Palestinians inspect damage of their property destroyed by the Israeli army, in the West Bank village of Faresiya. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)

The IDF’s Civil Administration destroyed a Palestinian village Monday morning that had earlier been cleared out when its water supply was cut off.

The IDF demolished about 55 structures in the West Bank village of Farasiya, including tents, tin shacks, plastic and straw huts, clay ovens, sheep pens and bathrooms. These structures served the 120 farmers, hired workers and their families who lived in the Jordan Valley village.

The Civil Administration said they had declared the area a live fire zone and posted eviction orders for 10 families in tents on June 27.

“Since no appeal was filed in the following three weeks, and given the danger posed by the location of the tents, they were removed,” they said in response.

The villagers made a living by sheep farming and working land owned by families in the town of Tubas. Some of them have been living in Farasiya for decades.

A packaging warehouse that was built together with Agrexco in the late 1970s was also torn down.

Atef Abu al-Rob, a photographer for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, who arrived at the village hours after the demolition, said mattresses, pipes and broken furniture were lying on the ground in the debris.

Since 1967, Israel has prevented Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley from growing, whether by cutting off their water supply, declaring large areas as live fire zones or banning all construction.

About a year ago the IDF set up hundreds of warning signs near Palestinian farming communities, marking them closed military areas. Such a sign was set up at the entrance to Farasiya.

The families had recently been forced to leave the village when the Israeli authorities cut it off from its water sources, said the popular committees’ coordinator in the valley, Fathi Hadirat. The villagers were forbidden to use the water wells the Mekorot Water Company had dug in the area.

Hadirat said a few years ago the Civil Administration destroyed the pipe the villages had laid from a nearby stream used for drinking water and irrigation.

Since then they have been watering the sheep and fields with water unfit for human consumption, pumped from a salt water source. They received drinking water in tanks.

About four months ago the IDF confiscated their pumps. On Sunday, 10 families from Bardala, a village north of Farasiya, were given demolition notices.

A farmer who owns 300 sheep was told to leave in 24 hours or his herd would be confiscated.

Rebuiling of Palestinians homes that was demilished by Israel. (Photo: ActiveStills / Archive)

Rubble covers the tile floor at the site of the demolished home we are beginning to rebuild in the East Jerusalem section of Anata, a Palestinian town divided between occupied “East” Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Activists from the United States, Britain, Germany and Iran, reinforced daily by local Palestinian and Israeli activists, have gathered here for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD’s) eighth annual summer rebuilding camp. They will spend two weeks rebuilding a Palestinian home that has been destroyed by the Israeli authorities.

This year’s house belongs to the Hamdan family, which was first demolished in 2005. In 2007, ICAHD activists began rebuilding the home, but because it was located near a section of Israel’s apartheid wall that was being constructed around Anata, battles of stone-throwing, tear gas, shooting and arrests erupted between the Palestinian residents resisting their virtual imprisonment behind 8m/26′ concrete blocks and the Israeli army and police. Feeling endangered, ICAHD suspended the effort for an alternative site. In 2008, the ICAHD camp came back to the Hamdan home and completed its reconstruction. The house, however, was demolished again within a few months. Since our rebuilding constitutes political acts of resistance to occupation and not “humanitarian gestures,” we try to rebuild every home that is re-demolished.

As we cleared the rubble from the foundation this morning, I noticed the tile floor that remained underneath. I was struck by the fact that the tiles were the same pattern as those we used last summer, when I participated in the ICAHD effort to rebuild a house a short distance away. I thought about the volunteers in 2007 and 2008, who had worked in the summer heat to build this home, only to have their work destroyed shortly after the family moved in.

Because the Spanish government is sending 45 volunteers this year to rebuild, a wonderful thing but something that would make a combined work camp unwieldy, ICAHD decided to operate three camps: this one in Anata with about 20 volunteers, one in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina and one in the West Bank, near Hebron (more on those camps when they begin next week). Altogether we will build four houses this summer.

