Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

 

• U.S. Flotilla to Obama: Protect Us From Israel

• Israel approves the expansion of 2,000 settlement homes in East Jerusalem; Barak: ‘there is no real way to announce an end to construction’

• Report from a police holding cell

• ‘The truth is not easy to tell’: The story of Palestinian women in Israel

U.S. Flotilla to Obama: Protect Us From Israel

Jun 19, 2011

Ira Glunts

The United States flotilla group, US to Gaza, reacting to Israeli threats of violence,sent a letter to President Barack Obama informing him that:

As U.S. citizens we expect our country and its leaders to help ensure the Flotilla’s safe passage to Gaza – as our country should support our humanitarian demand that the Gaza blockade be lifted. This should begin by notifying the Israeli government in clear and certain terms that it may not physically interfere with the upcoming Flotilla of which the U.S. boat—The Audacity of Hope — is part.

The group asks that people call the White House (202-456-1111) in order to express their support for the international nonviolent protest and to tell the President that they “expect [him] to take action to uphold the rights of peaceful citizens to safe passage on the seas.”

I have little hope that Mr. Obama would respond to a call to protect Americans from an Israeli assault. He has failed to do this in the past. But isn’t it a wonderful irony that the name of the U.S. boat is a phrase closely associated with the President? Although Obama is not on board, maybe there are groups and individuals who have not publicly supported the flotilla movement in the past that would, at least, demand strongly that the IDF refrain from using violence against citizens who are obviously peaceful demonstrators.

Isn’t nonviolent protest one of the tenets of activism for American liberals and progressives? So how about Americans for Peace Now, Netroots or JStreet? How about Peter Beinart or Rachel Maddow? Is anyone asking these groups and individuals to speak up?

Gideon Levy had a good piece in Ha’aretz today. He is in Stockholm speaking with Swedish participants and organizers of the upcoming Gaza flotilla. Levy says that he fears that the Israelis will violently attack the activists.

I told members of the group that Israel is determined to attack. One of them has already purchased a bulletproof vest. Israel well understands that these are people [who] are not threats, and that no weapons will be smuggled on the boats. Nonetheless, Israel makes threats, and the IDF naval commandos train for the flotilla’s arrival.

Also there is a report in Ha’aretz that in addition to the Mavi Marmara not participating in the flotilla, there will be fewer than the ten boats and 1000 protesters that had previously been announced. According to an unnamed source, the flotilla will be comprised of from five to eight boats and 300 participants.

The pressure  flotilla organizers face has been enormous. Their perseverance is a testament to their dedication and resourcefulness. The Israelis have enlisted the help of various governments, the Secretary General of the United Nations, and have intimidated shipyards and boat sellers. The Israeli/U.S. pressure on the Turkish government to stop the Mavi Marmara from returning to Gaza was immense.

All those who are sailing to Gaza at the end of this month deserve our admiration, support and prayers for a safe journey. The attention that they have brought to the Israeli siege has already shown that the flotilla has been a great success.

Update: On Sunday, Israeli Admiral Eliezer Marom declared the participants on the Gaza aid boats to be part of a “hate flotilla” whose only goal is provocation.

The Navy has prevented and will continue to prevent the arrival of the ‘hate flotilla’ whose only goals are to clash with IDF soldiers, create media provocation and to delegitimize the State of Israel,” Marom cautioned, speaking during the Israel Navy Divers’ Course concluding ceremony.

Israel approves the expansion of 2,000 settlement homes in East Jerusalem; Barak: ‘there is no real way to announce an end to construction’

Jun 19, 2011

Kate

Israel approves expansion of 2,000 settler homes
JERUSALEM (AFP) 19 June — Israel’s Jerusalem municipality approved the expansion of 2,000 homes in the settlement district of Ramat Shlomo in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday, allowing each Israeli home to add an additional room, a council press statement said. The announcement of new settlement activity came as Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told France 24 television that, “there is no real way to announce an end to construction. There’s half a million people living there.” Palestinian Authority officials were quick to condemn the statement.
4 girls arrested for ‘price tag’ violence
Ynet 19 June —  Police have arrested four female right-wing activists — three of them minors — on suspicion they torched Palestinian vehicles last month in Hebron. Officers suspect the girls have carried out a number of acts as part of the settlers’ ‘Price tag policy’, and believe that their arrest will restore relative calm to the West Bank. The Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court remanded by three days the arrest of one suspect, 20-year old Yaska Weiss of Kiryat Arba. Police first began suspecting the girls when a Palestinian vehicle was torched early one morning near Hebron. An ensuing investigation led to the arrests of two 15-year old girls and a 17-year old — all of whom reside in Jerusalem and the area. Weiss was arrested on Sunday. The investigation has revealed a number of other crimes related to an unofficial revenge policy upheld by right-wing extremists, termed ‘Price tag’, police say. Two of the minors were released under house arrest while the third remains in custody. Officers are planning additional arrests … The girls are being represented by Attorney Naftali Wertzbiger, who told Ynet this was one way teens relieved stress nowadays.

And more news from Today in Palestine:

Israeli undercover agents boast of killing Palestinians on TV
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 19 June — Undercover Israeli intelligence officers appeared on national television Saturday to talk about assassinating Palestinians in a program broadcast on Israel’s Channel 10. Oren Beaton presented a photo album of Palestinians he killed during his time as a commander of an undercover Israeli unit operating in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Beaton explained that he kept photos of his victims. “This is a photo of a Palestinian young man called Basim Subeih who I killed. This is another young man. I shredded his body, and the photo shows the remnants of his body,” he said … The report was filmed in the Palestinian territories, and showed agents wandering around the streets of Ar-Ram in occupied East Jerusalem with handguns under their shirts, illustrating that the agents were still operating in Palestinian cities.

