeli army, which is at the wall, arrested two children from Bil’in : Wajdy Ali Shehada Abu Rahma (16 years) and Hamouda Emad Hahmouda Yassin (16 years). They have beat them and then leave them near the village of Qatana after midnight, where they have access to the city Ramallah, and then arrived in the village on foot early in the morning, and this is came within the suffering of the Palestinian children by the Israeli soldiers, which coincides with the Children’s Day. For this the Popular Committee for wall resistance in the village they intervention of human rights organizations in general and children’s rights in particular, to stop the violence from the soldiers that they injured or arrest, or beat them and intimidate them and leave them in areas far from their homes after midnight.
Following Friday prayers in Bil’in today, residents held a protest against the wall and settlement building. A group of children from the village were at the front of the protest holding Palestinian flags and banners remarking International Children’s Day. Some banners said “It’s our right to live safely”, “The wall kills our hopes and dreams”, “Settlements and the wall leave us with no future”. There were also pictures of children with the caption “Wanted by the Israeli occupation for resisting the wall”.
The protest began in the center of the village and was joined by international and Israeli activists. The demonstration headed towards the Apartheid Wall, which is built on Bil’in’s land. An Israeli army unit had been stationed behind the wall since early morning and prevented the crowd from going through the gate. The army fired tear gas canisters to disturb the crowd, causing dozens to suffer gas inhalation, and they injured four young’s, one of them journalist his name Mohammed Muhesen working in AP, Kubi from Israel, Abdullah Aburahma, and Adeeb Aburahma.
On the other hand, the Israeli army, which is at the wall, arrested two children from Bil’in : Wajdy Ali Shehada Abu Rahma (16 years) and Hamouda Emad Hahmouda Yassin (16 years). They have beat them and then leave them near the village of Qatana after midnight, where they have access to the city Ramallah, and then arrived in the village on foot early in the morning, and this is came within the suffering of the Palestinian children by the Israeli soldiers, which coincides with the Children’s Day. For this the Popular Committee for wall resistance in the village they intervention of human rights organizations in general and children’s rights in particular, to stop the violence from the soldiers that they injured or arrest, or beat them and intimidate them and leave them in areas far from their homes after midnight.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Israel's Impunity Must End
Changing the Rules of War
By GEORGE BISHARAT
The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him."
What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza.
Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to re-classify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances.
While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war - including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects - the standard permits far greater uses of force.
Israel pressed the shift to justify its assassinations of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which clearly violated settled international law. Israel had practiced "targeted killings" since the 1970s - always denying that it did so - but had recently stepped up their frequency, by spectacular means (such as air strikes) that rendered denial futile.
President Bill Clinton charged the 2001 Mitchell Committee with investigating the causes of the second Palestinian uprising and recommending how to restore calm in the region. Israeli lawyers pleaded their case to the committee for armed conflict. The committee responded by criticizing the blanket application of the model to the uprising, but did not repudiate it altogether.
Today, most observers - including Amnesty International - tacitly accept Israel's framing of the conflict in Gaza as an armed conflict, as their criticism of Israel's actions in terms of the duties of distinction and the principle of proportionality betrays. This shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel's lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations.
Israel's campaign to rewrite international law to its advantage is deliberate and knowing. As the former head of Israel's 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military Advocate General's office, Daniel Reisner, recently stated: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries ... International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy."
In the Gaza fighting, Israel has again tried to transform international law through violations. For example, its military lawyers authorized the bombing of a police cadet graduation ceremony, killing at least 63 young Palestinian men. Under international law, such deliberate killings of civilian police are war crimes. Yet Israel treats all employees of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip as terrorists, and thus combatants. Secretaries, court clerks, housing officials, judges - all were, in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets for liquidation.
Israeli jurists also instructed military commanders that any Palestinian who failed to evacuate a building or area after warnings of an impending bombardment was a "voluntary human shield" and thus a participant in combat, subject to lawful attack. One method of warning employed by Israeli gunners, dubbed "knocking on the roof," was to fire first at a building's corner, then, a few minutes later, to strike more structurally vulnerable points. To imagine that Gazan civilians - penned into the tiny Gaza Strip by Israeli troops, and surrounded by the chaos of battle - understood this signal is fanciful at best.
Israel has a lengthy history of unpunished abuses of international law - among the most flagrant its decades-long colonization of the West Bank. To its credit, much of the world has refused to ratify Israel's violations. Unfortunately, our government is an exception, having frequently provided diplomatic cover for Israel's abuses. Our diplomats have vetoed 42 U.N. Security Council resolutions to shelter Israel from the consequences of its often illegal behavior.
We must break that habit now, or see international law perverted in ways that can harm us all. Our government has already been seduced to follow, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Israel's example of targeted killings. This policy alienates civilians, innocently killed and wounded in these crude strikes, and deepens the determination of enemies to harm us by any means possible.
We do not want civilian police in the United States to be bombed, nor to have anyone "knock on our roofs." For our own sakes and for the world's, Israel's impunity must end.
George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.
This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle
By GEORGE BISHARAT
The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him."
What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza.
Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to re-classify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances.
While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war - including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects - the standard permits far greater uses of force.
