The final brief item of the 6 below is about trying to convince a musical group to not cross the boycott-line by performing in Israel. If you are unfamiliar with The Fall, you can learn about the British group from their websitehttp://www.visi.com/fall/ Then, if you have time and the inclination, you might wish to send The Fall a few words yourself to ask them not to perform in Israel until it agrees to justice for Palestinians so that all—Muslims, Jews, Christians, seculars, and anyone else living here–can finally have peace and security. Their email is thefall@hotmail.co.uk If you lack for reasons to ask them not to come now, you will find a number of these in the items below.
Thanks.
Items 1, 2, and 3 are about demolitions and detentions and Israeli police mistreatment of a Palestinian 7 year old. The first is about the demolition of a Mosque and other buildings. When you read or hear that Palestinian structures were demolished because they were built without the necessary permits, keep in mind that “Figures from Bimkom, an Israeli NGO, show that around 95 per cent of [Palestinian] applications for a building permit are rejected, with the civil administration only granting around 12 permits a year.” [item 1, below],
The demolished Mosque was in the West Bank. But Bedouins living in Israel also are subjected to demolitions. For example, Al Araqib a Bedouin village in the Negev, was demolished 2 days ago for the 7th time in the past few months. See Amnesty’s article on this at
Item 2 is about police mistreatment of a 7 year old Palestinian child—treatment so rough that the boy had to be hospitalized in an Intensive Care unit. SEVEN YEARS OLD! Can you imagine beating a 7 year old child? Can you imagine?
Item 3. reports another middle of the night incursion into private homes to arrest Palestinian advocates and practitioners of non-violent resistance. The Israeli government and military government would be much happier to have the Palestinians violent. Then Israel could release all its force against them.
Item 4 is about a Palestinian appeal to Israel’s High Court to rid a former market area in Hebron of Jewish squatters.
Item 5 advocates high school principles and education to infuse youngsters with the nationalistic desire to enlist in the military. The writer, a right-winger, undoubtedly expresses the consensual point of view. But the op ed is also instructive, since it does furnish statistics that are worth knowing.
Item 6, as I have said, is about trying to convince the Fall not to perform in Israel.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1. Al Jazeera,
25 Nov 2010
Israel pulls down West Bank mosque
Palestinians say troops have demolished mosques and several other structures in two areas in the occupied territory.
Israeli troops have demolished a mosque and more than 10 other structures in two areas in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian sources have said.
Most of the demolition activity took place in the village of Khirbet Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley on Thursday where local residents said troops had razed a very old mosque and its much-larger extension, which was built last year.
They also said troops had levelled “more than 10 buildings used for sheep”.
The Israeli military confirmed knocking down what it described as “eight temporary structures” which had been built inside a military firing zone.
“During the morning, the security forces and the civil administration destroyed eight temporary structures and the frame of another structure, which were built without the required permits inside a firing zone endangering the lives of the residents,” according to a statement from COGAT, the defence ministry unit which acts as a link between the army and the Palestinians.
In a statement, the Palestinian government said that their efforts to build a state are met with “state destruction by Israel”.
Israeli control
Khirbet Yarza is located in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control and where all construction and planning issues come under the jurisdiction of the Israeli civil administration. [Under full Israeli control as a result of the Oslo Accords, which divided the West Bank up into 3 areas—are A, (Palestinian control, includes major urban centers), area B (joint Israeli/Palestinian control, with Israel having control of the ‘security’), and area C (under Israeli control). How Arafat could agree to dividing the WB up in this manner, I do not know.]
At the opposite end of the West Bank, Israeli troops destroyed a building which was home to 18 people in the southern town of Yatta, the family and municipal officials told the AFP news agency.
Figures from Bimkom, an Israeli NGO, show that around 95 per cent of applications for a building permit are rejected, with the civil administration only granting around 12 permits a year.
According to UN figures, Israel destroyed 180 Palestinian structures in Area C in 2009, including 56 residential buildings.
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[forwarded by Shadi Fadda in Today in Palestine]
2. Palestinian Child Hospitalized After Being Violently Attacked By Israeli Policemen
Thursday November 25, 2010 08:52 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
A 7-year-old Palestinian child from Silwan neighborhood, south of the Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, was hospitalized Wednesday, after a number of Israeli policemen violently attacked, kicked and punched him.
The child, Adam Mansour Al Rishiq, was taken to a Jerusalem hospital and was immediately sent to the Intensive Care Unit due to the seriousness of his condition.
Fakhri Abu Diab, a member of the local committee to defend Silwan land and property, stated that clashes were reported Wednesday between the police and local residents in Silwan, especially near a protest tent located between Jacob’s Well and Ein Al Lowza.
