Tuesday, 3 April 2012

“Youth Against Settlements’” Badia Dweik: “While we were violently evicted, the army treats settlers with kid gloves.”

While Israeli PM and his ministers scramble to prevent the eviction of a Palestinian-owned house in Hebron that was taken over by Jewish settlers last week, a video documenting the violent eviction of Palestinian activists from a nearby house owned by the Hebron municipality two days ago, shows extensive use of force.

The eviction, which took place on Sundayy in the Old City of Hebron, was carried out by a large force of Israeli Border Police officers. During the eviction, the force heavily employed the use of tear-gas and a foul smelling liquid called “The Skunk”. Additionally dozens were physically assaulted, with at least five of the activists ending up at the hospital. The activists, members of the local group “Youth Against Settlements”, intended to renovate and take residence in the house in order to prevent it from being taken over by Israeli settlers.

The video documents Israeli Border Police officers storming the house, dealing blows to the completely peaceful activist using batons and their rifles. While a Dutch who was arrested was already unconditionally released yesterday, the detained Palestinian activist who is a coordinator of the Youth Against Settlements movement, Issa Amro, was only released today after depositing a 1,000 Shekels bond as bail.

The activists were evicted despite having acquired a written permission to use the premises from the Hebron Women’s Charitable Society, which rents the house from its owners – The Hebron Municipality. Only days earlier, when settlers took over a nearby Palestinian house, Israeli Authorities refrained from employing force, allowing the settlers to remain in the house. Badia Dwaik, an activist with “Youth Against Settlement”, who was inside the house during the eviction said, “The recent takeover of a nearby house by settlers brought about further restrictions on the already heavily constrained Palestinian movement in the area, including for those families living there. While we were violently evicted from a house we had legal rights to, the army treats settlers who took over a Palestinian house with kid gloves”

Background
Over the years, Israel established a number of settlement points in and around the Old City of Hebron, which had traditionally served as the commercial center for the entire southern West Bank. To perpetuate the settlements in the city, Israeli authorities impose a regime intentionally and openly based on the “separation principle”, as a result of which Israel created legal and physical segregation between the Israeli settlers and the Palestinian majority.

This policy led to the economic collapse of the center of Hebron and drove many Palestinians out of the area. The findings of a survey conducted B’Tselem and ACRI in 2007, show that at least 1,014 Palestinian housing units in the center of Hebron have been vacated by their occupants. This number represents 41.9 percent of the housing units in the relevant area. Sixty-five percent (659) of the empty apartments became vacant during the course of the second intifada. Regarding Palestinian commercial establishments, 1,829 are no longer open for business. This number represents 76.6 percent of all the commercial establishments in the surveyed area. Of the closed businesses, 62.4 percent (1,141) were closed during the second intifada. At least 440 of them closed pursuant to military orders.

The main elements of Israel’s separation policy are the severe and extensive restrictions on Palestinian movement and the authorities’ compliance with settlers violence directed at Palestinians. The city’s residents also suffer as a direct result of the actions of Israel authorities.

Restriction on Palestinian movement and the closing of businesses
During the first three years of the second intifada, Palestinians in the city center of Hebron were put under curfew for more than 377 days total, including a consecutive period of 182 days, with short breaks to obtain provisions.In addition, the army created a contiguous strip of land in the City Center along which the movement of Palestinian vehicles is forbidden. The middle of the strip contains many sections of road that the army forbids even Palestinian pedestrians to use. The strip blocks the main north-south traffic artery in the city, and therefore affects the entire city.The extensive prohibitions have led to the closing of hundreds of shops, in addition to those that were closed under military order.

Settler violence
Settlers in Hebron have routinely abused the city’s Palestinian residents, sometimes using extreme violence. Throughout the second intifada, settlers have committed physical assaults, including beatings, at times with clubs, stone throwing, and hurling of refuse, sand, water, chlorine, and empty bottles. Settlers have destroyed shops and doors, committed thefts, and chopped down fruit trees. Settlers have also been involved in gunfire, attempts to run people over, poisoning of a water well, breaking into homes, spilling of hot liquid on the face of a Palestinian, and the killing of a young Palestinian girl.Soldiers are generally positioned on every street corner in and near the settlement points, but in most cases they do nothing to protect Palestinians from settlers’ attacks.

