[GushShalom] Behind the smokescreen: tightening grip over West Bank
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Tue Jun 8 21:26:55 IDT 2004
GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/
International release, June 08, 2004
[] Behind the smokescreen: tightening grip over the West Bank
Abu Dis--Az-Zawiya--Beit Awa--Bezariya--A-Ram--Settlement extension
[] Israeli Anarchists arrested after opening roadblocks which strangled
Palestinian village
[] Palestinian and international women resist mass uprooting of olive
trees in Az-Zawiya; CALL UPON ISRAELIS TO JOIN!
video footage:
http://www.womenspeacepalestine.org/news8junazzawiya.htm (IWPS)
Hebrew will be sent separately / ðåñç áòáøéú éáåà áîñø ðôøã
[] Sharon's reported motivation: "To rest easy for another 50 years"
Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz of yesterday
~~~
[] Behind the smokescreen: tightening grip over the West Bank
Abu Dis--Az-Zawiya--Beit Awa--Bezariya--A-Ram--Settlement extension
After a long wrangle, Ariel Sharon got his reluctant cabinet to pass a
highly ambiguous resolution concerning Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip, supposedly to be implemented within eighteen months (which, in
Middle East politics, is tantamount to eternity). This gave some renewed
credit to Sharon's claim to be "a peace-maker" and made the international
community less observant of what Sharon and his generals are doing in the
here-and-now. Sharon used his renewed freedom of manoeuvre for launching
an air strike into Lebanon, by far the closest to Beirut that the Israeli
Air Force came since the withdrawal from Lebanon four years ago.
It is also manifested in a marked tightening of the Israeli grip on the
West Bank, of which Sharon has no intention of letting loose (except for
the promised token dismantling of four settlements out of more than a
hundred). It is expressed in accelerated construction of the Separation
Wall/Fence/Barrier everywhere except for the sectors where construction
was temporarily halted by injunctions of the Supreme Court (after joint
Palestinian-Israeli appeals). In addition, there seems to be a tightening
of roadblocks and travel restrictions, as well as of settlement
construction.
The following instances,all of which came to our attention in the past
few days, is far from exhaustive. Rather, it represents the cases where
the Palestinians involved have access either to the Israeli peace
movement or the media - which in many places is not the case.
# At Abu-Dis, another Palestinian Suburb of Jerusalem, Israeli army
bulldozers invaded the grounds of the campus of Al Quds University and
started preparatory work for erection of the Wall - in direct
contravention of promises made to the university's president, the well-
known Palestinian peace activist Sari Nusseibeh. (Kol Yisrael morning
news, 8/6/04).
# At the village of Az-Zawiya, where the Supreme Court last week lifted
an earlier injunction and permitted the army to carry out "work which
does not cause irreversible damage", the bulldozers arrived in the night
between June 6 and 7, and by daylight had already uprooted dozens of
olive trees. Work on the Wall and non-violent resistance by the villagers
has been going on there for the past two days, and are expected to
increase towards the end of the week. (See message by the IWPS women).
# An official of the Palestinian Authority in the Hebron area told us
that the army started issuing land confiscation orders in preparation for
extending the Wall to this sector. Not only does the hitherto untouched
village of Beit Awa stand to lose part of its land, but several small
communities in the South Hebron Mount area - already severely harassed in
the past years - were told by an officer that they would "have to
relocate" in the interest of building the Wall.
# Also in the same area, Israeli settlers at Karmel started to construct
ten new houses on the land of their Palestinian neighbors. Upon making an
appeal with the help of ACRI (Assoc. for Civil Rights) they were told
that their land had become "state land" already in 1982 - except that
until now nobody bothered to tell the owners about this amazing change of
ownership.
# The villagers of Bezariya had traditionally gone to Nablus for
shopping, health sevices and everything else not locally available. In
the past year, access to Nablus has become virtually impossible and the
villagers turned instead to Tulkarem. In recent months, however, the
direction of Tulkarem was cut off as well. Today Israeli anarchists and
internationals came and succeeded in removing the blockage, at least for
the time being - though later some of them were arrested (see report
below).
