4 items tonight—B’tselem statistics, the option that foreign workers children don’t have, Akiva Eldar on “Netanyahu is looking for a magical solution to both let the tractors get back to work in the West Bank and to keep Abbas at the negotiating table” with which I agree. The 4th is one that you will enjoy. It will for a change leave you with a good taste in your mouth.
Dorothy
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1. Jerusalem Post, Monday,
September 27, 2010
Photo by: Ben Curtis/AP
B’tselem: Since 2000, 7,454 Israelis, Palestinians killed
According to human rights group report, 6,371 Palestinian, 1,083 Israeli causalities during armed conflict in last 10 years.
Since September 29th, 2000, 6,371 Palestinians have been killed and 1,083 Israelis according to a report by B’tselem on the casualties of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released on Monday.
According to the report, 1,317 of the 6,371 Palestinians were minors, at least 2,996 of them did not take part in fighting when they died and 2,193 died while they participated in fighting. B’tselem said it was unaware whether 694 of the Palestinians did or did not take part in fighting. Two-hundred and forty-eight were Palestinian police officers who died in Operation Cast Lead and 240 were targets of assassination.
“Palestinians killed 1,083 Israelis in Israel and in the territories in the last 10 years,” said B’tselem. “Seven-hundred and forty-one of the killed were citizens, 124 of them were minors, and 342 were security personnel.
On Sunday evening, a nine-month pregnant Israeli woman and her husband were wounded in a terror shooting on Route 60 in the West Bank.
The two were hit while in their vehicle and managed to reach Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where the woman underwent surgery for her wounds after giving birth by Cesarean section to a healthy baby boy.
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2. Haaretz Monday,
September 27, 2010
Hundreds of migrant families reject voluntary exit deal
Next Sunday will mark the end of the period during which illegal foreign workers whose children do not qualify for permanent residency can leave voluntarily, with government assistance, rather than being deported.
Next Sunday will mark the end of the period during which illegal foreign workers whose children do not qualify for permanent residency can leave voluntarily, with government assistance, rather than being deported. But so far, only a handful of families has taken advantage of the program.
Under the voluntary departure plan, the government not only buys the plane ticket, but pays to have the workers’ belongings shipped back to their home country. The cabinet had originally allotted 30 days for the program, but later extended it a bit.
During the month of August, 701 families of migrant workers applied to the Interior Ministry for legal status on the grounds that their children met the requirements for residency set by the cabinet. These applications cover 1,035 children and 1,027 parents.
Only 85 applications were rejected out of hand on the grounds that the children clearly failed to meet the criteria. The others are still being considered.
Once the voluntary deportation period ends on Sunday, families still here that did not file applications, or whose applications were rejected, will be subject to arrest and deportation.
“Only a handful of families honored the cabinet decision and chose to leave,” an Interior Ministry official said. “Arresting people and keeping them in custody is a last resort, but the law will be enforced.”
To prevent children from being thrown in jail, a special facility in Hadera was renovated to accommodate families that opt to contest their deportation until a custody judge can hear their case. Families that do not contest their deportation will simply be put on the next available plane.
Families that did apply for residency are supposed to receive a letter from the Interior Ministry in the coming days stating either that their case is moving forward, or that their application has been rejected and they must leave the country within 30 days.
One family now awaiting the ministry’s letter is the Ozumas, who filed their application in late August. Justice Ozuma, age five and a half, meets all the other criteria set by the cabinet. But because she spent an extra year in preschool, she started kindergarten this year rather than first grade. Kindergartners are only eligible for residency under special circumstances.
“I was very happy that they accepted the application and are taking the fact that Justice should have been starting first grade into account,” said her father, Vincent Ozuma. “She began kindergarten at the Bialik Rogozin Campus this month, and it definitely seems to be a good place for her. She’s flourishing. She has a lot of friends, and everything really seems good. I hope it will continue like that.”
Ozuma sounded cautiously optimistic. “I hope the fact they spoke with us when we filed the application, that we then went on to an interview, and that they didn’t reject our application out of hand means something,” he said. “After all, the children were born and raised here, and this is their home.”
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3. Haaretz Monday,
September 27, 2010
Akiva Eldar / Settlement freeze furor is a mask for Netanyahu’s true intentions Netanyahu is looking for a magical solution to both let the tractors get back to work in the West Bank and to keep Abbas at the negotiating table.
