The 5 items below include some positive news—not the first item, though.
On the face of it, it would seem to be positive—the High Court demanding of the state “to justify its position” on the validity of a “land seizure order, issued in 2006.” However, there is little reason to hope that the court will ultimately decide for the petitioners. Should the state claim ‘security’ as justification, the court will undoubtedly judge for the state and the validity of the land seizure order. We’ll keep our eye on the case.
Nor is item 2 exactly positive, as the title indicates: ‘What does it mean when the Shin Bet [General Security Service—a counterintelligence office] calls you up for a chat?’ The fact that their game has been reported in the press won’t stop the Shin Bet from calling individuals in for ‘chats’==a not exactly democratic means of handling situations.
With item 3, the Interview of Archbishop Theodosios, we come to more positive material—positive because finally, the Church is taking a stand on the situation, and is making its voice heard, first by means of the Kairos document, and now by the interview. Both, of course, are from the clergy in Palestine. But hopefully these will lead to more definite stands by the clergy world-wide against the occupation.
Item 4, “Not in security, but peace,” analyzes the difference between the recent Israeli right-wing calls for a single state, and the true intentions with this call. I would add to what Merav Michaeli says that peace must be preceded by or accompanied with justice. Without justice (including the Right of Return) peace will not be. First must come justice, and from it peace could emanate.
Finally, item 5, though brief is truly positive. Pink Floyd plays to raise money for a Palestinian cause.
Nice to be able to end on a positive note on occasion.
The High Court of Justice on Sunday issued a show cause order instructing the state to justify its position that a land seizure order, issued in 2006 to build a section of the security barrier, was still valid even though the segment had not yet been built. The state was also asked to explain why the route of the barrier should not be changed.
The show cause order came in response to a petition filed by the Palestinian village council of Wallaja, which is located in southwest Jerusalem on the border with the West Bank.
The petitioners, represented by attorney Giath Nassir, argued that more than three years had passed since the land seizure order was issued, and therefore the order had expired. As a result, the state allegedly had no legal basis to build the barrier.
The petitioners charged that the barrier would hem them in on three sides, leaving them access only to the West Bank.
According to the Jerusalem municipal borders, Wallaja is located inside the city’s boundaries.
Nassir also represented a Wallaja resident, Jamal Bargouth, who charged that the barrier would cut across his family’s graveyard, leaving part of it on the “Israeli” side and the rest on the West Bank side.
The attorney told the panel of three justices – Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, Hanan Meltzer and Uzi Fogelman – that the army had determined the barrier’s route around Wallaja in 2002, before the landmark High Court decision saying the entire route had to take into consideration the difficulties it would cause Palestinians, and that security and human rights had to be properly balanced.
He also charged that the state had ignored the court ruling.
“The route is a scandal,” he told the court. “It cannot stand.” The planned barrier would be so close to houses that it would leave villagers “no room to breathe.”
Nassir also complained that the proposed route would place the built-up area of the village on the West Bank-side, and its agricultural land on the other side. In addition, he argued that construction along the planned route would cause severe environmental damage to the farming terraces that both the Nature and Parks Authority and UNESCO had designated as preservation areas.
The state asked the court to reject the Wallaja petitions on grounds of late submission, since the land seizure order had been issued four years earlier and the route had been approved. In fact, all of the land seizure orders for the barrier surrounding Wallaja had already undergone judicial examination and been approved, the state’s representative, Hani Ofek, told the court.
Ofek explained that as soon as the disputed land seizure order had been issued in 2006, authorities began working on the barrier route. It was only in 2008 that work stopped because government funding had been transferred to the North to repair damage caused by the Second Lebanon War.
She argued that the only legitimate argument offered by the petitioners had been whether the state acted properly when it renewed the land seizure order retroactively in order to overcome the three-year limit on the original order’s validity.
Ofek said the villagers filed their petitions only after they saw that the state was resuming construction in early 2010.
But the petitioners argued that they believed the land seizure order had expired, and saw no reason to take legal action until they actually saw the bulldozers returning.
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2, [Thanks to Bilha for calling attention to this. Dorothy]
Haaretz Monday, July 26, 2010
What does it mean when the Shin Bet calls you up for a ‘chat’?
The Shin Bet’s tendency to call in citizens to discuss their political activity has ACRI concerned. The Attorney General’s office says the service wants to keep innocent people from being exploited.
Following last week’s report that conscientious objector Yonatan Shapira had been summoned by the Shin Bet – for what the security service described as a “chat,” but his lawyers termed a “political interrogation” – the Association for Civil Rights in Israel called our attention to its own correspondence with the authorities regarding similar summonses in the past. The legal nonprofit is concerned that the very summons to the Shin Bet classifies the political activist as someone “harming state security.” The last letter from ACRI to the attorney general’s office on this matter was sent in December 2009, but a response arrived only this June.