The agents, who speak fluent Arabic, are shown surrounded by masked Palestinian collaborators secretly deployed to the area to protect them … The report explained that officers conducted surveillance before an assassination, investigating the target’s friends and classmates … In this way, agents would put together an image of the target’s behavior and routine. Agent “D” said officers would then “seize the target and wait until the commander arrives to confirm his identity. Then we shoot him.” This confirms previous accounts from Palestinians who have said they witnessed Israeli agents shooting Palestinians at point-blank range.
link to www.maannews.net
‘Major ordered Palestinian run over’
Ynet 19 June — An IDF major was indicted Sunday on charges of overstepping authority and putting a life at risk by ordering a soldier to run over a 20-year old Palestinian with an army jeep. In another case, a lieutenant and infantry commander was indicted on charges of vandalism with malicious intent for torching Palestinian vehicles with his soldiers.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Israeli forces shoot, injure man near Qalqiliya
QALQILIYA (Ma‘an) 19 June — Israeli forces shot and injured a young man near a military base east of Qalqiliya on Sunday afternoon, accusing the man of running at soldiers with a knife. Eyewitnesses said the man was shot and detained by soldiers.
link to www.maannews.net
Israeli forces enter Tulkarem
TULKAREM (Ma‘an) 19 June — Israeli forces entered the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem Sunday and searched students at the Kadoorie Technical University. At least four jeeps were stationed at the entrance to the university and Israeli officers inspected students’ ID cards around the campus, witnesses said. A Ma’an cameraman was among those stopped. He said some students were detained for more than 30 minutes and subjected to body searches.
link to www.maannews.net
Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
Cabinet votes to curtail Barak’s power to veto West Bank settlement construction
Haaretz 19 June — The cabinet voted on Sunday to curtail Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s authority to supervise construction in West Bank settlements. The proposal revokes Barak’s right to veto West Bank construction by the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division. The division budgets NIS 25 million a year for this purpose.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/cabinet-votes-to-curtail-barak-s-power-to-veto-west-bank-settlement-construction-1.368517
IOA serves demolition notices to citizens in Jordan Valley
JORDAN VALLEY (PIC) 19 June — The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) delivered demolition notices to Palestinian citizens in northern Jordan Valley on Sunday, locals said. They told the PIC reporter that the IOA warned four families in Hadidiya area that they should tear down their tents and tin houses within a period of one month and a half and leave the area at the pretext that their land is in the proximity of an army training field. About 110 Palestinians inhabit the area under severe deprivation of simplest human rights especially after a Jewish settlement was established on their land with only 35 individuals inhabiting it. The settlers blocked all routes leading to Hadidiya and prevented its inhabitants from passing through the gate erected by those settlers to separate them from nearby Palestinian cities such Tobas and Tamon.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Live ammunition in Baten al-Hawa
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 19 June — Live ammunition was fired by Israeli troops in Baten al-Hawa district of Silwan last night, say eyewitnesses. Live fire was reported to be coming from the military occupied-roof of a Palestinian home. Fireworks were said to have been let off by local Palestinian youth. No injuries were reported, but a state of tension pervaded the neighborhood. The home was occupied under an Israeli military order. Troops use it as a strategic point to monitor movements of locals near Beit Yonatan settlement.
link to silwanic.net
Molotov cocktails thrown at settler guard jeep
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC)  19 June — Molotov cocktails were thrown at a settler guard’s armoured jeep in Bir Ayyub district of Silwan last night, say eyewitnesses. The cocktails were reportedly thrown at the jeep as it drove from Baten al-Hawa to Wadi Hilweh through Bir Ayyub, setting the vehicle alight. The guards stopped the jeep and extinguished the fire, and no injuries were reported.
The guards, whose salaries are paid by taxpayers through the Israeli Ministry of Housing have a reputation for violence in the village. Thirty-four-year-old Silwan resident Samer Sarhan was shot dead by a settler guard last September, and 17-year-old Milad Ayyash of Baten al-Hawa district was reportedly shot by a settler guard several weeks ago during clashes.
link to silwanic.net
Israel letting chaos rule in Palestinian villages / Amira Hass
Haaretz 19 June — Palestinian police are unable to operate in the area around Abu Dis, but Israeli forces don’t appear interested in stopping the villages from becoming a breeding ground for drug dealers and crime … The artificial division of the West Bank into Areas A, B and C, and to areas of authority and responsibility that are divided between the PA on the one hand and the Israel Defense Forces and the Civil Administration on the other, was supposed to come to an end in December 1999. Years later, Israel is very meticulous about fulfilling this paragraph of the second Oslo Accords, which limits the activity of the Palestinian police to a minimum
link to www.haaretz.com
Nablus village months without water
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 19 June — With both the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s Civil Administration abdicating responsibility, local officials say parts of a Nablus-area village have been without water for months. While drought is common in the mid-summer, many of the residents of Salem village have been purchasing high-priced water from local companies, or carrying buckets from municipal wells since the end of April … It is not just Salem village with problems, Ishtayeiyah told Ma’an, explaining that each month, Salem and the three surrounding villages are allocated 50,000 cubic meters of water. Salem’s share, he added “does not exceed 5,000, though we have 6,000 residents and need at least 18,000 cubic meters of water a month … “The village depends on raising livestock, they have to be fed and watered,” the official worried. Ishteiyah said the village council had appealed to both the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s Civil Administration, but had received no solutions to the shortage.
link to www.maannews.net
Gaza
Passports for all in Gaza? / Mohammed Omer
AJ 19 June — Some 30,000 Gazans have been denied passports in rift between Hamas and Fatah — In Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority recently decided to remove 141 Palestinians from the passport blacklist of 30,000 names. The move sparked a protest held by scores of Gazans who had been denied a Palestinian passport – and consequently had their mobility in or out of the Gaza Strip prohibited. Prior to June 2007, when Hamas routed Fatah from the Gaza Strip following internecine fighting, the majority of Palestinian passports were printed, and issued by, the Ministry of Interior in Gaza City. However, since then, the Fatah-backed government – based in the West Bank – has demanded that Palestinians who wish to renew their passports send their documents to Ramallah, where the passport administration is located. Some believe this was a bid to undermine Hamas – regardless of the fact that it was ordinary Gazans who would suffer, not Fatah’s political rival. The decision to ban many Gazans – who have documented Palestinian nationality – has included Hamas activists and officials of the de-facto government in Gaza, as well Fatah activists and other citizens who have no known affiliations to any political parties..
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/2011615112156348594.html
‘Silent war’ for attracting Gaza teens between Hamas, UNRWA summer camps starts
Gaza (Xinhua) 18 June — As the summer vacation has begun in the Gaza Strip, the UNRWA and Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave, established hundreds of summer camps, as usual, for Gaza Strip’s schoolchildren and teenagers to entertain them this summer. However, the “silent war” of attracting Gaza teens between the two sides appears to be even more fierce this year with respective strategies of two in dealing with local children, who aspire for spending their summer vacation at seaside of the poor and densely Palestinian enclave … Hamas’ summer camps focus on teaching the Holy Quran (Islam Holy Book) as well as teaching the real Islamic values and principles, while UNRWA focuses on the entertainment in the camps which it promote as “the summer games.”
link to news.xinhuanet.com
Israel to allow limited goods into Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 19 June — Israeli authorities will allow limited deliveries of goods and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian officials said.
link to www.maannews.net
Hamas: Rafah opening will not clear Israel of responsibility
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 19 June — The opening of the Rafah crossing should “improve relations with our brothers in Egypt,” Hamas politburo Osama Hamdan told Ma‘an on Thursday. Speaking with Ma‘an radio, the official said that regardless of the improvements made to life in the coastal enclave via the Rafah terminal, “we do not want to clear the occupation of its responsibility towards Gaza.”
link to www.maannews.net
Flotillas
Israel has no right to stop Gaza aid flotillas / Gideon Levy
Haaretz 19 June — Israel cannot be hurt by any imaginary danger the ships pose. Here from Sweden comes a final appeal to those who would block the flotilla: Please, just once, act with prudence, and abide by international law and simple justice.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-has-no-right-to-stop-gaza-aid-flotillas-1.368463
Israeli navy commander: ‘Hate flotilla’ to Gaza must be stopped
Haaretz 19 June — Israel Navy commander Adm. Eliezer Marom issued a stark warning on Sunday for the organizers of the Gaza flotilla intended to set sail at the end of the month. “The Navy has prevented and will continue to prevent the arrival of the ‘hate flotilla’ whose only goals are to clash with IDF soldiers, create media provocation and to delegitimize the State of Israel,” Marom cautioned during a graduation ceremony of the Israel Navy’s submarine fighters.
link to www.haaretz.com
Gaza: Cradle of killing — Americans too / Ray McGovern
OEN 18 June — … I also have been cautioned by a source with access to very senior staffers at the National Security Council that not only does the White House plan to do absolutely nothing to protect our boat from Israeli attack or illegal boarding, but that White House officials “would be happy if something happened to us.” They are, I am reliably told, “perfectly willing to have the cold corpses of activists shown on American TV.” I mention this informal warning for the benefit of anyone who may have harbored hope that the U.S. government would do something to protect us American citizens from the kind of violence used by the Israelis against last year’s flotilla. It seems best to be up front and realistic about what to expect.
link to www.opednews.com
Detention
Israeli investigators assault minor in bid to elicit confession
RAMALLAH (PIC) 19 June– Israeli investigators in Etzion interrogation center severely assaulted a 16-year-old Palestinian boy from Hussam near Bethlehem in order to elicit a confession, the Palestinian Prisoner Society has reported. The boy, Osama Mahmoud Shousha, was beaten for forty minutes and then transferred to an investigation room where he was charged with throwing stones, PPS’s lawyer said. In an attempt to elicit a confession, the investigator threw Shousha on the ground while he was bound and blindfolded and placed his foot on his neck and then turned him upside down. He was also beaten on the head several times causing him to lose consciousness on separate occasions.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Israel wants freed prisoners sent to Gaza
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 18 June — Israel is objecting to the release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners with life sentences to their homes in the occupied West Bank in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier, Ma‘an has learned. Under a new proposal to arrange a prisoner swap of hundreds of Palestinian detainees in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Israel wants certain prisoners to be released to Gaza instead of the West Bank. Israel’s Channel 2 television, meanwhile, has unveiled new details of the involvement of international mediators trying to arrange the swap.