Institutionalized aggression
The increased presence of Israeli soldiers and police in the Hebron city center regularly brings with it violence and harassment towards Palestinians. Violence, arbitrary house searches, seizure of houses, harassment, detaining passersby, and humiliating treatment have become part of daily reality for Palestinians and have led many of them to move to safer places.

The situation of the Palestinian cave-dwellers in South Hebron Hills continues to be difficult. They suffer from permanent harassment carried out by the military and settlers. This year, however, has been even more difficult, due to a severe drought.

As if it wanted to capitalize on the harsh conditions, on December 16th, the Israeli military destroyed 13 water cisterns belonging to Palestinian families in South Hebron hills.
(direct link to video here; Ha’aretz news story here)

The military claims that these water cisterns (or reservoirs) were built illegally and therefore must be destroyed. Some were built in recent years with international assistance, and some were built before 1967 during the Jordanian rule, but still (according to martial law) need Israeli re-authorization. Since the military regime’s “Zone C Planning Committees” are dominated by settlers, there is no chance to obtain such a permit. The cisterns are located on West Bank lands that the Israel has designated for the IDF as “firing zones” – areas the military uses as training sites for live ammunition.

The destruction or the water cisterns leaves the Palestinian shepherds without water sources, and forces them to limit their grazing areas. This is exactly what the Israeli authorities intend to achieve. It makes the life of this population, already probably the poorest in the whole West Bank, all but impossible.

In order to help the Palestinians keep their lands and strengthen the Sumoud (steadfastness) of South Hebron area residents, Taáyush activists have started helping reconstruct the cisterns.

We need $4,200 for each cistern. We have set out to reconstruct ten cisterns, please help us accomplish this goal.

Donation can be made to Taáyush:
Via Bank Deposit

Bank Hapoalim
Branch 574 (‘Hapalmach’)
Account no. 160213
Swift code ‘poalilit’
IBAN: IL61-0125-7400-0000-0160-213

Via Paypal

http://tinyurl.com/taayush-jlm

Please mail Anat566@gmail.com with the donation details.
Thank you in advance,

The south Hebron committee of Taáyush Jerusalem

For the past three Saturdays I have attended the new wave of weekly Hebron protests in the Casbah (Old City). The protests are intended to disrupt army-accompanied settler tours that pass through the Casbah each week, and demand the re-opening of Shuhada Street and an end to the occupation of the city. Although for the past two weeks the settlers have changed the time of their tour to avoid encountering our protest, we decided to continue with the protests as planned to assert the Palestinians’ right to move freely within their city. So, each week a group of between 50-70 Palestinians, Israelis, and Internationals gather in front of the gate which blocks entrance to Shuhada Street.

We stand with signs in Arabic, Hebrew, and English and pass the megaphone around as different people lead the protesters in a series of call and response chants in all three languages. Some activists take the opportunity to give short impassioned speeches, sometimes by Israelis who speak directly to the soldiers and settlers peering down on us from the Beit Romano Yeshiva rooftop, saying that these unjust policies will not be carried out in our name. In contrast to the first week when the protest ended in a series of unwarranted arrests, the protests now conclude now with a march through the Casbah which is met by an onslaught of dirty water thrown down on us from the settlers’ homes situated above the Palestinian shops. For the past two weeks there has been no direct confrontation with soldiers or settlers, but we always close with a promise that we will continue to protest every week until racism and separation are abolished in Hebron and all of Palestine.

This past week, just a few days after standing in solidarity with the Palestinians of Hebron, I decided to take a step that I believe very few political activists ever take. I put on a long skirt, tucked my dreadlocks away, and joined the settlers on their tour of the Jewish Community of Hebron. After having been to Hebron many times and heard the story of the Palestinians and the ex-soldiers of “Breaking the Silence” I figured it was time to come face to face with the settlers themselves and hear how they justify their presence in Hebron to the many thousands of Jews that they’ve taken on tours there. I came with the intention to listen, to observe, and to maybe understand their conviction.

So on Wednesday morning I found myself sitting on a bullet proof bus with a group of 40 other American Jews about take a day-trip to Hebron, a city that I was assured by the tour guide is just like any other old city in Israel. Even before the tour had officially started, I already began to feel uncomfortable and almost teary eyed due to the realization that all the other tour participants really had no idea (and really didn’t care that they didn’t) about the world beyond this Jewish exclusivity. Little did I know that that this initial reaction of discomfort and sadness was to remain with me and only intensify throughout the course of the day.

