EDITOR: Storm Clouds Gather Around Continuous Israeli Intransigence
More and more are now declaring their stand against Israeli atrocities: countries, organisations, companies and individual artists and intellectuals, with many more under moral and political pressure to join the movement to end Israeli Apartheid, occupation and injustice. This week, Gil Scott-Heron was only the latest artist to announce that he will not play in Israel. Now Volvo and Caterpillar are under intense pressure to stop trading with Israel. 3000 European Jewish intellectuals called today on the European Parliament to stop supporting Israel automatically, and UC student Governors have called upon the university to disinvest from Israeli companies and other trading or supporting the occupation. The international pressure is building up against Israeli atrocities, and is likely to further intensify; the US is reportedly acting towards passing a UN resolution towards a nuclear-free Middle East, something Israel will fight tooth and nail against, as they would against any of Obama’s limp attempts to bring about the defunct two-state solution.
While this is all excellent news, it is really a very dangerous moment; Israel is now preparing its response to this pressure, and it is the normative one – a military strike of enormous damage and destruction, against the ‘usual suspects’. Currently, the targets discussed are Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and now also Iran. While such a reaction to political pressure sounds (and is) criminally misguided, it is the only type of reaction Israel is used to, and is apt at, or feels secure with. The time of great danger is upon us.
Caterpillar equipment used in extrajudicial killing near Hebron: The Electronic Intifada
Press release, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 29 April 2010
The following press release was issued by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights on 26 April 2010:
On Monday 26 April 2010, Israeli occupation forces killed a Palestinian man, Ali Ismael Ali Swaiti, 45, in Beit Awwa in the West Bank district of Hebron, after demolishing a house while he was inside. Israeli occupation forces claim that Ali Swaiti had been wanted for several years. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns this crime — which constitutes an extrajudicial execution — and calls upon the international community to work towards bringing to trial those Israeli politicians and commanders suspected of committing war crimes.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR and eyewitness testimony, Israeli occupation forces entered Beit Awwa town in the far south of Hebron at approximately 3:00am on Monday 26 April 2010, supported by military armored vehicles, a bulldozer and a Caterpillar digging vehicle. Israeli forces surrounded the house in which Ali Swaiti was located, using sound bombs. The home belongs to Mahmoud Abdul Aziz Swaiti and is located in Khellet al-Foulah, in the north of the town. During the operation, Israeli soldiers broke into numerous other houses in the area and turned them into observation points and firing posts.
After some minutes, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) evacuated at gunpoint the family living in the targeted one-story house as well as a family living in another two-story house, which belongs to the family of Ahmed Abdul Aziz Swaiti. The two families were detained outdoors for some time before they were taken to an adjacent house belonging to Abdul Jalil Swaiti. They were detained there with other families, all of whom were interrogated regarding the whereabouts of the targeted person.
At approximately 5:40am, an Israeli bulldozer began to destroy the fences surrounding the targeted house. It progressed towards the house and started to demolish it, but it retreated as it was fired at from inside the house. Israeli forces stationed in the neighboring houses opened fire at the house for 15 minutes from all sides before an explosion took place inside the house. Residents of the area reported that the explosion resulted from the shelling of the house.
At approximately 6:00am, the Caterpillar vehicle began to drive into and destroy the fences of the targeted house. After that, a digging vehicle continued demolishing the house, and then retreated to allow the renewed advance of the bulldozer and the search for the body of Swaiti.
At approximately 7:00am, the bulldozer lifted the body of Swaiti out of the rubble and dropped it onto a road close to the demolished house before moving it another 10 meters away. At approximately 7:30am, an Israeli soldier fired at least two shots at the body of Swaiti from a distance of three meters. At approximately 8:00am, Israeli occupation forces left the homes in which they had taken position.