We made measurable progress today. After a nonviolence training session by members of the Palestine Solidarity Project based in Beit Umar near Hebron, we took a walking tour of Anata, guided by Salim Shawamreh, ICAHD’s Field Coordinator and resident of Anata, whose own home has been demolished four times. We met residents on the way and got a feel for the place where we will be spnding the next two weeks. On the tour, ICAHD Director Jeff Halper gave a broad political context, explaining how part of the village is under joint Palestinian-Israeli control (Area B), and part under full Israeli control (Area C and Jerusalem). Many of the homes in Anata are under constant threat of demolition because Israeli authorities claim they were constructed without the proper permits – which are virtually impossible to acquire. In fact, THREE Israeli government authorities demolish homes in Anata: the Jerusalem municipality, the Ministry of Interior and the “Civil” Administration, Israel’s military government over the West Bank

In the afternoon, the whole crew of volunteers went to the building site and got down to work, first cleaning the site, then forming human chains to pass along a seemingly endless stream of buckets of concrete to pour into molds for the foundation and pillars. At the end of the day we were treated to a sumptuous tray of baba ganoush, hummus, pickles and fresh-baked bread sent out to us by the mother of two teenaged girls who had been watching our efforts.

We dragged our sweaty bodies home for dinner and a presentation from Jeff and Salim about the Israeli occupation and the history of Beit Arabiya, the house where we are staying. Salim explained the nightmarish and expensive process he repeatedly undertook in unsuccessfully trying to get a permit to construct the house, named after our hostess, Arabiya. Their house has been standing since it was rebuilt by ICAHD in 2003, but because the family has Jerusalem residency and the home is in the West Bank, they will lose their right to enter Jerusalem if they move into their home – something especially worrying since there is currently another demolition order against it and they might be left without a home entirely. So now it is used as a strategizing center, and the Shawamreh family only stays here during the ICAHD summer camp. More than 24,000 homes have been destroyed since the Israeli occupation began in 1967. ICAHD has rebuilt 165 over the past decade; only about 15 have been re-demolished.

Most camp participants are already involved in this work, but they come home from their experiences here energized and more determined to carry on their efforts. As Alaina, a volunteer from Portland, Oregon put it, “As Americans, there’s only so much we can do here, but there’s a lot we can do back there, because our tax dollars are funding this whole thing.” The ICAHD camps will send back into the world 65 effective advocates against the Occupation and for a just peace by the end of work camp schedules. And four families, numbering several dozen people, will have homes.

In Jabal Mukaber, the homes of the Tawil family (15 people) and the Masrawi family (six people) were demolished. In Beit Hanina, the municipality demolished the home of the Rajabi family (6 people). And in Issawaiyeh, three homes in advanced stages of construction were demolished: one of the Dari family, another belonging to the Nasser family and a third of the Abu Rameileh family.

Today, in the West Bank, a reservoir belonging to the Jabar family was demolished by the Civil Administration, and other buildings are threatened. (This, despite the fact that the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, which already has four large municipal swimming pools, is constructing a water park complete with an artificial lake.)

All this, plus municipal approval for the demolition of 22 homes in the Silwan neighborhood, continued pressure to remove Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah – and the approval by the municipality this week of 54 new housing units for the Pisgat Ze’ev settlement.

Despite claims that Palestinian houses, reservoirs and other buildings are “illegal,” demolition is merely another face of ethnic cleansing, since the Jerusalem municipality, the Ministry of Interior and the Civil Administration of the West Bank all deny Palestinians the right to build homes on their own property. Although the pressure to demolish is constant – the Israeli authorities have demolished 24,000 Palestinian homes since 1967 and new orders are issued daily – the current wave of demolitions can only be explained only on the background of Prime minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington a few weeks ago. For the past decade or so demolition orders can be executed only with the approval of the Prime Minister’s Office; these are not municipal-level decisions, even if the municipality presses for demolitions.

Only one of two explanations for the wave of demolitions is therefore possible. Either Israel has received a green (OK, blinking orange) light that the US will not object vociferously to demolitions – and, in fact, the State Department issued a mild statement describing the demolitions as “unhelpful,” the same term Hillary Clinton used when homes were demolished during her visit to Ramallah. Or Netanyahu, flush from his victory over Obama in the Biden affair, when Congress overwhelmingly supported the Israeli position of building settlements over that of their own Administration, felt free to return to his aggressive policies of “judaization.” Basking in the warm embrace he just received at the White House, Netanyahu knows he has nothing to fear from an increasingly weakened Obama Administration.