It’s no spin. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really is looking high and low for a magical solution to both let the tractors get back to work on settlement lands and leave President Mahmoud Abbas at the negotiating table.
Construction in settlements is a very uncomfortable issue for Israel. Most countries say settlement in occupied territory is illegal; friendly governments believe that building in the occupied territories is an obstacle to peace. The boycott of Ariel’s new cultural center reminded us that here, too, the settlements are more a bone of contention than the foundation for our existence. Who will believe Bibi will be ready within a year to evacuate thousands of homes if he cannot / will not declare a temporary moratorium on the construction of a few hundred new homes? Over that it’s worth breaking up the peace talks?
No, Netanyahu does not want to create a crisis over the freeze. Why should he have a crisis over the demand of Jewish migrants to settle in Hebron if he can focus it on the demand of Palestinian refugees to return to Haifa? Let Bibi get through the nuisance of the freeze, and he will pull Abbas into the sure trap over the “right of return.” What will Tzipi Livni say, and even those who call themselves “the Zionist left” when Abbas announces he refuses to give up the right of return in advance?
A broad hint of this scheme could be seen in statements Netanyahu made during a visit to Sderot a week ago. “I’m not talking about a name,” Netanyahu said, to explain his insistence the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. “I’m talking about essence,” he said.
“When they refuse to say something so simple, the question is why?” Netanyahu said to explain what he meant by essence. “Do you want to flood the state of Israel with refugees so it will no longer be a country with a Jewish majority? Do you want to rip away parts of the Galilee and the Negev?” When Netanyahu demands agreement ahead of time that the talks are intended to bring about, according to him, agreement on the establishment of the “nation-state of the Jewish people” alongside a Palestinian state, he is therefore demanding the Palestinians give up in advance on the right of return of refugees. And the main thing, don’t forget, is “no preconditions.”
The controversy around construction in the settlements draws attention away from the bombshell hiding behind Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians first recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. As the prime minister himself has said, this is not mere semantics. It is an essential matter from the most sensitive part of the narrative of the conflict. As Dan Meridor, one of the ministers closest to Netanyahu, put it in an interview with Haaretz Magazine (October 23, 2009): “I am not too optimistic that the Palestinian government has given up on the right of return. That would mean conceding the rationale for the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was founded in 1964, three years before the Six-Day War. And Abu Mazen [Abbas] was one of its founders.” Meridor, by the way, says that a state that is not the state of all its citizens is not a democratic state.
Some people, for example the previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, believe that with goodwill, sensitivity to the suffering of the refugees and international assistance, the right of return obstacle can be overcome. Speaking at a conference of the Geneva Initiative leadership, Olmert reminded the audience that the PLO had accepted the 2002 Arab peace initiative, which states the solution to the refugee problem must be not only just (based on United Nations Resolution 194), but also agreed-on by all the parties. It will be attained only in the framework of a comprehensive deal that will include all the core issues, first and foremost an arrangement for the holy places in Jerusalem.
The problem of the refugees is not a ball in a game whose purpose is to push the Palestinian adversary (partner?) into a corner and to push away the pressure of the American friend (adversary?) That is a game Israel has no chance of winning.
What will happen if the Palestinians declare they do recognize Israel as the state of the Israelis – take it or leave it? What will Netanyahu do? Will he end the moratorium on construction in the settlements, stop the negotiations on a two-state solution and begin the countdown to the end of the Jewish state?
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4. [forwaded by Ehud Krinis]
David Shulman
An-Nabi Salih,
September 25, 2010
Something New is Happening in Palestine
Something new is happening in Palestine. I saw and heard things today that are relatively rare in my experience. I saw conflict erupt in the village between those who wanted to throw stones at the Israeli soldiers and generate more violence, as in the past, and the no less passionate people who intervened fiercely to prevent this from happening. I heard tough words of peace and hope. I saw the most dignified and brave demonstration I’ve ever seen. I also saw the army react with its usual foolishness, which I’ll describe, and I saw the soldiers hold back when they could easily have started shooting. It wasn’t an easy day by any means, but it was good.
An-Nabi Salih is a hard place. When Ezra heard me say yesterday, in Sheikh Jarrah, that I was going to the village, he said, “Take a helmet. They’re violent there, all of them” (he meant: settlers, soldiers, and villagers). Yesterday, at the usual Friday demonstration in the village, the soldiers fired rounds of live ammunition along with rubber-coated bullets and tear gas and stun grenades. I was expecting more of the same today.
