New Israeli plan to build 180 settlement units near Amlesson area in J’lem

[ 22/12/2010 – 04:37 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– The Israeli municipal council in the occupied city of Jerusalem unveiled a new plan to establish a new settlement outpost of 180 housing units near Amlesson neighborhood, south of the holy city.

Official from Amlesson society Jameel Lafi said this new plan is aimed at constructing five buildings composed of 180 apartments on an area of 37, 460 square meters of the total annexed land, adding that another 30 dunums of this land were earmarked for the establishment of public facilities, including a synagogue and a kindergarten.

Lafi pointed out that Israel confiscated 67 dunums of Palestinian citizens’ land for the establishment of this settlement project.

The official affirmed that this settlement plan was revealed too late in order to disrupt any objection filed against the project by the Palestinian residents in the area.

The official, however, urged the residents to submit their objection before 27 of this month, the deadline set by the Israeli occupation authority.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

IOF forces Jerusalemite to raze his own home, endorse building 130 housing units in OJ, take steps to Judaize Jerusalem city wall

IOA scheme to build 130 housing units in OJ endorsed

[ 20/12/2010 – 07:53 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– The Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Committee approved the construction of 130 new housing units between Gilo and Beit Safafa south of occupied Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed on Monday the village of Ma’sara, south of Bethlehem, and warned the inhabitants that a mosque in the town would be razed on 23rd January along with two Palestinian houses.

Head of the national committee against the racist wall and settlement south of the West Bank Hassan Brejeh said that the demolition is part of the Israeli occupation authority’s programmed policy in all Palestinian lands aimed at evicting the indigenous people and seizing their land.

In another development, Fanatic Jewish settlers in Nablus installed a huge menorah few kilometers south of the city in line with the IOA systematic Judaization policy.

Bakirat: Israel taking steps to Judaize Jerusalem city wall

[ 20/12/2010 – 08:20 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– President of Jerusalem’s Aqsa Academy Najih Bakirat accused Israel of making deliberate changes to the historic city walls of Jerusalem when placing a stone from the alleged temple scene near the Sahira Gate.

Since the occupation in 1967, Israeli authorities have been trying to change the historic wall erected in the era of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Bakirat said.

“It began with planting trees and other plants around the wall, known as the ‘wall garden’; then the wall turned into a tourist site.”

Often exploiting the wall, Israel opened for the first time in 400 years some of the openings near the Maghariba Gate. The wall had also been defaced in the Sharaf neighborhood with structures mounted over it.

Israel’s violations went on the rise in 2000 when authorities passed a railway through one of the wall’s gates, obstructing movement there. Bakirat considered the new move in placing the alleged temple stone on the wall an attempt at transforming the wall from an Arab, Islamic sanctuary into a false Jewish token of heritage before taking full control of it. He called attempts to decorate the wall with Israeli flags and banners forgery and Judaization.

“We will not stand by idly,” Bakirat said, wishing to get across three messages, the first to Israel to refrain from violating Islamic endowments, holy sites, and heritage; the second to UNESCO and other cultural organizations to reject Israel’s transformation of hundreds of years of heritage; and the third to Arab and Muslim leaders to realize the assault being made against Jerusalem.

IOF troops destroy five shops in Al-Khalil, storm hospital in Bethlehem

[ 20/12/2010 – 07:51 PM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)– Israeli occupation forces (IOF) demolished five shops in the village of Baka’a east of Al-Khalil district on Monday at the pretext of being built without permit, local sources reported.

Sa’eed Jaber, the owner of the shops, said that he tabled many requests for building permits but the Israeli occupation authorities always turned them down, saying that they were too close to the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba.

The sources said that IOF soldiers cordoned off the entire area and blocked citizens from approaching before tearing down the shops.

The village is routinely targeted by Jewish settlers, who have occupied a number of its houses after expelling their inhabitants, locals said, recalling that the settlers had also uprooted tens of trees and damaged cultivated land lots other than installing a settlement outpost on part of the village land at the beginning of this year.

In a separate incident, IOF soldiers led by a number of officers on Sunday stormed a rehabilitation hospital in Beit Jala town, Bethlehem, and ordered tens of citizens not to enter the building after confiscating the IDs of some of them.

Local sources said that the soldiers broke into the emergency ward and asked the on-duty doctor to bring them records of all patients who received treatment in the ward since Friday night. The soldiers compared the names with a list they had.

The Hebrew radio, meanwhile, said that the IOF soldiers rounded up seven Palestinian in various West Bank areas at dawn Monday after searching their homes.