It is becoming obvious – if it wasn’t already – that the United States will not, or cannot “deliver” a just peace in Israel-Palestine. Even if an Administration tries to pursue a more critical line towards Israel, its hands will inevitably be tied by Congress. The time has come to pursue a “working around America” strategy, mobilizing the civil societies of Europe, Latin America, Africa and perhaps Asia as well to create a global consensus that either presses for a just solution to the conflict on its own, or prods the US to become constructively involved by virtue of its international isolation. The present wave of demolitions demonstrates the bankruptcy and ineffectiveness of the American “approach.” 24,000 demolitions later (and counting), it is time to look elsewhere.

Demolitions are carried out without warning giving no opportunity to salvage possessions © Amnesty International

Amnesty International has called on the Israeli authorities to end house demolitions which leave thousands of Palestinians living in daily fear of eviction from their homes.

A new briefing, “As safe as houses? Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes”, reveals the extent to which Israeli forces are destroying homes and other structures in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, claiming they have been built illegally.

According to the UN, in 2009 more than 600 Palestinians – over half of them children – lost their homes after they were demolished on order from the Israeli authorities.

“Palestinians living under Israeli occupation face such tight restrictions on what they can build and where that their right to adequate housing is being violated,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Download the report as a pdf.

“The Israeli authorities are putting Palestinians in an impossible situation. Whatever choice they make, they face homelessness.

“The majority of people are denied building permits by Israel, even after lengthy and expensive bureaucratic and legal processes, so they have little choice but to go ahead without official permission. But as they do so, they know that these buildings may soon be flattened by Israeli bulldozers.”

Demolitions are generally carried out with no warning of the date, giving no opportunity for Palestinians to salvage their possessions or find elsewhere to shelter. The UN has estimated that some 4,800 demolition orders are pending.

Under Israeli law, evicted families are not entitled to alternative housing or compensation, meaning many would face homelessness and destitution were it not for relatives, friends and charities.

While homes are often targeted, Israeli authorities have also issued demolition orders against Palestinian schools, clinics, roads, water cisterns, electricity pylons, sheds and animal shelters.

Palestinians living in the tiny village of Khirbet Tana in the Jordan valley have had to rebuild their homes twice in five years.

In 2005, Israeli authorities demolished the village school as well as a number of homes, animal sheds and water cisterns.

The villagers rebuilt their homes but on 10 January 2010, Israeli forces returned. They demolished the homes of 100 Palestinians, leaving 34 children homeless, as well as the village school for a second time. They also destroyed 12 sheep and goat pens, the main source of income for the village.

Raeda Nasasreh, a 24-year-old mother of two, told Amnesty International: “The army jeeps came at six in the morning; people saw them in the valley and started taking their belongings out of the houses.

“We didn’t have time to finish milking the ewes. They demolished everything here; by 9:30 they were finished.”

In October 2009, Israeli forces destroyed the home of Rida Nimr and her husband Nimr Ali Nimr in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Jabal al-Mukabbir. Three generations of the family, including five children, were left homeless.

“Some 30 police and special forces, accompanied by three bulldozers driven by civilian contractors, arrived while the children were still sleeping. The police rapidly surrounded and closed off the area,” said Rida.

“The demolition force only took a few pieces of furniture out of the house before its demolition and did not allow us to take out anything except, after pleading, a laptop belonging to our daughter Amal which she needs for her university studies.”

Amnesty International has called on the Israeli authorities to immediately end all demolitions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), including East Jerusalem.

The organization said the authorities should also transfer responsibility for planning and building policies and regulations to the local Palestinian communities.

In addition, the Israeli authorities must stop the construction or expansion of Israeli settlements in the OPT as a first step towards removing Israeli civilians living in such settlements.

“Demolition and eviction orders do not just destroy people’s homes. They also take away their possessions and their hopes for a secure future,” said Philip Luther.

Yesterday, I was one of those shouting at the men and women who had come with their Israeli flags, their righteous arrogance, their anger to disrupt our protest organized to declare support for the Freedom Flotilla and the Free Gaza movement.