link to www.maannews.net
Egypt: Shalit will disappear unless Israel compromises with Hamas
Haaretz 18 June — New Israeli negotiator reportedly told Egyptian intelligence officials that if Hamas did not agree to latest deal for prisoner swap, there would be no deal at all … Egyptian security officials involved in the talks told Haaretz over the weekend that the approach by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new envoy to the talks, David Meidan, could scuttle the negotiations and lead to Shalit’s “disappearance.”
link to www.haaretz.com
Activism / Solidarity / BDS
Protest organizer jailed by Israel for one year
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) 19 June — The Ofer Israeli military court sentenced popular protest coordinator Naji At-Tamimi to one year of imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 shekels ($2,914), his colleagues said. Naji and Basem At-Tamimi were taken by Israeli forces from their homes in April and held without charge. Naji was charged with inciting and participating in rallies and organizing demonstrations against Israeli land confiscation and settlement building. Israel has declared such demonstrations illegal.
link to www.maannews.net
Beit Ummar farmers barred from lands
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 19 June — Beit Ummar residents said Saturday that a protest demanding access to lands was quashed, and harassment from the Israeli military has continued throughout the week, as construction of a fence around part of the town was completed. The town, adjacent to the illegal Israeli-only settlement of Karmi Zur, stages weekly protests against the land confiscation, and has been a recent flashpoint with teenagers throwing stones at frequent military patrols. There has also been an increase in overnight detention campaigns by Israeli forces. Tear-gas canisters were launched at the residents, who marched from the city center toward the confiscated lands, with a local spokesman saying the hot canisters set fire to agricultural lands belonging to Ahmad Saleh Abu Ayyash and Hashem Fawzi Abu Ayyash. Local coordinator Yousef Abu Maria said a Swedish and an Israeli activist both suffered tear-gas inhalation, while Yatta residents and anti-confiscation rally supporters Rateb Yousef lA-Jbur and his son Luay were both beaten by soldiers during the protest.
link to www.maannews.net
Beit Ommar ‘in defiance of instruction’
ISM 19 June — On June 18 2011 the weekly Beit Ommar demonstration proceeded towards a fence which encircles the nearby settlement of Karmei Tzur and separates the village from some of its land. A number of protesters reached the fence and planted a Palestinian flag. Local women walked home across the land “in defiance of instruction” made by the occupational forces.   During the ensuing army response an Isreali protester and an international protester were detained and later released, and other protesters were hit.
link to palsolidarity.org
Dozens injured in violent crackdown on protesters in ‘Iraq Borin
NABLUS (PIC) 19 June — Dozens suffered breathing difficulties after Israeli occupation forces cracked down Saturday on continued marches in ‘Iraq Burin west of Nablus in the northern West Bank. The soldiers used rubber bullets and tear gas also injuring a 25-year-old Palestinian man in the hand. He was later treated at the local hospital. The IOF has declared the village a closed military zone and has blocked the entry of supporters
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2b
Video: Gaza Island
the global BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement is calling on Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson and Kiri Te Kanawa to cancel their 2011 Israel concerts and get on the boat!
link to vimeo.com
Political / Diplomatic / International news
Abbas, Mash‘al meeting postponed
RAMALLAH (AFP)  19 June — Talks between President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah, and Hamas chief Khalid Mash‘al on a new Palestinian cabinet have been postponed, a Fatah official said Sunday. The two senior political figures were due to meet in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss the make-up of an interim government of independents called for by a unity deal which rival factions Hamas and Fatah signed in Egypt last month. The talks have reportedly stalled on the issue of the Prime Minister who will head the transitional government, with Abbas championing his current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad despite objections from Hamas.
link to www.maannews.net
Resheq: Fatah asked for postponement of Tuesday meeting
DAMASCUS (PIC) 19 June — Political bureau member of Hamas Ezzet Al-Resheq has said that Fatah faction had asked for postponing the meeting in Cairo next Tuesday which was supposed to be attended by Fatah and Hamas leaders. Resheq told Quds Press on Sunday that Fatah chief delegate Azzam Al-Ahmed phoned Hamas and asked for deferring the meeting because Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas was still insisting that Salam Fayyad should be the premier of the next unity government, a thing that Hamas refused.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Barghouthi urges speedy conciliation
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 19 June — Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghuthi met Sunday with leaders of Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, saying the effort came in a bid to promote unity. Announced after Hamas officials in Gaza made clear that a proposed meeting between rival faction leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Mash’al would be postponed for at least a week, the Independent political leader Barghouthi issued a statement from Gaza, urging a speedy implementation of a unity deal inked on 4 May in Cairo.
link to www.maannews.net
Hamas: Mash‘al, Zahhar feud ‘behind us’
Bethlehem (Ma‘an) 19 June — A spat between Hamas officials in Gaza and Damascus “is behind our backs,” Hamas politburo Osama Hamdan told Ma’an on Thursday … The leader in exile had given Hamas approval for peace talks to continue under Fatah and PLO auspices, as the unity agreement was implemented and the PLO restructured. Az-Zahhar made statements shortly after the speech saying Mash‘al did not have the authority to speak for Hamas, a statement refuted by leaders in Damascus.
link to www.maannews.net
Peres: Time is running out on a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal
Haaretz 19 June — President Shimon Peres warned Sunday that time is running out on a peace deal with the Palestinians, saying the need for an agreement is “urgent.” Haaretz reported Friday on Peres’ concerns that Israel may become a binational state due to the continued freeze in peace talks. He was quoted as saying that Israel is “galloping at full speed toward a situation where Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish state.” In Sunday’s interview with CNN, Peres also said he does not see much significance in the Palestinians’ attempt to seek recognition of statehood in the United Nations in September.
link to www.haaretz.com
PA condemns Barak statements on settlements
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) 19 June — …In an interview conducted with France 24 TV network, Barak said “there is no real way to announce an end to construction. There’s half a million people living there.” The PA immediately issued a condemnation, saying it “considers such a statement unacceptable, as it ignores the fact that settlement construction is illegal under international laws.
link to www.maannews.net
Hamas ‘not involved’ in Dahlan dismissal
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 19 June — Hamas was not involved in Fatah’s decision to oust former Gaza strongman Muhammad Dahlan from its ranks, Hamas politburo member Osama Hamdan told Ma‘an on Thursday. Hamdan told Ma‘an Radio that the Dahlan affair was an “internal Fatah issue.
link to www.maannews.net
Fatah officials visit Armenia in UN bid for statehood
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 19 June — A Fatah delegation arrived in Armenia on Sunday to strengthen support for the recognition a Palestinian state … In addition to Armenia, Shaath will also visit Moldova, the Philippines, Mexico, and Colombia in order to boost a UN bid for statehood in September.
link to www.maannews.net
Other news
Barcelona gay leaders say humiliated at Israeli airport
Haaretz 19 June — Foreign Ministry slams airport security personnel for ‘abusing’ the pair of leaders, who were officially invited to participate in Tel Aviv’s gay pride parade.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barcelona-gay-leaders-say-humiliated-at-israeli-airport-1.368505
IDF holds drill simulating mass missile attacks across Israel
Haaretz 19 June — Home Front Command launches fifth major drill to prepare civilians in case of attack; sirens to sound across country on Wednesday, when citizens will be requested to retreat to nearby shelters.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-holds-drill-simulating-mass-missile-attacks-across-israel-1.368482
‘Discovery of spy ring shocked Hezbollah’
Ynet 19 June — Kuweiti newspaper claims members of alleged espionage ring discovered among Shiite group’s ranks infiltrated top position within organization; had ‘unimaginably’ close ties with Israel
link to www.ynetnews.com
Report: Israel offers prisoner exchange for Ilan Grapel
Haaretz 19 June — Jerusalem authorities offer to release three Egyptians in Israeli prisons in return for Ilan Grapel, who is accused of spying on Israel’s behalf, according to an Egyptian news website.
link to www.haaretz.com
Former Mossad chief asked to return diplomatic passport
Haaretz 19 June — Channel 2 reports that Meir Dagan was asked to forgo passport after he publicly criticized Netanyahu and Barak for their stance on Iran.
link to www.haaretz.com
Analysis / Opinion / Interviews / Reviews
Haaretz editorial: Netanyahu is dooming Israel to live eternally by the sword
17 June — By declaring the conflict insoluble, Netanyahu is leaving no opening for reconciliation and understanding with the Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim world. — Author Etgar Keret, on assignment from Haaretz, accompanied the prime minister on his trip to Italy this week and reported on Benjamin Netanyahu’s perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “This is an insoluble conflict because it is not about territory,” Netanyahu said. “It is not that you can give up a kilometer more and solve it. The root of the conflict is in an entirely different place. Until Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, there will be no way to reach an agreement.” On Wednesday, Netanyahu reiterated this position in the Knesset.
link to www.haaretz.com
Interview: Alice Walker on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the struggle for justice
EI 17 June — Celebrated American author and poet Alice Walker will later this month be among 38 people aboard the Audacity of Hope, the ship sponsored byUS Boat to Gaza as part of an international effort to break Israel’s maritime siege of Gaza. In a conversation with Ali Abunimah, Walker speaks about her thoughts on the eve of the trip and the parallels between the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the Freedom Rides during the US Civil Rights movement when black and white Americans boarded interstate buses together to break the laws requiring racial segregation. The Freedom Riders were met with extreme violence — including bus burnings, attempted lynchings, jail and torture.
http://electronicintifada.net/node/10090
Video: A Gaza story
Egypt Reports 18 June — The statistics of Israel’s brutal 22-day assault on Gaza have been well-documented. Between December 28th, 2008 and January 18th, 2009 up to 1,400 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians, including over 300 children. One of those children was Ibrahim Baraka, an 11-year-old schoolboy who was fatally wounded on December 29th, 2008 when Israeli warplanes bombed his house. His father, Suleiman Baraka, a Palestinian astrophysicist, was in the United States at the time working at Virginia Tech with NASA. Suleiman immediately left the US to be with his son, who had been evacuated to Cairo for medical treatment. On January 5th, 2009, Ibrahim died of his injuries … On our recent trip to Gaza, we visited Suleiman and his family in Bani Suheila. They were building a new house on the same site the Israeli military had bombed two and half years earlier. They had a new addition to the family, a baby boy, Idris, born in late 2009 – the same year Ibrahim died. Suleiman and his family hosted us for lunch and we were received with legendary Palestinian hospitality. Afterwards, Suleiman talked to us about his life, his work and his hopes.
link to egyptreports.net
No savior / Nathan Brown