Israel pressed the shift to justify its assassinations of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which clearly violated settled international law. Israel had practiced "targeted killings" since the 1970s - always denying that it did so - but had recently stepped up their frequency, by spectacular means (such as air strikes) that rendered denial futile.
President Bill Clinton charged the 2001 Mitchell Committee with investigating the causes of the second Palestinian uprising and recommending how to restore calm in the region. Israeli lawyers pleaded their case to the committee for armed conflict. The committee responded by criticizing the blanket application of the model to the uprising, but did not repudiate it altogether.
Today, most observers - including Amnesty International - tacitly accept Israel's framing of the conflict in Gaza as an armed conflict, as their criticism of Israel's actions in terms of the duties of distinction and the principle of proportionality betrays. This shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel's lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations.
Israel's campaign to rewrite international law to its advantage is deliberate and knowing. As the former head of Israel's 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military Advocate General's office, Daniel Reisner, recently stated: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries ... International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy."
In the Gaza fighting, Israel has again tried to transform international law through violations. For example, its military lawyers authorized the bombing of a police cadet graduation ceremony, killing at least 63 young Palestinian men. Under international law, such deliberate killings of civilian police are war crimes. Yet Israel treats all employees of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip as terrorists, and thus combatants. Secretaries, court clerks, housing officials, judges - all were, in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets for liquidation.
Israeli jurists also instructed military commanders that any Palestinian who failed to evacuate a building or area after warnings of an impending bombardment was a "voluntary human shield" and thus a participant in combat, subject to lawful attack. One method of warning employed by Israeli gunners, dubbed "knocking on the roof," was to fire first at a building's corner, then, a few minutes later, to strike more structurally vulnerable points. To imagine that Gazan civilians - penned into the tiny Gaza Strip by Israeli troops, and surrounded by the chaos of battle - understood this signal is fanciful at best.
Israel has a lengthy history of unpunished abuses of international law - among the most flagrant its decades-long colonization of the West Bank. To its credit, much of the world has refused to ratify Israel's violations. Unfortunately, our government is an exception, having frequently provided diplomatic cover for Israel's abuses. Our diplomats have vetoed 42 U.N. Security Council resolutions to shelter Israel from the consequences of its often illegal behavior.
We must break that habit now, or see international law perverted in ways that can harm us all. Our government has already been seduced to follow, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Israel's example of targeted killings. This policy alienates civilians, innocently killed and wounded in these crude strikes, and deepens the determination of enemies to harm us by any means possible.
We do not want civilian police in the United States to be bombed, nor to have anyone "knock on our roofs." For our own sakes and for the world's, Israel's impunity must end.
George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.
This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Nation: Palestinian Revolution?
Roane Carey | The Nation
On Friday [March 20, 2009] I went to the anti-separation wall demo in Ni’lin in the West Bank, the same village where International Solidarity Movement activist Tristan Anderson was critically wounded last week. Several hundred villagers were accompanied by Jewish Israeli activists (most with Anarchists Against the Wall) and ISMers, plus a few journalists like me. The IDF started firing tear gas at us
even before we got close to the wall. The shebab (Palestinian youth) responded with stones, and the game was on: back and forth street battles, with the soldiers alternating between tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and occasional live ammunition, often fired by snipers, and the shebab hurling their stones by slingshot against the Israeli Goliath.
The IDF often fires tear gas now with a high-velocity rifle that can be lethal, especially when they fire it straight at you rather than pointed up in the air. Pointed straight, it comes at you like a bullet. That’s what seriously wounded Anderson. I saw these projectiles coming very near us, and saw how dangerous they could be. Not to mention the live ammo they occasionally fired–but they fired
live rounds only at the shebab, never at the Jews or internationals. After a few hours, the clashes died down. Six were injured, one critically. Me, I just coughed and teared up from the gas on occasion. (In simultaneous demos in the nearby village of Bi’lin, three were injured, including two Americans.)
I mistakenly thought the army would be less aggressive on Friday, and not only because of the negative publicity surrounding the shooting of Anderson (the killing of Palestinians is of course routinely ignored in Western media; in Ni’lin alone, four villagers have been killed in the past eight months, with hundreds injured). The day before Friday’s march, revelations from Israeli veterans about war crimes they’d committed in the recent Gaza campaign made world headlines.
As villagers prepared yesterday’s march, Jonathan Pollock, a veteran activist with AATW, showed me where Anderson was standing when he was shot and where the IDF soldier was standing who shot him, just up the hill. The soldier had fired a high-velocity tear-gas canister at close range–what looked to me like about fifty or sixty meters–directly at Anderson, hitting him in the head. It was hard to imagine the intention could have been anything other than to seriously maim or kill.
The courage and steadfast resistance of the people of Ni’lin, and many other West Bank villages just like it that are fighting the wall’s illegal annexation of their land, is truly remarkable. Every week, for years now, West Bank Palestinians have stood up against the world’s fourth-most-powerful military machine, which shows no compunction about shooting unarmed demonstrators. This grassroots resistance–organized by the villagers themselves, not Fatah or Hamas–has gotten little publicity from the world media , which seem to prefer stories about Hamas rockets and the image of Palestinians as terrorists.
