Despite Police brutality, the Demonstrations in Haifa continue

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Gaza, Haifa Demonstration, Herak Shababi, palestine, Press Release, Right of Return

Palestinian political youth activists in Haifa call for a new demonstration under the title “From Haifa to Gaza” on Friday (1.6.2018) at 9:00 pm in the German Colony in Haifa. This demonstration calls for the end of the Israeli siege over the Gaza strip and for the implementation of the right of return for the Palestinian refugees to their houses, villages and cities. This demonstration will be held on the same day as a protest which will take place in Gaza under the slogan “From Gaza to Haifa.”

The slogans of the demonstration:

• Break the Israeli siege over the Gaza Strip.
• The right of return for Palestinian refugees.
• End the fragmentation of the Palestinian people.

“In Haifa and Gaza, one struggle and one hope for liberation.”

Press Release

1 June 2018

In Haifa and Gaza, one struggle and one hope for liberation

Following the calls to demonstrate in Gaza on Friday, 1.6.2018, under the slogan “From Gaza to Haifa,” Palestinian political youth activists announced a demonstration in Haifa on the same day (at 21:00, in the German Colony). In their announcement, the organizers in Haifa emphasized the unity of the Palestinian hope and struggle for breaking the ongoing Israeli siege over the Gaza Strip and for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their houses, villages and cities.

In the call to demonstrate, the organizers highlighted the fact that Palestinians have faced Israeli crimes for decades in all parts of historic Palestine yet even so the Israeli regime has still managed to divide the aspirations of the Palestinian struggle and it’s battle against this regime. They also stated that the planned demonstration aims to break the Israeli regime attempts to separate them as Palestinian citizens of Israel from their Palestinian people in the West Bank, Gaza and the diaspora: “They tried to rob us as people of our right to live in the future in unity with freedom and dignity… this demonstration is a step in the path of a united struggle and a united hope for liberation.”

The organizers explained that the need for a unified struggle is essential in light of the fact that all Palestinians are subject to the Israeli policies whether as citizens of Israel or residents of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967. They added that these policies that include home demolitions, forced displacement and destruction of villages, confiscation of water and resources, restrictions on freedom of movement, extra judicial killings, and political repression, are all deeply rooted in the Nakba (Palestinian catastrophe) of 1948. They stated: “If we know that Israeli crimes are united against all of us, why do we accept a fragmented resistance against them?”

The Herak Gaza solidarity demonstration in downtown Haifa on Friday, May 18, was brutally suppressed

The planned demonstration in Haifa is one of a series of peaceful demonstrations that took place in the city in the last few weeks following the Israeli massacre of demonstrators in Gaza. In the last demonstration in Haifa (Friday – 18.5.2018) the Israeli police responded with excessive violence and brutal assaults toward the demonstrators and arrested 21 of them. The detainees were subjected to physical and psychological violence during their arrest and in the police station, and seven among them received medical treatments in nearby hospitals.

 

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Dareen Tatour and the Right of Return

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Dareen Tatour, Internally Displaced, March of Return, National Committee of Internally Displaced Palestinians, Palestinian Nakba, Right of Return, Safsaf Massacre

(The following article was first published in Mondowiess)

We were visiting poet Dareen Tatour in her house arrest in Reineh on April 17^th, which is known here as “The Palestinian Prisoner’s Day”. Two and a half years after she was arrested for publishing a poem, Tatour is still under house arrest, waiting the verdict in her trial that is now set to be announced on May 3^rd.

Dareen Tatour in the Annual Return March

In these days Palestinians are protesting 70 years of ongoing Nakba. For Palestinians inside the “green line”, those that succeeded to stay on their land or near it after the 1948 ethnic cleansing, “The March of Return”, held at the same day that Israel celebrates its establishment, became over the last two decades the central yearly gathering to express their national identity and their aspirations for freedom and equality. This year we also witness a new initiative for mass non-violent struggle in the besieged Gaza Strip under the title of “the great march of return”. On every Friday since Land Day (March 30^th), tens of thousands of Palestinians march toward the prison-walls that Israel had built all around them. Israeli army snipers shoot at them in cold blood, killing dozens and wounding thousands. Through these marches the Right of Return regained its natural place at the center of the Palestinian liberation struggle.

To see how Tatour’s story fits within the context of these contemporary events, I decided to interview her about her personal experiences with the Nakba and the struggle for “Al-‘Awda” – the return.

Dareen’s Granma and the Nakba in Safsaf

Are you a refugee yourself? I asked her. “No”, she said, “the Tatour family lived in Reineh long before the Zionists came to Palestine.”

So how did you become aware to the ethnic cleansing of 1948? I continued to ask. “Well, it all started with my grandmother.” She said. “She told me how they were expelled from Safsaf”.

Dareen and her Grandmother – remembering Safsaf

Safsaf was a Palestinian village northwest of Safed. On October 29, 1948, it was occupied by the Israeli army. After the villagers surrendered, the soldiers performed a massacre, shooting more than fifty bound villagers and throwing their bodies into a pit. Young women were raped and killed, including a 14 years old girl. The story of the massacre in Safsaf is recognized not only by Palestinian historians but also by Israeli sources. The Israeli army held an internal investigation but its results are still a state secret.

Dareen’s grandmother was 16 years old at the time of the occupation and was already married to a man from Al-Jesh, a nearby village. At the day of the occupation she was in Safsaf and witnessed the horrors of the massacre. She told Dareen how, before the mass shooting, when the soldiers were instructing people to gather in the middle of the village, she saw how they found two young women and a young men hiding in a cave. They shoot the three of them dead before her terrified eyes.

Most of the people of Safsaf, including the grandmother’s brothers and sisters, ended up as refugees in Lebanon and Syria, thrown into an ordeal of statelessness and suffering to which, after 70 years, there is still no end in sight. The grandmother joined her husband in Al-Jesh and stayed there, where Tatour’s mother was later born. Most of the people from Al-Jesh, after hearing about the massacre in Safsaf, also fled, so more relatives, also from the grandfather’s family, became refugees. Some of them, as a result of Israeli and/or Arab massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps, later found refuge in different European countries, but most of them are still in Syria and Lebanon.

Tatour never met her grandfather, who died when her mother was still a girl. But she is proud of what she heard about him from her grandmother. He was a revolutionary and took part in the organization of the great Palestinian general strike against the British occupation and against the Zionist colonization of Palestine, back in 1936. Later he took part in the revolution that lasted from 1936 till 1939, until it was bloodily repressed by the British army.

She felt very close to her grandmother, who was telling her about life in the lost paradise in Safsaf, as well as about the Nakba and the fate of the refugees. From here came her urge to write down the stories, to photograph whatever was left from people, memories and homes, and to devote her life to the Palestinian struggle for restoring lost rights.

Photographing, Oral History and Activism

Just as she finished high school, Tatour started documenting Palestinian life before the Nakba, interviewing old people, filming on video and writing down stories. She started by interviewing her own grandmother, but soon widened her effort and started looking for displaced people from any of the more than 500 villages and towns that were destroyed by Israel in 1948. She would accompany them to their destroyed villages, or go there herself to take pictures.

She published some of her documentary evidence in the “Palestine Remembered” site, as well as her own Youtube channel, Facebook, a blog and a dedicated site she established for this purpose, “ynbu3.com” (yanbu’a in Arabic means “water spring”). During her detention and later house arrest, prevented from any access to the internet, she lost contact with the service providers of the ynbu3 site and now the site is not accessible. She is afraid that the precious materials in it might have been lost, as well as many documentary evidence that she kept on her computer that was confiscated by the police.

In 1995, a few years before Tatour began her documentation effort, representatives from groups of displaced Palestinians from different towns and villages united to form “the national committee for the defense of the rights of the internally displaced Palestinians in Israel”. In 1998, on the 50^th anniversary of the Nakba, they started the new tradition of “The Annual March of Return”. In the year 2000 the national committee established itself as an officially registered association.

Dareen organizing a visit to a destroyed Palestinian village – and taking videos

The activist of the internally displaced association discovered Tatour’s documentary efforts in Palestine Remembered and invited her to take part in a “guides’ course” that they held in order to expand their activities. Tatour joined the association and found another platform for her effort to perpetuate Palestinian memories. She combined the guidance of groups of visitors to the destroyed villages with documentary work – bringing old refugees to tell their memories to the visitors – and taking videos with their stories.

As the March of Return events evolved to draw tens of thousands participants, they now also include tents with special exhibitions. In the last marches before her arrest Tatour maintained her own tent, with an exhibition of more than 500 photos from the destroyed villages and towns, under the title “tell me about my village”.

She gave new dimension to the struggle to save the memories by using the Ynbu3 site to build connections between the internally displaced and refugees beyond the borders. Each side gave what the other missed. The people that stayed in Palestine could visit the sites of destroyed villages and send pictures. Refugees were contacting the site to request from local activists to find what remained of their houses or to send photos of the locations of endeared memories. The people in the refugee camps conveyed a treasure of precious memories and Tatour interviewed them by Skype and wrote their stories. She also helped to coordinate visits of refugees that now hold European passports to their destroyed villages. She produced three films about such “return visits” to the villages of Al-Damun, Al-Birweh and Tirat Haifa.