The tent was installed several months ago to protest the Israeli demolition and confiscation of Palestinian and Arab homes in occupied East Jerusalem, which protesters say was carried out despite Israeli court orders protecting the homes from demolition.
Abu Diab stated that Border Guard Policemen chased a number of youth before violently attacking the seven-year-old child, and striking him with their batons on different parts of his body.
Adam’s father stated that his child was moved to the hospital unconscious and heavily bleeding, and was directly sent to the Intensive Care Unit suffering from a number of fractures and bruises.
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[Item 3 forwarded by Ofra Lyth]
3. More middle of the night kidnappings of Palestinian leaders advocating non-violent protests
Early Thursday morning, November 25, at approximately 2:00am, Israeli forces from the Gush Etzion military base came to the homes of brothers and National Committee members Yousef and Mousa Abu Maria. Both are also co-founders of the Palestine Solidarity Project.
Mousa, whose wife and baby girl–both Israeli citizens–were visiting family, was forced outside while his home was searched. 3 computers belonging to the Palestine Solidarity Project were taken. Yousef, father of 10 year-old Reem, 4 year-old Obay, and 1 month-old Della’, was also taken from his home in the middle of the night.
Both were held outside in freezing temperatures in Gush Etzion military base for over 5 hours; neither were allowed to put on proper shoes or clothing and repeated requests to be put inside were denied.
The soldiers, who have been harassing the committee of Beit Ommar for months now, including a previous late-night home invasion last month, accused both brothers of organizing the demonstrations in Beit Ommar, held every Saturday against the illegal settlements surrounding Beit Ommar, particularly Karmei Tsur. They were also “accused” of “bringing internationals” to Beit Ommar.
The brothers were threatened if they did not stop the PSP program of reclaiming land in Saffa, this just days after settlers from nearby Bat ‘Ayn settlement set fire to Saffa land. In addition to Mousa and Yousef, two youth from Saffa were also arrested and released the next day.
PSP http://Palestinesolidarityproject.org
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4. Haaretz,
November 25, 2010
Palestinians petition High Court to evict Hebron squatters
Homes in the area were under Jewish ownership until 1947, and during the two decades of Jordanian rule of the city, they functioned as a wholesale market.
Two and a half years after a military panel ordered settlers forcibly removed from a Hebron neighborhood, the army has yet to take any steps toward implementing the ruling. This week, however, the buildings’ former tenants petitioned the High Court to enforce the order.
The petitioners run four small stores in the neighborhood, which was once a wholesale market in the West Bank city. The homes in the area were under Jewish ownership until 1947, and during the two decades of Jordanian rule of the city, they functioned as a wholesale market.
After Hebron came under Israeli rule in 1967, the market was put under the control of the Civil Administration, which manages it to this day. Jewish settlers later moved in, but following the 1994 murder of 29 worshippers by an armed settler at the Ibrahimi Mosque, the army ordered the stores closed and the residents removed.
Since then, settlers have tried to regain control of the area several times, only to be evicted each time by the army. In 2001, settlers broke into a small area of the market abutting the city’s Jewish-inhabited Avraham Avinu quarter, and since then the area has been inhabited by a number of Jewish families.
In 2007, the inhabitants were served an eviction notice by a military appeals committee. Jewish residents of the city protested the move but pledged to abide by the ruling. Ultimately, the committee found that the settlers had violated the law by breaking into the area and that they had no legal claims to the property there.
Since then, however, the army has consistently maintained that the neighborhood’s fate is a political, not a military, matter. This week, two members of the Awiwi family filed a petition with the advocacy group Peace Now for the order to be implemented.
Michael Sfard, the attorney representing the petitioners on behalf of the group, wrote in the petition, “Without the esteemed court’s intervention, the fate of these stores would be the same as those of many other structures in the city of Hebron and in many other areas that were forcibly appropriated.”
Yariv Oppenheimer, the head of Peace Now, said in a statement, “It’s a shame the government needs to receive a High Court petition in order to maintain a bit of order in Hebron and to keep settlers from seizing property that isn’t theirs.”
Orit Struck, a representative of the Hebron Jewish community said, “Since a firm majority of cabinet members have recently expressed their support for strengthening the Jewish presence in Hebron, we can only hope the government’s decision is in line with the ruling, and in favor of populating and developing the city of the patriarchs and against the eviction of Jews.”
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5. Haaretz Thursday,
November 25, 2010
The draft-dodging state of Tel Aviv
The city by the sea broadcasts a certain alienation from Israel’s existential needs, and this is not good for either the city or the country of which it is part.
In the uproar sparked by the dirty battle over who will be the next police commissioner, little attention was devoted to a recent news item that was much less juicy, but certainly no less important: About 50 percent of all men aged 18 to 40 – in other words, those men obligated to do compulsory military service and reserve duty – do not actually serve.