At that time, attorney Lila Margalit wrote: “As we have already warned in the past, we have been witness in the last few years to the most worrisome phenomenon whereby citizens are called in for a ‘warning’ interrogation at the Shin Bet which appears to be directed at dissuading them from participating in protests or other political activity, and to obtain information from them concerning the political activities of others. This phenomenon deeply harms the legal rights of the individual and threatens, no less, to smash the delicate principles on which Israeli democracy is based.
“In a democratic country, every person is allowed to participate in protests and political activities as he sees fit,” the letter continued. “He does not owe anyone an explanation on his political positions or beliefs, and it is not possible to ‘call him to attention’ or take any kind of steps to give him the feeling that his political activity could be to his detriment. In extraordinary and exceptional cases, when a person has contravened the law in the framework of protest activity, he can be summoned for a criminal interrogation and taking steps against him can be considered. But the attempt to use investigative authority to ‘deter’ political activists, or to cause them to think twice before going out to [protest in] the streets, is completely wrong.”
Margalit’s letter came as a direct result of an incident involving Wajih Siddawi who is active in Tarabut-Hithabrut, the Arab-Jewish movement for social and political change. Though summoned to an official police investigation at the Hadera police station, he was interrogated there by a man in civilian garb who introduced himself as “Yuval from the Shin Bet.” Siddawi was not interrogated as a suspect.
Shapira, on the other hand, was summoned from the start by “Ronah from the Shin Bet.” But in terms of content – the attempt to discuss the invitee’s political activity – there was similarity. Similarities can also be seen with other interrogations/investigations/inquiries/chats the Shin Bet has held with other left-wing activists, Arabs and Jews over the past few years.
In her letter to Menachem Mazuz, then attorney general, Margalit wrote: “Only in questionable regimes are citizens called in for ‘warning’ talks with the security forces to explain their political activities and positions. Especially in the sensitive arena of freedom of expression and protest, one must be doubly careful to make sure interrogations do not lead to a cooling of the public discourse.
“Criminal procedures should be instigated only in extraordinary and extreme cases and ‘warning’ talks of the kind described should be avoided at all costs. In addition to what is written above, it is not clear to us what authority the Shin Bet actually has in this regard. (After all, the Shin Bet is not the authority responsible for granting demonstration permits in Israel. )”
On behalf of ACRI, Margalit requested that a thorough examination be conducted to ensure citizens would not be summoned to the Shin Bet for interrogation in this way in the future.
The AG’s office responds
Attorney Raz Nizri, a senior assistant to the attorney general, answered Margalit’s letter on June 9 (and apologized for the delay, saying it was due to a bureaucratic hitch ). Based on conversations with the Shin Bet, Nizri denied that Siddawi’s political activities had been discussed during his “inquiry.” Therefore, he wrote, “there is no basis to the claim that the inquiry was aimed at showing Siddawi that we had noticed him or to deter him from social and political involvement.”
As for the issue of the legal basis on which the Shin Bet was acting, Nizri wrote: “Paragraph 7 of the Shin Bet law from 2002 states that the security service is responsible, as part of its designation, for maintaining state security and [protecting] the democratic regime and its institutions from threats of terror, damage and subversion. In order to fulfill its role, the service has been made responsible for thwarting and preventing any illegal activity whose aim is to harm state security, the democratic regime or its institutions.
“At the basis of any inquiry carried out by the service vis-a-vis Israeli citizens, there generally lies some intelligence information that requires explanation or a matter that requires study or reference within the designation of the service,” Nizri continued. “When intelligence information is received, its credibility is examined and an attempt is made to extend it as far as possible via additional tools of intelligence gathering at the Shin Bet’s disposal and in accordance with the severity of the suspicions and their basis…
“There are also times when the Shin Bet wishes to achieve additional aims through inquiries – including the transfer of a message, in relevant cases, about the possibility the citizen in question may be involved with, or exploited by, terrorist elements taking advantage of his innocence. “Conducting an inquiry is a reasonable tool that causes minimal damage to the rights of the person investigated… The Shin Bet does not have a policy or practice of trying to deter citizens from participating in protest activity or other political activity.”
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel commented that the attorney general’s response is not acceptable, and says it plans to take further legal action on this issue.
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3. [forwarded by A.Anwar Sacca ]
Exclusive Intifada Interview with Archbishop Theodosios (Atallah) Hanna Atallah
“For those who use the Bible to support Israel need to differentiate between God promise and Balfour promise, because the occupation is the result of a promise given to the Israelis by Lord Balfour and not by God.” Archbishop Theodosios
Elias Harb: Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel has claimed in varies publications that Jews, Christians and Muslims are able to build their homes anywhere in Jerusalem and that only under Israeli sovereignty had freedom of worship for all religions been assured in the city. How do you respond to that?