Our first stop was the Matriarch Rachel’s Tomb which is just outside, (technically inside) Bethlehem. To reach the tomb we drove through an unbelievably surreal corridor in the concrete wall that circumvents Bethlehem. Since Israelis are not allowed to enter Bethlehem, this access road, entirely surrounded by the wall, has been created for Jews to visit and pray at the tomb. As the tour guide told the story about a time when the grave was closed to Jewish access and how women from Hebron set a precedent by coming anyways and demanding to be let in until the government agreed to re-open the site to Jewish visitors, I realized that all this effort to keep people separate and relegated to only certain areas is futile because people will continue to find ways to be where they believe they ought to be, or at least struggle for that right with all of their being as I’ve seen with the Palestinians in Hebron.

For some reason, being there only made me think more and more about how this land cannot be divided. Of course I don’t mean undivided in the way that the settlers refer to Greater Israel, but rather that in that moment it just seemed so apparent to me that drawing up borders and erecting walls cannot actually lead to real justice or peace; they merely restrict essentials freedoms such as access and movement, and furthermore will never suppress the people’s desire to return to areas that they have been barred from. Religious Jews will never give up their ancestral connection to and right to access these holy sites, and I don’t believe that they should have to, but this privilege must come with the equal recognition of the Palestinian claims to this land and their legitimate right to live here and move about freely.

Loaded with these thoughts I got back on the bus headed to Hebron. I listened as the guide told the familiar story of Hebron that began 3700 years ago when Abraham laid down roots in the city and purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs as a burial site for his wife Sarah, and the forefathers and mothers that followed. Later, King David made Hebron the capital of his kingdom for 7 years before moving it to Jerusalem. The phrase that repeated itself throughout the tour was “this is where it all began”, which later fused into the story of Jewish contiguity in Hebron, and finally the conclusion that the Jewish presence in Hebron will be eternal.

When we arrived in Hebron we were greeted by our tour guide for the next leg of the journey, Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, originally from New York but for the past 14 years he has made his home in the Hebron Jewish community. The tour started in Tel Rumeida, a hilltop overlooking the heart of the city of Hebron where a few of my Palestinian friends/colleagues live. The guide explained the way the city had been divided in the “Y Accords” which created H1 (80% of the city under Palestinian Authority control) and H2 (20% of the city under Israeli military control and Palestinian municipal control). He continually referred back to the 80/20 split to emphasize what he believed to be inequality and discrimination against the Jews who are not allowed to walk or drive in the majority of the city. In fact, after reading a pamphlet I picked up later in the tour which purports to give the “real facts…in contrast to the false anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda,” I was expected to understand that Jews are only allowed to enter 3% of the municipal area; never mind that that 3% area was once the center of Palestinian social and economic life and the gateway to the rest of the city, and never mind that that statement is actually inaccurate because it is not Jews but Israelis that are prevented from entering H1 (according to the Oslo Agreement) and Israelis are in fact allowed to be anywhere in H2 (the 20% mentioned above). This important distinction between Jews and Israelis was intentionally blurred by the tour guide in order to stress his point that anti-Semitism is what lies at the root of all criticism towards the Hebron Jewish community. In reality, the disputes in Hebron are entirely political and not based on religious identity.

Israeli soldiers patrol H2 constantly, practicing the official policy of “making their presence felt,” and it is certainly felt as they are seen constantly peering down, guns at bay, into Palestinian neighborhoods from rooftops (sometimes Palestinian homes that have been taken over and converted into army posts) and pillboxes throughout the city. Of course, this is all information that I learned on the “Breaking the Silence” tour and was not dealt with in any capacity on the settler tour. The tour guide praised the soldiers for their incredible self-sacrifice, but the impression of the soldiers that I get, from starting directly into their eyes as they push my friends and I during protests and from the many testimonies that I’ve heard from members of “Breaking the Silence”, is one of a group of painfully confused and uncomfortable 18-21 year olds who are stuck in positions of power and aggressiveness that throw their concept of right and wrong into a blender, leaving them hardened and numb.

