NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC
Dear All,
Below are 6 items. The news in item 6, you have likely already heard. Two teenagers from Awarta have admitted killing the 5 Fogels. The details are in the report. It just seems to me so sad—both the members of the family that are dead and the 2 boys at the end of their teens whose act will probably put them in prison for the rest of their lives. Don’t misunderstand me. I have no love for people who live in Itamar. They are fanatics and would as easily and happily get rid of me as of Palestinians. Nevertheless, I don’t believe in violence. What good has it done in this case? Killed 5 Israelis, including an infant, and gained punishment that will most likely put behind bars for the rest of their lives 2 youngsters at the end of their teens—the age when Israeli kids go to the army, or rather the age that those Israeli kids who agree to enlist go to the army. Both prison and military are such a waste of life.
Items 1, 2, and 3 give you a taste of what it is like to be a Palestinian living under Israel’s military occupation. Item 1 is a story (true) of denied entry. Item 2 relates thwarting the Palestinian Christian’s desire to be in Jerusalem on Christian holidays. Item 3 tells us something about the lives of Palestinian prisoners and their families. Israelis want Gideon Shalit home, just as they wanted Ron Arad home. But Israel’s governments were not and remain not cooperative in meeting Palestinian demands. More the worse for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Item 4 is a letter supporting Marrickville Council for having adopted the principle of the BDS campaign, for which the council had to suffer from pro-Israeli angry opponents of BDS. A few days ago I sent you a sermon respecting the same. Now, we in Israel who support the bds movement have sent the council a solidarity letter. Let’s hope that the council does not change its mind and does not drop its support of bds.
Item 5 reports that Helen Thomas will be a keynote speaker at an event protesting against Israel’s PM, Bibi Netanyahu, during his visit to the US and speech at AIPAC and to Congress. More important than Thomas’s appearance, are the plans to hold numerous protests during his visit. He has thick skin, but perhaps nevertheless he will understand that although AIPAC still has influence, it is bound to eventually become a sometime thing.
All the best, and happy holiday for those of you who celebrate Passover, here touted as the holiday of freedom, which is absurd, since so many here have no freedom at all, either because they are Palestinians, or they are African refugees, or because although they are Jews they live well below the poverty line and can’t afford to buy the goodies needed to celebrate the holiday.
May the day come when there will be freedom and justice for all who live in this blood-soaked land.
Dorothy
=========================
1. Sun, 17 Apr 2011
Subject: Denied entry
From: Samia K
To: Sam B
Dear Friends:Once again a normal and lovely Spring day turns
into another nightmare for one more Palestinian family. Randa
and Riad, although born in Palestine, have lived most of their lives
in the USA and hold an American citizenship. They are currently
living in the Palestinian Territories with a work permit, and they
both teach at Birzeit University. Last Sunday they were looking
forward to the visit of their daughter who was doing her graduate
work in London, and was planning to visit her parents during the
Easter holidays. But as usual under a military occupation, the
unpredictable never fails to turn up, and she was denied entry
and returned to London. Jenan an only child, 23 year old soft
spoken beautiful young woman, was not only denied entry, but
treated aggressively by the security officers at the airport and
denied access to a telephone conversation with her parents.
Why I continue to wonder? What is behind the justification for
denying Palestinian Americans from visiting. I am sure if an
American Israeli would be denied entry to the USA, hell would
break loose and all the world media will hear about it.
Unfortunately Jenan is one of hundreds who have been exposed to
this measure, and the American Consulate in Jerusalem is unable
to do anything about it. That is not surprising when the President
of the USA himself so often had to cave in to Israel. Of course
Israel can always use the “security” justification. But
unfortunately nobody has able to challenge that aspect and
demand proof. The only proof seems to be the Palestinian
origin.
===================================
2. Forwarded by Sam
BETHLEHEM BLOG
April 14, 2011
Permits, permits
Mary says she hopes to get a permit for Jerusalem. During the upcoming Palm Sunday she wants to join the procession which starts at Al-Azzariyeh, the Biblical Bethany. The procession connects her with the people, the community, the land, with God. For the last couple of years she did not receive permits during Easter or Christmas but last year she got one for Christmas.
A colleague hopes to get an Easter permit to have his eye treated. He got a permit at Christmas but he did not get one when he applied last month for treatment in a Jerusalem hospital.
A neighbor hasn’t been in Jerusalem for 5-6 years. He says that during Christmas and Easter it is either him or his wife who gets a permit but never the both of them together. He wants to visit the church in Jerusalem as a family, not alone. Lately he and his wife gave up. It’s too much humiliation, he says, walking through those cages along the Wall at the Bethlehem-Jerusalem terminal, and showing a permit as if you are visiting a foreign country.