Wounded in Saffuriyya

While I was looking in Tatour Facebook page, which she is not allowed to do but everybody else can, I found her image lying in a hospital bed, visited by Knesset Member Jamal Zakhalka. She told me how she was wounded during the 2008 March of Return.

It was the 60^th anniversary of the Nakba. On that year there was a surge of right-extremists’ and settlers’ incitement against the March of Return, which was held on the lands of the destroyed town of Saffuriyya, northwest of Nazareth. There was a very big Palestinian presence, with many families bringing kids of all ages to take part in the educational event. As the marchers were returning from the site of the gathering toward the parking, the police allowed a group of settlers to come close and throw stones at them. As some Palestinian youth tried to confront the settlers, a big police force, including special mass-oppression (“anti-riot”) units, some of them mounted on mighty horses, attacked the whole Palestinian public with tear gas, shock grenades and batons. The police weapons caused a wild fire in the dry vegetation, which put the participants in extra danger.

Dareen in hospital – after being injured in Saffuriyya in the March of Return in 2008

There was havoc. Many people that didn’t expect such violence were confused and tried run away in all directions. Children were crying and many people lost contact with their relatives or friends. Tatour, armed with her professional camera, tried to stay calm and document the events. She still remembers the scenes of policemen beating whoever they could catch, sometimes stumping with their boots on their victims. She also vividly describes how people were wounded when the mounted police rode their horses into the crowd.

Suddenly she saw three children that lost contact with their parents and were stuck between two lines of the police, not knowing where to hide. She stopped filming and went there to help them. She succeeded to guide the children out of danger, but was caught herself between the police lines, and became direct target for their fury. Officially gas canisters and shock grenades should be shot in the air, but she remembers how the policemen were shooting them directly at her from close range.

She especially remembers one direct hit at her leg, and another shock grenade that hit her chest. She felt the burning heat of the iron and the force of the blow left her unable to breath. She fell on the ground. She remembers herself calling for help before she fainted and was evacuated by an ambulance to a hospital in Nazareth. She was hospitalized for one day before her situation stabilized.

Exactly 10 years later, on Friday, April 20, some twenty thousand Palestinians attended the 21^st March of Return on the site of the destroyed village of Atlit, just south of Haifa. It was the third march in a row that Tatour missed due to her house arrest. Some Israeli politicians and Facebook racist activists demanded to abolish the march and threatened havoc if it will take place.  They didn’t show up. I just hoped that on the next year Tatour will be marching with us again.

Kafr Qasem Martyr Muhammad Taha Fell in the Struggle against Crime

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Fighting Crime, General Strike, Israeli Police, Kafr Qasem, Martyr Muhammad Mahmoud Taha, Muhammad Taha, Palestine 1948, Palestinian lives matter, Police killing, The follow up committee

The same tragic scene that we see over and over again throughout occupied Palestine was repeated in Kafr Qasem on the evening of Monday, June 5, 2017. Angry

Shahid Muhammad Taha’s Funeral

protesters were surrounding the police station. A guard came toward them and shot Muhammad Taha with live bullets in his face and his chest. Muhammad, newly-wed 27 years old, was taken to the hospital but soon died.

Cold Blood Murder

A local lawyer that was present at the scene of the killing, Adel Bder, testified (here in Arabic) that the policemen at the place were in no danger, and that he was arguing with them and trying to calm them down before the shooting, but they insisted on opening fire on the protesters in cold blood.

Thousands of mourners attended Mr. Taha’s funeral on Tuesday, including

The funeral entering Martyrs’ Cemetery

delegations and public leaders of the Arab Palestinian population from all over the 48 occupied territories, from the Galilee to the Naqab.  They raised Palestinian flags and chanted “The martyr is loved by god”. The body was laid to rest in “the martyrs’ cemetery”, where the 49 victims of the 1956 Kafr Qasem massacre were buried.

Shooting of Palestinians by racist Israeli army and police, for any reason or no reason, is a daily event in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. Inside the 1948 occupied territories, where the Palestinians are formally citizens of Israel, there were more than 50 cases of fatal shooting since human rights organizations started to keep records beginning with the October 2000 intifada.

As always, the racist Israeli government, political establishment, media, police and courts all unite to blame the victims and assure the impunity of the murderers.

Struggling against Crime

What is special about the murder of martyr Muhammad Taha is how it raises the question of the struggle of the Arab Palestinian society against criminality.

All the organs of the Israeli state are operating within the concept of building a Jewish state, which means that they serve the interests of the Jewish population while striving to make the lives of the Arab population unbearable. The police, doing its most to carry this mission, is specializing in issuing fines and securing house demolition and land confiscation in Arab towns and villages, but is doing nothing to fight crime as long as the victims are Arab.

Martyr Muhammad Mahmoud Taha

With no effective policing, under-funded education system, few public services and limited access to proper work, there is a wide class of hopeless youth that are easy to mobilize to serve criminal gangs, as the only way out of idleness and misery. Social alienation and the absence of the rule of law also cause many petty disputes to escalate to violence between family members, neighbors or commercial rivals.

The surge in violence within the Arab society, especial the growing number of murders, became a major concern over the last years. Many times there are conflicting positions about the right answer. Should we demand solutions from the racist Israeli police? Should we support more police patrols and the building of police stations inside Arab towns? Will such presence reduce criminality or intensify oppression and harassment of the population at large?

The Self Defense Alternative

Kafr Qasem witnessed the murder of 7 of its people from the beginning of the year before the racist police, which have its station placed in the middle of the town, added Mr. Taha to this long sad list. Reading the papers you just learn about the horror that fell upon the people there, but no details about the background to these murders. The police, of course, didn’t solve any of these murder cases and didn’t

Emergency meeting of the Palestinian Arab leadership in 48

detain suspects.

Only after the murder of Mr. Taha caused public uproar we could read in the papers about a very special experience taken by the Kafr Qasem municipality to defend its people. They established a local guard composed of a nucleus of few municipality workers and many volunteers in order to fend off criminals. The last surge in the violence happened as criminal gangs started to kill citizens that opposed their terror and extortion activities.

Locals complain that the police did nothing to stop the murderers or arrest them after the crime, even as they testify that they gave the police names of those behind some of the crimes. In fact the people of Kafr Qasem held a general strike on Sunday,

General Strike on June 7

June 4, against the free hand that the police was giving to the criminal gangs to terrorize them. In this strike there was a strong demand that if the police is doing nothing to enforce the law and protect the citizens it should get out of the town. A protest tent was placed in front of the police station.

The response of the police was to attack the defenders of the city and take revenge on the population at large, humiliating people in provocative road-blocks. On Monday the police arrested one of the leaders of the local guards, what caused a new wave of protests and the gathering in which Mr. Taha, who was also active in the guards committees, was killed.

Widening Protest and Solidarity

If the police thought to frighten the people of Kafr Qasem and make them abandon their attempts to defend themselves against the criminals, the killing of Mr. Taha may have the opposite effect. On Monday’s night there was a surge in violent

Burning police vehicle – Monday June 5

protests against the police, stones were thrown at the station building and some police vehicles were burned. On Tuesday the funeral united the whole town in protest at the police murderers but also in support of the brave guards, some of them still under police detention.

The leadership of the Palestinian Arab population in the 48 territories gathered in Kafr Qasem just as the news came in on Monday’s night. In a pre-dawn emergency meeting they condemned the police murderers, blamed the ex-Shabak head of the police Alsheikh and the racist political leadership, and called for several protest actions, including a general strike of all the Arab population on Wednesday, June 7.

The need to resist criminality and violence is a crucial issue all over the local Arab society. The behavior of the police in Kafr Qasem gave a strong argument for all those that oppose the presence of the racist police in Arab towns. Kafr Qasem’s experiment with self defense is an important example how a population that is not receiving basic services from the state, including the maintenance of personal safety, can work to improve the situation by its independent efforts.

Crazy Zionism and Capitalism

Haaretz, June 7, 2017: “Battle between the Islamic movement and crime families”

In some of the Israeli media, the efforts of the Kafr Qasem municipality and citizens to guard their city against criminals were reported as an organization of “a Muslim Militia”!

Also, notice the following paradox. Some proponent of “the rule of law” tried to defend the actions of the police by claiming that in an orderly state only the police has the permission to use violence to fight crime. On the other side, after the shooting of Mr. Taha the police defended itself saying that the person that shoot him was not a police officer but a private guard that was hired to stand in the entrance of the police station to guard the building. So, the police don’t even protect its own building in Kafr Qasem, but they arrest local people for organizing guards to defend themselves… just as the police were doing!

 

Commemorating Kafr Qasim Massacre at its 60th Anniversary

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60th anniversary, Commemoration, Kafr Qasim, Kafr Qasim Massacre, Museum, Shadmi

The 29^th of October 1956 started as a quiet day in the village of Kafr Qasim, then under military rule since it was transferred to Israeli occupation by the Jordanian king in 1949. The villagers, hard-working peasants and workers, went out early to work in the fields and in near-by stone quarries. In the afternoon a unit of the Israeli army came in and informed the village head that they are coming to impose a curfew. They told him to warn the villagers not to get out of their homes. “But what about the people that will come from work, I can’t warn them of the curfew?” he asked. “Don’t worry, I will let them in” answered the soldiers.