Central to this story is that I am a Jew. I am a Jew who has spent four summers in Palestine witnessing the toll that more than 40 years of Israeli occupation has taken on a people and on a land. I am a Jew who has come to understand, as the sign I was holding yesterday attests, that we are forsaking Jewish values for the sake of a Jewish state.

Read the rest at Mondoweiss.

Reports indicate that anywhere from 10 to 20 passengers were killed and many more injured when Israeli forces stormed the boats in international waters. This grave breach of well-established international law in response to an expressly non-violent effort is the latest in a long list of the Israeli government’s disproportionate use of force leading to violations of human rights. Israel has not only once again transgressed international law, but also the bounds of moral law.

We express our heartbreak and sympathy for the families of those killed and injured.

What more will it take before the U.S. and the international community truly call Israel to account for its unconscionable actions towards Palestinians and their supporters? ICAHD-USA joins with all those around the world demanding that Israel be held accountable. We particularly look to the U.S. government, which supports Israel with billions of our tax dollars, to both rebuke Israel for this most recent abuse of military power and demand an end to the inhumane blockade on Gaza.

TAKE ACTION
From our friends at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation:

1. Organize an emergency protest against Israel’s attack on the humanitarian flotilla. Find events near you and post your event details – http://gazafreedommarch.org/cms/en/flotilla/protest.aspx
2. Contact the U.S. Mission to the United Nations at 212-415-4062 right away and demand that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice vote to support a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s action and initiating an investigation.

   In addition, you can call / email with the following message (or create one of your own):

   The Israeli military has attacked a humanitarian relief ship headed to Gaza, killing and injuring many innocent civilians. The Israeli government continues to breach international law, U.S. law, and moral law. Enough is enough. I say no more — no more of my tax dollars for Israel until the Israeli government ends the blockade on Gaza, stops settlement expansion, and reaches a just negotiation that ends the Occupation.

3. US State Department Comment line at 202-647-6575 or its office of Israeli and Palestinian affairs at 202-647-2268.
4. Your member of Congress at 202-224-3121 (live switchboard will direct you to your Congressperson’s office).
5. The White House opinion line at 202-456-1111, the switchboard at 202-456-1414, or email http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact.
]]> http://icahdusa.org/2010/05/icahd-usa-condemns-israeli-attack-on-the-freedom-flotilla/feed/ 0 http://icahdusa.org/2010/05/action-alert-israeli-military-attacks-gaza-freedom-flotilla-4-deaths-confirmed/ http://icahdusa.org/2010/05/action-alert-israeli-military-attacks-gaza-freedom-flotilla-4-deaths-confirmed/#comments Mon, 31 May 2010 07:04:17 +0000 ICAHD-USA http://icahdusa.org/?p=716 Israel Murders at Least 4 Unarmed Civilians on Aid Flotilla to Gaza, Dozens Injured (Cyprus, June 1, 2010, 6:30AM local)… Read more]]> Israel Murders at Least 4 Unarmed Civilians on Aid Flotilla to Gaza, Dozens Injured

(Cyprus, June 1, 2010, 6:30AM local) Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos from at least 14 warships and military helicopters boarded the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began shooting. According to live video from the ship, at least two civilians have been murdered, and dozens injured. Israeli television is reporting 16 civilians killed.

The Mavi Marmara was part of a 6-ship unarmed flotilla, including a U.S.-flagged vessel, carrying 700 passengers from 40 different countries and 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid on a mission of mercy to besieged Gaza.

The last GPS signal from the flotilla, sent just prior to the attack, placed the ships at latitude:32.64113, longitude:33.56727 – approximately 65 miles off the coast of Netanya, well in international waters.

Palestinian fishermen are regularly fired upon off the coast of Gaza, but these are the first Israeli murders of internationals at sea. In recent years, the Israeli military has adopted increasingly vicious policies toward international human rights workers in Palestine, murdering Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurdall in 2003.

The names of the dead are not yet known. The flotilla passengers included retired US diplomats Amb. Edward Peck and Col. Ann Wright as well as humanitarian aid and human rights workers, several Members of Parliament from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Malaysia, and Palestinian Members of the Knesset.