The village protests against the wall are inspiring, and not just because they’ve continued for so long, against such daunting odds. The villagers recognize the power and revolutionary potential of mass, unarmed resistance, and the shebab with their slingshots hearken back to the first intifada of the late 1980s and the “children of the stones,” when hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were directly involved in the struggle against the occupation. The Israeli government knows how difficult it is to suppress that kind of mass resistance, which is why it has used such brutality and provocation against the villagers. The army wants to shut this uprising down before it spreads, and would like nothing more than for the villagers to start using guns, as the IDF is certain to win a purely military confrontation. The other inspiration of this struggle is the courage and solidarity of the Israeli and ISM activists. They risk their lives day after day, and the villagers appreciate it. I saw signs in Ni’lin praising Tristan Anderson, who, just like Rachel Corrie six years ago, was willing to sacrifice his life for Palestinian justice.
On Friday [March 20, 2009] I went to the anti-separation wall demo in Ni’lin in the West Bank, the same village where International Solidarity Movement activist Tristan Anderson was critically wounded last week. Several hundred villagers were accompanied by Jewish Israeli activists (most with Anarchists Against the Wall) and ISMers, plus a few journalists like me. The IDF started firing tear gas at us
even before we got close to the wall. The shebab (Palestinian youth) responded with stones, and the game was on: back and forth street battles, with the soldiers alternating between tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and occasional live ammunition, often fired by snipers, and the shebab hurling their stones by slingshot against the Israeli Goliath.
The IDF often fires tear gas now with a high-velocity rifle that can be lethal, especially when they fire it straight at you rather than pointed up in the air. Pointed straight, it comes at you like a bullet. That’s what seriously wounded Anderson. I saw these projectiles coming very near us, and saw how dangerous they could be. Not to mention the live ammo they occasionally fired–but they fired
live rounds only at the shebab, never at the Jews or internationals. After a few hours, the clashes died down. Six were injured, one critically. Me, I just coughed and teared up from the gas on occasion. (In simultaneous demos in the nearby village of Bi’lin, three were injured, including two Americans.)
I mistakenly thought the army would be less aggressive on Friday, and not only because of the negative publicity surrounding the shooting of Anderson (the killing of Palestinians is of course routinely ignored in Western media; in Ni’lin alone, four villagers have been killed in the past eight months, with hundreds injured). The day before Friday’s march, revelations from Israeli veterans about war crimes they’d committed in the recent Gaza campaign made world headlines.
As villagers prepared yesterday’s march, Jonathan Pollock, a veteran activist with AATW, showed me where Anderson was standing when he was shot and where the IDF soldier was standing who shot him, just up the hill. The soldier had fired a high-velocity tear-gas canister at close range–what looked to me like about fifty or sixty meters–directly at Anderson, hitting him in the head. It was hard to imagine the intention could have been anything other than to seriously maim or kill.
The courage and steadfast resistance of the people of Ni’lin, and many other West Bank villages just like it that are fighting the wall’s illegal annexation of their land, is truly remarkable. Every week, for years now, West Bank Palestinians have stood up against the world’s fourth-most-powerful military machine, which shows no compunction about shooting unarmed demonstrators. This grassroots resistance–organized by the villagers themselves, not Fatah or Hamas–has gotten little publicity from the world media , which seem to prefer stories about Hamas rockets and the image of Palestinians as terrorists.
The village protests against the wall are inspiring, and not just because they’ve continued for so long, against such daunting odds. The villagers recognize the power and revolutionary potential of mass, unarmed resistance, and the shebab with their slingshots hearken back to the first intifada of the late 1980s and the “children of the stones,” when hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were directly involved in the struggle against the occupation. The Israeli government knows how difficult it is to suppress that kind of mass resistance, which is why it has used such brutality and provocation against the villagers. The army wants to shut this uprising down before it spreads, and would like nothing more than for the villagers to start using guns, as the IDF is certain to win a purely military confrontation. The other inspiration of this struggle is the courage and solidarity of the Israeli and ISM activists. They risk their lives day after day, and the villagers appreciate it. I saw signs in Ni’lin praising Tristan Anderson, who, just like Rachel Corrie six years ago, was willing to sacrifice his life for Palestinian justice.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The high cost of living
The high cost of living
By Sharon Lock (see blog: http://talestotell.wordpress.com)
13 March 2009
The price of fish
Yesterday I went to the Kabariti family for Friday lunch, a fish barbeque. I took with me three of the “letters from the world” that were delivered by the Free Gaza boat last year. These letters were from a mother and her two daughters in California, so we decided to give them to the Kabariti girls and their mum, all of whom read English.
The girls and I sat in the sunny front window and they excitedly began to read their letters and compose messages to email in reply (no postal service is possible under siege.) A few minutes later I realised I could hear shooting. Their dad M always keeps binoculars beside the sea window, but I didn’t need them. Looking out, I could
see two Israeli gunboats well on this side of the horizon, looping about and firing on Palestinian fishing boats. No more than three miles from the shore.
Some of the little boats began to head back to the port, so I stomped off down the street to meet them, as the shooting continued, to see what I could find out. I spoke to Ahmed Abel Aziiz, who had just tied up his boat. He said the shooting had been going on half an hour and he was giving up for the day, but he thought that more than ten boats, some medium and some small like his, were still out there. Nobody was arrested or wounded yet. I stomped back to eat my lunch, pleased to
see the Kabariti kids out in the garden after their weeks of hiding inside, but eyeing the parsley in the salad and the fish on my plate with part respect and part despair.