Panorama: The Massacre

Eventually, as farmers came back from their fields and workers from the workshops, the soldiers gathered them in small groups on the entrance to the village. Then the officer ordered to “mow them down” and they were shot dead, their bodies piled in heaps at the side of the road. 49 people were killed in cold blood without any provocation, for violating a curfew order that they was not aware of. 12 of the martyrs were women and girls, 17 children, the youngest of them only 7 years old.

The massacre of Kafr Qasim was not an isolated incident. It was intentionally planned by elements in the Israeli army command as part of a much bigger plan to complete the ethnic cleansing of 1948. The massacre was carried in the first day of October 1956 Tripartite Aggression of Britain, France and Israel against Egypt. Israel hoped that, under the cover of the fog of war, new massacres will cause the Arab Palestinian population to seek refuge and safety beyond the Jordanian border.

Commemorating the Massacre

The people of Kafr Qasim were not even allowed to bury their dead. The army kidnapped at gun-point some men from the nearby village of Jaljulia and forced them to bury the massacre’s victims in Kafr Qasim’s cemetery, while the curfew over the village was extended to 3 whole days. Israeli military censorship prevented any mention of the crime in the press. It required a prolonged struggle, mostly led by the Communist Party, just to publish the shocking facts about what the army did.

Pictures of the martyrs in Kafr Qasim’s museum

In the coming years the military government continued to terrorize the population and prevent the commemoration of the massacre. As we visited Kafr Qasim today, our hosts told us how the army used to force a siege of the village on the anniversary of the massacre. It was even searching homes and confiscating any piece of black cloth in order to prevent any sign of mourning.

Only in 1966, at the 10^th anniversary, as the military rule in the 1948 and 49 occupied territories was abolished, could the people of Kafr Qasim for the first time openly and more or less freely commemorate their martyrs, with solidarity delegations coming from all over the country.

60 Years On

I must confess that this year was the first time that I attended the Kafr Qasim massacre commemoration. The local tradition is to start the commemoration march at 8:30 in the morning, an unconventional timing for a public event and a real challenge if you come from far away. As we entered Kafr Qasim this morning it was suspiciously quiet and we almost thought that the event will not really start so early. But when we approached the designated gathering place at 8:40 thousands of people were already marching and we quickly joined them.

We marched to the location of the massacre, at what was once the western entrance of the village but is now at the center of what has become a poverty stricken township. There, near the massacres’ memorial, a mass meeting was held. I was mostly impressed at the way that the whole population is now involved with the commemoration. Men and women of all ages attended, most of them wearing special black T-shirts with the symbol of the 60^th anniversary.

Another extraordinary feature of the date was the simultaneous translation of the whole event to the signs language for the deaf. Soon we also understood why the march started so early, as the sun climbed up the sky and the heat became hard to bear.

We heard Kafr Qasim’s Mayor Adel Bdeir, the representative of the grandchildren of the victims, an Islamic Sheikh and Muhammad Barake, the head of the “follow up committee” that represents the whole Palestinian Arab population in the 48 territories. At the end a group of children release to the air 49 green and black helium balloons.

Then there was another march, following the last journey of the martyrs, from the location of the massacre to the cemetery in the East of the village, just near where the Jordanian border used to be. When we went back many people were still coming in all along the main street of the town.

The morning events were just one part of the wider 60^th anniversary commemoration. Over the last month there were educational programs about the massacre that involved every pupil in Kafr Qasim’s schools. There were more marches before today and another central mass meeting was set for tonight, with more speakers from out of the town. It was said that in the next anniversaries the commemoration should not be restricted to Kafr Qasim itself.

Open Wounds

We met sisters Rim and Roz Amer, friends from the old days in “Ta’ayush” movement and activists in the Kafr Qasim commemoration popular committee. They were collecting evidence from some of the old people that survived the massacre…

They told us about their grandmother, Khamisa Amer, which was with a group of women that went out to pick olives in that fatal day. As they came back in the pickup car the army stopped them. First they took out the three men that were in the car and shoot them. Then they shoot at the group of women inside the car.

When we met Roz and Rim they were interviewing Hana’a Amer, which was 14 years at the time of the massacre and came to help in the olives harvest under the supervision of their grandmother. Hana’a was shot and wounded in her leg and head, her skull was broken, but she stayed alive lying in the pile of corpses. She didn’t understand what was going on, not grasping that all the other women around her were dead. It was her rare luck that the soldiers didn’t notice that she was not dead like the others.

Much later, when the murderers went and other soldiers came to carry the dead, one soldier tried to carry what he thought was Hana’a’s dead body by dragging her from her hand. She cried with pain and eventually was taken to the hospital. I think it was the first time, only after 60 years, that Rim and Roz heard a first-hand report about the conditions in which their grandmother was martyred.

They told us about another interview with a man that was likewise wounded but survived after staying the night under a pile of corpses. He told of his pain as he heard his neighbors approaching one after the other the army checkpoint and being shot dead, and his great agony at not being able to warn them. He told how the soldiers would shoot at any victim that was still not dead. The officer told them to shoot one bullet at each head, not to waste precious ammunition.

The Massacre is Not Over

We visited the museum for the commemoration of the massacre. For the 60^th anniversary, the people of Kafr Qasim opened a stunning new section of the museum called “panorama”, where you go through a dark cave and pass by several scenes that represents the stages of the massacre. You can hear the full story there in Arabic, Hebrew or English. It starts with the quiet village life before the massacre and ends with the government’s attempts to cover for the crime.

Shadmi’s one cent

The people of Kafr Qasim see a special insult in the supposedly “traditional reconciliation treaty” (Sulha in Arabic) that was organized after the massacre. They say it was designed to wash the hands of those responsible to the massacre and forced on the villagers by the coercion of the military government.

Another insult is the trial of the officers and soldiers that initiated and perpetrated the massacre. The highest officer that was sentenced, Colonel Shadmi, was fined a symbolic one cent! Eight lower ranking officers and soldiers were sentenced to prison terms but pardoned after a short period. The responsible officers were all promoted to more important jobs.

Panorama: The Trial

In today’s commemoration all speakers drew a straight line from the refusal of the Israeli government to take responsibility for the crime to the continued policy of discrimination against the Arab population, including the continuing confiscation of Kafr Qasim’s land, the inability to get building licenses and the systematic house demolition.

But not only discrimination is continuing, the massacre itself is going on with the intentional killing of Arab citizens of Israel taking part in protest actions in Land Day (1976) and October 2000, and the killing with impunity of dozens of others over the years for all or no reason. And, of course, Israel’s continuing massacre of Arab Palestinians continues on a much wider scale in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza under the deadly siege. It is all one and the same struggle for liberty from the same murderous racist regime.

Apartheid Oppression and Popular Resistance – Moments from the historic saga

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Afula, Al-Aqsa, Arabeh, Haifa Courts, Herak Haifa, Herak Shababi, Israa Abed, Israeli Police, Nazareth, Skunk, Tamra, Temple Mount, The 3rd intifada, Ya'alon

Just as I write these lines, on the evening of October 9, 2015, the news keep coming about new clashes with the Israeli Occupation police flaring up in more and more towns, from Rahat in the Naqab desert in the South, through Taibeh, Ar’ara and Um-Al-Fahm in “the triangle” and till Nazareth, Kfar-Kana, Arabeh, Sakhnin and Majd-Al-Kurum in the Galilee. The picture above is from the entrance to Arabeh.

This wave of popular resistance inside the 1948 occupied territories shows again that Palestinians here are an integral part of the Palestinian people and the liberation struggle against Israeli Apartheid. You can easily spend all the day just following the news, and you still won’t see it all. The most dramatic views came today from Gaza, where Israeli soldiers performed a cowardly massacre, shooting in cold blood at unarmed demonstrators on the other side of the fence. They killed 6 people and wounded many others. In Al-Khalil there was another Palestinian martyr, and many were wounded in confrontations between demonstrators and the occupation army all over the West Bank.

One view that was seen again and again by most people here today is the cold blood shooting of a Palestinian woman, Israa Abed, a 29 old mother, by Israeli racist police officers and soldiers in the central station in the Jewish town of Afula. Israa learns for her master degree in genetic engineering in the Technion and was on her way back home when she was spotted as “a danger” by Israeli racist police, probably because of her traditional Islamic dress. In the video you can see clearly that she posed no danger to anybody and was pleading for her life while she was surrounded by soldiers and policemen brandishing their weapons at her. You can also hear clearly some of the Jewish passers-by pleading the soldiers to shoot her – until they finally did just that. Fortunately she didn’t die, only was badly wounded… So it is the hunting-season and every Arab person is now a target in Israel’s streets.

How this wave of confrontation begun?

As became routine in almost every Jewish Holidays season, the Israeli provocations started in Rosh Hashana (September 14) and concentrated on the Al-Aqsa mosque, which the religious messianic Zionists still wish to destroy in order to build their “third temple” on its place on what they call “Temple Mount”. The right wing parties in the Israeli government compete between themselves in extremist declarations and provocations on the ground. And what is supposed to be “Left” or “Centrist” Zionist opposition only tries to be “stronger on security” than the government – attacking it from the right for not being harsh enough against the Palestinians.

