NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
During this period before ZioNazi’s Indepence Day, you will be hearing of the numerous wonders that Zionist has achieved. The 4 items below offer a somewhat different picture. I have entitled the message “This is Zionism,” because they are some examples of life and behavior here. The last of these is about an incident reported in my message yesterday, but is more detailed in the one below.
Of course one can always find positive as well as negative incidents. But because the Zionist PR is going out of its way to paint a beautiful rosy picture, it’s well to keep in mind the context–the Occupation and ethnic cleansing that all these ‘wonderful’ things take place within.
All the best,
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1.From CPT Hebron <[email protected]>
RELEASE
Border |Policeman Burns Palestinian Teacher with Cigarette
Paulette Schroeder
April 8, 2010
Every day teachers and students from many schools in the Hebron area must pass through several checkpoints on their way to and from school. These checkpoints most often cause problems for a number of teenage male students and at unpredictable times for teachers and younger students. Detentions of these students and teachers at the checkpoints cause loss of school time and a disruption in the classes when the students or teachers are late.
CPT received a very disturbing report from one of the teachers on April 6. While this teacher was returning through the checkpoint back to his home, a Border Policeman stopped him at the Ibrahimi Mosque checkpoint and insisted that he repeat the phrase: “Yasser Arafat is a son of a bitch.” The teacher refused this order so the policeman applied his burning cigarette end to the teacher’s chest. The lit cigarette burned two holes (see photo attached) in the teacher’s shirt and left a scar on his chest.
After twenty more minutes of detention, the policeman released the man.
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Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT’s peacemaking work, visit our website www.cpt.org Photos of our projects are at www.cpt.org/gallery A map of the center of Hebron is at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullMaps_Sa.nsf/0/5618737E38C0B3DE8525708C004BA584/$File/ocha_OTS_hebron_oPt010805.pdf?OpenElement The same map is the last page of this report on closures in Hebron: www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/ochaHU0705_En.pdf
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2. Haaretz , April 15, 2010
Letter shows gulf in funding for east, west J’lem students
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163242.html
By Akiva Eldar
As far as education is concerned, East Jerusalem falls behind Tel Aviv and western part of the capital. A letter by the Jerusalem municipality legal adviser states Israeli students attending Arab schools in East Jerusalem get just over half the budget enjoyed by their cross-town peers.
According to the letter sent by Yossi Havilio to deputy mayor Yose (Peppe) Alalo (Meretz), official data he received states the municipality’s operational spending in West Jerusalem stands at NIS 408 per elementary school pupil per year, while in East Jerusalem the municipality spends just NIS 214 per pupil per year. The information applies to official and/or municipal schools. The operational budget is meant to cover water, phone, electricity and other day-to-day expenses.
Havilio noted significant discrepancies in kindergartens, high schools and special needs schools. According to information from the municipal education administration, the sum allocated per pupil in East Jerusalem is just NIS 140 per year, but the city’s accounting department noted this does not include an additional NIS 74 per pupil per year.
The data was calculated after the municipality increased East Jerusalem school budgets by NIS 1 million. Havilio warned in his letter the budget gaps raise concerns of discrimination and infringement of the right to equality, “a basic principle in the State of Israel and in Israeli law,” and noted it might not withstand a legal challenge.
Havilio stressed the economic gaps have been in place for many years, and that the matter was brought up by the education department head during the last budget deliberations at city hall.
He rejected the claim the municipality was spending vast sums to rent buildings for schools in the east of the city, while the state is sponsoring the construction of new schools in the west. He wrote that this was irrelevant, since both the state and the municipality are obliged to provide housing for official educational institutions.
East Jerusalem has long suffered from a shortage of classrooms, and thousands of children are forced to study in cramped conditions, while others find themselves forced into private schools, including ones run by the Waqf Muslim religious trust.
A petition by the community administration for the development of Beit Hanina nine years ago prompted the Supreme Court to instruct the state to build 245 new classrooms in East Jerusalem.
The Education Ministry at the time presented plans to build 400 new classrooms over four years, but four years later the court said the authorities failed to honor the commitment.
Alalo said Havilio’s letter clearly showed discrimination against East Jerusalem. He added Mayor Nir Barkat personally committed to him to work on changing that situation.
A Jerusalem City Hall spokesman said in response that the legal adviser was “ignoring the enormous investment by city hall in the education system in the east of the city, and presenting a slanted picture that does not reflect the great efforts made by city hall on this front. In recent years, the East Jerusalem education budget was increased by 110 percent. The schools in the east of the city don’t use the Israeli curriculum and therefore have different needs.”
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3. Haaretz, April 15, 2010
Otherwise Occupied / Can Israeli bureaucrats make job decisions at UNRWA?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1162392.html
By Amira Hass
To the credit of the Interior Ministry, it must be said that it is not impressed by big names. The case before us involves a 41-year-old U.S. native whose resume is laced with prestigious institutions like Harvard University and Oxford University, work in the United States regarding labor laws and immigration, and consulting for the greatly respected South African Constitutional Court.
This is Leila Hilal, whose application to reenter Israel for work was denied. She is going through the extensive hassle typically experienced by people – mostly businessmen or academics – who are coming to work not in Israel but rather in the Palestinian Authority, or for organizations that work in the Palestinian community.
She first came to our region in 2002, as a consultant hired by the British development consultancy firm Adam Smith International, which manged, inter alia, the research project for the Negotiations Support Unit of the Palestinian Liberation Movement. For the project, it hired legal professionals and international experts on matters related to permanent status issues. The young, zealously discreet experts, who looked like yuppies from good homes, with fine educations, fit in well amid the atmosphere Ramallah was trying to broadcast – businesslike, professional, aspiring to progress.