Later on I rang M and he said that fishermen Zaki Tarouch and Talal Tarouch, and Dahr Zayad and his son, had been arrested by the Israeli gunboats. He also said we are entering the three best months for fishing, the time the fishermen depend on to get them through the rest of the year.
We went to Al Wafa Rehabilitation hospital also yesterday, said hi to Abd, delivered the chess set your donations bought him, and announced we would be practising both chess and insertion of cannulas on him next visit. He looked perturbed. E introduced me to Abd’s fellow patient, Maher, who you can assist via our Donate page (shot fisherman Rafiq is there too) who is carrying on the Palestinian tradition of being determinedly cheerful after surviving his own war nightmare. Which in his case involved not only losing those close to him, but ten minutes in the morgue refrigerator…
The fishermen were released in the night, but their boats - their method of earning a living - have been kept by Israel. As we enter the three months Gaza fishermen depend on the most.
By Sharon Lock (see blog: http://talestotell.wordpress.com)
13 March 2009
The price of fish
Yesterday I went to the Kabariti family for Friday lunch, a fish barbeque. I took with me three of the “letters from the world” that were delivered by the Free Gaza boat last year. These letters were from a mother and her two daughters in California, so we decided to give them to the Kabariti girls and their mum, all of whom read English.
The girls and I sat in the sunny front window and they excitedly began to read their letters and compose messages to email in reply (no postal service is possible under siege.) A few minutes later I realised I could hear shooting. Their dad M always keeps binoculars beside the sea window, but I didn’t need them. Looking out, I could
see two Israeli gunboats well on this side of the horizon, looping about and firing on Palestinian fishing boats. No more than three miles from the shore.
Some of the little boats began to head back to the port, so I stomped off down the street to meet them, as the shooting continued, to see what I could find out. I spoke to Ahmed Abel Aziiz, who had just tied up his boat. He said the shooting had been going on half an hour and he was giving up for the day, but he thought that more than ten boats, some medium and some small like his, were still out there. Nobody was arrested or wounded yet. I stomped back to eat my lunch, pleased to
see the Kabariti kids out in the garden after their weeks of hiding inside, but eyeing the parsley in the salad and the fish on my plate with part respect and part despair.
Later on I rang M and he said that fishermen Zaki Tarouch and Talal Tarouch, and Dahr Zayad and his son, had been arrested by the Israeli gunboats. He also said we are entering the three best months for fishing, the time the fishermen depend on to get them through the rest of the year.
We went to Al Wafa Rehabilitation hospital also yesterday, said hi to Abd, delivered the chess set your donations bought him, and announced we would be practising both chess and insertion of cannulas on him next visit. He looked perturbed. E introduced me to Abd’s fellow patient, Maher, who you can assist via our Donate page (shot fisherman Rafiq is there too) who is carrying on the Palestinian tradition of being determinedly cheerful after surviving his own war nightmare. Which in his case involved not only losing those close to him, but ten minutes in the morgue refrigerator…
The fishermen were released in the night, but their boats - their method of earning a living - have been kept by Israel. As we enter the three months Gaza fishermen depend on the most.
ISM Digest 15 March 2009
ISM Digest 15 March 2009
1. American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin
2. Guardian: Israelis ‘firing live rounds’ at West Bank protesters
3. 51 Palestinians due to be evicted by Israeli authorities from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem
4.The high cost of living
5. Israeli settlers throw stones at young children and internationals in Hebron
6. HRW: Israel Blocks Rights Defender’s Travel
7. Homes in southern Nablus slated for eviction
8. Rights group demands freeze on Israeli exploitation of West Bank quarries
9. European Union: Israel annexing East Jerusalem
10. Five arrested as Israeli forces cut down olive trees in Rastira
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin
Tristan Anderson from California USA, 37 years old, has been taken to Israeli hospital Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv. Anderson was unconscious and bleeding heavily from the nose and mouth. He sustained a large hole in the right part of his forehead where he was struck by a tear gas canister. The heavy impact from the tear gas canister being shot directly at him, from about 60 meters, also caused severe damage to his right eye, which he may lose. Tristan underwent brain surgery in which part of his right frontal lobe and shattered bone fragments were removed.
"Tristan was shot by the new tear-gas canisters that can be shot up to 500m. I ran over as I saw someone had been shot, while the Israeli forces continued to fire tear-gas at us. When an ambulance came, the Israeli soldiers refused to allow the ambulance through the checkpoint just outside the village. After 5 minutes of arguing with the soldiers, the ambulance passed." – Teah Lunqvist (Sweden) -
International Solidarity Movement
The Israeli army began to use the Rutger rifle and a high velocity tear gas canister in December 2008. The black canister, labeled in Hebrew as "40mm bullet special/long range," can shoot over 400 meters and weighs 130 grams without the propeller. The gas canister does not make a noise when fired or emit a smoke tail and has a propeller to accelerate the weapon mid-air. A combination of the canister's high
velocity and silence is extremely dangerous and has caused numerous injuries, including a Palestinian male whose leg was broken in January 2009.
Tristan Anderson was shot as Israeli forces attacked unarmed demonstrators, gathered against construction of the annexation wall through the village of Ni'lin's land. Another resident from Ni'lin was shot in the leg with live ammunition.