The Israeli police and courts, just like the army, are not even pretending to keep “law and order” – but they are the vanguard of the colonialist policy of oppressing the Arab Palestinian population. Just as the government was calling for ever harsher punishment against Arab stone-throwing youth, even shooting at them and killing them at the spot, the minister of defense, Ya’alon, boasted that his people know who were the Zionists attackers that burned alive the Dawabsha family in Duma – but they were not even interrogated! The army, the police and the courts defend Extremist settlers as they rob Palestinian private land and burn olive trees. Israel’s “High Court”, just like the Knesset, is now packed with ideological settlers that choose to live in illegal settlements at the vanguard of Zionist ethnic cleansing. Just in the middle of the latest holidays agitation campaign the government announced the appointment of another messianic settler (previously the vice-head of the secretive security services – “Shabak”) to head the police.

All these Zionists provocations push the Palestinian youth to try to resists the occupation – and as peaceful popular resistance is confronted with deadly oppression some prefer not to stay just victims but try to hurt their oppressors by any means.

Police at the entrance of Tamra – October 8, 2015

The Youth movements initiating the Nazareth demonstration

In the 1948 occupied territories there was little response until this week. Then some small demonstrations started in solidarity with Al-Quds in many towns. Herak Haifa coordinated a joint demonstration with local Arab parties for Monday, October 5. It started as a vigil and spontaneously developed into a small marching demonstration – but the police didn’t try to stop it. On the next day in Yaffa the police attacked a licensed demonstration organized by the Islamic movement – what caused many more local Palestinians to join a prolonged confrontation with stones and tear gas.

The youth movements, under the name of “Al-Herak Al-Shababi”, called for a bigger “National Demonstration” in Nazareth on Thursday, October 8. It had a wide echo in the youth activists’ circles, and buses were organized from many locations. It was another example to the leading role of the youth “Herakat” in the mass struggle, which appeared initially in the struggle against the Prawer plan (for ethnic cleansing in the Naqab) and was repeated later in the solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners and the protests against the massacres of Gaza’s people in summer 2014.

This time the police decided to be proactive and not let the demonstrators even gather in Nazareth. On Wednesday they started to arrest the “suspected” organizers, mostly those whose names appeared on the invitation as responsible for transport in different regions. On Thursday morning the Nazareth court extended the detention of most of the organizers until next Sunday.

Most buses were stopped on their way, before they could reach Nazareth, and order to turn back. Some of the demonstrators decided not to go home and gathered instead for two smaller spontaneous demonstrations, in the entrance of Um Al-Fahm in the Triangle and Tamra in the Galilee.

The demonstration in Nazareth happened anyway, with local people and many others that came from all over the country in private cars, not detected by the police. It was attacked by the police, prolonged clashes erupted in different regions of Nazareth and about 20 people were arrested.

Spontaneous Demonstration in Tamra

Tamra – before the police attacked it was pretty quiet

While on our way from Haifa to Nazareth, we heard that the Haifa bus was turned back and decided to follow it to Tamra. 3 buses full of demonstrators, most of them young, arrived at the entrance of this town of 30,000 people in the Western Galilee. As we arrived there, there was no presence of the police which apparently didn’t expect the demonstration. Some of the youth covered their heads and everybody was chanting slogans. When the traffic lights stopped the cars on the two lanes of “70 north” – many of the demonstrators stood on the crosswalk and simply stayed there. It was easy to stop the traffic and cause a long traffic jam… but most people stuck in it were just residents of neighboring Arab towns coming back from work – so there was no enmity between the drivers and the demonstrators and they were letting off some traffic from time to time – just waiting for the police to come.

A small police force started to gather on the other side of the “70”. As they felt strong enough they started to throw shock grenades without any warning. At first everybody run-away… then started to come back. The police started to throw tear gas and some demonstrators threw stones at them…

For the next few hours the “battle” continued along the main street of Tamra, in some distance from the main street that was occupied by the police. As you can imagine, the main street of this lively crowded town has shops almost everywhere on both sides. Some of the shop keepers were hostile to the demonstration, fearing for their belongings, but many were sympathetic. In the beginning, still near the main street, the bravest youth were running toward the police, throwing some stones and running back.

Later, as the police gathered more force, there were mostly revenge attacks by the police, not only against the demonstrators but against the people of Tamra in general. I’ve seen one police force marching into the town without being provoked, throwing tear gas around and going back. Later they brought in the “Skunk” which simply went up the main street throwing its stink around in great  quantities on the street itself, at people that stood on the sides of the street and into nearby shops, including the “Tamra Mall”. The material damage to some shops may be devastating as stinking merchandise may lose all their value.

The Skunk takes revenge from the people of Tamra

Later on, as there were almost no demonstrators left, the police felt strong enough for an all-out revenge attack, coming back with a big police force and the Skunk together, spreading more stinking water and arresting youth that were unlucky enough to stay by the side of the street or not to run away fast enough.

Creative oppression

At my age you can think you’ve already seen it all – but just as today’s youth are always inventing new forms of resistance – the oppressive apparatus is also surprising us with some creative ideas.

In Tamra the police took control of the 3 buses (holding their drivers) and intended to arrest the demonstrators as they will come back to their buses to go home. Fortunately none of the demonstrators showed up as they appear to have evaporated in Tamra. So the police arrested the three poor drivers and accused them of attacking policemen and taking part in a riot, even as they were arrested sitting quietly in their buses. They even were not ashamed to bring them to the Haifa court on Friday’s morning and ask for harsh conditions for their release. The court, unable to disappoint the police, agreed to some of these conditions, including imposing house detention on the three poor drivers until Monday, October 12.

On Friday morning, in Nazareth district court, there was appeal hearing against the detention of 4 of the supposed organizers of the Nazareth demo. As they were all arrested before the demonstration, it was hard to accuse them of the regular articles like attacking police or taking part in a riot. The police prosecutor found a new proof that they were conspiring for riot: He claimed that they advised the participants in the demonstration to bring onion with them. Their appeal was rejected and they will stay in detention at least until Sunday. If you can keep people in prison just for “conspiring to possess onions”, or “inciting to use onions” – what is the punishment for somebody like me that actually bought onions and used them?

Anybody said Onions? Take care!

Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar Resists Deportation

Tags

Addameer, AlArd Movement, Deportation, Israeli Occupation, Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian Parliament, PFLP, PLC, Ramallah

From the protest tent in the PLC compound in Ramallah, Jarrar calls on the World’s People to act to defend the Palestinian People

The occupation forces have their special way to bring you a letter, or rather to convey a message. On Wednesday, August 20, they deployed some 50 soldiers, in full combat gear, to bring a small piece of paper to Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian MP from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in her home in Ramallah. The time was also carefully chosen, 01:30 at night, in the best military tradition of terrorizing the occupied population.

According to the tradition of occupation theatre, the commanding officer introduced himself as “Captain Yahya” and handed Khalida an order in Hebrew, which she doesn’t read. But if the Israeli occupiers are short on Arabic office skills, they were generous to offer a translation on the spot. They told Khalida she must leave her house, her family and work in Ramallah within 24 hours and be confined to the Jericho district for six months.

The order itself, based on unspecified “intelligence information”, is directed specifically at Khalida, claiming that her deportation is necessary for “maintaining the security of the region”. But the military order is a blatant message to the Palestinian people and the world as a whole: The occupation is here, everywhere in Palestine, disregarding any agreements or laws, local or international.

Resisting Deportation

Khalida refused to sign the decree. She declared that she will not obey the illegal order and instead said that “it is the occupation that must leave our homeland.” On the next day, October 21, she started a protest tent in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) – the Palestinian Parliament, to which she was elected in 2006.

Instead of disappearing quietly from the scene, as the occupiers wished her to do, she poses a challenge to the occupation and to the façade of Palestinian semi-independence under the occupation. If they want to get her and throw her to Jericho, the occupiers now should come and break with their military boots the gates of the PLC, demonstrating graphically what the real meaning of their order is.

In this protest tent there is always a gathering of supporters. Delegations come to visit and convey their condemnation of the deportation order. Yesterday, Monday August 25, I was there with a small group of activists from Haifa and the Galilee. At 13:00, some 150 people from different NGOS and Palestinian movements held a vigil in front of the UN Ramallah headquarters and conveyed a petition from the PLC and many other organizations calling on Ban Ki-Moon and the UN to intervene.

The Palestinian Parliament

The PLC was never allowed to really take sovereignty of any area, as Israel continues its brutal occupation and its effort to drive out the Palestinians from all of their land through settlements and ethnic cleansing. Actually the siege of Gaza is the occupation’s response to the 2006 elections to the PLC, when the most democratic vote in Palestinian history produced a Hamas majority, in an expression of popular rejection of the Oslo agreement, security coordination with the occupation and the corruption of the PA under Abbas.

The PLC is not even allowed to function as a toothless discussion forum – its members in Gaza are locked up by the siege, like the rest of the Gaza population, and thus prevented from attending meetings. About half Palestinian MPS in the West Bank are held in Israeli prisons, most of them without any charge.