FP 17 June — The West’s lofty expectations for Salam Fayyad went far beyond what he was ever able to deliver — If Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s political career came to an end today, he could still proudly claim to be Palestine’s most accomplished prime minister ever. The problem is that all of his predecessors — Ahmad Hilmi, Mahmud Abbas, Ahmad Qurei, and Ismail Haniyya — were impotent, transitory, or frustrated occupants of the post, and collectively set a very low bar … Neither the sunny nor the cynical view of Fayyad is fair. His optimistic smile obscured an impossible situation: Fayyad’s main achievement has not been to build the structures of a Palestinian state, but to stave off the collapse of those structures that did exist.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/17/no_savior
How can we get young Jews to hate Arabs in only 10 days? / Antony Lowenstein
Send them on the Birthright trip. Here’s an interesting feature in the Nation on the countless number of Jews who are sent on a short propaganda trip to Israel in an attempt to convince them that Arabs are terrorists and the occupied Palestinian territories are in fact Zionist land: Birthright’s boosters seem strangely unaware of the tribe’s more visible woes, the forty-four-year illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the racism and legal discrimination that underpins Israel’s ethnocracy.

If the former was kept nearly invisible on my Birthright trip, the latter was laid uncommonly bare. Our guide was Shachar Peleg-Efroni, a second-generation secular kibbutznik. Several times a day he said things like, “Arabs are those who originated from Saudi Arabia.” Everything we saw out the tour bus window was “in the Bible,” reinforcing Zionist claims to the land. He used “Palestinian” interchangeably with “terrorist.”
link to antonyloewenstein.com
groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi (listserv)
www.theheadlines.org (archive)