Hilal, an expert on the development of international organizations, was employed by Adam Smith between 2002 and 2008. And no, she is not of Palestinian origin, and she does not have family here. Her obstacle course has included two denials of entry to Israel (in 2006 and 2009), forced absence from work, lobbying the American Embassy to intervene, accelerated blood pressure every time she has to renew her visa, and the accusations of border officials that she is lying by requesting a tourist visa, because after all, as she herself said, she works here. Go explain that you weren’t working in Israel but rather in Palestinian territory, and that the Palestinians don’t have the authority to issue a visa and therefore there are gentlemen’s agreements with Israel to let people like her to enter and leave the country every several months.
To all this must be added the abstruse, exhausting legalese of the state’s replies. Here is an example: “The request from the American Embassy reinforces the decision to refuse entry to Israel, as the applicant resides in Ramallah only. In light of all that has been said above, it has been decided to refuse her entry to Israel for fear she will settle.”
Is Ramallah part of Israel? Is work considered settling down? Haven’t you ever heard of international consultants who routinely work in countries that are not their own?
In September 2008, Hilal signed an agreement to work as a consultant on a special project of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Her contract was renewed once, and now ends on October 31.
However, the Interior Ministry is waging a new battle to end her tenure. After much difficulty and legal intervention, she was allowed to stay in the country until the end of 2009, and the Interior Ministry is refusing to grant her another visa.
Moreover, attorney Moran Braun, an assistant attorney at the Jerusalem District Attorney’s office who wrote the state’s reply to Hilal’s petition to allow her return, knows what is good for UNRWA.
“Insofar as the UNRWA organization is interested in the continuation of the project on which the petitioner was employed, the state, of course, has no objection. The state’s objection is to the petitioner filling this position … It would appear that an organization like UNRWA could find a suitable replacement for the petitioner, and work on the project would not stop only because the petitioner has left Israel.”
UNRWA, as a United Nations organization, does not get involved in legal proceedings in countries where it works, says Hilal’s attorney, Adi Lustigman of Jerusalem. Therefore it is remaining silent. However, three Israeli character witnesses have appended letters of support for Hilal: Ron Pundak of the Peres center for Peace; Israela Oron, a reserves brigadier general and now a researcher; and attorney Anat Ben Dor from the legal clinic at Tel Aviv University. All met Hilal at forums about solving the conflict, and were impressed by her professionalism.
On April 18, Judge Moshe Yoed Hacohen of the Jerusalem District Court, sitting as a court for administrative affairs, will deliberate her request to return. The state believes Hilal should not be present at the deliberation; Hacohen has ruled she can come for 72 hours, in return for a monetary deposit, even though thus far he has accepted most of the state’s positions. Thus, in December, he did not issue an interim order to enable her to remain in the country until the petition itself was deliberated.
At that time Hacohen ruled that the petitioner “has no status in the relations between UNRWA and the Israeli authorities, and since the organization applied to the relevant authorities (the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry) and was turned down, the petitioner herself has no status to manage the disagreement of the organization (UNRWA) with the authorities.
“The Interior Ministry, which has been given responsibility for the country’s gates as far as noncitizens are concerned, has very broad authority to decide whether foreign citizens may visit, stay and work. The respondent is also exempt by law from the obligation to justify its position,” said Hacohen.
However, Hacohen did not accept the contention by the state or the Interior Ministry that Hilal’s attempts to receive a visa were tainted by a lack of honesty. The petitioner, noted Hacohen, “is the citizen of a country friendly to Israel and not of an enemy country.
“The refusal to grant her a work visa has not been justified by a criminal or a security reason,” he stated.
Will Hacohen rule that an Israeli bureaucrat has the right to intervene in UNRWA’s considerations and tell the UN organization to find another expert, in place of the one it has chosen
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4. Haaretz , April 15, 2010
No-one saw, no-one heard: 300 Palestinian olive trees uprooted
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163243.html
By Avi Issacharoff
Some 300 olive trees belonging to Palestinians were uprooted on the night between Monday and Tuesday in groves near the village of Mihmas, close to the illegal outpost of Migron. Mihmas residents blamed settlers for the attack and said this was the third time the settlers had uprooted trees in the area.
Damaged live saplings could be seen littering the ground. Some were ripped out of the soil, and other had their slim trunks broken. The destruction appeared to have been well-organized, as trees were uprooted across a wide swathe and that required the cooperation of at least several people. The assailants apparently did not resort to saws of axes, but used their bare hands.
The owners of the trees told Haaretz that although the village was not involved in any violent confrontations with the settlers, the latter were doing everything they could to disturb village life. The deputy mayor of the village, Mohammed Al Haj (Abu Hussein) told Haaretz that in May 2008, trees were uprooted in plots close to Route 60, and in October 2009, more damage was done to local olive groves. The villagers filed complaints with the police and the Civil Administration.
The Judea and Samaria police confirmed that a complaint had been filed. The Yesh Din human rights organization told Haaretz that very few investigations of the uprooting of trees have resulted in indictments.
An Israel Defense Forces patrol passes routinely by the village, and Abu Hussein said that if the army guarded the villagers like it guards the settlers, “none of it would have happened.”
One of the grove owners who had trees damaged in the latest incident, Ali Aaref Mohammed, said some of the villagers owned groves on the other side of Route 60, close to Migron. “Every time we go there to take care of the trees, the settlers come down and start a confrontation. They’re not letting us near the trees,” he said. The financial loss to the grove owners is immense, he said. Another villager, Amran Ali Asaeid, said the damage amounted to thousands of dollars.
Abu Hussein said that every time the settlers uproot trees, the villagers will plant more. “If they uproot five acres of trees, we’ll plant six,” he said. “They won’t break us.”
