[GushShalom] text Gush ad / students and checkpoints / Peter Hounam

Fri May 28 05:14:25 IDT 2004

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/

International release 
Tel-Aviv, May 28, 2004

[] A Victory of Conscience - translation of the Gush Shalom weekly ad
[] Harassment of Palestinian students at the Nablus area checkpoints
[] The Peter Hounam affair
				~~~

[] A Victory of Conscience - translation of the Gush Shalom weekly ad

äî÷åø äòáøé àçøé äàðâìéú / Hebrew original after English

ad in Ha'aretz, Friday May 28, 2004

			A VICTORY OF CONSCIENCE

The storm of protest put an end to the attack on Rafah.

As Minister Tommy Lapid testified, the aim of the action was to destroy 
3000 homes in order to widen the "Philadelphi Axis". For this end, a 
whole division of the Israeli army was brought in. Public opinion was 
prepared by mendacious tales of Katyushas and missiles in the tunnels.

Sharon, Mofaz and Ya'alon were compelled to give in because of the 
demonstrations of the Israeli peace forces, the world-wide anger and the 
American rebuke. Minister Lapid's remark about the similarity between the 
woman rummaging through the ruins of her home in Rafah and his 
grandmother in the Holocaust may have provided the final push.

This is a victory of conscience over inhuman brutality.

But let us not kid ourselves: this is a temporary victory. Sharon and Co. 
have not really given up.

Let us be on guard!

Gush Shalom,
Help us speak out - with yout donation to:
P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033,
Phone 972-3-5221732.
www.gush-shalom.org

                                                           ðéöçåï äîöôåï

                                 ñòøú äîçàä âøîä ìäôñ÷ú ääú÷ôä òì øôéç .

 ëôé ùäòéã äùø éåñó ìôéã, îèøú äîáöò äééúä ìäøåñ 3000 áúéí ëãé ìäøçéá àú 
    "öéø ôéìãìôé". ìùí ëê äåáàä ìî÷åí àåâãä ùìîä, åãòú-ä÷äì äåëðä òì-éãé 
                                 ñéôåøé-áãéí òì ÷èéåùåú åèéìéí áîðäøåú .

    ùøåï, îåôæ åéòìåï ðàìöå ìååúø òì ëååðä æå îåì ääôâðåú ùì ëåçåú-äùìåí 
   äéùøàìééí, äæòí äòåìîé åäðæéôä äàîøé÷àéú. ãáøé äùø ìôéã òì äãîéåï áéï 
                         äàùä áøôéç åäñáúà ùìå áùåàä òæøå ìäèåú àú äëó .

                          æäå ðéöçåï ùì äîöôåï òì äëåçðåú äáìúé-àðåùéú .

            àê àì ðùìä àú òöîðå: æäå ðéöçåï æîðé. ùøåï åîøòéå ìà ðåàùå .

                                              ðòîåã òì äîùîø !											

                                        òæøå ìðå áîéîåï äôòåìåú åäîåãòåú
                                              áö'÷éí ìâåù ùìåí, ú"ã 3322
                                                         úì-àáéá 61033 .
                                                     www.gush-shalom.org

                                                               îåãòú âåù 
                                              ùìåí, "äàøõ", 28 îàé 2004 

				***

[] Harassment of Palestinian students at the Nablus area checkpoints

Here follows a piece about special difficulties for Palestinian students
, which we received two weeks ago from Victoria Buch MachsomWatch, and
which lay waiting until the acute ghastliness in Rafah subsided..