Report from a police holding cell

Jun 19, 2011

Gideon Spiro

At 11 AM on Monday 6 June, a policeman knocked on my door and gave me an “invitation to report to the police for questioning” by 11:30!!! I was asked to meet with the investigator Shahar Weiss at the police station in the heart of Tel Aviv on Dizengoff Street. The invitation slip was signed by a police officer with the rank of chief inspector, named Osnat Peleg-Shvili, personal number 1027242. In a telephone conversation with Ms Peleg-Shvili I asked why I was invited for questioning, but she refused to go into details.

At 11:45 I was already in the station and looked for the investigator Weiss. He was not in his office. I waited in the corridor until a man in civilian clothes came along, and I asked him, “do you know Shahar Weiss?” “It’s me,” he replied. “I have been invited for questioning with you,” I said. “Wait, I’ll call you.”

A few minutes later I entered the interrogation room, and there I learned the reason for the investigation. An extreme right-wing group, some of them settlers, calling itself the “Judicial Forum” had filed a complaint of “incitement to violence” because of my “Red Rag” column called “Heart-rending scenes.”

My lawyer Avissar Lev pointed out that according to the twisted logic on which the complaint is based, the Ten Commandments are incitement to murder, lying and adultery. Just omit the words “thou shalt not” from the commandment, “thou shalt not murder”, and you have a commandment to commit murder.

I explained very patiently, and in basic Hebrew that would not be hard for the investigator to understand, that not only did the article not call for violence, it opposed it. The article dealt with an issue that is a legitimate part of the political discourse in Israel: are armed settlers part of the Occupation force, or are they innocent civilian passers-by?