Back on the tour, I was told that I would experience holy people in Hebron. The 1000 Jews that live there believe themselves to be the ones who have taken on the essential responsibility of carrying the eternal Jewish flame in Hebron in the name of our ancient historical connection to the city. Of course learning about and appreciating this history is important, but Hebron especially is a place that cannot be understood separately from its current political context. Referring to the 80% of Hebron that is under PA control as land that was “given away” and the remaining 20% as land that “unfortunately is shared with 15,000 Palestinians” is simply a  tactic to confuse the tour participants and make them forget that Hebron is (and has been) a city of several thousand Palestinians living under military occupation. Throughout the tour, the only time Palestinians are mentioned or even acknowledged as part of the story is when they are referenced as “unfriendly neighbors”, murderers/terrorists, or hookah-smoking couch potatoes. Furthermore, talking about the restrictions on further building and expansion in the settlement cannot simply be received as a baseless effort to discriminate against Jews, but rather must be situated in the context of the larger West Bank settlement issue, namely that the settlements are illegal under international law, some (especially Hebron) are notorious for violence and extremism, and they are a growing thorn in any attempt towards a peace agreement.

Perhaps the most interesting and telling part of the tour for me was when we went into the settlements themselves, which basically consist of just a few blocks of buildings that families have made into living spaces, synagogues, and a museum documenting the presence of the Jews in Hebron. In all my previous tours in Hebron I had never had the opportunity to actually go into their community so I was quite excited to step just a few more meters from where I had always stood, on the Shuhada “ghost street” and see how Hebron looks from this vantage point. On my other visits I was not allowed into the settlements because the large police escort that is mandated to accompany Breaking the Silence tours (supposedly to protect us from settler harassment and prevent friction) had placed strict restrictions on where we can go and when. But this time, with not a single police officer in sight, I found myself on the other side of barriers that I previously had only peeked into through cracks in walls and metal gates.

The museum, located on the ground floor of the former Beit Hadassah hospital, was quite impressive and most importantly, effective in conveying the message that Jewish groups respond to best: the message of ultimate victimhood. As I looked at the pictures on the wall depicting the infamous massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929, I felt a sort of déjà vu sensation and realized that the story being told was the nearly the same story that I had heard countless times growing up and visiting holocaust museums. It was the fear-mongering story of anti-Semitism, complete with the moral imperative “never again.” And in that moment, instead of being able to let myself grieve for all the bloodshed in Hebron, I found myself shaken by the realization that this story is entirely believable for a Jewish American audience and, had I not been exposed to other credible accounts of Hebron, I too could come away from this tour thinking that the settlers really are the ones in need of my sympathy.

But then I remember the accounts of settler abuse and complete disrespect for Palestinian human and civil rights and I start to feel ill. I understand that this mentality does not exist in a vacuum, but rather is steeped in real and troubling consequences that play out on the ground, such as the closure of roads and shops, the disproportionate army presence, the lawlessness of the settlers, and the will of the Israeli government to continue supporting the settlers perhaps for fear of being perceived as part of the cycle of Jewish persecution. I think about the Jewish residents of Hebron pre-1929 who once lived relatively peacefully alongside their Palestinian neighbors, unlike the settlers of today who make every effort to create a situation in which Palestinians essentially cease to exist. I happen to know that some of the survivors of the 1929 massacre or descendents of the former Hebron Jewish community have actually disassociated themselves with the Hebron settlers and do not support their efforts to reclaim the city on their behalf. Yet this Jewish lineage continues to justify the settlers’ presence and forceful methods of establishing themselves in the city.

The tour continued with a visit to the guide’s home, the old Sephardic temple, and a final stop at the Tomb of the Patriarchs where we were given time for prayer. After spending the day in what often felt like an alternate universe I didn’t feel quite able to ascribe the proper holiness to the site and submit myself to any prayers aside from my deep yearning for universal empathy and for at least some of their tour participants to feel confused enough to then seek more information, step outside of their frame of reference, and think beyond the simplistic rhetoric of pamphlets espousing hatred and resentment. I went on this tour out of genuine curiosity and a desire to understand a people that are often (in my circles) written off as crazy and irrational. But after participating on the tour, it wasn’t so much what they said that troubled me, but rather they way that the story fits into a worldview based in fear that is held by so many Jews and that has only resulted in generations of bitterness and divisiveness. I want to believe that Hebron can again live up to its name (which means “friendship”), but this tour gave me no such illusion.