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Thu, 27 May 2004 07:24:42 -0700 (PDT)
From:           	Victoria Buch <vvbb54 at yahoo.com>

PLEASE POST ON ACADEMIC NETWORKS AND WEBSITES
Harassment of Palestinian students at the Nablus area
checkpoints.
By Daphna Banai, a MachsomWatcher  
ybanai at netvision.net.il

 [The material for this piece was collected by
MachsomWatch women at military checkpoints in the
Nablus area. Nablus is a large Palestinian town in the
WestBank, with several higher learning
institutions.While this piece focuses on the Nablus
area, harassment of students in the Occupied
Territories is a wide-spread phenomenon.
MachsomWatch is an Israeli women's human rights
organization, opposing the closure policy in the
Occupied Territories. MachsomWatchers monitor
regularly the check-points; detailed reports can be
found at www.machsomwatch.org .]

The checkpoints make life of Palestinian civilians
miserable in countless ways. They are a hotbed of
frustration, hatred, and terrorism, resulting from
humiliation, harassment and oppression of millions of
people. There is no justification whatsoever for the
checkpoints, especially the ones  separating Arab
villages from Arab towns, and one Arab town from
another (the vast majority of the checkpoints). It is
not enough that every village is blocked with dirt
mounds and there is no way to leave it in a vehicle.
It is not enough that Arabs are discriminated with
respect to Jews on the West Bank roads, and that use
of settler roads is prohibited for Palestinians. The
checkpoints prevent any kind of normal life. Most of
Palestinians cannot get to work regularly, and have
to subside on handouts from human rights
organizations. The checkpoints stand in the way of
people who need to visit a dying aunt, to see a
doctor, to fix a
car, to pass a vehicle test (and the police is
continuously hunting for "transgressors" of vehicle
laws, in order to fine them). And much more..
Sometimes people die at checkpoints. On this scale,
the relentless harassment of Nablus students,
described below, may appear trivial. But according to
the students, it makes studying very, very difficult.

During the last year, while monitoring the Nablus area
checkpoints, we have witnessed hardships facing
students who attend universities in Nablus, and of
Nablus residents who study elsewhere.  All these
students need to pass repeatedly the strangulation
ring of the checkpoints, surrounding the town of
Nablus.  We tried to raise the issue with the Military
Commander of Nablus, Harel Knafo, but his answers were
unsatisfactory, and we have not seen any effort by the
army to alleviate the following problems:

1. Only students attending certain institutions are
allowed to pass the checkpoints. The situation depends
on the extent of cooperation of the university heads
with the army. For example, the administration of the
A-Najah University met with the army representatives
(according to Commander Knafo). The resulting
understanding included prohibition of ALL POLITICAL
ACTIVITY in the university (please note - not
terrorist activity). The administration of the Al-Quds
University branch in Nablus refused to be part of such
an understanding, and therefore their students are
denied passage at the checkpoints. We have witnessed
hundreds of cases of denied passage, as a results of
this decision.

2. The students are granted passage through the
checkpoints on specific days only. Entry to Nablus is
allowed only on Saturday, and exit - on Wednesday.
This is since there are no regular classes on Thursday
and Friday. This decision is arbitrary and interferes
seriously with academic freedom.  Some of the
resulting difficulties which we encountered are
described below:

 a) The decision forces Nablus area students who are
not Nablus residents, to live during the weekdays in
the town.  The expenses are substantial, especially
during these days, when most of Palestinians are
unemployed. Besides, many parents are likely to object
to the possibility that their 18 year old daughter
will live alone in the town.

 b) Every Saturday, students heading to Nablus are
stopped at a flying checkpoint near the Jitt junction,
removed from the buses, detained, and subjected to
a "security checkup". That is, the detainees' IDs are
taken, and their numbers conveyed to some unbelievably
slow General Security (Shabbak) computer, for security
clearance. The students are ordered to sit on the
ground, with a soldier pointing a gun at them.  They
have to wait for hours for the return of their IDs.

 c) We keep meeting students who are prevented from
attending exams taking place during weekends.  For
example, two weeks ago many students were prevented by
the soldiers from attending a Thursday exam.  Other
students, who remained in town for this exam, could
not get home for the weekend. A month ago we
encountered students who arrived on Thursday morning
to attend the pharmacists' certification exam. They
were denied entry to Nablus, and turned back with
tears in
their eyes.