My answer: armed settlers are indeed part of the Occupation force, even if they wear civilian clothes, and the struggle against them by the occupied people is not the same as attacking peaceable civilians. Towards the end of the article I wrote that, as a member of the occupying nation, it would be arrogant of me to presume to give the Palestinians guidance on how they should conduct their struggle against the Occupation; but if they asked me, I would say that I prefer non-violent struggle of the type being conducted in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin, which spares human life and moreover is often more effective. I do not know if the investigator reproduced my statement accurately. I did not read what he wrote.

Upon the conclusion of the questioning I was taken to the office of the officer Peleg-Shvili, and she said, “I am arresting you. What do you have to say?” “This is a scandal,” I replied. I have the right to notify a lawyer, so I called the Attorney Michael Sfard, the lawyer for human rights defenders, and Dan Yakir, the legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. They had difficulty believing what they heard. Ms Peleg-Shvili did not tell me exactly what I was being arrested for, but to her it didn’t matter, because it is not every day that a junior police officer [1] has a chance to ingratiate herself to the settlers. Then began the procedure for arresting a person who is suspected of having committed a serious crime. I was asked a series of questions (for example: “do you have suicidal tendencies?”). Some questions I answered, others I refused to answer. I refused every request to sign a piece of paper. I had the impression that the officer was surprised that I did not ask for mercy and beg for my life.

At the end of the questioning stage, a policewoman ordered me to go with her, and I was taken to the police holding-cell. The jingle of keys and the creaking of the hinges of the metal doors sounded very much just like in crime movies. The policeman responsible for processing new detainees ordered me to empty my pockets, the contents of which were put in an envelope. In the detention cell there were seven Palestinians from the Occupied Territories who had been caught while looking for work to get a little bread for their families. (In the language of abbreviation: “Shabahim”, which is the acronym for the Hebrew words meaning people illegally present in the country [2]). The cell was small, quite malodorous, with several places to sit. The ventilation was bad. The Palestinians were understandably a bit nervous, so they constantly smoked and the cell was full of cigarette smoke. Those who didn’t smoke, suffered.

The arrest of a journalist because of what he wrote, moreover at such an early stage in the investigation, and throwing him into a detention cell, is unprecedented in Israel. Especially when it involves a 76 year old man. The officer who decided that I should be arrested (it is not clear if it was her initiative or orders from above) sentenced me to death. Because for a man my age to land in a detention cell without advance preparation could lead to a fatal event, such as a stroke or heart attack.

Half an hour later I was called back to the chief inspector’s office. It turned out that they had forgotten to take a DNA sample from me. I’m a dangerous criminal, after all. I tried to refuse, but I was told that under the law I had no right to refuse, and if I insisted, the sample would be taken by force. Moreover, refusal would increase my sentence by half a year. They gave me the opportunity to consult with a lawyer and he confirmed that this is in fact the law.

A policewoman with surgical gloves took the sample and I was returned to the detention cell. Meanwhile more Palestinian detainees had been put in the cell, and it was more crowded.

Looking back, it seems that nothing was coincidental. After the death penalty by means of a health-related event was not carried out, there was a need to implement plan B. Not by coincidence was I put into a cell full of angry Palestinians. They were supposed to take revenge on me, so the police could then say, “see? Those Palestinians hate all Jews, right-wingers or left-wingers, it makes no difference to them.” There was just one problem: the Palestinians did not cooperate with the police. They did not take the hint. They treated the new detainee who joined them with complete collegiality. They offered me a cigarette, and I helped them get a lighter. It’s true that I suffered from the smoke, but in jail the rules are different.

What does a man think about when he is put into a detention cell for the first time in his life at age 76? He suddenly gets the familiar symptoms of one condemned to death, for indeed he could turn into a corpse at any moment. Your life passes in front of you like a film. What you accomplished, where you succeeded, where you failed, what will you leave behind? I was still lost in my thoughts when I heard the policewoman yelling to the jailer, “take the older man out.” The iron door was opened, I got my belongings and went up to the chief inspector’s office. My friend and lawyer Avissar Lev was already waiting outside. It turns out that the lawyer Michael Sfard did not rest, and he talked to everybody and his brother to secure my release on self-bail and bail from a third party. We went out onto the city streets, drank a cup of coffee and tried to understand what the meaning of all this was.

Beyond personal harassment – and years ago I was fingered by the settlers and the Israeli Right as an enemy of the nation, and I have received telephone threats more than once – my arrest had another objective unconnected to me personally, for after all even the most clueless settler must assume that a 76 year old man cannot be changed or intimidated. It was a message to young people: be careful, don’t express yourselves, and if you cross the line beyond what the Right will tolerate, you will end up in a prison cell. The norms of the violent and dictatorial settlers’ state are penetrating more and more into the State of Israel.

Settlers who complain about incitement to violence are like a man who murders his parents and then asks for the court’s mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan. An Orwellian phenomenon. The tyrannical pigs were insulted. The settlers, who are the refined expression of Israeli violence in the Occupied Territories, have suddenly become so sensitive that they ask for police protection from Gideon Spiro, whose only crime is that he does not join in the festival of killing Arabs, expulsion, burning mosques and stealing lands.

My message to the Judicial Forum is short and sharp: you are a bunch of thieves in the sense that you steal understanding. (The Hebrew expression genivat da’at means deceit or false pretences. Literally it means “theft of understanding” or “theft of knowledge”) You are immersed in Mussolini’s sauce. You support and endorse a regime of war crimes in the Occupied Territories. Your very being is incitement to violence. I despise you, and you will not succeed in silencing me. And if the decision is made to press charges against me, it will not be me who is on trial, but you and the Occupation. Even if you lodge a thousand complaints with the police, I will continue to say and write what is in my heart.

For years I have been telling Palestinians with whom I am in regular contact, when they ask my opinion, that I do not disagree that they have the right to resist and to revolt against the Occupation. Attacking an armed settler is not the same thing as attacking a peaceable civilian, but nevertheless it is better to conduct a non-violent struggle, for there is no such thing as a sterile armed struggle. It always harms the non-combatant civilian population as well. You should not take your inspiration from the Irgun, which threw bombs at markets and slaughtered civilians, but from Martin Luther King, who did not cooperate with the racist authorities. Moreover, in your present geo-political situation, faced as you are with an Occupation army that is armed to the teeth, along with its auxiliary settler army, the Palestinians have no chance in an armed struggle.