By Avital Aboody

On April 24, 2010 at around 15:45 a group of approximately 50 Palestinian, Israeli, and International activists gathered in Hebron next to the checkpoint gate separating Shuhada Street from the Casbah. The protest was organized by a Palestinian group in Hebron called “Youth Against Settlements” and the organizers hope to hold these protests every week with the intention of disrupting the army-accompanied settler tour that goes through the Casbah (Old City) every Saturday. The Casbah is within H2, an area that comprises 20% of the city of Hebron and is considered Zone B, meaning that it is receives Palestinian municipal services but is under Israeli military control. Both Palestinians and Israelis can access the Casbah, but Palestinians are restricted from walking just a fewer meters further, beyond the imposing gate/checkpoint to the sight of the former marketplace, Shuhada Street.

The protestors stood in front of the gate where the settlers’ tour usually enters, holding signs and chanting slogans in Arabic, English, and Hebrew.; this continued for some time without any disturbance. Soldiers and Israeli police looked onto and videotaped the protest from pillboxes and rooftops nearby and eventually, when the settlers and soldiers never showed up, the protest was declared over. However, within minutes, the protest was suddenly reignited with news that the settlers had managed to enter the Casbah through another entrance. The protestors then began to advance through the marketplace alleyways to where the tour was said to be but they were met by a line of soldiers who blocked their path. They continued chanting and tried to push past the soldiers claiming that it should not be a crime to walk through their own city. Protestors also tried several times to run around to different entrances into the market to prevent the tour from progressing, but each time they were met by a chain of soldiers and the face-off /pushing began again.

Amidst the chaos of running back and forth, one Israeli activist was arrested for no apparent reason. When the protesters re-grouped at the original location alongside the checkpoint gate, they formed a human wall in front of the soldiers by linking arms. The soldiers stood in front of the protestors, blocking them, in order to create a clear path for the settlers to exit the Casbah and pass through the gate back to Shuhada Street. Some Israeli protestors tried to speak with the soldiers, saying that this was not what they were raised to do and that they can refuse and join us. The soldiers know very well that the settlers are fanatic and that the Palestinians have every right to be there, yet they too are trapped within this insane reality that effectively strips them of their ability to think and feel and act in the way that they know to be right.

I found myself standing mere inches from the young soldiers, looking directly into their eyes to catch a glimmer of their discomfort and their acknowledgment of both my humanity and that of the Palestinians who held my hands. They could not return my gaze and continued to use their guns and thick vests to push us back and “do their job”. The police then arrived and arrested two more Israeli activists as well as a Palestinian activist and well-known resident of Tel Rumeida, Hebron. One of the arrests was particularly violent as the protestor, a former soldier who had himself served in Hebron during the second Intifada, was pushed to the ground and then dragged/carried away. The protest ended shortly afterward; the Israeli arrestees were held for approximately 8 hours while the Palestinian arrestee is still being held in the Kiryat Arbah police station, nearly 24 hours later. The protestors will return to the scene again next Saturday and all the Saturdays thereafter until the occupation of Hebron ends and its residents are free to live without constant harassment.

Video of the protest:

I teach English in Hebron. There. It’s said. The seemingly innocuous statement that generates an onslaught of questions, quizzical looks, and widened eyes. To be fair, it’s the type of statement that one does not often hear from a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, living in Jerusalem.

“What compels you to do that?”

The question always catches me off-guard. What doesn’t compel me to do that? I teach students whose depth of experience is only matched by their quest to learn. And as we go through each lesson, I feel that it is I who am the student, sitting at the feet of those who offer their wisdom and friendship unreservedly, despite my very different background. Who entrust me with personal accounts of their lives in occupied cities and villages, and with rational political views for which they could be jailed. Facing the deepest of tensions, the most stifling of conditions, their first impulse remains kindness, not suspicion. They walk upright in an increasingly crooked world, and offer their hospitality to me with pride and honor.

