Mondoweiss

Update from Jerusalem: Palestinians continue to resist concerted Israeli effort to erase them from the city

The following was written by Samia Khoury. Khoury was born in Jaffa, Palestine on November 24, 1933. She has had a lifetime of of involvement in Palestinian civil society through Birzeit University, the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and the YWCA of Palestine among other institutions. She sent out the following by email:

July 13, 2009

Dear Friends:

    I write to you with a heavy heart as two more houses were demolished today in Beit Hanina and Silwan. Eviction orders, confiscation of land and demolishing of homes have become a daily activity of the Israeli occupying forces in East Jerusalem, while the world is watching. Renewal of Permits for couples who are seeking family reunification are being delayed endlessly without any explanation. This is a process required when one of the spouses is from outside the Jerusalem area. And when a new baby is born in Jerusalem, parents need to prove that they are actually living in Jerusalem by presenting a whole set of documents including municipal taxes, electricity, telephone, and sewage bills, etc. etc. in order to be able to register the child. As if their Identity Cards were not proof enough. Restrictions are being imposed on organizations and schools as well, so as to tighten the pressure on them and make their presence in Jerusalem irrelevant, or force them out of the city. Even cultural activities and festivals have become a great challenge for organizations and their sponsors as they continue to face obstacles imposed by military orders.

    When Israel, which claims to be a leading country in the world of arts, would deprive a small community from the pleasure of enjoying music and literature festivals, then there is something very wrong in the psyche of those occupying forces. They probably would rather see us throw stones and bombs so that they will have a good reason to lock us up or expel us out of the country. But we shall not give them that pleasure.  We shall defend our freedom and rights by music, art, drama and literature, and any other non-violent resistance. In fact if any of you saw this month’s  publication “This Week in Palestine,” you would be astonished at the number of activities going on not only in Jerusalem, but in Ramallah, Birzeit, and other parts of the country. While we are being creative in cultural activities to help us overcome the pressures of the occupation, Israel continues to come up with the most innovative measures of oppression to subdue us and make life absolutely unbearable. If I were a cartoonist, I would sketch a demonic brain that creates this continuous onslaught.

    It is becoming very obvious that there is a concerted effort to implement the policy of limiting the number of Palestinians in Jerusalem to a minimum percentage of the population of Jerusalem, which rises all the time through the annexation of Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land. The Arabic name of the city as well as the names of other towns and streets are not being spared this onslaught by the enforcement of Hebrew names, so as to obliterate not only our existence but our history and heritage.

    We urge you dear friends to help us put an end to this onslaught that is affecting every aspect of our lives. We appreciate all the statements, solidarity groups, church initiatives, conferences, and all the advocacy.  But rhetoric is not enough any more at this stage. There should be a serious consideration for a change in policy so that Israel, the spoilt and pampered child, will not be allowed to continue to get away with all the violations that have devastated not only the land but the human dignity of the Palestinians. We have seen how affective the policy of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) was in bringing an end to the Apartheid regime in South Africa. We are not being innovative in this policy, we are simply learning from history. So I hope the international community, and basically the US administration will deal with Israel by the same standards it deals with other countries which violate UN resolutions and international law.

    It will be very interesting to see if Mr. Obama can bring about that change he spoke about when he was elected, and actually be able to take action if Israel refuses to freeze the settlement building, which is illegal in the first place.  No peace or security, let alone reconciliation, can prevail without justice, and a serious resolve to end this brutal occupation.  

Samia Khoury

Lieberman’s ascent has roots in over 60 years of Israeli history

The following report comes from Alice Rothchild, a Boston-based physician and author of Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience. A longer version has been posted here.

The appointment of Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s outspoken foreign minister, has been met with dismay in much of the American Jewish community.  Israel has long enjoyed a solid reputation as a safe haven for persecuted Jews from Eastern Europe to North Africa, but there is another side to this narrative that is rarely discussed.  Unfortunately, Lieberman represents the culmination of longstanding Israeli policies. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship have over 60 years experience with Israeli-style discrimination.

In 1948, armed forces occupied Jaffa, once the thriving cultural and commercial center of Palestine.  The fleeing Palestinian population shrank from 100,000 to 4,000. In 1949 the Israeli government established the Absentee Property Law, further dispossessing the remaining Palestinians. The Jaffans were forced into an area called al-‘Ajami.  Officials surveyed their forcibly abandoned properties, declared the owners “present absentees,” laid claim to the properties, and gave the homes complete with furniture to olim, desperate new Jewish immigrants.