# During the Israeli-Palestinian demonstration last Saturday at A-Ram,
norht of Jerusalem, we heard a chilling analysis from Jamal Juma'a of the
the Palestinian environemental NGO Pengon. Among other things, the work
starting now in this sector (directly north of Jerusalem) would transform
A-Ram from a thriving community of 60,000 and major commercial depot into
a completely surrounded and isolated community. Also, a major highway
leading from Ramalla eastward would become reserved for settler use only,
with high walls erected on both sides to prevent Palestinians from even
approaching it. (Details www.pengon.org, info at pengon.org).
>From all this follows: Sharon is abusing the credit given him, and in
dealing with Israel's present prime minister one must follow an
invariable rule: don't listen to what Sharon is saying, look at what he
is doing!
We would like to alert any media and decision makers to which you can get
of that.
For more information:
Gush Shalom Spokesperson Adam Keller: +972-3-5565804 / +972-56-709603
[] Israeli Anarchists arrested after opening roadblocks which strangled
Palestinian village
Today, six Israeli activists of "Anarchists Against Fences" were detained
for opening a barrier which effectively strangled the Palestinian vllage
of Bezariya. The six had been among several dozen Israeli and
international activists which arrived at the spot this morning. Together
with the Palestinian villagers, the activists swiftly removed two mounds
of earth which the army had piled up and which blocked the villagers'
access to both Nablus and Tulkarem.
Apparently the army and police were caught napping, and there was no sign
of them as the intersection was cleared and the villagers enabled to
travel freely for the first time in months. But on their way back, the
activists' bus was boarded by plaincloths policemen, who took everybody's
I.D's and/or passports, and photographed everybody in the bus. At first,
all passengers were told that they were under detention. Later, the
police selected six who were evidently considered "ringleaders" who were
taken off to the Ariel Police Station, where they are still held at
present. Untiring human rights lawyer Gabi Laski took up their case.
For more details as well as photos and video footage: cat at squat.net
or call +972-54-6327736/+972-54-5333364/+972-67-981647/+972-3-5283767
[] Palestinian and international women resist mass uprooting of olive
trees in Az-Zawiya; CALL UPON ISRAELIS TO JOIN!
video footage:
http://www.womenspeacepalestine.org/news8junazzawiya.htm (IWPS)
Hebrew will be sent separately / ðåñç áòáøéú éáåà áîñø ðôøã
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Send reply to: <iwps at palnet.com>
Bulldozers are working constantly in the village and the villagers have
sent out an appeal for internationals and Israelis to come to AZ-ZAWIYA.
If you are able to go right away, that’s great. Otherwise, tomorrow
there is to be a demonstration in AZ-ZAWIYA. Please meet in the village
1 pm.
This Friday, June 11th, 2004 they want to have a huge demonstration with
Israeli and international presence. Please come in large numbers to the
village.
Directions:
Coming West along Highway 5, take the road towards Pdu’el and Alei Zahav.
At a roundabout take the direction to Beit Arye. You will eventually
come to the Deir Ballut checkpoint. You need to turn right here
(involves first turning left because of barriers and then doing a U-
turn). The road straight ahead
takes you to
Rafat and then Az-Zawiya.
If you need to take Palestinian transport, go to Qarawat Bani Hassan roadblock and then take a shar
ed taxi
from there to Az-Zawiya. It is one village south of Mas’ha.
If you need more information, please call IWPS at 09 251 6644 or 067 870 198
[we add from yesterday's message:]
video footage:
http://www.womenspeacepalestine.org/news8junazzawiya.htm.
[] Sharon's reported motivation: "To rest easy for another 50 years"
Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz of yesterday
A poor man's history
By Akiva Eldar
Mon., June 07, 2004
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/435918.html>
Hebrew:
<http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=435952>
According to the newspaper headlines, which are heralding a "historic
day," it appears that in Israel, history, too, is no longer what it used
to be. The headlines also seem to be amusing the goddess of history, who
was longing for a good laugh, and scheduled the "historic" cabinet session
on the matter of the disengagement from Gaza precisely 37 years following
its occupation.
As if the aforesaid was not enough of a coincidence, news of the
compromise reached with regard to delaying the evacuation of settlements
broke almost exactly at the same time as the news of the death of former
president Ronald Reagan. On September 1, 1982, Reagan published his Middle
East peace plan, which proposed autonomy for the Palestinians in the West
Bank, as part of a federation with Jordan.
Ariel Sharon was defense minister in Menachem Begin's government, which
ripped the Reagan plan to shreds because, among other reasons, of its
demand to freeze settlements. Rejection of the plan led, five years later,
to a parting gift from the Reagan administration - the first official
dialogue between the United States and the Palestine Liberation
Organization. From there, it was a short road to the Madrid Conference
and the Oslo Accord, the Wye agreement and the road map.