In this sorrow state of the Palestinian Parliament, Khalida was trusted with what may be considered the most important parliamentary institution: She’s the head of the PLC’s prisoners’ committee. This trust is one expression of the position she holds in Palestinian public life, recognition of her persistent activity and dedication to Human Rights and a result of the good relations that she keeps with all the Palestinian factions.

Interviewing Khalida

In the hot afternoon the stream of visitors and delegations became thinner and Khalida found some time to give a special interview for Free Haifa.

She told again the story of Wednesday night… When asked by “Captain Yahya” what her response to the order was, she stressed that it is just another example of the criminal activities of the occupation against her people, nothing in comparison to the on-going massacre of the people of Gaza.

She is proud of the wide solidarity she receives since the news came out about the order against her. There were solidarity delegations from all the Palestinian movements. The PLC issued a special declaration, like many other organizations. There were many solidarity messages from parliamentarians, Human Rights and Palestinian solidarity activists from around the world.

She said that the Palestinian Prime Minister, the head of the new National Unity government, Rami Hamdallah, called to express solidarity. But, no, she is not aware of any official position regarding her case from the presidency or from the Palestinian government.

It is significant that she is being deported from Ramallah, which is classified under the Oslo agreement as region “A”, where the full responsibility for security is supposed to lie in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), to Jericho, which is also “A”. How comes the Israeli occupation forces deport her for “the security of the region”?

It is all part of the new period where the occupation likes to show how it is getting crazy and throws away all restraints. We see it in Gaza where the killing of civilians is not only by-effect but the main goal of Israel in its war. We see it in Jerusalem where the occupation systematically drags small kids from their beds at night to fill its detention camps. We see it in the “Dakhel” (the Palestinian territories occupied since 1948) where more than a thousand demonstrators were arrested in the latest protests against the massacre in Gaza.

Speaking more generally about the current confrontation in Gaza, it proves the strength of the resistance in the face of the most massive and cruel attacks. The continuing resistance and the support of the resistance from the people in spite of the heavy sacrifices show the determination of the Palestinian people and give new hope that they will one day be able to live free on their land.

In the end she had a special message to international public opinion. The occupation doesn’t respect any law and doesn’t stop at any crime and violation of the basic rights of the Palestinian people. The failure to bring the occupation to account opens the way to more crimes and bloodshed. Today the Palestinian people feel that the international law doesn’t protect them. It is high time that the people of the world will act to protect the Palestinian people against this criminal occupation.

“Special Supervision Order”

I ask Khalida what is so special about her deportation order. I remind her that Ghassan, her husband, was confined to his house in Jenin while a student activist in Bir Zeit near Ramallah. Well, she smiles at the old memory, there is a difference. He was confined to his house – I have nothing in Jericho to go there…

I ask Addameer more about the legal details… There was the precedent of the 3 Palestinian parliamentarians from Al-Quds (Jerusalem) who were denied residency and forcefully deported to Ramallah… But the issue of Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians from Al-Quds is different and goes by another set of laws. By the way, they are all in prison now.

There are other examples of Palestinian prisoners that were forced to go to Gaza as part of the conditions for their release. Other released prisoners, in older times, where force to move from their original villages in the West Bank…

But the “special supervision order” against Khalida seems to be very special indeed, or maybe another dangerous precedent.

I recall how similar orders were issued against the leaders of “Al-Ard Movement” in the sixties. Some of them were confined to remote, wholly Jewish, towns like Safad and Arad. Others were arrested and the movement was successfully suppressed.

The occupation is still the same, but the Palestinian struggle made a long way since. The voice of Khalida Jarrar will not be silenced.

See Addameer site for more legal details and a call for action.

You are invited to sight a petition in support of Khalida.

The original text of the “special supervision order”

Victory – 16/9/2014

Today the Khalida Jarrar solidarity campaign published a declaration of victory!

After a month in which she was protesting the deportation order from the solidarity tent at the PLC, the occupation “shortened” the duration of the deportation to one month, which has already expired, without Khalida ever leaving Ramallah or going to Jeriho.

It is a great victory for Brave Khalida, for all those that supported her in the struggle and for the concept of popular resistance.

Israeli mob attacks anti-war demo in Haifa chanting “Death to the Arabs”

An Eyewitness Account of the Haifa Anti-War Demonstration, 19th/20th July 2014

Published by Rann Bar-On on his Facebook timeline

July 20, 2014 at 3:45pm

(This report is also available in Hebrew)

I’m going to try to write up what I saw, heard, and experienced at the anti-war demonstration in the Carmel Center, Haifa on Saturday, July 19^th2014. This was a difficult and traumatizing experience, one of the worst I have faced in over a decade of activism. Please forgive rough writing. This is my point of view, and as such, is clouded. I can only write what I saw and experienced. All times are approximate.

9pm, opposite Ha’Agala Burekas restaurant, Moria Ave, Haifa: my partner and I are in my parents’ car, heading to the demonstration that is supposed to start at this location at 9:30. As we drive up, we see a huge police presence, including armored horses, a water cannon and hundreds of police. Getting closer, we see what they’re there for: over a thousand right wing counter-protestors have showed up, chanting, waving Israeli and army flags, calling the left ‘traitors’.

9:05pm: We call the organizers, in a half-panic. We’re told that the demo has been moved a few hundred yards down the street, nearer the Carmel Center. As we’re walking, I see a policeman shoving a man with a sign supporting the left. He’s bleeding. We later find out he was punched in the face by one of the right wingers.

9:10pm, at the entrance to the Kababir neighborhood, Moria Ave: we arrive at the new site for the demonstration. We’re practically alone with a ton of heavily armored police. At this stage, it seems utterly irresponsible to encourage people to march. Being outnumbered doesn’t begin to describe the situation we were in. We head off to a nearby restaurant for a few minutes.

9:20pm: People are trickling in. I walk around, trying to explain to folks there what I saw down the street (most people came from a different direction). I’ve been an activist for many years, and have attended hundreds of demonstrations. From experience, we can deal with the police, almost no matter what they do. We can’t deal with huge numbers violent counter-demonstrators out to kill us. A sense of bewilderment seems to be the dominant theme.

9:25pm: The main organizers ask us to move people into the adjacent park. I ask people to do so, and for the most part, they do. At this point, many counter-demonstrators have moved to stand opposite us, and are being held back by the police. Chants of “Death to Arabs”, “Death to traitors” and “Death to leftists” come from the other side of the street. Their numbers are swelling, fast.

9:30pm: We’re asked to move back onto the sidewalk from the park, as the police say they cannot protect us in the park. With all that’s going on, much of this gets lost.

9:45pm: Our side is swelling, but the other side is swelling faster. There are supposed to be buses arriving from other parts of the country. We chant slogans for unity: “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies”; “Both in Gaza and in Sderot, children want to live”; “Peace isn’t built on children’s bodies”; “Gaza, stand strong, we’ll end the Occupation yet”; and many more. Banners are raised. Red flags and Palestinians flags are waving. The other side is jumping up and down, singing nationalist songs, waving Israeli and army brigade flags, all the time pushing against the police line. Our side does not at all push against the police. There’s no point: if the line were to be broken, we’d be facing a raving mob head on.

10pm: Buses should be arriving from other parts of the country. They do not. We get word that the police has blocked buses of our supporters from coming.

10:05pm: One bus arrives, barely. It takes a long few minutes for the police to get the bus through the right wing folks. When they pull up, I go over to greet them. Turns out it was a bus from Nazareth. Our ranks are swelled a bit more. Still, we’re outnumbered, by a long shot.

Over the next thirty minutes or so, one more bus arrives. We found out much later that four buses were blocked completely by the police.

10:45pm: By now, a few small scuffles have broken out between police and the counter-demonstrators. A couple of them are arrested. Chanting keeps up on both sides. We shout for life, they shout for death. I stay as close to the front as I can, right up to the police line. Tempers flare here and there.

As a Jewish Israeli, it’s very very difficult for me to even consider trying to hold back Arab protesters. It isn’t my place. They have so much more to be angry about than I do. Our privilege, being identified by the state as being Jewish, is huge. Yet I seem to have taken on a role of responsibility, together with my Arab friends. This is a tough paragraph to write. I don’t want to appear arrogant. Yet it seemed at the time that all our efforts were appreciated by those trying to keep others from getting badly hurt.

10:50pm: A couple of demonstrators from our side get snatched by police and arrested, violently. Looking across the street, I see murder gleaming in the eyes of the fascists. I don’t use that word lightly, but when a huge gang is quite literally calling for us to be killed, it’s appropriate, I think.

Much later, we find out that a few of our folks found themselves attacked by the right. One broken nose, one broken shoulder. Maybe more.

A few bottles are thrown on us. Nothing much, at least not compared to what was to come later.

11pm: Someone decides to move into the neighborhood, away from the main street. People are terrified, as the counter-demonstrators are still swelling and getting closer. In principle, this should be the end of the demonstration. The police allow some of the counter-demonstrators across the street, near the bus. Other police try to herd some of our side onto the bus. The bus is headed back to another town. Police barely manage to get it out.