Numbers for Israeli officials:

• Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office: +972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264
• Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence: +972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
• Major Liebovitz from the Israeli Navy: + 972 5 781 86248
• The Israeli Ministry of Defense, Fax: 972-3-697-6717
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Fax: 972-2- 5303367
• Click here for a list of Israeli embassies in other countries

Organize a demonstration at an Israeli embassy
Register your demonstration or find a planned action in your area at the Gaza Freedom March

Numbers for United States officials:

• White House: 1.202.456.1111
• Department of State: 1.202.647.4000

Call or send a letter to your Congressional representative with this sample letter:

Dear YOUR REPRESENTATIVE,

In one of the most outrageous attacks on civilized people, the Israeli military killed at least three people and injured at least 30 more in an unprovoked assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters. The ships presented no threat as they were filled with diplomats, academics, journalists and human rights workers hoping to bring humanitarian goods to the besieged Gaza Strip.

I call on you to hold Israel accountable for their despicable actions and to immediately dispel your Israeli ambassador until a thorough investigation can be undertaken by a credible third party.

]]> http://icahdusa.org/2010/05/action-alert-israeli-military-attacks-gaza-freedom-flotilla-4-deaths-confirmed/feed/ 0 http://icahdusa.org/2010/05/an-open-letter-by-jeff-halper-to-the-israeli-jewish-public-support-the-gaza-flotilla/ http://icahdusa.org/2010/05/an-open-letter-by-jeff-halper-to-the-israeli-jewish-public-support-the-gaza-flotilla/#comments Sun, 30 May 2010 21:52:59 +0000 ICAHD-USA http://icahdusa.org/?p=723 Read more]]> If we were not Israeli Jews, if the nine ships bringing 800 peace-makers from 40 countries would be sailing with humanitarian aid to an imprisoned population of a million and a half to, say, Haiti, the flotilla now on its way to Gaza would be hailed as a monumental event. The government of Israel would donate another 50 tons of food and materials and a brigade of army volunteers from the “rescue corps.” But we are Israelis, and the fact that such an operation is being launched against a siege we imposed on a civilian population three years ago – actually, the blockade goes back to the late 1980s – should cause us all to reflect upon how we and our country have arrived at this sorry state – how the “light unto the nations” has become one of the most oppressive states on earth, subject to international protests like this one.

The flotilla is sailing with a number of messages. First and foremost, to the government of Israel: “Lift the siege on Gaza!” The siege is absolutely illegal in international law, and for those of us who believe that the rule of law and human rights is the only recipe for a better world, it is incumbent upon us to join the flotilla’s call to lift the siege. Civilians cannot be the object of military and political attacks, as is the case in Gaza (which the Goldstone Report roundly criticized), nor can they be collectively punished for the policies of their political leaders. The very idea that people can be brought to their knees and forced to accept being permanently controlled and dominated, which is the thrust of Israeli policy, is both unconscionable and counter-productive. As the situation in Gaza shows, it has only stiffened resistance to the Occupation.

And then there is the urgency of the flotilla’s second message, “Addressing the humanitarian situation in Gaza!” In a policy frightening reminiscent of other dark regimes in which Jews suffered from controlled malnutrition, our government has imposed a regime of “counting calories” on the Gaza population – imposing a “minimal dietary regime” on a million and a half people who receive as little as 850 calories a day, less than half the recommended daily intake. (Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s Chief of Staff, made a joke out of this. “It’s like a meeting with a dietitian,” he said. “We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death.”) Instant coffee, fresh meat, rice, beans, spices, honey, chocolate, jam, bananas, coriander and pasta, among many others, are considered by Israel “luxury foods” for Palestinians. All this might be funny if it weren’t for the fact that, according to the World Health Organization, more than 10% of Gazan children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Two-thirds of the Gazan population face hunger on a daily basis.