Palestinians not only lost their property, but frequently were hired to work in their former orchards as laborers, or as factory workers in businesses they once owned.  Arab houses were subdivided, one room to a Moroccan family, one room to a Rumanian, and one room to the original Arab owner.  Sami Abu Shehade, a postgraduate student at Tel Aviv University and a Jaffa community organizer, explains that many Palestinian men, dispossessed, humiliated, and depressed, turned to alcohol, opium, and criminal activities. In 1950 Jaffa, once the most important port in Palestine, became part of the Tel Aviv-Jafo municipality.

For Jaffa, Judaizing meant changing the names of the streets as well as expunging the history. Avenues once named after rich Palestinians were changed to Zionist leaders. Luxurious homes overlooking the Mediterranean, built by wealthy Palestinians, became Jewish mansions. The State is now using legal action against the al-‘Ajami tenants to evict them.  Although al-‘Ajami is socially and economically depressed, its northern area has expensive real-estate possibilities, with tremendous investment potential for high-end clientele at the expense of the local Palestinians

The area has also fallen victim to urban renewal and gentrification, with destruction of whole neighborhoods and inadequate services in Arab areas. As the neighborhoods were neglected, Jews moved to nicer areas and the Palestinians stayed.  Tel Aviv also allowed the demolition garbage to be dumped on the al-‘Ajami shore.  Adjacent to the garbage dump was an old neglected cemetery; the sea gradually eroded the soil and graves began falling into the water near the garbage. Nearly 40% of the Palestinians residing in the al-‘Ajami neighborhood are now living in extreme poverty and owe the State millions in fines due to unapproved housing renovations over the past 60 years. For Arabs, building permits are virtually impossible to obtain.

Sami takes us to an old Jaffa synagogue, Or Yisrael, now under repair.  He notes a number of NGOs are bringing rightwing Jewish settlers from Gaza and the West Bank into “mixed cities” to “Judaize the area.”  An NGO, Harosh Yehudi, is now looking for apartments for extremist Jewish families to strengthen the Jewish demographics. David, an Israeli activist, comments, the problem is that, “we are not dealing with a bunch of racists.  The problem is that the vast majority of the Jewish population believes in this settler discourse and agrees.” 

Sami sees the long-term consequences of this psychological and economic divide: a sense of internal defeat and hopelessness. Ultimately, he argues, this is a consequence of decades of racist policies.  He adds that Arabs are welcome in Israel, if they “are willing to serve but do not expect equality.”

These political contradictions and ethical challenges are seriously problematic for a country that purports to be a democracy.  Lieberman lifts the mask from the myth that a country that privileges Jews over Arabs can also be a land of justice and equality.  How can a country demand civil loyalty when it cannot guarantee civil rights? What are the long-term consequences of this potent mix of exclusion, paternalism, discrimination, poverty, and alienation? How can Palestinians reconcile the painful contradiction that the Peres Peace Center was built on confiscated Jaffa refugee property? Perhaps when Jewish Israelis proudly sing Hatikvah, they need to imagine how this tribute to exclusive Jewish yearning sounds to 20 percent of their fellow citizens who still remember the glory days of Jaffa, “The Bride of Palestine.” Lieberman is not an aberration; he is saying out loud what many of his fellow citizens have thought and done for more than 60 years. Change “Arab” to “Native American,” “African-American,” or “Japanese,” and obvious parallels emerge with our own legacies of colonialism, slavery, segregation, detention camps, and civil rights struggles. Perhaps Israelis can learn from the best of our history; facing inequality and racism rather than talking transfer, ghettoization, and loyalty oaths will lead to a stronger more democratic country. 

Palestinian diaspora flick, 'Salt of this Sea,' comes to NY this week

Jaffa-based Palestinian activist facing indefinite home detention for political activity

Ruth Hiller from the Israeli organization New Profile sent along this important petition. As this site has reported multiple times, there is an ongoing effort to push Palestinians out of the city of Jaffa and growing political repression against the Palestinians who remain. The case of Samieh Jabbarin is just the latest example.

If you are interested in signing the petition you can find it at http://www.atzuma.co.il/petition/friendsofsamieh/1/1000/:

DETENTION AS A MEANS TO POLITICAL SILENCING: THE CASE OF THEATER ARTIST SAMIEH JABBARIN

The house-arrest for an indefinite period of time of Jaffa-based theater artist Samieh Jabbarin (pictured right) signals a sharp escalation in the harassment of citizens engaged democratically and legally in expressing their political views.