11:20pm: We’re trying to disperse. Outside of the West Bank, where protests are suppressed with heavy crowd-control measures, I’ve never been to a demonstration where the hardest part is leaving. A group of folks from Tel Aviv ask us to help them, to take them through the backstreets to where their bus is. They can’t find all their people. We stand with them in a courtyard, with people trying to get through the back the building. Suddenly, they come running back, shouting that the rightists are coming from behind. Across the narrow side street, many of them have moved opposite us, shouting and gesturing. Police are barely to be seen.

11:30pm: We move to the corner of the next street. There are around 100 of us left at this point, as many somehow managed to escape, perhaps on a bus, perhaps in small groups on foot. We can’t tell. My partner and I agree that we’re not leaving until everyone is safe. All three opposite corners, and quite a way down the streets, are covered with our opposition. It’s a terrifying scene. We’re surrounded. Police are hanging out in the middle, looking utterly clueless. Their horses and heavy machinery are nowhere to be seen. For only the second time in my life, I’m wishing for police protection.

11:40pm: Stones start flying toward us. Not many, but large. We have older folks with us, some over 70. We use the sticks holding our flags to try to deflect the stones like baseballs. A few hit people. People are bleeding. Police look almost as scared as we are, and still, they do almost nothing to help us get the hell out. They have helmets. Needless to say, we do not.

This doesn’t stop. We chant those same slogans for unity: “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies”. It seems so damn empty at this point, facing hundreds of Zionist Jews who want to see us dead. Not in jail. Dead.

I talk to a few people. The word ‘pogrom’ starts being whispered. These are highly experienced folks, for the most part,who do not use such words lightly.

Midnight: A policeman tells us to stand back. In his words “there is going to be a mess here”. A water cannon shows up. Armored police horses show up. I find myself almost relieved. When the water cannon is shot right at one of the bunches of right wingers, a cheer goes up from our side. Myself and few others shout at them to stay quiet: “We do NOT cheer police, ever!”

More stones. More chants for murder. We’re still trapped. A few people try to push out to escape the hell we’re in. They are pushed back by police and counter-demonstrators.

12:15am, July20^th: The police try to get us out. People are throwing stones at us. Again, not many, but they’re coming from all sides, including the buildings we’re passing by. Police run into building entrances, pushing back those trying to attack us. They’re barely successful.

I hear shouts and run toward them. I see one of our people on the ground, bleeding from his head. Police try to push us forward. A couple of us tell them, trying to be calm, that we have someone injured. A policeman says “fine, leave him there”. We do nothing of the sort. We pick him up. He’s ok, somehow. Adrenaline, I suppose.

12:30am: We’re still half walking half running down the street, surrounded by police. It’s a bit calmer, but the counter-demonstrators (perhaps, by now, rioters) are still not far behind us. We find ourselves at a traffic circle. Two police commanders are arguing about what to do. All we want is to get a bus. They keep changing up where they want the bus to be. I overhear one commander telling the other that there are another hundred rightists coming down the street. They do not know what to do. They order us further down the hill.

12:35am: The sidewalk ends on our side. Police tell us to get into the shadows. I hear one of them ordering a bus sent to us, empty, as fast as possible. Nothing happens, everyone is exhausted. They seem to holding back the counter-demonstrators up the street.

12:45am:A public bus is passing by with around six people aboard. Police stop the bus, tell everyone on it to leave, and shout at us to get on. We can’t believe this: the police have literally commandeered a bus. It takes a while, but we all get on. Eighty people packed like sardines onto a bus that holds fifty. The bus moves up the hill to turn around. As it does, it’s hit with a rock thrown at it.

12:50am: We start singing. People sing and laugh as the adrenaline starts to decline. We feel safe, for the first time in hours.

1am: As we head toward the shore, where another bus is waiting for us, a car covered with an Israeli flag pulls up. The driver shouts and gestures at us. This is our first hint that it’s not over yet. Some still feel safe enough to flash V for victory signs at him.

1:05am: We pull into the parking lot behind the beach restaurant, Maxim. We get off the bus. We wonder where the next bus will take us. One of the organizers tells us to get on, and we’ll sort that out later. The water cannon truck pulls in behind us, with a number of police vans.

1:15am: We’re on the bus, and we’re moving out of the parking lot. The police accompaniment leaves. We’re alone. Suddenly, we hear two or three rocks hitting the bus. Two windows are shattered. We push the broken glass out onto the street to avoid the pieces flying in due to wind and hitting passengers. The broken windows make the bus windy, full of fresh air. We’re tense, but we’re safe.

1:20am: The bus pulls up near the Haifa headquarters of the Hadash party, one of the main organizers. As we disembark, we take photos of the youth making victory signs out the broken windows. We’re safe.

1:30am: We go to headquarters to debrief, post reports, and decide on next steps. At some point later, my partner and I go get some food and drinks for ourselves and our friends.

2:30am: We head to the police station to wait for the eight arrested to be released. A somewhat surreal scene occurs when we encounter a demonstrator from the other side, doing the same. No tempers flare.

4:30am: After two hours of waiting, talking, trying to understand what happened and why, our prisoners are released unconditionally. We applaud.

We go home. We sleep.

We were lucky: one stone an inch to one side or another, and someone would have died. Quite a few people were injured. One broken nose; one shattered shoulder. One demonstrator hit in the head by police. Who knows what else?

We live to fight another day.

 

Eldad Zion Repeats “The Fatal Mistake”

Tags

Demonstration, Eldad Zion, Forgiveness, Police Brutality, Political Detention, Prawer Plan

We return from the demonstration in Ramiya against Apartheid in the Galilee and talk about the struggle against the Prawer Plan for dispossessing the Arabs of the Naqab (Negev). Confusion reigns … Did we win or not? Was the Prawer Plan really stopped or does the government still intend to raise it again? In any case it is clear that the fight is not over. Discrimination, destruction and dispossession are the characteristics of “the system” all across the country, from the river to the sea. With increasing self-confidence of the young activists the struggle will go on and escalate.

Are we ready for the struggle ahead? Did we learn the lessons from previous struggles and recent events?

One essential issue in every struggle is the defense of the detainees. On the last “Day of Rage” (30/11/2013) against the Prawer Plan, in the demonstrations in Hora and in Haifa, it seemed that it was mostly the police that unleashed unbridled rage at the demonstrators. Demonstrators who were arrested were brutally beaten systematically after their arrest and beating continued even in the police stations. Contempt for the law by the police is reaching new heights when a prisoner begs to stop hitting him and the cop advises him to “complain to Mahash” and continues to beat him. (“Mahash” is the department responsible for investigations of complaints against policemen, and is famous for closing cases without any investigation.) We still have a lot to do even just to make the police try to pretend to respect the law.

In any case we can learn a lot from the experience of the recent detentions…

Why was Eldad Zion Arrested?

One of the detainees in the Hora demonstration was a teacher from Tel Aviv named Eldad Zion. Even according to the police Eldad was not involved in any violent activity during the demonstration. He was detained because he tried to talk to the police and convince them not to beat other detainees.

The primary offense that was attributed to Eldad by the police in the Be’er Sheva court occurred at the police station called “The Townships Station”, to which he was taken with other detainees from the demonstration. Eldad’s description of the event is presented by Or Kashti in “Haaretz” in the following words: “I entered the detainees’ room, whose walls are adorned with handwritten ‘Kahane was right’ and ‘Moses commanded to kill all the Arabs’, with the symbols of the Border’s Guard police unit. I saw a policeman slapping a detainee, so I raised my voice. In response 2-3 policemen attacked me from behind, took me out of the room, kicked me and broke the glasses… I did my civic duty while confronted by police violence. The police must be supervised by civilians. We must remain vigilant.”

On the other hand, the police accusations against Eldad, designed to justify the assault, amounted to claiming that “he grabbed a policeman’s shirt and pushed another officer.” On this flimsy base the prosecution tried consistently to build an image of Eldad as a dangerous person, as Kashti reported from the court: “This is a dangerous man,” said prosecution attorney Guy Zehavi yesterday, “the first rule of release on bail is confidence. Here is someone that has no fear of the law and goes against the law – assaults and disrupts.” Mr. Zehavi objected to the claim that Zion is not dangerous because the Prawer Plan was canceled. “First, the program is not canceled, and secondly – it’s like one who killed his wife and now claims not to be dangerous any longer because his wife already died.”

Eldad was kept in detention due to these accusations for two and a half weeks. The police even sought remand until the end of proceedings. Finally, the court decided to release him to house arrest under “24 hours guard” by his friends who volunteered to guarantee his release. Just yesterday (24.12) Eldad was finally released from house arrest under severe restrictive conditions.

Eldad himself, being such a good soul, after being beaten by the police, declared that he forgives them for all that they did. He reiterated this position even after his release and expanded his forgiveness to include the prosecution that insisted on remand and the judges which extended his detention for no reason again and again.

We’re talking about Eldad and try to understand his position – is it naivety or greatness? Is it possible that this position has led to further harassment against him? Here are some historical precedents.

Memories from the Intifada

Muhannad tells us about a friend from the days of the Stones’ Intifada (1987-1995), who was active in “The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” and participated in many clashes against the occupation soldiers. He was arrested many times, interrogated and tortured. He was sentenced and spent a period in Israeli prisons.