Gaza is today an unreconstructed war-zone. Israel long ago destroyed the sewage system, so that people have drowned in periodic floods of sewage that have engulfed whole communities. Raw sewage flowing into the Mediterranean has polluted the only waters in which Palestinians are allowed to fish – the Israeli navy fires on fishermen who attempt to reach cleaner waters more than three miles out. Having destroyed Gaza’s only power station, much of the area suffers from blackouts, and Israel prevents adequate amounts of fuel from entering, with severe effects on hospitals. Gazans also have nowhere to live. More than 2,400 homes were destroyed in the invasion of last year and Israel, by prohibiting the import of raw materials, has prevented their being rebuilt. Thus the flotilla is bringing to Gaza 10,000 tons of humanitarian materials: temporary shelters, playgrounds for children, cement, steel and other construction materials, medical equipment and medicines and school supplies – a drop in the bucket of which is actually needed. The list alone is an indictment of our policies.

We Israeli Jews live in a managed information environment in which reality is carefully framed for us. Our government’s explanation for everything it does is “security,” and we accept that almost without question. But we have to understand a basic fact of life: four million Palestinians live under a cruel Occupation that we have nurtured for the past 43 years and which has deprived them of their fundamental rights (such as electing their own political leaders), robbed them of their land and homes (Israeli governments have demolished some 24,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories since 1967), reduced them to impoverishment and has led, in the case of Gaza, to their literal imprisonment.

Why do I have to repeat facts that seem so self-evident, that everyone knows? Because, though every informed person abroad knows these things, we Israeli Jews don’t – and we don’t care. Most Israelis know far less about what our government is doing in our name, in Gaza and elsewhere in the Occupied Territories, than the activists on the Free Gaza ships. We seldom if ever use the term “occupation” in our everyday speech (in fact, our government denied the very existence of an occupation), and we minimize the impact that our settlements, our separate roads, the Wall, hundreds of checkpoints and other facets of the Occupation have upon the political process, which we no longer believe in. Living in a prosperous “bubble,” we do not see Palestinian suffering, only ourselves as “victims.” (And so our Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman characterizes the Gaza flotillas as “violent propaganda” against Israel, as if we have nothing to do with conditions of life in Gaza or the very fact of occupation.) But this is not reality. For the Palestinians there is no minimizing their suffering or their yearning for freedom. Why, with our history, is it so difficult for us to understand resistance to oppression?

And so the third message of the flotilla is directed towards us: “Take responsibility for your government’s policies!” When I entered Gaza on the first Free Gaza boats in August, 2008, I issued an appeal to the Israeli public to stand in solidarity with us. I argued that ordinary people have often played key roles in history, particularly in situations like this where world governments, who should end the siege, shirk their responsibilities. We must resist the self-serving and disempowering statements of our political leaders who would have us believe that there is no solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, that there is “no partner for peace,” that we are doomed to perpetual war and, therefore, we must become permanent oppressors. The Palestinians are not our enemies; our own political leaders are. The very fact that I, an Israeli Jew, was welcomed by the people of Gaza makes that very point, and it is the message they asked me to convey to you. But they also insist on their rights: self-determination.

We of the Israeli peace camp refuse to be enemies with our Palestinian neighbors. We recognize that as the infinitely stronger party in the conflict, we Israelis must accept responsibility for our failed and oppressive policies.

In the meantime, the flotilla to Gaza has already succeeded. If the Israeli government allows the ships into Gaza, the power of the will have prevailed once more. If it chooses to stop the flotilla, it will only highlight the existence of the illegal and inhumane siege and bolster international efforts to end it. In both cases Israel loses the battle for legitimacy in the international community. This is the beauty of non-violent direct action. It is only a matter of time before it will be forced to relinquish control over the Palestinians and their lands.

Let us, Israeli Jews who aspire to become an integral part of this region rather than a foreign implant at war with its inhabitants, begin to take our fate in our own hands. We must side with the people of Gaza and the activists on the boats against the unjust and immoral policies of our own government. This is what the good people of the flotilla are trying to tell us, what people all over the world are trying to tell us: unless we take responsibility for our actions and end this terrible conflict with the Palestinians, we will not remain here. And unless we find a way to a just peace rather than stand on the side of occupation, oppression and injustice, we may delay that day by force, but our society will not survive. For our sakes as well as the people of Gaza, let us, the Israeli Jewish public, board the boats to end the siege of Gaza.