Permits, permits. I noticed that a Palestinian woman last Christmas got tears in her eyes when she finally obtained a permit after almost twenty years waiting. Was she happy or sad, or both? In a way, it’s terrible to be happy to get the permit. Some people refuse to take it. Some refuse in order to preserve their dignity; others because they simply gave up on traveling outside Bethlehem.
Some people take a permit mainly to shop in the mall at Malha, in a Jerusalem suburb built on Palestinian land. Last year, the rumour spread that a Bethlehem church – the churches receive the Israeli permits for religious occasions – did not want to hand over permits in advance of Christmas to prevent people to go to Jerusalem mainly for shopping.
The word “permit” with all is rational, administrative associations, hides the humiliations, the irrational and arbitrary treatment at checkpoints. As a Palestinian, you are a marionet, the soldiers and bureaucracies play with you. Mary and I tell our Dutch-Palestinian children Jara and Tamer not to be nervous at the checkpoint. Although they still remain nervous they usually control themselves well. Sometimes Tamer presses my hand while waiting.
When they were very young, both Jara and Tamer used to play the checkpoint game at home. They did so at a door or in our narrow corridor. They put a leg across the entrance, and Mary or I had to show our passport. Jara could well imitate a soldier’s bored and derogatory attitude. We let them play at the time, it was a way to cope with the situation.
This January, during the Christmas period on a Friday, Mary and her sister wanted to pass the checkpoint with the children. Going to Jerusalem is a nice outing for them. Also in order to buy toys in the Malha mall, I have to admit. Suddenly there seemed to be a new rule: a soldier declared that on Fridays children below 16 years were not allowed to pass. (The general rule is that children are allowed to pass until they become 16 years when they apparently become dangerous.) Palestinian parents with a Christmas permit could pass, but their children not. According to an observer of the Ecumenical Accompaniers for Peace in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), who are standing daily at the checkpoint, it may have happened because a new team of soldiers arrived.
Jara, our daughter of 13, started to cry a little. Mary’s sister was outrageous. Hamir, [donkeys], she fumed. It is difficult to keep yourself cool. There is this pressure that one is never sure what is happening at the checkpoint. That is now going on for many years. It eats the nerves of children and adults alike.
I sometimes tell Jara: see the checkpoint differently. Consider passing the checkpoint to be a civics lesson. A lesson in real life, outside the class. See how the Israelis are treating you when you go with your Palestinian mother. That’s very different compared to when you pass the checkpoint with your father. It is like a scientific experiment. In the first case it may happen that you have to take off your clothes, when you stay beeping in the X ray. The soldiers shout at you and your mother. When you pass with your father, you are suddenly a Dutch child: “Ahhh… the Dutch are friendly and civilized,” you see the soldier thinking. You are waved through.
When Jara was a small child, she once sighed: “Only in heaven there are no checkpoints.” Lately, Tamer’s best friend emigrated to Australia although his parents had good jobs here. They had their house next to the Wall. When Mary told Tamer that they perhaps left to get a passport and also to feel freedom, Tamer was unconvinced. He reacted saying that just to go to Australia to get a passport was crazy. Mary told him: “When you grow older and cannot enter Jerusalem you will understand what it means to get a real passport and to be free.”
Toine van Teeffelen is development director at the Arab Educational Institute in Bethlehem, where he lives with his wife Mary and children Jara (13) and Tamer(9). For contact: tvant@p-ol.com
================================
3. PCHR
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Press Release
Ref: 34/2011
Date: 17 April 2011
Time: 11:30 GMT
Palestine Prisoners Day – Narratives Behind Locked Doors
Each year on 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners Day is commemorated in order to support and recognize Palestinians currently in custody in Israel. Since 1979, the date marks the release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel as part of a prisoner swap in 1974. Between 1967 and 1988 more than 600,000 Palestinians were held in Israeli jails for a week or more, constituting approximately 1/5 of the total population. Moreover, from the beginning of the 2000 “Al Aqsa” Second Intifada, Israel detained another 70,000 individuals bringing the total number of Palestinians who have been detained in Israel since 1967 to 760,000. Currently, approximately 6,500 Palestinians are detained in Israel including approximately 251 children and 37 women. These prisoners are held in17 investigation and detention centers and prisons throughout Israel. Additionally, approximately 241 administrative detainees and 14 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are held in custody by Israel.
PCHR notes with particular concern the many violations of human rights and humanitarian law that prisoners are subjected to while in Israeli detention. In particular violations of Articles 7, 9 and 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Israel is a State Party. Moreover, under Israeli military regulations which are applied in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Palestinian children are treated as adults at the age of 16. This is in blatant contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which states that a child is anyone below 18 years old. Israel is a signatory to the CRC. As a result, Palestinian children are subjected to the same detention regime as adult prisoners.