d) A student who has to return home on a day other
than Wednesday, because of being sick, or because of a
family problem or disaster, cannot leave town (the
soldiers do not believe him, of course). Conversely,
if a student cannot return to school on Saturday (due
to sickness, or family needs), he or she has to lose a
week of school and to wait till next Saturday.  Some
weeks ago a Wednesday was declared a holiday, and the
school ended on Tuesday.  Hundreds of students who
arrived to the checkpoints on that Tuesday were turned
back to Nablus and requested to return the next day.

The only justification of this mistreatment of fellow
human beings, could be, possibly, security. But the
claim of the Nablus Commander is that the orders were
instituted for the convenience of Palestinians!
because if students would pass every day, that would
cause pressure on the checkpoints, and disturbances
may ensue. According to this kind of logic, one might
anticipate orders that women will be allowed to pass
the checkpoints only on (say) Monday mornings, the
elderly - only on Thursdays, and the the sick should
wait patiently till next Sunday.  Surely that would
reduce the the pressure on the checkpoints!

We see the students' plight every day. They are
detained at checkpoints for hours, sometimes for as
many as 12 hours. One night we stayed with detained
students till 11PM. On that freezing-cold January
night, the detained were forced to sit in the mud,
facing the wall. After their release there was no
transport, and they had to endanger themselves by
sneaking on foot through the mountains, their
destinations at a distance of up to 30 kilometers.

 We should like to express our respect and admiration
to the Palestinian students, and their drive to
acquire education, despite the difficulties and the
painful efforts they have to make. And every day new
difficulties are piled in their way. We enclose below
an email received by one of the MachsomWatchers from a
Nablus student, describing just one early morning of
his life.

We hope very much that Israeli and international
students and academics will find ways to help their
colleagues beyond the Green Line, to struggle together
for the Palestinian right for education.

Sincerely
  Daphna Banai

--A letter from a Nablus student----------

Hello Naomi,
  ....
 I am with you on NO MORE CHECK-POINTS [MachsomWatch
badges], It is a distressed life with the check-point
policies, we hope to find solution..  I should like to
tell you what happened yesterday to me and others who
live with me in the student hostel.  Because of the
bad situation, we cannot pass the check-points, and it
takes many hours to reach the university, and we lose
lectures. For this reason all students from outside
Nablus live in a hostel, so they can reach the
University without any problems with soldiers.

 In the early morning (3:30), we were awakened  from
sleep by a loudspeaker, we saw many jeeps around the
building, and many soldiers with machine-guns. Windows
were flooded with searchlights, everybody was in bed,
we were afraid, there was no one to protect us, just
God.. Then the captain knocked on the neighbor's door
and ordered him to enter our building and to tell us
to go outside. But not all of us in the hostel, he
selected people living on floors 9 and 14. He knew
what he was doing, and where the students live.
Everybody knows what spies can do to us.. I and others
who live on other floors stayed inside. But I tried to
see what is going on, I was amazed to see so many
soldiers with so many jeeps coming for us, students
who do not have any guns and did not have any contact
with soldiers, we just came here to study, not more.
They arrested three from the building, one of them is
my friend, I am really depressed and I don't know what
do. How can we study under occupation ..?

Anyway I hope to finish this year without problems,

Regards..
				***

[] The Peter Hounam affair
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Thu, 27 May 2004 21:00:10 -0700
From:           	Rayna Moss <legalese at netvision.net.il>
Subject:        	Peter Hounam Released

Peter Hounam was released at 8:30 p.m. today (May 27) after spending 24
hours in detention. Dozens of media reporters covered his release from the
Russian Compound detention center in Jerusalem, which was shown live on
major Israeli television news programs.

Hounam told reporters: "I was held in a dungeon with excrement on the
walls. I was interrogated for eight hours and given only two hours of
sleep. If that is 'decent treatmnent' I have many questions about this
country, which claims to be a Western democracy."