The case of Samieh Jabbarin exposes the close cooperation of the Israeli Security Services, police and Attorney General's office. A crass attempt is being made to incriminate a peace-seeking social-political activist by fabricating charges of violence. Unfortunately, the courts of justice have not yet put a halt to this mode of action.

The facts:
Samieh Jabbarin, 41-years old, a citizen of Israel native of Um al Fahm, is a theater and film director. He was professionally and academically trained in Germany and is currently completing his Masters degree at the Theater Arts Department of Tel Aviv University. Upon his return to his native country, he settled in Jaffa and, among other things, engaged in the struggle against the current wave of attempts to evict Arab-Palestinian residents. Samieh is also active in the Abna al Balad movement and was among the organizers of last year's Haifa conference on the Right of Return and a secular democratic state. Last December he helped organize public mourning rallies and non-violent protests against the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

In January 2009, Samieh was warned by the Security Services that a way will be found to punish him for this civil and political activity. The opportunity presented itself on February 10th, general election day in Israel. A group of extreme rightist fanatics announced their intention to serve as official monitors of the voting process in Um al Fahm, second largest Arab city in Israel. Samieh, a native of this town, joined residents in a protest demonstration. He was arrested along with a fellow-resident minutes after the event began. On the very next day - in unprecedented haste - detailed charges were presented at the Hadera court against him for supposedly assaulting the Chief of the Northern Border Patrol, Commander Uri Mor-Yossef.

All attempts to disprove and deny such outright deception have been in vain. The open 'secret' is that Israeli police video-document all demonstrations and arrests.

In this case, however, no evidence was produced beyond the police officer's own statement.

Samieh was held prisoner in Kishon Prison under harsh conditions for seventeen days, and following a legal struggle, was transferred to strict house-arrest at his parents' home in Um al Fahm. Two family members must be with him at all times, and an electronic shackle is attached to his ankle.
Officially, this ruling is in force "until the end of the legal proceedings". These proceedings, however, have come to a strange near-halt: in sharp contrast to the speed with which it charged him, the system is in no hurry to expose the prosecution's evidence at an open trial. The prosecution "forgot" to summon Samieh and his attorneys to the indictment last month. Consequently, another indictment has been set for April 27th and who knows how many months will elapse until the trial itself.

Thus, Samieh Jabbarin is denied access to his creative work, his studies, and his normal living environment. His fate also serves as a blatant warning to intimidate other social and political activists.

We appeal to all who are personally committed to fundamental democratic values to raise their voice and demand an immediate end to this deplorable affair. We must expose the questionable method of false accusations and frame-ups in attempting to silence political resisters. This appeal is directed at
Stage, television and film artists both in Israel and abroad;

• Journalists of the printed and electronic media
• Persons visibly active in education and culture
• Lawyers and other members of the justice community
• Social and human-rights activists everywhere
• Citizens who still care about democracy - wherever they are -

We are all called upon to act for the freedom of speech, the freedom of congregation and the freedom of non-violent political activity of Samieh Jabbarin as well as all other citizens of Israel - Jews and Arabs alike.

IT IS INCONCEIVABLE THAT CRITICAL THINKING AND NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE BE PUNISHED BY INCRIMINATION OF VIOLENCE, ARREST AND MASSIVE SILENCING!

Israel's undemocratic response to war protesters

Adam Horowitz writes:

A protest against the war in Gaza that was planned in Tel Aviv was being prevented by Israeli police not because they were afraid of violence, but because they were afraid that protesters would raise the Palestinian flag. Wow. This is shades of the pre-Oslo days when it was illegal under Israeli occupation law to raise the flag in the occupied territories. 

More from the Alternative Information Center on recent protests in Jaffa:

Settlers Turn Their Sights to 'Juda-izing' Arab Sections of Israel

Adam Horowitz has spent a lot more time in Israel than I have. He's collecting string on a dangerous new trend in Israeli culture/politics:

Welcome to the Israeli settler movement, the 2008 model: the growing priority of settling Palestinian areas inside Israel. This is not a totally new phenomenon, having been seen since the founding of the state in places like Nazareth Illit, but these two important articles in Ha’aretz and the Middle East Report outline the recent efforts to “judaize” the Palestinian centers of the ancient cities of Jaffa and Akko. A similar trend has been seen throughout the Galilee, Negev, the Triangle and any other Palestinian and Arab parts of the country.