Maj. Gen. Avi Zamir, who heads the Israel Defense Forces’ Personnel Directorate, warned that if this trend continues, draft-dodgers will comprise 60 percent of the total in another decade. And Tel Aviv, the city in which two founders of the Hebrew defense force, Eliyahu Golomb and Dov Hoz, lived and studied (in Gymnasia Herzliya’s first class ), resembles the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak in its percentage of draft-dodgers.
Haredi draft-dodging is a well-known phenomenon, as is their chutzpah. Evasion even earns them financial benefits. But it now seems that secular draft-dodging is on the rise as well – and it, too, is backed by “rabbis” and “spiritual” leaders.
Just as the Haredim have invented a “religious” rationalization to absolve themselves of the duty to defend their people and their country, so have the secular Haredim, who include actors, film directors and academics: They invent 1,001 ideologies to absolve themselves of any responsibility to the collective. And they too – though naturally only after excoriating those Haredi “parasites” – take handouts from the state whose very existence more than a few of them oppose.
Only three residents of Tel Aviv, Amos Harel reported in Haaretz recently, currently serve as company commanders, though the first Hebrew city has more than 400,000 residents. Yet the West Bank community of Bruchin, with fewer than 600 residents, is home to six company commanders, and the West Bank town of Eli, with some 2,000 residents, is home to five.
Ram Cohen, the principal of Tel Aviv’s Ironi Aleph high school, wrote that young men from the settlements “view the army as a tool to maintain Israel’s control over the occupied territories.” It’s no wonder that the percentage of students choosing to serve in combat units among graduates of the school run by this slogan-ridden, superficial educator is much lower even than the Tel Aviv norm.
And Gymnasia Herzliya, which produced so many fighters and commanders in the past – including current IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi – is trailing along with Ironi Aleph. After all, its principal, Zeev Dagani, has a similar political agenda (for instance, he opposed allowing IDF officers to meet with students at his school ).
Most of the draft-dodgers from Bnei Brak, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv studied at specific educational institutions – the former in a certain type of yeshiva, the latter in certain high schools. And these are the results. Though teenagers are supposed to be rebellious, it turns out that these students are quite conformist. And this is especially true because the broader environment, especially in a place like Tel Aviv, also creates a certain atmosphere.
The religious Zionist community is proud of its young people’s high motivation. And that’s fine. But it also indulges in schadenfreude over the educational failures of other communities. And that is morally unacceptable. It should be mourning, not rejoicing.
That’s not only because the religious Zionist community’s shoulders are not broad enough to bear the bulk of the security burden and never will be. But rather, because anyone who feels any responsibility toward the country’s future should be concerned that some of the old elites – the kibbutz movement, for example – have changed their tune and no longer views Israel’s security at their top priority the way they once did.
Granted, Tel Aviv ranks only 53rd in the Personnel Directorate’s draft ranking of Israeli cities (even the Bedouin town of Rahat tops it! ). But in Maccabim-Reut and Modi’in, which differ little from Tel Aviv in socioeconomic terms, the situation is totally different. The high school serving the teenagers of these towns is in first place nationwide in the percentage of graduates serving in combat units and becoming officers. Hod Hasharon ranks second, followed by Yavneh in third place. So the reason for Tel Aviv’s low motivation clearly isn’t either its secular population or its high standard of living.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai must intervene in what is going on at his city’s schools, and especially the one where he was once a well-regarded principal: Gymnasia Herzliya. It’s for good reason that his city is nicknamed “the state of Tel Aviv”: It broadcasts a certain alienation from Israel’s existential needs. And this is not good for either the city or the country of which it is part.
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6. Ynet Thursday,
November 25, 2010
More Cancelations?
The Fall asked to cancel Israel show
Protest held outside British rock band’s London show. ‘Don’t play for apartheid,’ says Facebook page
A protest outside the doors of a London performance by The Fall called on the British rock group to cancel an upcoming show in Israel.
The Fall has scheduled its arrival for January 20, 2011, when it will appear at Tel Aviv’s Barbie club.
The music website NME reported Tuesday evening that protestors gathered outside the Electric Ballroom in Camden to demand the band forgo its visit to Israel.
Similar protests were held at performances by Gil Scott-Heron in London, prompting the singer to cancel his show in Israel. NME also mentions other artists affected by anti-Israel sentiment, such as Elvis Costello and The Pixies.
But the lead singer for The Fall, Mark E. Smith, did not appear vexed and continued to perform as usual.
A Facebook site was also established to influence the band, calling itself “The Fall: Please don’t play for apartheid Israel”, which informs all who enter of additional protests to be held.