Archbishop Theodosios: The facts on the ground say exactly the opposite, more and more Muslims and Christians are having great difficulties in entering the city. We see thousands are denied the entry to their holiest sites. The Israelis authorities are even preventing the Arab Jerusalemites from entering the Holy sepulcher and the Aqsa mosque on major religious feasts. It is very apparent that the Israelis want Jerusalem to themselves and they do not want to share it with others. It is a big pity that the city of peace, which must symbolizes brotherhood and love to be transformed into a symbol of hatred and division because of Israeli actions.
EH: How has the Israeli Occupation affected Palestinians living from the west bank right to worship and visit the Holy Places in Jerusalem? What is the importance of Jerusalem to the Palestinians? Could be there a state for the Palestinians without Jerusalem as its capital? How Israel developments projects changed the features of the holy land?
AT: Let me be clear on this subject, there will be no Palestine without Jerusalem as its capital. It is ridicules to imagine Palestine without Jerusalem, because it beats in the heart of every Palestinian. In addition to that, Israel tries to change the features of Jerusalem through its development projects like the light train, the malls or the parks. They are trying to make the Palestinians foreigners in their own city. According to international law, Jerusalem is still an occupied city, thus it has no right to change anything in it. Whatever was the final agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Palestinians should have the free right to enter their city without any restrictions, and also they must have the right to live in it, build their homes and reside in it without the interference of anyone. The Palestinians in Jerusalem are in their city and country not a stranger. The treatment o the Palestinian as a outsider is by itself a racist action.
EH: Many people around are unaware of the dwindling Christian population in the Holy land. How critical is this situation and what will happen to the future of Christianity in the Holy Land?
AT: First of all, I should stress on the fact that the Christian Palestinians were here since Jesus times, where in the Books of Acts in the bible it was mentioned that there were Arabs listening to the Apostles in Jerusalem. Christians Arabs had and still have a big effect in the development of the Arab societies in the Middle East. We are not visitors or strangers to Palestine. Our history is deeply rooted in this area of the world. On the other hand, our numbers are dwindling due to the occupation and the bitter reality it is causing. But we are not afraid that Christians will disappear from Palestine, because there will be always Christians in Palestine to continue the message of Jesus Christ.
EH: Main Evangelical Christians in U.S. and western countries believe that the emergence of the state of Israel is promised by God. They support Israel financially. What is the Orthodox Church’s position on this matter?
AT: The Orthodox Church as all churches in the Holy Land refuses to give excuses from the bible for the unjust treatment of the Palestinian people.
I am very sorry to hear about some religious groups in the United States that support the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Such support cannot be justified from a Christian point of view because Christianity is against any sort of occupation and the injustice in it all forms and rationalization.
These groups need to re-read their bible, because the bible calls us to stand with the marginalized and the oppressed and not with the oppressors.
For those who use the bible to support Israel need to differentiate between God\s promise and Balfour promise (Balfour Declaration), because the occupation is the result of a promise given to the Israelis by Lord Balfour and not by God.
God is innocent from the unjust actions of the Israeli occupation of our land since ‘48 and until now.
EH: Israel has built the separation wall and claims it is for security purposes, how do you respond to that? Also how has the Separation Wall affected the daily lives of Palestinians? Israel has created many facts on the ground in the occupied territories; do you believe a two state solution to the Palestine/Israeli conflict is still possible?
AT: First of all, I want to stress on the fact that the wall is illegal, even the highest court system in the world declared that it is illegal, thus our duty as humans have an obligation towards their brethrens to dismantle this racist wall. The purpose of this wall is simply to cut Palestinians from their neighbors, family and land. A proof of that is the inhuman checkpoints, where if a person who wants to visit his/her relative in Jerusalem, is not allowed to enter, and if by some miracle he got a permission, he has to pass this awful checkpoints where he is treated in a very humiliating way. I do not think security reasons have to do anything with it, especially since 62% of the wall is done. It is just an excuse to take more land illegally and separate Palestinians from each other.
EH: Israeli and the Western press is demanding that Hamas release Gilad shalat, yet hardly anyone mention the thousands of Palestinians political prisoners? Can you tell briefly the situation of Palestinian political prisoners?
AT: There are about 11,000 political prisoners in Israeli jails, a quarter of the Palestinian people at some point or another where in prison since 1967. This is a big number. It is sad, that the international media does not bring it up to the light. These are people who fought for a just and right cause, and at the same time they are treated in the most inhuman ways a person can imagine. The duty of every free person on the world who believes in the human rights, and who believes that all humans were born equal to stand beside them.