Four Ni’lin residents have been killed during demonstrations against the confiscation of their land.
Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with live ammunition on 29th July 2008. The following day, Yousef Amira(17) was shot twice with rubber-coated steel bullets, leaving him brain dead. He died a week later on 4 August 2008. Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22), was the third Ni’lin resident to be killed by Israeli forces. He was shot in the back with live ammunition on 28 December 2008. That same day, Mohammed Khawaje (20), was shot in the head with live ammunition, leaving him brain dead. He died three days in a Ramallah hospital.
Residents in the village of Ni'lin have been demonstrating against construction of the Apartheid Wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. Ni'lin will lose approximately 2500 dunums of agricultural land when the construction of the Wall is completed. Ni'lin was 57,000 dunums in 1948, reduced to 33,000 dunums in 1967, currently is 10,000 dunums and will be 7,500 dunums after the
Wall is built.
Updates:
Orly Levi, a spokeswoman at the Tel Hashomer hospital, tells Ha'aretz:
He's in critical condition, anesthetized and on a ventilator and undergoing imaging tests," She described Anderson's condition as life- threatening.
Israeli activist Jonathan Pollack told Ynet:
... the firing incident took place inside the village and not next to the fence. There were clashes in the earlier hours, but he wasn't part of them. He didn't throw stones and wasn't standing next to the stone throwers.
There was really no reason to fire at them. The Dutch girl standing next to him was not hurt. It only injured him, like a bullet.
13 March: Anarchists Against the Wall reports on Tristan's condition (volunteers with AWALLS were present when Tristan was injured and have been at the hospital to oversee his treatment):
The impact of the projectile caused numerous condensed fractures to Anderson's forehead and right eye socket. During the operation part of his right frontal lobe had to be removed, as it was penetrated by bone fragments. A brain fluid leakage was sealed using a tendon from his thigh, and both his right eye and skin suffered extensive damage. The long term scope of all of Tristan's injuries is yet unknown.
Gabrielle Silverman, Tristan's girlfriend who was with him when he was shot, spoke to Bay City News and KTVU:
As of Saturday he was on full life support and heavily medicated at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv, his girlfriend Gabrielle Silverman said today in a telephone interview.
"My understanding is that they are trying to let his brain rest as much as possible and do as little work as possible," Silverman said.
Palestinian medics immediately came to their rescue and attempted to place Anderson onto a stretcher. But even then, Silverman said, "The army began firing tear gas directly at us...again and again and again."
"Tear gas was falling at our feet as were loading him onto the stretcher," Silverman said.
When the medics had successfully situated Anderson, an Israeli soldier stood in front of the ambulance and would not allow it to move, Silverman said.
Silverman detailed with clear agitation in her voice the circumstances that followed, as Anderson was "getting worse, vanishing further."
She said they underwent another 15-minute holdup at the checkpoint,the reason being, she said, that "Palestinian ambulances are not allowed to enter into the state of Israel from the West Bank."
"Tristan's life was in serious danger. He was bleeding terribly everywhere from the head," Silverman recounted. "We had to just sit and wait until eventually an Israeli ambulance from God knows where showed up and we had to change to another ambulance."
Once they had arrived at the hospital, Anderson immediately underwent surgery, Silverman said. Surgeons removed a portion of the right frontal lobe of his brain and used a tendon from his leg to seal up the area to help prevent leakage. They also "tried to put his face back together," Silverman said.
1. American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin
2. Guardian: Israelis ‘firing live rounds’ at West Bank protesters
3. 51 Palestinians due to be evicted by Israeli authorities from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem
4.The high cost of living
5. Israeli settlers throw stones at young children and internationals in Hebron
6. HRW: Israel Blocks Rights Defender’s Travel
7. Homes in southern Nablus slated for eviction
8. Rights group demands freeze on Israeli exploitation of West Bank quarries
9. European Union: Israel annexing East Jerusalem
10. Five arrested as Israeli forces cut down olive trees in Rastira
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin
Tristan Anderson from California USA, 37 years old, has been taken to Israeli hospital Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv. Anderson was unconscious and bleeding heavily from the nose and mouth. He sustained a large hole in the right part of his forehead where he was struck by a tear gas canister. The heavy impact from the tear gas canister being shot directly at him, from about 60 meters, also caused severe damage to his right eye, which he may lose. Tristan underwent brain surgery in which part of his right frontal lobe and shattered bone fragments were removed.
"Tristan was shot by the new tear-gas canisters that can be shot up to 500m. I ran over as I saw someone had been shot, while the Israeli forces continued to fire tear-gas at us. When an ambulance came, the Israeli soldiers refused to allow the ambulance through the checkpoint just outside the village. After 5 minutes of arguing with the soldiers, the ambulance passed." – Teah Lunqvist (Sweden) -
International Solidarity Movement
The Israeli army began to use the Rutger rifle and a high velocity tear gas canister in December 2008. The black canister, labeled in Hebrew as "40mm bullet special/long range," can shoot over 400 meters and weighs 130 grams without the propeller. The gas canister does not make a noise when fired or emit a smoke tail and has a propeller to accelerate the weapon mid-air. A combination of the canister's high
velocity and silence is extremely dangerous and has caused numerous injuries, including a Palestinian male whose leg was broken in January 2009.