I travel every Thursday, using only Palestinian transportation. I leave from Jerusalem – a city which my students are prohibited from visiting. I take a bus, then a shared taxi, passing a few shekels to the driver, so that he can take me southward, alongside the wall, then past Palestinian villages and the settlements that cut through their land. Past a man on a donkey, soldiers hitchhiking home, signs pointing towards the Jewish neighborhoods of Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Be’ersheva. Fewer signs to Hebron, Dura, or Yatta, but then again, most cars on the road are Israeli anyway. It’s incredibly difficult for Palestinians to get around here.

We travel past Gush Etsion, a huge cluster of settlements with white single-family homes and red roofs, who comfortably watch the happenings in the West Bank from behind thick-paned windows. Then past the poverty of a refugee camp, more villages and towns, and a shockingly beautiful landscape of white rock and olive trees.

I arrive in Hebron. Yes, the Palestinian part. H1. In Arabic, Al-Khalil. Not the part whose Palestinian population has been all but completely driven out (See my previous post on Shuhada street). The Palestinian part, which is the largest city in the West Bank, and by far, the most tense.

Exhausting my limited Arabic vocabulary, I signal the driver to stop on busy Ayn Sarah (Sarah’s well) street. I have a few minutes to walk around the downtown area. I am the only woman in sight with my head uncovered, and although I have been careful to fully cover my body, my jeans make me stick out like a cowgirl in Paris. I attract some glances as I walk down the street: despite the presence of several international human rights organizations operating here, I am usually the only other “westerner” that I see all day. This apparently also occurs to the children that I pass, who shout “Hello! Welcome to Hebron!” as I walk.

Hebron/Al-Khalil is incredibly resilient. Despite decades of crushing suppression and violence in the city, the city is (generally) alive and vibrant. Once an example of how Jews and Muslims can live together in harmony, Hebron is now an example of the complete opposite. Only when I am in the Palestinian part of the city, watching people greet each and every person they see (and taking offense when the proper greeting is not said), do I see vestiges of the fact that the name of the city in both Hebrew and Arabic is derived from the word “friendship.”

My students study English so they can advance in their college entrance exams or in their engineering studies at Hebron Polytechnic University. They obligingly follow the lesson that I have prepared, but invariably the conversation turns to politics. In Hebron, talking about politics is a way of life. We talk about the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah – then we talk about the Israeli army, the Israeli government policies, Jerusalem, and the future of a Palestinian state. We can’t resist talking about the United States – they are interested to hear what the American media and public says about Palestinians and the Arab world – it’s a novelty to talk to me, an American who loudly denounces “Islamophobia” within my country. It’s world-changing for me to talk to them. They give me context for their experience, a context I would otherwise never have.

Activism in Palestine/Israel takes many forms. This part of the world plays hosts to a truly incredible number of protests, who serve their purpose by making the news and drawing attention to injustice and oppression. However, there are also activists who pick olives, teach art, set up after-school programs, work in clinics, train entrepreneurs, and otherwise improve the quality of life here.

I am so honored to teach English in Al-Khalil/Hebron, and even more honored to learn values, fortitude and strength from my students there.

For more on what I mean about the two parts of the city, here’s One minute in Hebron: lively, active “H1″ vs. Israeli-controlled ghost town “H2.”

On March 3rd, over a hundred Palestinian women marched Hebron’s streets to resist Ibrahim’s mosque becoming an Israeli Heritage Site. The Women’s Empowerment Project gathered women from Hebron to march from Hebron’s Muncipality Office down to the mosque. The exclusively female crowd chanted and held banners while peacefully, but decisively, demonstrating. At the checkpoint, the women had to wait for approximately 20 minutes before being allowed entrance into the mosque. An overall elated atmosphere affirmed this was a powerful demonstration, illuminating the power of women, and empowering other women to take resistance out on the streets.

On 21 February 2010, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced the Israeli government’s intention to designate the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil (Hebron) an Israeli Heritage Site. The shrine, located in the ancient city of Hebron, is considered to be sacred by Muslims, Jews and Christians. It is believed to be the burial place for three Biblical couples: Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah.

Netanyahu’s statement has caused increased tension in Hebron. The Palestinian population fears that this entails a “Judaization of the Ibrahimi mosque” with restricted access to the Mosque for Muslims. In the past ten days several demonstrations and clashes between the Palestinian population of Al-Khalil/Hebron and the Israeli army have taken place. In contrast to these previous demonstrations, today’s march was not met with Israeli army violence, nor were there any arrests made.

A Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council joins the protest

In preparation for the protest, members of the democracy activist community in Israel discussed how to successfully bring groups of Israelis to Hebron to support the Palestinian residents of Hebron in this action. The organizing was characterized by the standard anxiety about the possibility of tapped phones and email accounts, the chance of being stopped and detained before reaching the protest sight, and the likelihood of facing arrest and/or a violent repression from the army, police, or, even more threatening, the settlers. The use of such tactics, intended to silence voices of dissent and prevent activists from exposing the truly undemocratic features of our beloved “Jewish democracy”, are not uncommon practices in the constant struggle for legitimacy within the Israeli public discourse. There is an element of irony in the fact that a country promoting itself as the beacon of freedom of expression in the Middle East is so entrenched in monitoring the activities of human rights activists, that they find their speech limited to such an extent that they are forced to communicate in codes or not speak at all in order not to sabotage their efforts to participate in the creation of a true democracy that ensures the civil rights of all peoples in Israel-Palestine.

Somehow, despite reports that the army was patrolling the main road between Jerusalem and Hebron (Route 60) with the aim to prevent Israelis from reaching the protest, several groups of dedicated activists were able to successfully enter the city, assist in making posters that espoused messages of justice, shared humanity, and equality, and then proceed to march in the rain waving flags, linking arms, and chanting slogans in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. The protesters remained true to their commitment to nonviolence, yet they were met by a very heavy army presence which was quick to deploy harsh crowd dispersal techniques that included a heavy amount of tear gas and stun grenades. Tear gas canisters were fired into the crowd from all directions, often coming very close to hitting people. A few elderly protesters fainted and were evacuated by ambulance. Some protestors sustained some minor injuries, including temporary loss of hearing due to proximity of the stun grenades which produce a very loud and frightening blast. Protestors scattered and ran to avoid the clouds of tear gas that caused a burning and choking sensation, but the soldiers were surrounding the protest and shooting from all angles. The soldiers continually tried to hold the protesters further back by creating a human wall and physically pushing the protesters who, in response, formed their own wall to withstand the pressure. This pushing back and forth, which continued for nearly an hour, looked like a childish fight between rival groups on the playground, except in this scene one group carried guns and had a mandate from the government, while the other group came without weapons and was denied their rightful protection by that same government. Three Israelis were picked out the crowd at random with no stated or apparent cause and taken away by the police and detained temporarily. One international activist was arrested, also without just cause, and then released several hours later. The clashes between the military, police, protesters, and a few notorious settlers continued for about an hour and 45 minutes until a final barrage of tear gas caused everyone to retreat and run up the hill or into the nearby cemetery where, in Hebron, it seems that people go not only to bury their dead but also their dignity, which perishes at the hands of the occupation.

As the sun set on February 25, 2010, Palestinian and Israeli organizers of the day exchanged affectionate glances and handshakes and returned to their separate lives in Hebron and Jerusalem, respectively. The two cities are a mere 45 minutes apart yet the reality of life for these allies is unequivocally different. Despite all the struggles that Israeli activists face as a minority voice in Israel, they still go back to homes that are not defaced with hateful graffiti, are not blocked by a series of checkpoints, are not raided by the army at any given moment, and are not caged up to shield against the onslaught of rock throwing from hostile neighbors. This is the reality of life for residents of Hebron who have the great misfortune of living in an occupied city. This is the reality that the Israeli government supports through subsidies for settlements, heritage preservation funds for holy sites beyond the green line, and a general unwillingness to acknowledge the suffering it inflicts on the Palestinian population by controlling every aspect of their lives.

This global day of solidarity and action demanded that the stories of the Palestinian residents of Hebron to be heard and considered, and we hope that this widespread coordinated effort can be a catalyst to the creation of more alliances which together will challenge the status quo and bring about necessary changes in Israel-Palestine.

Here again is a short video clip of the event.

Here is a short video clip of the event.

Protest in Hebron February 25, 2010 from Open Shuhada Street on Vimeo.

Thank you all for your courage and support.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ImVh2Uyiu4

The border policeman surely had no reason to hold his gun like that. He is facing women, children and some youths, all unarmed in the middle of Jerusalem. Not likely to happen in the western part of our “united” capital.