After telling reporters that he had been accused of aggravated espionage
and calling the charge "laughable", Hounam disregarded questions put to
him and demanded to make a statement: "I was fortunate to have support
from the British Consulate; I have two excellent lawyers, Michael Sfard
and Avigdor Feldman; there are people in those dungeons who are stuck
there..." At that point, when Hounam attempted to draw world attention to
the dozens of Palestinian detainees who are routinely detained at the
Russian Compound without access to lawyers and subjected to torture,
Israel's Channel 2 cut off the live interview.

Hounam's lawyers negotiated with the Shin Bet and managed to prevent the
Sunday Times reporter from being deported from Israel, which would have
prevented him from returning in the future. Hounam is expected to leave
Israel over the weekend, as he originally planned to do before he was
arrested.

According to Israeli media, Hounam's arrest violated an agreement between
the Shin Bet and the State judiciary, which only approved monitoring his
movements. The Justice and Foreign Ministries and other security agencies
were caught by surprise at the Shin Bet's arrest of Hounam and Justice
Minister Yosef Lapid said this evening in an interview with Israel's
Channel 10: "Peter Hounam will be released this evening so that this
scandal doesn't get any worse."

Gideon Spiro, a member of the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu, said
in an interview today, that Yechiel Horev, the security boss who has
hounded Vanunu for the past 18 years, was behind Hounam's arrest, in an
attempt to keep silencing Vanunu and punishing people close to him. "They
can't stand the fact that Vanunu has been released and is a sane and
charming person, so they are acting out of vengeance."

Two members of the BBC team who had accompanied Peter Hounam in covering
Vanunu's release last month had been detained for 24 hours after they were
arrested at the airport when they attempted to leave Israel and return to
Britain. Their taped interview with Vanunu, conducted by Israeli
journalist Yael Lotan, was confiscated by the Shin Bet.

Rayna Moss
				***

# For photos & report of May 21 demonstration at Kissufim Checkpoint:
  http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html

# Donations for the families in Rafah whose houses were demolished can be 
sent by cheque - in your own currency! -  made out to Anat Matar,  33 
Bernstein-Cohen Street, Ramat Hasharon 47213.
Bigger sums can be deposited to the Ta'ayush' bank account: 
Bank Hapoalim, acc. no. 396608, Ramat Aviv branch 606 
(Please avoid international bank transfer of two-digit sums because of 
prohibitive bank fees).  
NB:  in both cases you should inform Anat Matar about the sum you have 
donated,  by sending her the details at  <matar at post.tau.ac.il>

# Boycott List of Settlement Products (newly updated)

Hebrew
http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boycheb.htm

English
http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boyceng.htm

# Sharansky and the New Antisemitism, by Adam Keller - 
  http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/sharansky.html

  More selected articles of The Other Israel May issue accessible via 
  http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/contents.html 

  Order your one time free sample (hard copy) from <otherisr at actcom.co.il>
  NB: Don't forget to include your postal address

# Against the Wall

*
ðåëçåú áëôøéí îàéîéí ò"é äçåîä ìúàí òí 
àééáé 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il
àøé÷ 050-607034  info at rhr.israel.net

Presence at villages threatened by the wall, contact:  
Ivy Sichel 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il 
Arik Asherman 050-607034  info at rhr.israel.net 

*
Eye-witness reports from the Occupied Territories: 
http://www.machsomwatch.org 
  (Israeli women monitoring the checkpoints)
http://www.palsolidarity.org/pressreleases/pressreleases.php
  (internationals throughout OT)

# Refusniks 

Constantly-updated refusniks lists:

English - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/english/prison/
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Hebrew / òáøéú - http://www.newprofile.org/

Help us free our children from the military prison! (parents of The Five)
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http://www.refuz.org.il/help.html 
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          Homepage with lots of information: 
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