Tristan Anderson was shot as Israeli forces attacked unarmed demonstrators, gathered against construction of the annexation wall through the village of Ni'lin's land. Another resident from Ni'lin was shot in the leg with live ammunition.
Four Ni’lin residents have been killed during demonstrations against the confiscation of their land.
Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with live ammunition on 29th July 2008. The following day, Yousef Amira(17) was shot twice with rubber-coated steel bullets, leaving him brain dead. He died a week later on 4 August 2008. Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22), was the third Ni’lin resident to be killed by Israeli forces. He was shot in the back with live ammunition on 28 December 2008. That same day, Mohammed Khawaje (20), was shot in the head with live ammunition, leaving him brain dead. He died three days in a Ramallah hospital.
Residents in the village of Ni'lin have been demonstrating against construction of the Apartheid Wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. Ni'lin will lose approximately 2500 dunums of agricultural land when the construction of the Wall is completed. Ni'lin was 57,000 dunums in 1948, reduced to 33,000 dunums in 1967, currently is 10,000 dunums and will be 7,500 dunums after the
Wall is built.
Updates:
Orly Levi, a spokeswoman at the Tel Hashomer hospital, tells Ha'aretz:
He's in critical condition, anesthetized and on a ventilator and undergoing imaging tests," She described Anderson's condition as life- threatening.
Israeli activist Jonathan Pollack told Ynet:
... the firing incident took place inside the village and not next to the fence. There were clashes in the earlier hours, but he wasn't part of them. He didn't throw stones and wasn't standing next to the stone throwers.
There was really no reason to fire at them. The Dutch girl standing next to him was not hurt. It only injured him, like a bullet.
13 March: Anarchists Against the Wall reports on Tristan's condition (volunteers with AWALLS were present when Tristan was injured and have been at the hospital to oversee his treatment):
The impact of the projectile caused numerous condensed fractures to Anderson's forehead and right eye socket. During the operation part of his right frontal lobe had to be removed, as it was penetrated by bone fragments. A brain fluid leakage was sealed using a tendon from his thigh, and both his right eye and skin suffered extensive damage. The long term scope of all of Tristan's injuries is yet unknown.
Gabrielle Silverman, Tristan's girlfriend who was with him when he was shot, spoke to Bay City News and KTVU:
As of Saturday he was on full life support and heavily medicated at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv, his girlfriend Gabrielle Silverman said today in a telephone interview.
"My understanding is that they are trying to let his brain rest as much as possible and do as little work as possible," Silverman said.
Palestinian medics immediately came to their rescue and attempted to place Anderson onto a stretcher. But even then, Silverman said, "The army began firing tear gas directly at us...again and again and again."
"Tear gas was falling at our feet as were loading him onto the stretcher," Silverman said.
When the medics had successfully situated Anderson, an Israeli soldier stood in front of the ambulance and would not allow it to move, Silverman said.
Silverman detailed with clear agitation in her voice the circumstances that followed, as Anderson was "getting worse, vanishing further."
She said they underwent another 15-minute holdup at the checkpoint,the reason being, she said, that "Palestinian ambulances are not allowed to enter into the state of Israel from the West Bank."
"Tristan's life was in serious danger. He was bleeding terribly everywhere from the head," Silverman recounted. "We had to just sit and wait until eventually an Israeli ambulance from God knows where showed up and we had to change to another ambulance."
Once they had arrived at the hospital, Anderson immediately underwent surgery, Silverman said. Surgeons removed a portion of the right frontal lobe of his brain and used a tendon from his leg to seal up the area to help prevent leakage. They also "tried to put his face back together," Silverman said.
Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, March 14th, 2009
Dozens of people in various West Bank villages were injured this Friday, and one American activist has been seriously wounded in Ni’lin and currently lies in a coma at a Tel Aviv hospital. In addition to Ni’lin, there were actions in Jayyous, Bi’lin, Ma’sara and Burin, with a demonstration planned for tomorrow in Wadi Rasha.
In Ni’lin, nearly 500 people marched to the threatened lands. Soldiers attacked the demonstration and later invaded the village, where they fired hundreds of rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs. Clashes between youth and soldiers lasted until early evening. Four people were wounded with rubber bullets, while a fifth American activist was struck in the head with a high velocity tear gas round. He was evacuated by a Red Crescent ambulance, which was held for 15 minutes at a military checkpoint at the entrance, and is currently in critical condition.
Hundreds of people were also present in Bi’lin, where demonstrators decried the recent confiscation of 142 dunums and called for the release of political prisoners. Five youth between 15 and 22 years of age were injured, while tens more were affected by tear gas.
At the al-Ma’sara demonstration this Friday, soldiers physically beat four Palestinians, among them several youths, a boy of 12 and an older man of 50. All four were transferred to a hospital in the Bethlehem area for treatment.
Occupation forces in Jayyous attempted to preemptively shut down the weekly demonstration, invading the village and placing it under curfew before mid-day. At 11 in the morning, three jeeps and soldiers on foot entered the village, where they fired sound bombs and tear gas at villagers attempting to enter a local mosque for Friday prayers while announcing a curfew on a loudspeaker. Local youth reacted by hurling stones at the soldiers, and clashes continued throughout the day. Many more jeeps were brought in, and soldiers again occupied two homes in the village. Two youth were injured by rubber bullets.