Each of these plans and agreements had a common denominator: All led to
implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for an
Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the Six-Day War to secure
an d recognized borders.
One of the Likud ministers who has consistently opposed the disengagement
plan told Haaretz that Sharon had admitted to him that his decision to
sacrifice the settlements in the Gaza Strip was designed to erase all
mention of 242. In response to a request from the said minister to hear
where Sharon was headed after the evacuation of the settlements, the prime
minister responded that following the withdrawal from the Strip and a
handful of settlements in northern Samaria, it would be possible to rest
easy for another 50 years.
Sharon is therefore taking a gamble on his political future so as to put
the brakes on the wheels of history, rather than to propel them forward.
He is putting unity of ranks in the government and in his party at risk in
order to perpetuate the overall situation and not to change it.
Sharon has chosen to evacuate a few thousand settlers from Gaza out of
fear that the alternative will be far more costly. Who can assure him that
Bush won't go down the same path taken by his hero, America's 40th
presiden t, who passed away? Who can guarantee him that the day after the
U.S. elections, his good friend in the White House won't also find a way
to show the world that he isn't Sharon's poodle?
Indeed, it is difficult to find a resemblance between the disengagement
plan and Bush's vision of the establishment of a Palestinian state, but
there is no doubting the fact that Sharon has displayed "maximum effort"
to g uide his plan through numerous obstacles, including some (the Likud
referendum) that he set up himself.
Thus, with half a promise of a withdrawal that is designed to block
initiatives that are the likes of the Geneva understandings, and with the
help of the cries of the settlers and their patrons among the extreme
right and the rejectionists from home in the Likud, Sharon has turned
into the darling of the peace camp.
And in the final analysis - whether he disengages from Gaza or he doesn't
- there is, nevertheless, a certain blessing in the actions of the prime
minister. He has caused a split between the rational Israeli right and
the fundamentalist Israeli right. He has driven a wedge between a camp
that has remained stuck on the Land of Israel for security reasons, and
even national yearnings, and a camp that is motivated by divine decree
and a sense of messianic mission.
Sharon has released the government of Israel from the yoke of former
minister Avigdor Lieberman, who dared to threaten more than one million
Israeli citizens with deportation. And one hopes that the prime minister's
plan will lead to the resignation of Minister Effi Eitam, who is quoted
thus in the May 31 edition of The New Yorker: "It is not by chance that
the State of Israel got the mission to pave the way for the rest of the
world, to militarily get rid of these dark forces."
According to The New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg, Eitam told him that there
are "innocent men among the Palestinians, but they are collectively
guilty," and "we will have to kill them all."
To avoid mistakes, the leader of the National Religious Party added: "I
know it's not very diplomatic. I don't mean all the Palestinians, but the
ones with evil in their heads - not only blood on their hands, but evil in
their heads. They are contaminating the hearts and minds of the next
generation of Palestinians."
# Truth against Truth - opposite views on the history of the conflict
in 101 steps
Hebrew / òáøéú
http://www.gush-shalom.org/Docs/Truth_Heb.pdf
English
http://www.gush-shalom.org/Docs/Truth_Eng.pdf
# Boycott List of Settlement Products (newly updated)
Hebrew / òáøéú
http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boycheb.htm
English
http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boyceng.htm
# Video footage of mass uprooting of olive trees
and the women's resistance in Az Zawiya, June 7
(all of it for the construction of the monster Wall)
available at:
http://www.womenspeacepalestine.org/news8junazzawiya.htm
(International Womens' Peace Service - IWPS)
# For pictures of the ongoing destruction in Rafah:
http://www.rafahtoday.org
# Refusniks
Constantly-updated refusniks lists:
English - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/english/prison/
Hebrew / òáøéú - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/prison/
English - http://www.newprofile.org/default.asp?language=en
Hebrew / òáøéú - http://www.newprofile.org/
Help us free our children from the military prison! (parents of The Five)
For ENGLISH details please click http://www.refuz.org.il/help.html
For HEBREW please click http://www.refuz.org.il/hebrew/help.html
Homepage with lots of information:
http://www.refuz.org.il/
# 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)
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http://www.gush-shalom.org/arabic/index.html (selected articles in Arabic)
with
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