Prisoners in Israeli custody are often subject to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, including poor detention conditions, denial of access to counsel or family visits, deprivation of health care and many other policies that violate human rights law. The UN Committee Against Torture has criticized Israel for failing to undertake credible and effective investigations by Israel into torture-related allegations. Prisoners in administrative detention face the additional burden of not knowing when, or if, they will be released; the Israeli administrative detention law allows for the arrest of persons not charged with committing a crime and their detention for renewable 6 month terms.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR) notes with concern that none of the approximately 700 Gazans in Israeli jails have been allowed to receive visitors for nearly four years. Not only are these prisoners denied visits but they are also denied phone calls or mail from relatives. Only occasionally and sporadically are these prisoners allowed to communicate through letters. The blanket prohibition of family visits exacerbates the already difficult conditions of confinement and constitutes a violation of international human rights law.
PCHR commemorates Palestinian Prisoners day with the release of nine narratives collected from family members of prisoners. These narratives highlight the unnecessary hardship on both the prisoners and their families.
Narratives Behind Locked Doors:
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=142&Itemid=303
====================================
4. We reject the notion promoted by demagogues, that the 2005 BDS call
from Palestine, and the BDS campaigns the world over which it has
inspired, are rooted in anti-Jewish sentiment. On the contrary, BDS is
an anti-racist movement against the daily, brutal occupation of
Palestine and the virulently racist policies towards Israel’s Palestinian
citizens.
We also reject the assertion that cultural and academic boycotts of
Israel defy the democratic principle of free speech. Research and
development in academic institutions play a central role in designing
and defending Israel’s military and intelligence machinery. Prominent
state-sponsored cultural institutions perpetuate the deception of
Israeli democracy, and serve as propaganda tools. Moreover, the BDS
campaign targets Israeli institutions, and does not bar Israeli
individuals from conducting research with partners abroad or Israeli
artists from performing abroad.
BDS was a key strategy in ending the white South African system of
apartheid by applying international pressure.
We warmly commend the groundbreaking stand taken by the Marrickville
Council in support of the democratic and non-violent BDS campaign for
justice and human rights and urge the Council to stand firm in the
face of attempted intimidation and manipulation.
Sincerely,
Steve Amsel
Ronnen Ben-Arie
Matan Cohen
Adi Dagan
Prof. Rachel Giora
Rosamine Hayeem
Iris Hefets
Shir Hever
Yael Kahn
Dr. Anat Matar
Rela Mazali
Professor (emeritus) Moshé Machover
Dr. Dorothy Naor
Ofer Neiman
Amit Perelson
Itai Ryb
Herzl Schubert
Yonatan Shapira
Jonatan Stanczak
Ruth Tenne
Yana Ziferblat
Sammi Ibrahem Chair of West Midland PSC
On behalf of Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from within
http://boycottisrael.info/
======================
5. Haaretz ,
April 17, 2011
Helen Thomas to address anti-Israel protests during Netanyahu’s visit to U.S.
A series of anti-Israel protests, lectures and meetings are scheduled to coincide with the PM’s visit and the AIPAC conference in Washington DC in May; BDS founder meets Friday night with 250 activists calling Israel apartheid state.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/helen-thomas-to-address-anti-israel-protests-during-netanyahu-s-visit-to-u-s-1.356321
By Natasha Mozgovaya
WASHINGTON – A series of protests against Israeli policy and its support by AIPAC are planned in May to coincide with the AIPAC conference in the U.S. capital and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech there. The protests, under the heading “Move over AIPAC,” will include demonstrations opposite the building where Netanyahu will speak and Congress, and a series of lectures and meetings with critics of Israel, including veteran journalist Helen Thomas who lost her place in the White House press room after saying Jews should leave Palestine and go back to Poland, Germany and the United States. Thomas will give the keynote address at the Move Over AIPAC conference, and will receive an award from the women’s pacifist organization Code Pink, one of the hundred left-wing American organizations behind the conference.
On Friday night, a favorite cafe among progressives, Busboys and Poets, gathered letters to Gazans; the next aid flotilla in May will deliver the messages to the Gaza residents. A separate room in the cafe hosted a meeting of around 250 activists with Omar Barghouti, founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. Barghouti, who recently released a book on BDS, was winding up a book tour that included Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis and other universities.
The evening began with a moment of silence for actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, murdered earlier this month in Jenin, and Italian journalist Vittorio Arrigoni, murdered in recent days in Gaza. Barghouti then quoted U.S. President Barack Obama’s justification for the NATO attacks on Muammar Gadhafi’s forces in Libya.
“Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. Water for hundreds of thousands of people was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed and apartment buildings reduced to rubble,” Barghouti said, reading out a statement.
“This is about Libya, but you would say the same logic should be applied to Gaza. Unfortunately, it is not. Revolutions are shaking the Middle East, and one big loser is Israel. As Arab governments become more democratic they will reflect peoples’ opinions, which are very much opposed to the Israeli apartheid.”
“Some people say BDS is not fair and not effective – Israel is a democracy. On almost every level, Israel is only a democracy for one ethnic group. The Palestinian-led BDS movement is calling Israel an apartheid state, and the main refutation of this is that Israel allows Palestinians to vote,” Barghouti said.
“Apartheid is not defined according to whims of this or that scholar. Apartheid is when the discrimination is legalized. Now there are commissions to accept new residents into communities. Imagine an Irish white guy saying: ‘We don’t accept this Latino guy, his food smells funny, he doesn’t fit.’ But in Israel now it’s legal.”
“I think calling Israel a fascist state is an exaggeration, but there are fascist tendencies. When they get mad, Liberal Zionists tend to exaggerate,” he added. “Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds at the grassroots level. It maintains connections with the elite, but competes with Iran and North Korea as the most hated countries in the world.”
Barghouti said it was impossible to predict what the Israelis would do in response to the next flotilla, saying they continue to shoot themselves in the foot, but highlighting Israel’s reactions only helps raise awareness of the siege on Gaza. After the event, Barghouti recommended everyone, including Zionists, to read his book, but declined to be interviewed by Haaretz. “We’re being very careful about giving interviews to the Israeli media,” he said.
========================
6. Haaretz ,
April 17, 2011
Two teens from West Bank village arrested over Itamar massacre
Two teenage Palestinians from the village of Awarta admitted to carrying out the brutal murder last month of five members of the Fogel family, who lived in the nearby settlement of Itamar.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/two-teens-from-west-bank-village-arrested-over-itamar-massacre-1.356396
By Anshel Pfeffer
Israeli security forces have arrested two teenage residents of the West Bank Arab village of Awarta for allegedly carrying out last month’s murder of five family members in the settlement of Itamar, the lifting of a gag order revealed on Sunday.
Palestinian students Amjad Awad, 19, and Hakim Awad 18, both admitted to committing the murder.
Five members of the Fogel family were brutally stabbed to death in their home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar on the night of March 11th. The murderers killed Ehud and Ruth Fogel, along with three of their young children, Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, 3 months old, before fleeing the scene.
The two suspects, who are unrelated to one another, were identified as members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine along with several members of their family.
Shin Bet investigators have at this point not identified the murder as being carried out under the auspices of the Popular Front organization. According to what is currently known, the murders were carried out independently by the two suspects.
Six additional Palestinian suspects from Awad were also arrested in connection to the crime, four of whom belong to the same family. The six purportedly aided the two alleged perpetrators in hiding the murder weapon and in suppressing additional evidence. One of the six is a member of the Popular Front organization whom the suspects supposedly asked for a weapon to carry out a terror attack. Another one of the six is a resident of Ramallah at whose home the murder weapon was hidden.
An investigation revealed that the two suspects decided that they would carry out the murder on Friday afternoon, hours before the murder was carried out. According to the investigation, the two left Awarta at nine p.m. carrying an umbrella, several knives and wire cutting shears.
According to the investigation, it took the suspects about ten minutes to cut the fence which separates the settlement of Itamar from the Palestinian village of Awarta. They climbed the security barrier at the settlement unnoticed and walked about 400 meters into the settlement. Once inside the settlement, they broke into an empty home and stole an M-16 rifle, a weapons cartridge, a vest and a helmet before proceeding to the Fogel family’s home.
Before entering the house, the suspects noticed Yoav and Elad Fogel in the home’s window. Yoav and Elad were the first to be stabbed after the suspect entered the home. The suspects then entered the parents’ room. Ehud and Ruth tried to fight off the attackers, but were eventually overcome and stabbed to death. Ruth was also shot, but due to the weather at the time of the murder, the gunshots were not heard. The suspects fled the home, fearing that the gunshots had been heard.
Outside of the home, the suspects realized that their gunshots had gone unnoticed and they had not yet been discovered. Amjad Awad subsequently reentered the home in order to steal an additional M-16 rifle that was there. Back inside the parents’ room, Awad noticed three-month-old Hadas and stabbed her to death. While leaving the home once more, the suspect noticed that there were more children but apparently figured that he was running out of time. The lives of Roi Fogel, 8, and Yishai Fogel, 2, were spared.