In the village of Burin, southwest of Nablus, villagers held a demonstration against the confiscation of their land for settlement.
Actions are planned for tomorrow in the isolated area of Wadi Rasha, Ras Tira, and Daba’a, just southeast of Qalqilya city. Organizers have planned a general strike to allow for the participation of all the local residents. The demonstration will start early and attempt to halt bulldozers, which have already razed a 350-meter swath of land 2 kilometers in length, uprooting hundreds of trees.
Dozens of people in various West Bank villages were injured this Friday, and one American activist has been seriously wounded in Ni’lin and currently lies in a coma at a Tel Aviv hospital. In addition to Ni’lin, there were actions in Jayyous, Bi’lin, Ma’sara and Burin, with a demonstration planned for tomorrow in Wadi Rasha.
In Ni’lin, nearly 500 people marched to the threatened lands. Soldiers attacked the demonstration and later invaded the village, where they fired hundreds of rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs. Clashes between youth and soldiers lasted until early evening. Four people were wounded with rubber bullets, while a fifth American activist was struck in the head with a high velocity tear gas round. He was evacuated by a Red Crescent ambulance, which was held for 15 minutes at a military checkpoint at the entrance, and is currently in critical condition.
Hundreds of people were also present in Bi’lin, where demonstrators decried the recent confiscation of 142 dunums and called for the release of political prisoners. Five youth between 15 and 22 years of age were injured, while tens more were affected by tear gas.
At the al-Ma’sara demonstration this Friday, soldiers physically beat four Palestinians, among them several youths, a boy of 12 and an older man of 50. All four were transferred to a hospital in the Bethlehem area for treatment.
Occupation forces in Jayyous attempted to preemptively shut down the weekly demonstration, invading the village and placing it under curfew before mid-day. At 11 in the morning, three jeeps and soldiers on foot entered the village, where they fired sound bombs and tear gas at villagers attempting to enter a local mosque for Friday prayers while announcing a curfew on a loudspeaker. Local youth reacted by hurling stones at the soldiers, and clashes continued throughout the day. Many more jeeps were brought in, and soldiers again occupied two homes in the village. Two youth were injured by rubber bullets.
In the village of Burin, southwest of Nablus, villagers held a demonstration against the confiscation of their land for settlement.
Actions are planned for tomorrow in the isolated area of Wadi Rasha, Ras Tira, and Daba’a, just southeast of Qalqilya city. Organizers have planned a general strike to allow for the participation of all the local residents. The demonstration will start early and attempt to halt bulldozers, which have already razed a 350-meter swath of land 2 kilometers in length, uprooting hundreds of trees.
Paintings on the walls - life next to the rubble in Gaza
Paintings on the walls - life next to the rubble in Gaza
here's a report from Asmaa in Gaza about the paintings on the walls as a way to get out of the trauma
Paintings on the walls og Gaza City made by a group of young artists named, "Girls and Boys", students at Fine Art College in El Aqsa University, Gaza city.
Mohammed El Haj says : "I found the walls the cheapest way and the fast to expresses my thoughts and feelings and share them with all people around ..Drawing part of my life I will not let the siege or that war effect on what I live to do" by Asmaa
It is nothing new in Gaza seeing lots of words in great lines on any wall you pass it in Gaza .. Some of them talk about the political situation .. Another is talking about the Social events.. many of them are talking about whom left their families and died during the last war or previous Israeli military operations in Gaza .. with their names and their painting faces ..
It is the fast, cheap, easy way to express your opinion , And to reach what you want the other Gazans to know freely .. Even it stays for a short time .. Because anyone else who will do the same on the same wall for another reason and subject .. in the next week ..
After 2006 many things changed in Gaza .. The political situation effected on many aspects in Gazans’s life..There is a government in West bank another one in Gaza .. Most of the people in Gaza became don’t believe in these or those ..Nothing important except how they can get a work and have enough money to cover their families needs ..
Life became more difficult .. You see the sadness and poorness all over Gaza.. it is not just because the horrible war .. But because of many reasons , The long and the unfair blockade, From all the sides ( the sea- the air – and all the border crossings points).
It is to hard sometimes to realize this strange ability for the Gazans to get over all what has happened to them and their families and continue the life in this fast .. What had happened in Gaza hard to forget ..and we still feel it In spite of our daily concerns.
But it seems that it inspires a lot of artists to get their feelings out in many ways in Gaza .. If you walk in Gaza’s streets you will see every week a new painting wall by group of artists..
Many of them talked about the war, I was impressive of long one which made by 13 artists “ Girls and boys “All of them students in Fine Art College
in El Aqsa University, They made it on particular type of white cloth because they couldn’t paint on the damaged wall opposite to the ruins of the Palestinian Legislative Council .. When I asked one of the girls she called Miysa.. she is an art student at level 2 in the University “ What does this work mean to you ??
She said “ It means that even they destroyed our life in Gaza we will seirvie and stand up again to get all our rights back“
I asked another one, She painted a big key and a complete map for all Palestine ..Why she painted these and the paintings talks about the war .. She said “ I meant it to tell the world that dying in Gaza doesn’t mean we forgot our land and our rights to live freely in our home on our own land”
Another artist called Mohammed El Haj who is an art teacher and a specialist
in painting walls.. I asked him why most of artists in Gaza go to use the walls to paint!! He simply said “ It is the cheapest way during this long siege in Gaza , There is no good colors ,No material that we use it to draw, Like the cloth and brushes, And if we found them we buy them in high price because they inter Gaza by the tunnels ..