A choice quote is from Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, who has set up a yeshiva in the middle of the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa:

"Our conclusion [in 2005]...was for us to move from Beit El [settlement in the West Bank] to metropolitan Tel Aviv [that means Jaffa] along with additional families and start to take action. We talked to friends and the idea struck a chord in many families. We explained to them that we had carried out a great project in the settlements for the past 30 years, but that now the struggle needs to be moved to a different place."

Meanwhile, Rabbi Mali’s brother is carrying out a similar plan in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem--what a family. In Jaffa, the development of the yeshiva is happening as hundreds of Palestinian residents of Ajami are being forced out of their homes to clear the way for “development.” As Peter Lagerquist points out in his MERIP article “In Jaffa, development is code for developing Arabs off their land and out of their homes.”

The results of this activity were seen in October, in the five days of riots that shook Akko, a town held up as the model of coexistence. As in Jaffa, settlers relocated in the heart of Akko--this time from Gaza. “Coexistence is a slogan. Ultimately, Akko is a town like Raanana, Kfar Saba or and must safeguard its Jewish identity," Rabbi Yosef Stern, the director the “Spirit of the North” yeshiva in Akko, explained to the settler news service Arutz Sheva. "I think everyone would agree that Akko is the capital city of Galilee,, of thousands of years of Jewish history. We are here to preserve that Jewish identity and to reinforce that spirit, to stand for our nation’s honor.” Lagerquist also quotes Akko resident Taysir Khatib as saying Palestinians in Akko are “reliving the nakba every day.”

This activity is not strictly a settler initiative; it has been actively promoted by the Israeli government and Zionist institutions. Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook points out that Ariel Sharon’s government approved 14 settlements in the Negev and Galilee (both primarily Palestinian areas inside Israel)  in 2003. These settlements were to be funded by the World Zionist Organization, marking the first time “the body has worked on settlements within Israel rather than in the occupied territories.” This policy has received a full endorsement from the Bush Administration, which actually treats the plan as part of the peace process, with Bush describing it as an alternative to West Bank settlement.

This all leads to several questions. What does this mean for “the green line”? For Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel? What does it mean for the two-state solution when Jaffa and Akko start looking like Hebron? And--perhaps most importantly--why do the U.S. advocates for the two-state solution refuse to talk about this?

Separate and Unequal, Israeli Arabs Are Inspired by Obama

Activist Adam Horowitz visited Israel/Palestine last month. He reports:

One of the most interesting conversations I had on my recent trip was with Ali Haider, co-director with the Palestinian/Jewish organization Sikkuy in Haifa. He was very interested in talking about Obama (this was a few weeks before the election) and said he drew many lessons from American history for Palestinian citizens of Israel. He talked about the Or Commission which was a governmental commission set up after the beginning of the second Intifada when 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by the police during a demonstration. Among other things, the commission found that:

"Government handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory. The establishment did not show sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population, and did not take enough action in order to allocate state resources in an equal manner. The state did not do enough or try hard enough to create equality for its Arab citizens or to uproot discriminatory or unjust phenomenon."

Haider explained that this was an important moment in Israeli history: an official acknowledgement of the "separate and unequal" nature of Israeli society. He said it was Israel's Emancipation Proclamation, and pointed out that in the US there was over 100 years between Lincoln's proclamation and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. That's where Palestinians inside Israel are now, and how far they have to go; and yet he was inspired by the example and by the fact that Obama could now be running for President.

Robert Kuttner Likens Irgun to George Washington

Keep meaning to pick this up. On C-Span's Washington Journal last Saturday, journalist Robert Kuttner of The avowedly-liberal American Prospect, author of Obama's Challenge, was on talking about, well, Obama's challenge, and saying how smart the next president is. Agreed. A caller asked about AIPAC and the "Jewish" lobby and Rahm Emanuel, whose parents were "Jewish terrorists."

Rahm Emanuel's Father Was in Jewish Terrorist Organization

I wonder if the Rahm Emanuel story was not leaked to make Jewish voters feel more gemutlich (that's kin, in German/Yiddish, I believe) about Obama. Emanuel's father was apparently in the Irgun, the Zionist movement that used terrorist methods to blow up the King David Hotel in '46 and expel all the Palestinians from Jaffa, and that played a role in the massacre at Deir Yassin.

When Will American Jews Try to Export the 'Highest Standards of Democracy' to Israel?