After he served his sentence and the Intifada ended, our friend finished his undergraduate studies and earned a scholarship to graduate school in the United States. He applied for permission to study through the Palestinian “Liaison Committees”, but all his appeals were rejected.

In his repeated appeals to the Palestinian liaison officer our friend begged him:

– “Tell them, the Israelis, that I’m not vindictive. I forgive them for everything they did to me.”

– “You see,” replied the liaison officer, “precisely because of this attitude you will never get a travel permit. Because you see yourself in a position where you can forgive the Israelis! They will never forgive you for that…”

Dangerous Historical Precedent

Finally Iris summarizes the discussion.

Eldad was lucky to be released to house arrest. He got off cheaply. The person that preceded him and thought he could forgive everybody finished on the cross.

* * *

This post was also published in Hebrew.

Apartheid Bulldozers Threaten Ramiya’s Houses in Karmiel

Tags

Demonstration, Ethnic Cleansing, Galilee, Haifa Courts, Israel Land Administration, Judaization, Karmiel, Racism, Ramiya, Zionism

Karmiel was born in sin – it was a cornerstone of the “Judaization of the Galilee” racist colonialist project. It was built on large areas of land that were confiscated from nearby Arab towns and villages. This confiscation was not for development for “public purposes” – as claimed by the Israeli government’s confiscation orders – but in order to uproot the residents of the area, concentrate them in ghettos of poverty and settle in their place another public – exclusively those adhering to the Jewish religion.

Galilee Apartheid reality, represented by Karmiel, Misgav “communal” settlements, Nazareth Illit and their likes, does not end with the expropriation of land and its allocation according to racial criteria. Judaization is a comprehensive policy encompassing all aspects of life: discrimination in building infrastructure and providing services to residents; endless obstacles obstructing residential construction in Arab communities while encouraging Jewish settlement; blocking economic development in the Arab ghettos versus benefits and incentives to enterprises in the Apartheid towns.

Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard in Karmiel

The most outrageous illustration of Karmiel’s character as Apartheid City is the fate of the residents Ramiya, who live on their own land, which was lawfully registered in the Land Registry Office, long before the establishment of Karmiel.

When Ahab of Karmiel desired the vineyard of Naboth and his land, he was ready to use any means to get them.

Usually the legal excuse against unrecognized Arab villages, built on their private lands, is that they are built on agricultural land and therefore no building can be legalized there – even if it is an old building, standing there before the planning law itself. (For building Jewish settlements, of course, the designated usage of land is easily altered). But Ramiya’s lands are in the midst of Karmiel’s building areas. Why not recognize Ramiya’s houses as a separate village or as part of the city? The answer is obvious: because the city was founded for Jews – and Arabs should be evacuated.

A sweeping confiscation order against Ramiya’s lands was issued already in 1976 – on the grounds of “public needs” – at the height of the “Judaization of the Galilee” drive. After a long legal battle Israel’s “Supreme” Court upheld the expropriation on March 1, 1992.

But the abuse of Ramiya’s residents didn’t stop at the expropriation itself. In order to force the residents to give up their houses and lands, Karmiel’s Municipality and various state agencies wage a deliberate policy of siege and deprivation of basic needs against Ramiya’s residents, which can’t but remind us of the siege of Gaza.

One example that cries out to heaven is preventing Ramiya’s houses from connecting to the electricity grid. When residents bought generators, (who learns by candlelight these days?) the “good neighbors” complained about the generators’ noise. Instead of providing electricity to the residents, Karmiel’s Municipality sent inspectors to demand the shutdown of the generators at night and left Ramiya’s residents in the cold and dark.

Struggle and Agreement

In the early 1990s Ramiya became the center of the struggle against the Judaization of the Galilee. On one opportunity the central Land Day demonstration was held in Ramiya. Later there was a mass march from Majd al-Kurum to Ramiya.

Public pressure forced the Israel Lands Administration to agree to negotiations and finally reach a compromise, which was signed as an agreement with the residents in 1995.

The agreement, as signed, is far from doing justice. According to it the village will be destroyed and with it the existing fabric of life. The residents succumb to the racist expropriation forced upon them. It allows the state to take over the lands of Ramiya for a compensation that is a small fraction of their market value.

However, the agreement, to some extent, breaks the principle of Apartheid around which Karmiel was founded by enabling Ramiya residents to stay in the area and build their homes. To this end the Administration undertook to provide 30 building plots in a special neighborhood that will be built in Karmiel.

The agreement also included the provision of compensation to Ramiya residents in the form of 15 building plots and some farmland outside of Karmiel.

The Zionist Principle: More Land, Fewer Arabs

The Israel Lands Administration, which hurried before the agreement to try forcibly evict the residents, was in no hurry to fulfill the agreement. More than five years passed before it allocated the proposed land for resettlement of Ramiya’s residents in a new neighborhood of Karmiel.

The residents also were in no hurry to give up their homes and lands with which their lives’ stories were entwined.

Finally, between 2001 and 2003, the Administration began implementing the agreement in its own way: Take control of as much land as it can and allow as few Arabs as possible to remain in Karmiel. It signed an agreement for the evacuation of two families that possessed more land but had a smaller number of inhabitants and gave them about 35% of the land intended for the construction of the new neighborhood (which had shrunk meanwhile from 30 to 29 plots).

The Administration informed all other residents that they must make do with what was left. By doing so the administration is trying to force a reality which clearly does not maintain the minimum that was to be guaranteed by the settlement agreement – enabling Ramiya residents persist as a community and build their lives in their village.

The Shifting Sands of the Law

At this stage a legal miracle occurred for the residents of Ramiya.

Some residents had filed a lawsuit against the administration in the Haifa District Court, arguing that the administration had violated the settlement agreement. The ruling, issued by Judge Raniel on November 24, 2009 (civil case 699/07), confirms the claims of the plaintiffs that the Administration violated the agreement. Beyond that, the ruling states that “compliance with the agreement as it is, at the current state of affairs as of today, is not possible, given the unequal distribution carried out by the Administration. In this situation the agreement should be applied approximately. The administration should make adjustments in order to correct the distortion and inequality that were created and that the administration acknowledged their existence, by adding on the plots quotas agreed upon.”

Would you expect the Administration to rush to comply with the verdict and allow all Ramiya residents to build their homes in Karmiel? Not in Israel. We have seen it in many cases in the past, most famously in the case of displaced villagers of Bir’am, Iqrit and Ghabsiyah, where the Supreme Court issued orders allowing them to return to their lands. Even if “by mistake” an Israeli court issues a ruling recognizing some rights of Arab citizens, it is nothing but an unfortunate mistake to be fixed by another judicial ruling or directly in practice by the authorities.

In our case, the Administration made the petitioners who won their case to join other judicial proceeding dealing with the cases of other Ramiya residents, which was held in the same Haifa District Court. In this proceeding (civil case 35576/12/10), the Administration found a sympathetic ear in the form of judge Lamshtreich–Leter, which justified all the claims of the Administration, embraced all claims against the residents and even invented new arguments on her own behalf. In her judgment issued on August 5, 2013, contrary to custom, the judge ignored the previous verdict of judge Raniel issued at the very same court, and turned his ruling upside down.

Judge Lamshtreich–Leter was not content “only” to justify the theft of lands belonging to Ramiya residents and to order their deportation from Karmiel. She went farther and put forward her own militant agenda, ruling that any of the residents who would not sign an evacuation agreement with the Administration within 90 days (until November 4, 2013) shall be deemed to renounce voluntarily his rights within the framework of the 1995 settlement agreement and would have to evacuate the area immediately.

The residents filed an appeal against this draconian ruling in the Supreme Court (Civil Appeal 7198/13). The hearing of the appeal on its merits was not yet been held, but Judge Barak-Erez, in her decision of November 11, 2013, refused to grant suspension of execution of the evacuation until the hearing of the appeal and required the petitioners to pay the costs.

Divide and Rob

The most disgusting aspect of the authorities’ conduct in this context is their systematic efforts in sowing discord between Ramiya residents.

The method is simple: The Administration announced that the 30 plots allotted to the new neighborhood in Karmiel are the last offer for Ramiya’s people and that if any of the residents had no place to live this is an internal problem of the division between the residents.

Thus we see, unfortunately, some lawsuits by Ramiya residents against other residents.

When judge Raniel ordered the Administration to allocate additional plots, the Administration completely ignored this directive.

On the other hand, judge Lamshtreich–Leter, in her ruling, adopts this quarrel-mongering tactic wholeheartedly and finds for it new justifications out of any context.

But the arbitrary and scandalous judgment, which denies the achievements of the residents in the agreement of 1995 and ordered their immediate evacuation without housing solutions, finally re-united the residents and re-ignited the public struggle over the principled issues, against racist evictions and land grab.

No to Apartheid – Yes to all Ramiya residents’ right to live in Karmiel

After decades of suffering and persecution, the drama in Ramiya is approaching the moment of truth.

Will forced evictions take place? Is the city of Karmiel determined to solidify its position as Apartheid City through a celebration of destruction and violence?

