Gaza Freedom March

[Magda Hassan]

ISRAELI PEACE ACTIONS BULLETIN # One

Hi, everyone, now that I am in Israel, I have been doing some activist tourism. Yesterday I went on a guided tour with Rotem Dan M. Some of you will remember him as a twenty year old refusenik when he came to Australia eight years ago. He is now running his own business as a social justice tour guide. We went to Silwan a large but poor Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem. Silwan is the real Old City of Jersualem, where the palace of King David, if he lived, may well be. Silwan is the focus of politicised archeology digs and progressive exclusion of Palestinians from their homes. A right-wing organisation, Elad, with the mission of reclaiming the Jewish history of Silwan stops at nothing to gain possession Palestinian homes and digging to demonstrate the exclusively Jewish history of the site. The name Silwan has been removed and replaced by the "City of David". It is privately funded with the blessiing of the Israeli authorities. Elad activists have posed as tour operators to!
gain the confidence of Palestinian families and find out about the details of their ownership of their homes. These have been used to manipulate them into selling. In one case the fingerprints of a dead woman were used to forge a signature agreeing to sale. While a court judgement declared the documents to be forged, the 'sale' was not cancelled.

Rotem took us to visit a family whose home or part of it had been demolished twice because there was no permit (very few Palestinians get building permits,). Two of th sons of the house are under house arrest for allegedly throwing stones. Rotem speaks fluent Arabic and it was joy to see him engage so warmly with our hosts. This is peace-making in action. |How healing for that Palestinian family to encounter an Israeli who reaches out to them by learning their language and speak with them on an equal level. What a contrast from having their history obliterated and their property rights over-ridden. This scary need to eliminate the Other, when embracing them as equals brings such rich rewards.

Rotem then took us to the Wadi Hilwah Information Centre. This is how the people of Silwan are fighting back, by putting their limited resources into a community centre that puts their story and affirms their rights.

Today I joined the weekly demonstration against the dispossession of Palestinians by fanatical ultra religious Jewish settler in Sheikh Jarrah. It is led by young people in a new coalition to fight house demolitions in East Jerusalem. About two hundred and fifty of us marched the one and a half hour walk from trendy Ben Yehuda Street in central Jerusalem to the \palestinian suburb of Shekh Jarrah. Cops accompanied us , chasing away the odd character who yelled abuse at us in the \jewish area. We were welcomed with Arabic coffee by the local \Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah. Slogans and banners said 'Sheikh Jarrah is Palestine, remove the settlements!' 'Free Palestine = Free Israel' 'This is Apartheid' 'Democracy cannot live on Dispossession'. We were orderly, stayed on the footpath by agreement with the police. A number of the young people wore flowers in their hair. A group of drummers led by an unflagging young woman played all the way to Sheikh Jarra There were a numbe!
r of people from the Gaza Freedom |March there, including Phil Weiss of Mondoweiss. A number stayed on to be in the homes with the Palestinians after the settlers came out of their Shabbat service, when not infrequently they harass the local Palestinians. Since I am leaving at seven am tomorrow morning to go to the South Hebron Hills tomorrow, I gave that one a miss, though I would have like d to do it. Next time I must plan to stay longer!

Anyway, people, signing off for tonight

Vivienne

[Magda Hassan]

ISRAEL PEACE ACTION #2

Hello everyone, the last two days have been a blast. I have spent them in the South Hebron Hills with the Israeli group Ta’ayush and with the Villages Group. The South Hebron Hills are in the southernmost part of the Occupied West Bank. It is very sparsely populated. We were told that the intention of the Government is to remove the Palestinian population to local towns like Yatta or Hebron and take over the land. Shades of similar efforts in Australia?

Ta’ayush are committed to co-operation between Palestinians and Israeli Jews. I went with them at 7am in the morning to a tiny ‘village’ Ber Al Idd - it is just a collection of tents. Since the early 90s, the people of Ber Al Idd have been fighting eviction from their land. Two months ago, they won a significant victory in court - they could return to their land. But… there is always a ‘but‘, they cannot erect anything on it, not even tents. Even the outhouse dunny is under a demolition order!

They are now fighting the demolition orders for their tents. (These are designed and manufactured by Palestinians, funded by OCHA (UN Organisation for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Aid. They are well engineered, cool and insulated under the hot winter sun.)

Sounds like an inverted demand by Portia of Shylock that he may have his pound of flesh but to be sure no blood is taken. The Palestinians may place themselves on their land but not support for their flesh and blood. The Palestinians must fight a continual legal war of attrition to maintain a grip on their land.