]]> http://icahdusa.org/2010/05/an-open-letter-by-jeff-halper-to-the-israeli-jewish-public-support-the-gaza-flotilla/feed/ 0 http://icahdusa.org/2010/04/chicago-hearing-does-u-s-policy-on-israel-and-palestine-uphold-our-values/ http://icahdusa.org/2010/04/chicago-hearing-does-u-s-policy-on-israel-and-palestine-uphold-our-values/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:46:55 +0000 ICAHD-USA http://icahdusa.org/?p=710 Read more]]> On April 18, 2010, Jeff Halper took part in panel discussion on the role of US policy in the Israeli Occupation. Below are the videos of the entire event.
]]> http://icahdusa.org/2010/04/chicago-hearing-does-u-s-policy-on-israel-and-palestine-uphold-our-values/feed/ 0 http://icahdusa.org/2010/04/2-visiting-israeli-crusaders-lay-the-problem-at-the-feet-of-american-jews/ http://icahdusa.org/2010/04/2-visiting-israeli-crusaders-lay-the-problem-at-the-feet-of-american-jews/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:32:14 +0000 ICAHD-USA http://icahdusa.org/?p=707 Read more]]>

Philip Weiss in Gaza

I had an inspiring day in New York yesterday, I went to see two leaders of the left in Israel. The message was in the end the same: the oppression is over there, but the political problem is the Israel lobby, recalcitrant Jewish attitudes in the U.S., now what are you going to do about that?

The first speaker was Hagai El-Ad, the director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. He was at the New Israel Fund on 7th Avenue. As El-Ad sat waiting for the small event to begin (internet journalists), he checked a text on what had taken place during the Sheikh Jarrah demonstration against Palestinian evictions in East Jerusalem that day.

El-Ad had come to the U.S. to try to convey to Americans the civil crisis inside Israel, from ramped-up threats on Palestinian liberty to a crackdown on groups that advocate for them. ACRI is among the Israeli NGOs that have been implicitly threatened by the Netanyahu government for taking foreign funds as they allegedly seek to undermine Israel’s legitimacy. ACRI won’t stop its work. The booklet El-Ad passed out has many photographs of Palestinians in it, including amid the rubble of their homes.

Americans faced a crisis of civil rights in your country in the wake of the Iraq war but at least you had a constitution, El-Ad said, Israel doesn’t. “Playing this game of shaking the remaining democratic foundations is much much more dangerous” in Israel.

He was most moving on the issue of Palestinian freedom. Recently he was arrested during the Sheikh Jarrah demonstration. A Palestinian friend made a “loving remark” to him. “’What you’re facing now, in the intensified clapdown, that more and more Jews are facing, is something that many Palestinian Israelis have faced for many years.’ It’s agonizing to agree with, but I think it’s very true. Even under these circumstances, we don’t forget the privileges we have, that I have as a Jewish citizen of Israel. And to think very clearly about the responsibility that puts on our shoulders.”

I was pleased to hear this statement in a room of privileged Jews in the U.S.

Our community is incredibly powerful, yet we cultivate a consciousness of isolation and persecution that rationalizes the white-knuckled guardian role of the Israel lobby. The U.S. Jewish community has enormous influence over Israel, El-Ad said, it can change the conversation there. But he has trouble breaking through here.

“Where do [Ameircan Jews] channel their support?” he said by way of challenge. “I myself and many others, it’s almost painful to be aware of often how difficult it is to have an open discussion about these issues in this country. These conversations can happen in an opener way in Israel than the United States and that is not just disappointing, it’s damaging.”

Further challenge: the Jewish community’s responsibility is “to get involved, to become more informed about what is happening, and to speak out.” It is urgent, he said, because Israel is headed in such a bad direction. “If you consider yourself friends then this is the time to speak out, time to get involved in a meaningful way.”

I pressed El-Ad to say who has disappointed him. He was a cool Israeli. Wouldn’t say.