In the meantime, Palestinian civilians had left their homes and many of them hurried towards the area of the attack. They carried Swaiti’s body to take it indoors. However, some people clashed with Israeli forces as they withdrew. Israeli occupation forces fired at those people using rubber-coated metal bullets, wounding five Palestinians including a boy and a young woman. The wounded are as follows:
1. Mohammed Mahmoud Masalmah, 23, wounded by a bullet to the head;
2. Baha Mohammed Akimi al-Amareen, 20, wounded by two bullets to the legs;
3. Hussein Yusuf Swaiti, 18, wounded by a bullet to the leg;
4. Hammam Ismael Masalmah, 17, wounded by two bullets to the legs; and
5. Asma Murshed Swaiti, 19, wounded by a bullet to the right shoulder.
The IOF spokesperson said that Swaiti had been wanted by the Israeli Security Service for eight years, as he was held responsible for carrying out a number of shooting attacks against Israeli targets near Hebron, including opening fire near the Ethna-Tarqumiya intersection on 26 April 2004, i.e. exactly six years prior to yesterday’s killing of Swaiti. The said attack resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier and the injury of two others.
PCHR reiterates its condemnation of such acts and:
1. Confirms that this act constitutes part of a pattern of Israeli war crimes perpetrated in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which reflect Israeli occupation forces disregard for the lives of Palestinians and for the requirements of international law.
2. Reiterates its condemnation of the illegal policy of extrajudicial executions carried out by IOF against Palestinian activists. It also confirms that this policy raises tension in the area and increases the likelihood of civilian victims among the Palestinian population.
3. Calls upon the international community to immediately intervene to stop these crimes which constitute violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
4. Calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to fulfill their obligations under Article 1 of the Convention to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligation under Article 146 to search for and prosecute those responsible for committing grave breaches of the Convention. PCHR also calls on the High Contracting Parties to uphold their responsibilities as signatories to the protocol Additional to the Convention, such as breaches, which constitute war crimes according to Article 147 of the convention.
3,000 European Jewish intellectuals urge end to Israeli settlements: Haaretz
A new leftist European Jewish group, JCall, has written a letter to be delivered Sunday to the European Parliament calling for a cessation of what it calls systematic support for Israeli government decisions.
JCall, which describes itself as “the European J Street” and is to be officially launched Sunday with the presentation of the letter, has raised a storm with its call to stop construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem.
The letter is signed by some 3,000 Jewish intellectuals, among them philosophers Bernard Henri-Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, considered some of Israel’s strongest defenders among French intellectuals. Signatories also include Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the student protests in the 1960s and now a member of the European Parliament, as well as other Jewish members of the European Parliament.
The letter calls occupation and settlements “morally and politically wrong,” noting that they “feed the unacceptable delegitimization process that Israel currently faces abroad.”
According to Prof. Zeev Sternhell, “The French Jewish left has decided that the official institutions do not represent most French Jews, and following the example of J Street, have decided that the time has come to do the same thing in Europe.” He supports the letter but hasn’t signed it.
Richard Prasquier, the chairman of CRIF, the committee representing French Jewish organizations, harshly criticized the document, saying that the petition will serve Israel’s enemies.
The document calls on the European Union and the United States to pressure both parties “and help them achieve a reasonable and rapid solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.”
It says that systematic support of Israeli government policy is dangerous.
Meanwhile, Israel has repeatedly protested that the PA is using money from donor countries to promote a ban on products from the settlements.
A second meeting of the Knesset Economics Committee on the matter is to take place today. In the first meeting, Foreign Ministry official Yael Rabia-Tzadok told the MKs that the campaign to confiscate goods manufactured in settlements has moved ahead since the new economics minister in the PA government has taken office, Hassan Abu-Labda. She said PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad supports the campaign
Volvo equipment: Israel’s weapons to destroy al-Walaja homes: The Electronic Intifada
Adri Nieuwhof, 29 April 2010
On 16 April, approximately 100 Palestinian villagers and internationals walked towards the construction site of Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank village of al-Walaja, four kilometers northwest of Bethlehem. When the protesters were leaving the village, four Israeli army jeeps and one police vehicle entered and surrounded a Palestinian home. At least 40 persons, including women and children, were trapped for two hours.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided several other homes, detaining three young men for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli forces. During the raids al-Walaja was closed off, and soldiers prevented the media from entering the area.
Six days later, Israeli bulldozers were working full speed deeper inside the village’s lands, leaving destruction in their wake. Ma’an news agency reported that border guards and soldiers had imposed a curfew early in the morning. A cameraman was denied entry to the village by the army, according to representatives of the village’s Popular Committee.