The village, north and west of Ramallah, has the great misfortune of having the hard-core settlement of Halamish as its unwanted neighbor. An-Nabi Salih lost some of its lands to the settlement along with access to a fresh-water spring, a precious thing in this arid, sun-scorched landscape; the settlers stole the spring, but the villagers were not prepared to surrender it, so there have been many violent clashes, spread over years. The settlers do whatever they can to make the villagers’ life miserable, with much success, and the soldiers, as always, back them up. All this is standard practice.
Today is International Peace Day, and the Palestinian Movement of Non-Violent Resistance, run by Ali Abu ‘Awad from Beit ‘Umar (with offices in Bethlehem), has planned a celebration-cum-workday in An-Nabi Salih. Hundreds of Palestinian activists were supposed to arrive from all over the West Bank—but the army has turned all the buses away and closed the roads. We run into the same roadblocks at the main turn-off from Highway 60 running north through the West Bank. The soldiers laugh at us when we tell them we’re going to An-Nabi Salih.
No chance, they say, of getting through. But this is the West Bank, and there is always a way, maybe not an easy way, but some back road or goat track or dirt path that will get you where you’re going; so we wind our way for close to two hours, through Jiljiliya and other quite lovely villages until we fetch up at Qarawat Bani Zeid, close to our goal. But there is, we know from Ali and Alison, another army roadblock at the entrance to the village. The Tel Aviv contingent tried to get past them by running a few hundred yards over the hills, and several of the activists were caught and arrested. Do we want to attempt the same tactic?
At least some of us may get through, but we hesitate: is it worth the hassle of the arrests and the violence? On the other hand, having come so far, how can we simply turn back? Seven of us are prepared to run the gauntlet. Finally, at high noon, Ali leads us down into the rocky terraces and olive groves underneath An-Nabi Salih. Leaping over the rocky ledges, we descend to a level that is hopefully beyond the soldiers’ range of vision, and for twenty minutes or so we creep stealthily from tree to tree and rock to rock, in near-total silence, playing hide-and-seek, outflanking them, crouching, holding our breath, hoping to emerge far enough past the roadblock to elude capture.
It’s very hot, and I’m thirsty and, by the end, physically depleted; it’s been 33 years, I calculate, since I last engaged in such games, in my Basic Training in the army. So absorbed am I in the play that I hardly take in the splendor of the hills rolling dizzily toward the horizon, but at one point I do see, just above my head, an olive branch laden with green fruit almost exploding with ripeness. Soon autumn will come, and the olive harvest; on the way in the minibus, bouncing over the back roads, there was even a sweet moment of rain, with the sharp smell, unlike all others, of wet dust settling to the ground.
There are eleven of us: seven Ta’ayush volunteers, two Palestinian women in modern dress, head covered, from Beit ‘Umar, Alison and Ali himself, tall, graceful, careful, prescient. At one point we almost make a bad mistake, start climbing up too soon, too close to the soldiers; but Ali catches this in time and leads us back down through the trees and brambles. When we do move up to the road, we find ourselves very much inside the village, welcomed warmly by two elderly gentlemen, who come to shake my hand, and then by a contingent of teenagers.
The first thing I see is a huge sign, in Arabic and English: “The children of this land deserve our struggle and sacrifices for peace.” Fifteen yards down the main street, another one: “We believe in non-violence, do you? We are making social change, are you?” A few yards further along: “La salam ma’a wujud al-ihtilal, “Making peace means ending the occupation.” Biggest of all, draped over the entrance to the town meeting place: “Keeping our political prisoners behind the bars of tyranny and injustice is inexcusable on International Peace Day.”
Do I believe in non-violent struggle? Yes, with all my heart. And I see that I’m not alone—indeed, far from it. We sit at first, re-hydrating, under the enormous tree in the village square, just like in India. Our hosts serve us Turkish coffee and mineral water. We make some friends. One of the village elders says to me with irony (remember yesterday’s live ammunition): “Welcome to Eden.” Actually, though, he just might be right. The heat intensifies. Eventually, inevitably, it is time for the speeches. Popular Arabic music is blaring at deafening volume from the loudspeakers as we take our seats under a wide canvas. It goes on and on, until, mercifully, a young poet takes the microphone and recites a poem. A passage from the Qur’an is sung. The poet introduces the speakers one by one. I’m weary and, at first, a bit bored.