So I found the walls the cheapest way and the fast to expresses my thoughts and feelings and share them with all people around ..Drawing part of my life I will not let the siege or that war effect on what I live to do ..
Something interesting that many of the artists I met from different backgrounds who studied English, policy, Economic, Engineering, and other fields ..
When I asked Ismaiel El Hefni who is an architect.. Why he painted o the wall not on a small painting to put it in an exhibition it will stay for a long time!! He said “ Painting on the wall is different , I found it more interesting for me to put it on the wall instead of an exhibition even the painting will stay on the wall for one day .. I like to paint on abig space with all this movements around me .. You can share all the people around what you think of .. You can share them what you believe in .. And if the painting was good and interesting for others it will stay on the wall for a long time .. And I’m happy to share another artists from different fields.. We exchanged ideas and created new techniques to product good art collective.
After the war a lot of local and international organizations supported the artists to find out a fun and enjoyable way to get out of the trauma that Gazans lived especially the children .. We saw some paintings were made by hands and feet of children in beautiful colors ..
We can see the beauty in Gaza even a large part of it has been destroyed.. We will see life next to the rubble.
here's a report from Asmaa in Gaza about the paintings on the walls as a way to get out of the trauma
Paintings on the walls og Gaza City made by a group of young artists named, "Girls and Boys", students at Fine Art College in El Aqsa University, Gaza city.
Mohammed El Haj says : "I found the walls the cheapest way and the fast to expresses my thoughts and feelings and share them with all people around ..Drawing part of my life I will not let the siege or that war effect on what I live to do" by Asmaa
It is nothing new in Gaza seeing lots of words in great lines on any wall you pass it in Gaza .. Some of them talk about the political situation .. Another is talking about the Social events.. many of them are talking about whom left their families and died during the last war or previous Israeli military operations in Gaza .. with their names and their painting faces ..
It is the fast, cheap, easy way to express your opinion , And to reach what you want the other Gazans to know freely .. Even it stays for a short time .. Because anyone else who will do the same on the same wall for another reason and subject .. in the next week ..
After 2006 many things changed in Gaza .. The political situation effected on many aspects in Gazans’s life..There is a government in West bank another one in Gaza .. Most of the people in Gaza became don’t believe in these or those ..Nothing important except how they can get a work and have enough money to cover their families needs ..
Life became more difficult .. You see the sadness and poorness all over Gaza.. it is not just because the horrible war .. But because of many reasons , The long and the unfair blockade, From all the sides ( the sea- the air – and all the border crossings points).
It is to hard sometimes to realize this strange ability for the Gazans to get over all what has happened to them and their families and continue the life in this fast .. What had happened in Gaza hard to forget ..and we still feel it In spite of our daily concerns.
But it seems that it inspires a lot of artists to get their feelings out in many ways in Gaza .. If you walk in Gaza’s streets you will see every week a new painting wall by group of artists..
Many of them talked about the war, I was impressive of long one which made by 13 artists “ Girls and boys “All of them students in Fine Art College
in El Aqsa University, They made it on particular type of white cloth because they couldn’t paint on the damaged wall opposite to the ruins of the Palestinian Legislative Council .. When I asked one of the girls she called Miysa.. she is an art student at level 2 in the University “ What does this work mean to you ??
She said “ It means that even they destroyed our life in Gaza we will seirvie and stand up again to get all our rights back“
I asked another one, She painted a big key and a complete map for all Palestine ..Why she painted these and the paintings talks about the war .. She said “ I meant it to tell the world that dying in Gaza doesn’t mean we forgot our land and our rights to live freely in our home on our own land”
Another artist called Mohammed El Haj who is an art teacher and a specialist
in painting walls.. I asked him why most of artists in Gaza go to use the walls to paint!! He simply said “ It is the cheapest way during this long siege in Gaza , There is no good colors ,No material that we use it to draw, Like the cloth and brushes, And if we found them we buy them in high price because they inter Gaza by the tunnels ..
So I found the walls the cheapest way and the fast to expresses my thoughts and feelings and share them with all people around ..Drawing part of my life I will not let the siege or that war effect on what I live to do ..
Something interesting that many of the artists I met from different backgrounds who studied English, policy, Economic, Engineering, and other fields ..
When I asked Ismaiel El Hefni who is an architect.. Why he painted o the wall not on a small painting to put it in an exhibition it will stay for a long time!! He said “ Painting on the wall is different , I found it more interesting for me to put it on the wall instead of an exhibition even the painting will stay on the wall for one day .. I like to paint on abig space with all this movements around me .. You can share all the people around what you think of .. You can share them what you believe in .. And if the painting was good and interesting for others it will stay on the wall for a long time .. And I’m happy to share another artists from different fields.. We exchanged ideas and created new techniques to product good art collective.
After the war a lot of local and international organizations supported the artists to find out a fun and enjoyable way to get out of the trauma that Gazans lived especially the children .. We saw some paintings were made by hands and feet of children in beautiful colors ..
We can see the beauty in Gaza even a large part of it has been destroyed.. We will see life next to the rubble.
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