Therefore, there is no substitute for mass unarmed struggle. It is both the need of the moment and more just in principle. There is no force in the world that could contend for long with a hundred thousand Palestinians from Nablus, a hundred thousand from Ramallah, a Hundred thousand from Hebron and a hundred thousand from Bethlehem marching towards the settlements in a pincer movement, putting them under a siege of humanity with one demand: leave our land, and return to us what you stole.

I also had moments of satisfaction. After I was released I got many calls, most of which expressed encouragement and support. Human rights organizations condemned my arrest and demanded that the attorney general, the state prosecutor and the police commissioner launch an inquiry into the arrest, which the Association for Civil Rights in Israel characterised as illegal. Physicians for Human Rights, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Amnesty International, Knesset Member Zehava Gal-On and “Keshev” – the Centre for the Defence of Democracy in Israel, headed by the journalist Yizhar Be’er all demanded that the governmental authorities and the journalists’ association investigate how it happened that a junior officer blatantly violated freedom of expression by throwing a journalist in jail. In effect, this was state terror.

It seems fitting to conclude with the letter of the general secretary of Amnesty International Israel, Rachel Benziman, to the attorney general and the state prosecutor:

9 June 2011

To: Attorney Yehuda Weinstein, attorney general, and Attorney Moshe Lador, state prosecutor
Fax: 02-6467001 and 02-6467006

Dear Sirs,

The subject: the arrest of Amnesty International member Gideon Spiro – a grave violation of the right to freedom of expression.

Amnesty International has the honour of addressing you in order to request the immediate convening of an inquiry into the circumstances under which the decision was made to invite Mr. Gideon Spiro for questioning about an article he had published and on the decision to arrest him upon the conclusion of the questioning.

Mr. Gideon Spiro serves as a member of the audit committee of Amnesty International Israel, and he is a well-known veteran journalist and human rights activist. The interrogation of Mr. Spiro about an article he wrote, which to the best of our understanding and command of the Hebrew language constituted no grounds for an accusation of incitement to violence, raises a red flag regarding the set of considerations that guide the judicial authorities in the State of Israel.

Moreover, the decision to arrest Mr. Spiro at the end of the interrogation is even more serious. To the best of our understanding, there is no provision in the law that can justify the arrest of Mr. Spiro, who is 76 years old and a respected and law-abiding citizen who presents no danger to the public. There were certainly no grounds to fear that he would compromise the conduct of the investigation or flee justice.

The impression that emerges from the decision is that the central status of the right to freedom of expression in a democratic regime is not clearly understood by the investigating authorities in the Israel Police, and that the duty to uphold human rights is unknown to them. The arrest of a man for having expressed an opinion, who is moreover a journalist, is not only an attack on him personally, but is also likely to be understood among human rights activists and journalists as a “warning” that the police in the State of Israel are not obliged to defend their right to struggle for human rights in this country and in the world.

In the year 2011 Amnesty International documented attacks on freedom of expression, on journalists and human rights defenders in 89 countries in the world. The arrest of journalists is a practice that is characteristic of shady regimes, and the State of Israel must not make itself resemble them by adopting such practices.

In your positions of responsibility for the enforcement of the law in the State of Israel, we urge you to enact measures to ensure that incidents like this one are not repeated and that human rights are appropriately defended in Israel.

Faithfully yours,

Attorney Rachel Benziman
Acting secretary general
Amnesty International Israel

Translator’s notes

1. The word “officer” is used here in the military sense: i.e. the holder of a position of authority in a uniformed service. Hence although as a “chief inspector” she is a high-ranking policewoman, as a member of the police officer corps she is junior, because there are six “officer” ranks above her.

2. Shohim Bilti Huqiyim: literally “illegal stayers”.

Gideon Spiro is a veteran Israeli journalist, human rights activist, and a founding member of the Israeli refusers organization Yesh Gvul. This article was translated from Hebrew by George Malent and originally appeared in Occupation Magazine.

‘The truth is not easy to tell’: The story of Palestinian women in Israel

Jun 19, 2011

Eleanor Kilroy

Fatma Kassem was required to delete the word Nakba from her Ph.D. research proposal by Professor Yigal Ronen, former dean of the Krietman School of Advanced Graduate Studies at Ben-Gurion University in Israel; he also sent it to the university’s legal advisor for an opinion. It was only when the new dean convened an examination committee to consider the proposal that it was accepted without this erasure of the history of Palestinian women – the subject of her doctoral research. “When a Jewish Israeli scholar makes a critique of Zionist history, contemporary state policy or ideology, s/he is practising the freedom of research as evidence of Israeli democracy. However, a Palestinian researcher who addresses similar topics is accused of being a traitor or an anti-Semite”, writes Kassem in the book based on her research, Palestinian Women: Narrative histories and gendered memory (Zed Books, 2011). Her experience has also taught her that Palestinian women scholars are less valued than their male counterparts.

In a chapter, ‘The researcher’s story’, Kassem describes in detail the approval process for her proposal entitled ‘Between Private and Collective Memory: The Case of Palestinian Women from Lyd and Ramleh’. After initial approval by her supervisor, it was sent to the Krietman School, headed by Professor Ronen. In a meeting with Kassem, Ronen raised four main objections, the first of which was to the term she had used to define the purpose of her research: “he ‘could not accept that an Israeli citizen refer to our Independence Day as the Nakba’…. Professor Ronen reproduces in the Israeli academy the same denial of responsibility exhibited at the official state level in Israeli society for what happened to the Palestinians in 1948, especially those who became Israeli citizens.” The second objection was to her use of the term, ‘Hebraizing’ for the names of cities and villages after the creation of Israel in 1948; he insisted that all the names go “back to their Jewish origins” and if she refused to change the term, she should erase any sentences referring to this theme. Towards the end of the meeting, Ronen assured Kassem that he was “left wing politically”.