Normally, I have no patience with political speeches in the villages (how many hours of rhetorical Arabic have I sat through?), but today’s surprise me, shake me awake: “We are against violence, we condemn it, we want to be free, the occupation with its hatred is destroying hope but we persevere for the sake of our children, we will win.” More poems, dramatically sung or recited, punctuate these orations. Now Ali rises to speak—in English, so that all the Israelis and the foreign volunteers can understand: “I bow my head to all the volunteers who came to An-Nabi Salih today, who struggled past the soldiers and the roadblocks and didn’t turn back. Our struggle is complicated and hard, a struggle that we all share—local leaders of the villages, women, children, families—the first large-scale Palestinian non-violent movement on the ground, aimed at building a just peace with Israel. When I see Israeli activists coming here to the village, my heart cries with happiness; I am honored to have these people with us. To all the Jews I say: you are not my enemy. The occupation is your enemy, as it is ours.
The Israeli state is a state that eats its children by sending them with weapons to kill and be killed. When you hurt us to the point where we lose our fear of dying, all of us together lose our love of living. They closed off An-Nabi Salih today to keep us out; they know how to put up checkpoints, but they do not know how to fight the feeling of freedom we hold in our hearts. We say to you today, on the Day of Peace: Peace itself is the way to peace, and there is no peace without freedom. I am proud to be in An-Nabi Salih, and I promise you: we’re gonna make it.”
As if on cue, soldiers roll into the village in their jeeps; they do what soldiers do, that is, they threaten, they bully, they make arrests, they take their hostages to an olive grove on the other side of the houses, facing Halamish. Our hosts ask us if we would be prepared to take water to the new arrestees (they don’t want to approach the soldiers themselves), so of course we set off through the village streets and down the hill until we find them. Some ten to fifteen soldiers, weighed down by what looks like tons of equipment, green camouflage netting on their helmets and rifles in their arms, are guarding a group of twenty-some students from Bir Zeit university who came to join today’s festivities. We bring water, we chat with the captives, and suddenly it transpires that we’ve been added to their number; the soldiers won’t allow us back into the village.
They don’t want outsiders in there, they’re glad they’ve thinned the ranks. (The presence of foreigners, especially Israelis, makes it harder for them to shoot.) After a few minutes we tire of this and strike out uphill, dodging the soldiers, who are clumsy, weighed down by their guns and all the rest, as they join hands to create a wall and hold us back, and skirmishes develop, and then the first stun grenade, and it ends with four activists, including Sahar and Lihi, caught, handcuffed and forced to the ground. I am too quick for them, as often, and escape their clutches by following Jonathan farther into the trees.
By the time I regain the village, the main procession—the ritual dénouement of the day– is already forming. I hear mothers telling their young boys to go home, to stay out of it, watch them pushing them away. Originally the idea was to reach the stolen spring, but the soldiers, waiting for us in force at the turn in the road, put an end to this dream. Tear-gas canisters and cartridges of rubber-coated bullets are loaded on to the rifles pointed at the crowd of women, children, men, young and old, many carrying in their arms green saplings that we wanted to plant around the spring.
We sit on the pavement with the soldiers almost close enough to touch, they’re aiming at us, and I’m a little afraid they might open fire like yesterday, and even more afraid that one of the kids will throw a rock and all hell will break loose, but there’s also suddenly no end to the happiness that is washing over me in this crazy late-afternoon moment that I am lucky enough to witness as the light softens to a golden glow and a blessed wind gusts through the trees. People are singing: freedom songs. They swell to a sweet and strident chorus.
If the Israeli army had a brain, which it apparently doesn’t; if the government of Israel had even an iota of generosity of spirit, which it doesn’t; if the people of Israel and the Jewish people throughout the world could open their ears and hear the voices I heard today, in Arabic and English, but they can’t; if the world weren’t all upside down and crooked and cruel, but it is—if all these ifs could only stop being ifs, then they, whoever gave the orders, wouldn’t have tried to stop us from coming to An-Nabi Salih today, in fact they would have welcomed the arrival of this new generation of proud peace activists from Hebron and Ramallah and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Movement of Non-Violent Resistance wouldn’t be pushing the heavy rock uphill, day after day. I guess it’s in the nature of such movements to struggle with the rock. Human hearts are heavy as stone.