Today in Hebron: two Israeli peace activists arrested (unconfirmed reports) in the Shuhada street area, a formerly lively Palestinian area, closed to Palestinians since the Baruch Goldstein massacre of Purim 1994.
Here is some background on this protest.

But here’s some good news from the front-line of the anti-occupation campaign:

In a ruling touching on the status of the West Bank, the European Union high court said Thursday the disputed area is not part of Israel and Israeli goods made there are subject to EU import duties.

The ruling opens the door to EU import duties on Israeli goods from the West Bank rendering those products less competitive.”

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” – Robert Kennedy, address delivered at the University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966.

What will be the history of this generation, and which small acts carried out by which individuals, groups, governments, and campaigns will come to define the first decades of the 21st century? Perhaps it will be an era about which we can recount with pride to our children’s children – an era in which we were part of the force that “bent history” and an era in which we witnessed a “small portion of events” catalyzing a real change for global justice.

On Thursday, February 25, such an event will be taking place in cities around the world. The “Open Shuhada Street” campaign seeks to unite the voices of activists in a common cry for an end to the discriminatory and racist policies which make life intolerable for the Palestinian residents of Hebron/Al-Khalil, and which threaten human rights everywhere.

Open Shuhada Street! February 25, 2010 International Day of Action from Open Shuhada Street on Vimeo.

In over 25 cities worldwide, from Hebron to Cape Town to Prague to New York, supporters of human rights will close streets, petition the Israeli government, and hold protests, vigils, lectures, movie screenings and panel discussions in solidarity with the Palestinians who live the daily realities of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. This series of coordinated events intends to protest the closure of a street which long served as the commercial, historic, and religious center of Palestinian life in Hebron, but has been closed in the name of security for the Jewish settler population.

Hebron is one of the largest cities in the West Bank, and Shuhuda Street was once the heart of its City Center. Following the 1994 Baruch Goldstein massacre of unarmed Palestinians worshipping in a mosque, and fearful of a Palestinian counter-attack, Israeli law-enforcement authorities implemented a total legal and physical separation of the city’s Jewish and Palestinian residents. The entire City Center was placed under Israeli military control with access rights exclusively reserved for Israeli settlers and soldiers, de facto evicting tens of thousands of Palestinian residents and shutting down over a thousand Palestinian businesses.

The area, once a vibrant, busy city center, now is functionally a ghost town. The businesses, long closed, wait for their owners to reclaim the inventory locked within, and to erase the hateful graffiti written on the welded doors. Families, forced to flee to different neighborhoods of the city, have been waiting in anticipation of a return to their houses and possessions for many years. In reality, Israeli military-imposed movement regulations prevent Palestinians from entering Shuhada Street at all, and Palestinian vehicles from driving through most of the City Center. Those unable to flee the stifling restrictions and the virtually unaddressed settler violence in the area are forced to find new ways to survive, even if it means sometimes entering their houses by climbing over the rooftops.

The policies constitute a violation of Palestinian rights of movement, safety, property, and many others, not to mention breaches in international humanitarian law. The acts cause the suffering of the Palestinian population in an effort to protect settlers, many of whom are ideological radicals whose violent acts are in effect, sanctioned by the lack of military or police action.

The closure of Shuhada Street is but a microcosm of the greater injustice of the occupation of the Palestinian territories. Although it is clear to us that more fundamental systematic change is essential if there is to be just peace in this troubled region, this campaign to open Shuhada Street is an important catalyst that brings together the passion and mobilizing capacity of activists from around the world to stand in solidarity with the people of Israel and Palestine in the struggle against racism and discrimination. This conflict does not belong only to Jews and Arabs. In this era of hyper-globalization, we are all surely implicated in this conflict and thus responsible for holding peoples and governments accountable to ensure that human rights and dignity are protected. Change only occurs when there is pressure from both within and without. International pressure has proven, throughout recent history, to be a positive and effective tool for change. With sufficient pressure on the Israeli government, it remains an attainable hope that Shuhada Street will again be opened to Palestinians and that life can return to the streets of Hebron.

This Thursday’s activities will demonstrate that there is a global community who believes that racism does not end when a city is forcibly segregated, that ignoring violations does not make them go away, and that “history of this generation” can be written by raising awareness and a global chorus of voices against bigotry in all forms.