Or perhaps there is another way, allowing Ramiya residents at least to build homes in the neighborhood assigned for them in Karmiel? We repeat and mention that it is much less than justice – but definitely a crack in the walls of Apartheid…

Let us not forget that the struggle against dispossession and evictions in Ramiya takes place concurrently with the struggle against the “Prawer Plan” for ethnic cleansing against the Naqab (Negev) Bedouin and their concentration in ghettos, as well as similar dispossession and deportation programs in South Mount Hebron, the Jordan Valley and other areas. The guiding principle in all these cases and many others all over Palestine is the dispossession of the indigenous people on a racial basis, the theft of their lands and its re-allocation for the benefit of Apartheid Settlements.

You can help us in the struggle to stop Apartheid.

What can you do?

·        Join the demonstration on Friday, December 20

The Follow-up Committee of the Arab population calls for a demonstration against the eviction of Ramiya and for the right of all Ramiya residents to live on their land, as an independent village or as residents of Karmiel.

The demonstration will take place on Friday, December 20, 2013. Gathering will be at 13:30 in front of the Municipality of Karmiel and from there we will march to Ramiya.

If you can’t come that far you may organize a parallel vigil elsewhere and let us know.

·        Come to visit Ramiya, learn about the place and show solidarity

To coordinate your visit please call in advance Mr. Salah Sawa’ed 054-5975958

·        Join Ramiya’s Friends on Facebook

The Friends of Ramiya group on Facebook was established to help organize solidarity activities.

·        Share information

You may publish and share this publication, as well as invitations to different activities.

This publication is available also in Arabic and Hebrew.

·        Send letters

You can start by sending the attached protest letter (or anything you like to write) to the Israel Lands Authority, which is responsible for the racist policy against Ramiya’s residents, through its site:

www.mmi.gov.il

And to the Mayor of Karmiel, Adi Eldar:

Adie@karmiel.muni.il

Please send a copy to us too (the Friend of Ramiya group): ramiya4ever@gmail.com

Proposed letter in support of Ramiya’s residents

לכבוד מר בנצי ליברמן, מנהל רשות מקרקעי ישראל,

לכבוד מר עדי אלדר, ראש עיריית כרמיאל,

ברצוני להביע את מחאתי נגד נישול תושבי ראמיה ונגד הכוונה להרוס את בתיהם ולפנותם מאדמתם.

נישול ופינוי תושבים ערבים כדי לשכן במקומם תושבים יהודים הינו צעד גזעני שנוגד את ערכי היסוד המקודשים של החברה האנושית.

יש לאפשר לכל תושבי ראמיה לגור בכבוד כתושבים בעלי זכויות מלאות באדמת כפרם.

חתימה: ____________________

To Benzi Lieberman, Manager of the Israel Lands Authority,

To Adi Eldar, Mayor of Karmiel,

I want to express my utmost protest at the expropriation of the people of Ramiya and against the intention to evacuate them from their land and destroy their homes.

Expropriation and evacuation of Arab citizens in order to settle Jewish citizens in their place is a racist measure that contradicts the sacred values of Humanity.

All the people of Ramiya should be allowed to live as equal citizens with full rights on the land of their village.

Signature: __________________

Beaten, Wounded and Proud – Detainees from the Haifa Demonstration against Dispossession of the Naqab Arabs

Tags

Demonstration, Ethnic Cleansing, Haifa, Haifa Courts, Herak Haifa, palestine, Political Detention, Prawer Plan, Zionism

It is common knowledge that the police are taught the art of “dry beating” – causing a lot of pain but not leaving clear marks to show in court. Well, today’s police apparently lost this fine art. 21 demonstrators who were arrested on Saturday in the “Day of Rage” demonstration in the German Colony in Haifa downtown were brought to the court yesterday (Sunday 1/12/2013) for remand. Many of them did not have to raise a shirt or roll up their pants’ sleeves to show the judge their bruises – signs of trauma and blood were easily seen on their faces.

Sabrin Diab, a young woman from Tamra in the Galilee, appeared at court with a broken arm fixed in plaster (in the picture, last on the left in the rear) – as a result of the beating she had taken at the time of her arrest. When the lawyers of some other detainees asked the police representative in court “Did he receive medical treatment?” the answer was uniform and laconic: “whoever asked for medical treatment received it.” One after the other the detainees stood up and testified about beatings and pains – and the refusal of the Haifa police and the guards at the Jalameh detention center (“Kishon”) to allow them to see a doctor or receive treatment.

Police Escalation – Also in Court

In the last days the Israeli media was full with incitement by the heads of the racist Zionist establishment against the demonstrators protesting the “Prawer Plan”. Netanyahu’s call to “prosecute them to the end” was not lost on the Haifa police. The police chose to request remand for 21 of the demonstrators that were detained in Haifa, two of them minors. When the hearing judge decided this morning to release the two minors and send them to house arrest, the police rushed to ask for a stay of execution and appealed.

The hearing on extending the detention of the 19 other detainees – four of them women – was conducted in 3 different sessions due to the difficulty to accommodate all the detainees in the courtroom. But the police in its remand request collected all the charges in one package against all of them. To raise the severity of the accusations they resorted to articles of the law that are rarely used in such cases. All 19 detainees were accused of “assaulting a police officer with firearms or cold weapons” and of “causing severe injury when the offender is carrying a weapon.”

Fortunately the enthusiasm and wild exaggeration did not serve the police well this time. The police representative tried to describe the situation as if the German Colony’s streets were full of stones being thrown and told about many policemen that were injured and needed treatment. When asked to provide details he could not name even one policeman who was injured and could not provide any medical certificates.

When the police prosecutor was requested to elaborate how were the “suspects” armed and asked whether any weapons were sized he claimed that they were armed with stones, which were naturally thrown and therefore not caught with the protesters. When asked what was the role of each of the suspects he responded only that “the evidence is before the court.” In some cases the judge volunteered to review the material and answered instead of the policeman – and in all those cases it appeared that the suspects were charged in their initial interrogation only with “assaulting police officers” and all the issue of stone-throwing (or any other “weapons”) was not even mentioned.

Beating in the Advanced Command Post

From what the detainees told in court we learned that they were beaten hardest after their violent arrest. The police established a forward command center in a municipal building on Radak Street near Carmel Boulevard (“Ben Gurion”). The cops were leading the detainees to this center where they could beat them freely away from the media and the public.

One detainee told how a policeman held him down by pressing his knee (the cop’s) on his neck while punching fists in his face. The signs of the knee and punches were easy to identify.

A declaration of the Haifa “popular committee” that was published (in Arabic) against the violent dispersal of a demonstration accuses the police also of sexual harassment in words and deeds against female detainees.

Alleged Ground for Remand

Cases where protesters are detained typically follow a fixed pattern: the cops complain that they were victims of assault and they are also the witnesses. This format has one advantage: because it is assumed that the detainees can’t influence the police witnesses, it is difficult to use the grounds of “fear of obstruction of justice” to justify prolonged detention. This time the police tried to justify a prolonged detention by claiming that they intend to interrogate many people who were present, not only police officers…

The police prosecutor, who recently enjoyed high unconditional confidence from the Haifa Court in various political detention cases, refused to answer most questions. He even refused to answer some question routinely repeated in remand hearings as “how many investigation acts the police intends to conduct?” (The only answer given to this question was “a lot”). When he was asked questions about various details in the case he often avoided any answer and kept himself busy with the mobile phone in his hand. At one point, he even ostentatiously turned his back to the lawyer who was questioning him. When that attorney protested he said: “I hear you this way just the same.”

The detainees complained that they were denied food and drink all the way at the Haifa police station, in prison and while in detention in court. One of the lawyers even asked whether starving the detainees is part of the many “investigation acts” taken by the police in this case.

The fight against the Prawer Plan continues in court

Many representatives of the media attended the court hearing. There is no doubt that the “Day of Rage” protest on Saturday brought a quantum leap in public awareness to the Prawer plan to dispossess the Arabs of the Naqab (Negev in Hebrew) and the resistance it evokes.

It is common practice that, while the detainees are brought into the court, reporters and photographers get a “time out” to take pictures and interview them. These are often difficult and embarrassing moments for detainees. This time the detainees entered holding their heads high and happy for the opportunity to speak out – obviously proud to take part in the just struggle against ethnic cleansing. They rushed to make statements to the media about the objectives of the struggle. Some of the detainees raised their hands with the victory sign upon entering the hall.

Many of the defense lawyers explained and stressed in court that this is a legitimate, just and even indispensable struggle of the Arab population against the injustice done by the state. Some lawyers even mentioned that they themselves participated in the demonstration.

Release, appeal and postponement

Meanwhile the appeal hearing about the release of the two minor detainees was held in the district court. Under pressure from the court, the parties agreed on postponing the release until 8 pm.

After long proceedings that filled most of the time from 9:30 am to 17:00 pm, the judge decided to release the rest of the detainees. The prosecution announced that it plans to appeal. Six detainees, including Sabrin Diab with the broken arm and lawyer Suhair Assad were released anyway. Release of the rest, two women and eleven men, was postponed until the appeal hearing on Monday.

* * *

Today (Monday, December 2) at 14:30 the Haifa District Court decided to dismiss the prosecution’s appeal and release all the detainees – some of them under house arrest.

* * *

This post was initially published in Hebrew.