Ber AL Idd lies between two illegal (even by Israel standards) outposts. However, these supposedly illegal structures are supplied with electricity and water, whereas Ber El Idd must buy in water tankers. They have one solar panel with supplies enough energy for a cell phone, some light - and videos! ‘To them that hath shall be given, from them that have not, even the little they have shall be taken away…’

Our task with Ta’ayush was to rehabilitate a well that, through neglect during the enforced absence of the Palestinian owners, had got filled with all sorts of rubbish. One group was down a large cave digging the increasingly muddy soil, filling buckets and sending them to the surface where the other half of the team emptied the buckets on the stony land around. So I got my hands (and clothes) well covered with the soil of Palestine, the Holy Land, whatever, a toiler of the soil for a day. And my body knew it by the end of it.

Generally, I was told, the police or army try to stop the Ta’ayush minibus. We were told to fasten our seat belts to give them no pretext to block our progress. Often, too, settlers come down and harass the Palestinians on their land. Sometimes, the Palestinians take their sheep a little farther afield on lands occupied by settlers. Even 5 hours grazing is a struggle yet it can save the precious cash that would otherwise have to be paid for feed for the flocks over that time. An illustration of the fragility of the economy and their lives.

>From all of this, it is obvious that it is not just the fanatical settlers that are pushing the agenda of ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians. It is conscious government policy and has been so through successive Israel governments. The settlers are the shock troops on whom responsibility can be deflected.

Our Palestinian hosts plied us with glasses of sweet minted tea throughout the day. Their condition of life is incredibly basic and the economy very fragile. They farm goats and sheep for the milk largely and meat for food. This gives a very modest cash surplus. I saw women making butter in the traditional way. The cream was in large goat skin sacks which were suspended on a pipe. The women sat on the ground jiggling the full closed bags endlessly to churn the cream into butter. This would no doubt be sold at a local market.

The next day, yesterday, I met with Hamed a Palestinian who works for OCHA. But in his free time, he works with a number of dedicated Israelis calling themselves the Villages Group developing sustainable projects particularly with the people in the South Hebron Hills who are so poor and disadvantaged. The idea is to support the people to be technologically skilled and equipped, independent in a very grass roots consultative way. This enables them to retain a hold on their land and gives them confidence to do so. The solidarity breaks their isolation and empowers them.

I took the bus from the East Jerusalem Bus centre (the Palestinian buses). I needed to negotiate the Bethlehem checkpoint (no problems) and eventually found Hamed in his UN blue and white jeep. Thank God for mobile phones! I was not so lucky on my way back to Jerusalem, however, 50 minutes standing at the checkpoint, everyone was incredibly patient, even good humoured!

We visited the same ‘village’, Ber Al Idd. With us was a Palestinian lawyer funded by Rabbis for Human Rights. The task of the day was to discuss the issues of the case they were taking against the demolition orders on their few tents. I sat while the men of the hamula, (of course not the women), animatedly discussed the issues of the case. Hamed and the lawyer with the elders were identifying the tents and locating them precisely with a GPS gadget. It seemed clear to me that the lawyer needed to manage everyone’s expectations and provide a reality check. He said the case would be hard to win. When the power and the law defend the occupation, how else can it be?

Our hosts then fed us a magnificent lunch. Chunks of boiled sheep carcass were served on a large platter of rice. One sheep’s eye stared balefully at me. This was accompanied by a tasty stock, obviously the liquid in which the mutton had been boiled, with some yoghurt added to give it a tang. Several bowls of the stock were laid out with spoons and forks. I took a bowl and started eating the soup but that was a boo-boo! The way it was done, was that several people sat around one platter on the floor, took a spoonful of broth and put it on the rice on the platter near them, mixed it up with the rice and ate, accompanied with chunks of meat. This was definitely not the beaten tourist track!

After the legal work was completed, Hamed took me to another family, a Bedouin one, who lived within a couple of metres of a cyclone fence where a settlement had boldly encroached on their land. They had built the most modern of poultry houses. We could see the electricity lines going from the buildings of the settlement on the hill over the pitiful tent dwelling of the Bedouin to the poultry building. Piped water to the setlement was visible on the ground. Electricity and air-con for the chooks, none for the Palestinians…

It is said by some that there is no Israel peace movement, no Israeli Left, just dedicated individuals. But what I have seen belies this completely. The demonstrations against the Jewish takeover of Palestinian neighbourhoods like Sheikh Jarrah take place weekly and are growing. Ta’ayush have been coming weekly for years to Ber El Idd. There are numerous other weekly demonstrations, such as those at B‘lin against the depredations of The Wall, where Israelis alongside the Palestinians and internationals, battle the tear gas and general IDF brutality.

Indeed this movement is tiny and has little impact on the wider Israeli political scene (how much actual impact does the global justice movement have?) and the grim Israeli consensus of establishing an Iron Wall of force to subjugate the Palestinians. But, like the global social justice movement, the Israel Left is incredibly dedicated and is there. They keep the flame of human decency and justice alive in Israel under extremely difficult circumstances. I take my hat off to them.

Vivienne Porzsolt
10 January 2010