Not mentioning the biggest prison in the world is the Gaza strip. There are a million and a half living in Gaza. We pray and ask every free person in the world to work for the release of the people in Gaza.
EH: On May 31, Israeli commandos attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla killing 9 humanitarian activists, wounding over 50 and 17 activists are still missing. Can you share your thoughts on this recent attack?
It is a very sad incident that we will never forget. The brutality of the Israeli forces is expectable. Whenever people try to show the dark side of the Israeli occupation and situation in Gaza, they try to shut their voices down. Our condolences and thanks for the Turkish government and people who stood a very brave stand toward our people.
The flotilla included several people from different nationalities and religions confirming that there are still people who believe in the values of justice and peace.
EH: For the past 62 years, Palestinian who were expelled from Palestine, have been living in refugee Camps in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, an Syria waiting for the right to return to their homeland. What message of hope, would you give to these refugee’s.
AT: I say to all the Palestinian refugees they should still not give up their right of return. It is a right that could not be canceled by time. It is a human right because every Palestinian refugee should return to his/her home.
Do not lose hope because our cause is a just one and the person who was wronged in a way or another should not be desperate, but we should still claim our rights where we hope that one day and it will be soon “Enshaala” – <Arabic> (God Willing) that every Palestinian could return to his/her home.
Elias Harb: Thank you Sayidna – <Arabic> Your Eminence
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4. Haaretz Monday, July 26, 2010
Not in security, but peace
As long as we don’t want peace or to believe in it, no matter what we call it, we will live with occupation and war, and not for long.
The “check it out” trend these days is: “Check it out, they’re not spacey leftists, but true-blue rightists who have a vision of one state for Jews and Palestinians.”
My heart is gladdened, really and truly, not sarcastically, when reading these words in the July 16 edition of Haaretz Magazine (“Endgame” ). “The harm we are inflicting on the Palestinian population has become far more mortal,” said MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud ). “It’s impossible to go on like this, with a situation in which my Palestinian neighbors have to cross three checkpoints to get from one village to another,” said Emily Amrousi, former spokeswoman for the Yesha Council of settlements. “The worst solution is apparently the right one: a binational state, full annexation, full citizenship,” said Uri Elitzur, former chairman of the Yesha Council. “If Zionism means saying: ‘As few Arabs as possible,’ I must say that I don’t accept that,” said former defense minister Moshe Arens. “Whenever I hear about a demographic threat, it comes first of all from a type of thinking that says Arabs are a threat. … I am appalled by this kind of talk,” said Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud ).
But at the same time, harassment of the Palestinians continues in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel. The Likud sponsored and voted for bills excluding Arabs from work, from Jewish communities and from their own families. A bill for a pledge of allegiance to the Jewish state was rejected at the last minute thanks to Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor; the Public Security Minister and Police Commissioner called for pardoning a policeman who shot an unarmed Arab burglar; the Yesha Council is revving up for the end of the settlement building freeze; the Knesset revoked the pension rights of former MK Azmi Bishara (who was never convicted ) and some of the rights of MK Hanin Zuabi (Balad ), alongside a display of physical aggression against her.
The seeming contradiction is resolved if you delve into the question of what kind of citizenship the people quoted above offer the Palestinians in the one state: “I want it to be clear that I do not recognize national rights of Palestinians in the Land of Israel. I recognize their human rights and their individual rights, and also their individual political rights – but between the sea and the Jordan there is room for one state, a Jewish state,” said Hotovely.
So in any case the Palestinians are inferior people, whose human rights do not include national self-determination, and anyway we decide what happens to them and for them.
Exactly like what we do in practice to the Palestinian Israelis. With them, as well, no one talks about peace. Closeness, understanding, cooperation – peace. No one on the right sees the Palestinians who are here and those who are there as equal to him or her, and none really trusts them. Even if one of his or her best friends is an Arab.
In that respect rightists are not really different than leftists. Even most of those who have been talking for a long time about two states are speaking about a political settlement, about separation, in the best case, an agreement (and Netanyahu’s revolutionary invention: occupation plus economic peace ). Just not about peace.
But that is the heart of the matter: peace. It can be in a format of neighboring states, or of two national federations under a state that is jointly run, or even in one multinational, multicultural, multi-religious state.
Every one of these solutions, though, depends on our desire to be on good terms with the Palestinians. Every one of these solutions can only happen if and when we see our neighbors as people, as equals, and we want to live in peace. Not in security, but in peace.
As long as we don’t want peace or to believe in it, no matter what we call it, we will live with occupation and war, and not for long.