Last night a more leftwing crowd gathered in the basement of the Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square, and Michael Ratner introduced the great Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. I’d never heard Halper speak before, never seen him; and all I can say is that I had missed one of the great moral performances of our time, and when I left the church I understood why this man has been nominated for the Nobel Prize. A lifetime commitment in the face of opposition from his own society, to fight the occupation and build connections between Jews and Palestinians as a form of “political resistance,” toward the day that Jews and Palestinians must build a society together—Halper is the definition of prophetic inspiration.

To his points. The occupation is stronger than ever, and it is an occupation because Israel wants the land and feels that it can get away with taking more and more. Security has nothing to do with a wall that goes deep into Palestine, with settlement blocs that take up huge portions of the West Bank. I am supposed to know this stuff; but I was stunned to consider how enveloping are the easternmost Jewish colonies all through the Jordan Valley. The Israelis have reduced the Palestinian population to four cantons, two in the northern West Bank, one in the southern West Bank and Jerusalem, and one in Gaza. As many as 30,000 houses have been demolished in the occupied territories, 7000 in Gaza last year. Halper’s group rebuilds houses; it has rebuilt 1600 over many years. And 2 million Palestinian fruit and olive trees have been destroyed inside the occupation.

The two most hideous political structures of the 1980s, the Berlin wall and South African apartheid, are today combined in Palestine; and the Israeli wall is longer and higher than Berlin’s.

And what do Israel’s leaders plan to do with the 5 million Palestinians? “The liberal model is apartheid.”

Israelis will go along with this because it has been inculcated in them that Palestinians are their permanent enemies and you can’t trust Arabs. And they want to know nothing about the occupation. The far right of course talks about expulsion, and as for Netanyahu, apartheid is too liberal for him too, he seems to envision a kind of reservation. “We can pacify the Palestinians … to a point where they can’t resist,” Halper mindreads the P.M. They’ve succeeded on the West Bank, now they will do so in Gaza.

Israeli expansion comes down to pigginess. It doesn’t matter that the Arab states and the Palestinians accepted the two state solution long ago, the Israelis thought they could get more, so they took more. The critical factor is the United States. I believe Obama gets it, Halper said. General Petraeus’s comments are indicative of that, so is Biden’s statement that the status quo is “unsustainable.” The special relationship is hurting the United States.

“But the buzz in Israel is that Obama will have more trouble with Nancy Pelosi than he will with Netanyahu” if he takes on Israel. Israelis are confident that they have the Congress and that is all they need. 337 signatures in the Hosue and 76 in the Senate, taking Netanyahu’s side against Obama. Halper has visited the Congress many times and congressmen tell them they have little choice.

“Barney Frank said it best. He said, ‘I’m with you 100 percent [presumably on settlements/occupation]. If you bring me the names of 5000 Jews in my district that support you, tomorrow morning I change my vote… If you can’t do that…. I’m not going to commit political suicide for the sake of the Palestinians… “ Because, Halper continued quoting Frank, people in his district don’t care enough about the issue for him to stick his neck out.

I just need to unpack that statement. Let’s be clear that no one in these districts really cares about Palestinian dispossession except Jews, and they are for it overwhelmingly. But Jews are small portions of most congressional districts, though yes they are a big factor in Frank’s district (and my birthplace), Brookline. Why is it political suicide? Jews are simply too important on these issues–in financial contributions, in media/opinion, in activism, to go against them. This is very much like what Rep. Bob Filner said last year at J Street when he said that he voted against the lobby in his San Diego district once and lost $250,000 a cycle in his giving. Most members wouldn’t want to sacrifice that; and most members don’t have anyone who really cares about the issue in their district–and meanwhile, the stakes, as Filner said, are even nuclear war.

Halper left us with hope. BDS (a verboten topic at the New Israel Fund, where Hagai El-Ad spoke) is making a difference, Jimmy Carter made a big difference by getting the word apartheid out there, Walt and Mearsheimer made a difference and so did Israel’s conduct in Lebanon and Gaza. We are in a slow incline of growing awareness. Israel’s policies are becoming delegitimized in the international community and when it is finally isolated, it will stop its disgraceful behavior. Like other oppressors, it has “feet of clay.” It shouldn’t take another 40 years, he said, but he would not offer predictions. He’s 64 and looks the prophet, with his big beard and barrel chest. I hope he sees the day.

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