The following day approximately 200 villagers, together with a few internationals, came together for yet another demonstration. They walked from the mosque, which has an Israeli-imposed demolition order against it, to the lands which were bulldozed the previous day. Standing on the bulldozed lands, representatives of the village held speeches calling for more demonstrations. Youths used boulders to block the road used by the Israeli bulldozer operators.
A day later, approximately 50 Palestinians and internationals managed to stop the work of the bulldozers for several hours. The Israeli soldiers had to violently drag the villagers away one by one.
History of injustices
The residents of al-Walaja have protested the confiscation and demolition of their property for many years. The Israeli settlements of Har Gilo and Gilo, established in the 1970s, are built on land confiscated from the village. While Israeli forces try to silence the protesters with harsh measures, Volvo and Caterpillar equipment is used by the Israeli forces in the illegal construction of the wall on the village’s land.
The old village of al-Walaja was occupied and destroyed by Zionist forces in October 1948 and its 1,200 Palestinian residents expelled. The 1948 Armistice line passed through the southern lands of the village and while most of the villagers fled to Jordan and Bethlehem, some villagers stayed on the lands of the village that were unoccupied at the time and eventually rebuilt a new town.
The remains of the old village of al-Walaja are two kilometers outside the new town, on the western side of the armistice line between Israel and the West Bank. According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, a few stone houses still stand on the old village site. Today the old village of al-Walaja is used by Israeli settlers for picnicking and bathing.
Following the June 1967 war, Israel annexed the rest of al-Walaja’s lands, bringing them under the authority of the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality. The villagers did not receive the right to live in Jerusalem, however, and they live under constant threat of expulsion. And while the villagers of al-Walaja are not allowed to build on their own lands, the settlement of Har Gilo is expanding.
After the Oslo accords of 1993, al-Walaja was designated “Area C,” giving Israel full military and administrative control. As a consequence, villagers who want to build a house on their own land have to ask permission from Israel. Israel denied 94 percent of the building permit requests of Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank from 2000 to 2007, according to Peace Now.
Villagers are facing increased pressure from the Israeli occupation forces to leave their land. The wall which is currently under construction will surround the village from all sides, isolating the villagers completely from their land, East Jerusalem and the old village.
Volvo equipment destroying homes
At the end of the 1980s Israel started to demolish Palestinian homes in al-Walaja and residents had to pay fines for their “illegally”-built homes. Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, Israeli forces demolished more than 24 houses in the village, according to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem.
On 18 March two house owners in al-Walaja found military orders in Hebrew on the front doors of their homes. The orders concern the demolition of the two houses because they are located too close to the path along which the wall will be built. The following day, volunteers from the Stop the Wall Campaign, the YMCA and other international volunteers gathered with the owners of the houses under demolition in order to show their solidarity.
ActiveStills photographer Anne Paq witnessed Volvo equipment being used to destroy a home in the nearby village of al-Khader. Two days earlier she had taken pictures of Volvo and Caterpillar equipment working between the road and the fence of Har Gilo settlement, just a few meters away from Palestinian houses in al-Walaja. There was an Israeli police car parked next to the works. When Paq asked what they were building, they refused to answer.
Two years ago The Electronic Intifada first reported the use of Volvo equipment in Israel’s violations of international law in the occupied West Bank. So far the company has taken no action to investigate the use of its equipment in Israeli violations of Palestinian rights.
Volvo Group’s vice president of media relations and corporate news, Marten Wikforss, wrote in response to The Electronic Intifada’s report: “we do not have any control over the use of our products, other than to affirm in our business activities a Code of Conduct that decries unethical behavior.”
While the villagers of al-Walaja steadfastly continue their protest against the construction of the wall, the confiscation of their land and the destruction of their property, Israeli forces are increasing the oppression. Some houses have been rebuilt three or four times. Director of the Joint Advocacy Initiative of the East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA, Nidal Abu Zuluf, explained: “Israel’s current repressive policies aim to prevent acts of popular resistance. They don’t want the media and internationals to be around.”
Perhaps neither does Volvo, as its equipment continues to be photographed destroying Palestinian homes and violating Palestinian rights.
Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.