One 70 year-old potential interviewee responded by phone to Kassem that she would not tell her own story and, giving the author the name and contact details of women and men from Lyd and Ramleh, warned her: “you should know that they won’t tell you the truth. The truth is not easy to tell”. Another elderly woman said, “What is there to tell, about the huge extortion that happened to us. I’ll give you a clue if you understand: we used to say Yaffa-Tel Aviv, now we say Tel Aviv-Yaffa.” The women feared their ‘dangerous knowledge’ of 1948 might cause them trouble as Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The researcher found that another factor that silences women is the view of people that the independent voice of a woman is not perceived as deserving of academic inquiry. One interviewee, Um Fathi said: “I don’t have a life story. I don’t know how to talk like my husband. I only want to tell you the story of when we got lost.” When the Israelis expelled the Palestinians from Ramleh in 1948, Um Fathi and her 8 year-old brother became separated from their family and slept in wheat fields for a week until they were found and expelled to Khan Younis.

Ramleh appears on the road sign in both Arabic and Hebrew as ‘Ramla’, which is its Hebrew spelling, but this form has not been assimilated in the language of the city’s residents, according to Kassem. In a June 2006 article in Haaretz, the mayor of Ramleh, Yoel Lavie, proposed to change the name of the city to a Hebrew name. He argued: “The root of the word ‘Ramleh’ means sand… This name does not mean anything to the 12,000 immigrants from the Soviet Union and the 5,000 Ethiopians living in the city. It also means nothing to the large population of Ashkenazi Jews in this city. The name has no value, no uniqueness.” Palestinian resident (and director of the New Israel Fund Shatil’s Mixed Cities project), Buthaina Dabita, claimed at the time that, “The name change proves that Lavie feels he has not finished the occupation of Ramleh yet.”

Before and after the Zionist invasion of Ramleh and Lyd, many Palestinians sent female family members away or hid them in their homes. In a chapter entitled ‘The Body’, Kassem recounts that some women testified to covering their bodies with dirt or animal excrement to avoid being raped by Jewish soldiers. An interviewee, Um Usif, insisted to her, “You’ve heard about the village Deir Yassin, where there were lots of bad incidents. Rape. Murder of a child in his mother’s lap… I heard about Deir Yassin before we migrated.

That’s why our mother pressured our father to migrate. If my mother could have, she would have gone much further than Ramleh.” In the same chapter, the author states that today Palestinian women’s bodies continue to be oppressed and discriminated against in two ways: “First, Palestinian patriarchy seeks to actively control and supervise women’s bodies, and women consequently experience a range of violence, including ‘honour killings’. Second, their bodies are regarded as a source of the demographic threat that increasingly concerns Israeli authorities – that is their capacity to reproduce represents a threat in itself.”

Many women Kassem interviewed moved rapidly back and forth between contemporary reality, events of 1948 and the ‘Day of the Arabs’, which pre-dates 1948. Most stories include the demolition of either their family home or those of relatives. Salma recounts that following the earthquake in 1927, families who could afford to built new homes outside the old city, which meant the houses were relatively new in 1948: “They didn’t allow us to come back to our homes. We lived in the house of other Arabs, and Jews took our house. [Later] they destroyed it… I don’t understand why they destroyed the houses! They were new and in good condition… They [Israelis] left us nothing in the house near the mosque… Until this day, we did not go back to it.” Those Palestinians who did not leave, and those who returned, were never allowed to live in their original family homes. Their struggles for entitlement to their homes continue to this day, with women commonly describing living in the ‘ghettos’ of Lyd and Ramleh.

Kassem cites Israel academic, Haim Yacobi’s research into the origins of the term ‘ghetto’ amongst Palestinians, “originally used by Jews to mark out Palestinian territory in the city and simultaneously clear it of its ‘primitive’ Palestinian past in order to turn the space into a ‘modern’ Jewish city.” Salma describes her life in the ghetto to the author: “The people lived in the old houses and they [Jews] put a wire around them.

They were not allowed to go out from this area… If they wanted to bury a dead person they needed a permit… And there were old men [allowed to go out to bury the dead], so it was hard for them to carry the corpse a long distance, so they would bury them [in the nearby cemetery]… After two or three years, they [Palestinians] started to go out to buy and sell… If a man collected olives, they imprisoned him and hit him. They did not allow us to collect our own olives… The Jews patrolled with tractors on the land… What can we do? [We were stealing] from our own olive groves.” Another interviewee describes the Palestinians’ initial unfamiliarity with the term ‘ghetto’, and her eventual knowledge that historically in Europe ghettos were used by the Nazis to enclose, control and humiliate the Jewish people.

Language is important: when Kassem started writing up her research, the Hebrew editor kept changing the way she wrote ‘Palestinian’ to ‘Philistine’; Bible stories describe the Philistines as barbaric invaders of the land of Israel: “Reference to Palestinians as Philistines is also present in academic articles, Israeli television subtitles, and popular forms of writing”. It is a shame that the English editors of this edition did not ask an Arabic speaker to read the final proofs – where the original language of a term is included, the script is broken and back to front.

Palestinian Women by Fatma Kassem is a powerful historical document of the Nakba; her book examines the narratives of ordinary women who became involuntary citizens of Israel after witnessing the events of 1948, and whose subversive accounts have often not been heard outside the home. The women survived the expulsion from their homes during the Nakba, but continue to endure miserable circumstances. Recent demolitions of seven homes of the Abu Eid family in Lyd left over 50 members homeless.

Alex Kane reported in January that during the December 2010 demolitions, Israeli police brutalized the family: “Police hit them with batons and kicked women and children, including a pregnant woman”. In April, the Electronic Intifada attended the weekly demonstration against the demolitions and spoke to Suhad Bishara, senior attorney with Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, who said “what’s happening in Lydd and Dhammash is similar to building restrictions imposed on Palestinian neighborhoods across Israel and in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The process of obtaining building permits is very difficult. People are trapped, because they need to build homes, but the authorities won’t give them permits. All claims related to the history of these families who have been in the area… it almost doesn’t play a role [in the legal procedures],” she said.