IOA forces Jerusalemite to raze his own home

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

3,000 Jewish settlers intrude on Palestinian town to visit alleged holy sites

[ 18/12/2010 – 02:15 PM ]

SALIT, (PIC)– A 3,000-man mob of Jewish settlers guarded by Israeli troops raided Friday morning the town of Kifl Haris near Salfit for a regular visit to shrines alleged to be located there, eyewitnesses reported.

Jewish settlers claim the village is the site of three religious shrines, one of them tracing back to biblical figure Joshua Ben Nun.

Israeli troops were sighted deploying in the village alleys and on the housetops in an attempt to suppress locals.

The villagers have questioned Jewish claims to shrines existing in the town. Kifl Haris has been the center of monthly raids by Jewish settlers under the same claim. The raids have impaired everyday life for villagers and created an environment of tension.

In a separate development, two Palestinian boys from the Jenin village of Kafr Rai were severely beaten later Friday night by Jewish settlers while passing through farmland near the Mabo Dotan settlement founded on the region.

The boys were first abused and then dragged into the Jewish settlement, witnesses said. They were freed after several hours of torture in poor medical condition. All wounds were superficial.

Aqsa preacher calls for Arab and Islamic conference to save holy city and Mosque

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Rescuing Zionism at Palestinian expense

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 13 December 2010

Hillary Clinton speaks at the Saban Forum Gala Dinner in Washington, DC, 10 December. (US State Department)

Standing in front of a huge banner of an Israeli flag merging into the American Stars and Stripes last Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave yet another set-piece speech laying out how US “engagement” would help bring peace in our time.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center in Washington, DC with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and key Israel lobby figures looking on — including Salam Fayyad, the puppet “prime minister” of the US- and Israeli-backed Palestinian Authority — Clinton asserted that “a Palestinian state achieved through negotiations is inevitable” (“Remarks at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy Seventh Annual Forum,” 10 December 2010).

What Clinton laid out in diagnosis and prescriptions, however, ensures that a Palestinian state is anything but inevitable. It is vanishingly unlikely.
Clinton’s much-anticipated intervention followed the Obama administration’s latest capitulation to Israel on settlement construction in the West Bank. After almost two years of attempting to bribe Israel into “restraining” the expansion of its Jewish-only colonies on occupied, stolen land, and its violent Judaization of Jerusalem, the administration concluded that it could do nothing. Of course one thing the Obama administration never tried was real pressure using as leverage the billions in annual no-strings aid the fiscally-bankrupt United States provides to Israel.

Returning to a theme she first took up in her last major speech to the Israel lobby, at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (better known as AIPAC) in March, Clinton warned that the status quo is unsustainable:
“I know that improvements in security and growing prosperity have convinced some that this conflict can be waited out or largely ignored. This view is wrong and it is dangerous. The long-term population trends that result from the occupation are endangering the Zionist vision of a Jewish and democratic state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. Israelis should not have to choose between preserving both elements of their dream. But that day is approaching.”

This is a polite way of putting it. Prominent Hebrew University demographer and Palestinian-birthrate-watcher Sergio DellaPergola recently told The Jerusalem Post that Jews already constitute just under 50 percent of the population in historic Palestine — Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined (“Jews now a minority between the River and the Sea,” 26 November 2010).

So while demographically, historic Palestine is no longer “Jewish” it has also never been a democracy, certainly not for its indigenous Palestinians.

The Jewish majority within Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries — the basis for the claim that Israel is a “Jewish democracy” — was engineered through the most undemocratic means possible: the deliberate, carefully-planned ethnic cleansing of 90 percent of the Palestinians in that area between 1947-1950 and subsequent efforts to cover up the crime.

And, for the past 43 years — or more than two thirds of Israel’s existence — millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, occupied since 1967, have lived under brutal Israeli military tyranny with no control over their own lives, land and resources. This has not changed despite the ongoing and lavishly-funded fantasy of Salam Fayyad’s “state-building” initiative of recent years — in reality a repressive US-managed police state apparatus to crush any form of resistance.

Clinton made it clear that preserving this unjust situation — rescuing Zionism — remains the priority of US policy. For there can be no “Jewish democracy” without the liquidation of Palestinian rights, particularly of refugees and Palestinian citizens of Israel.On refugees, all Clinton had to say was, “This is a difficult and emotional issue, but there must be a just and permanent solution that meets the needs of both sides.”

She did not spell out what those “needs” are. For Israel it is clear that the “need” is to continue to deny the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to lands from which they are excluded solely on the racist grounds that they are not Jews. Israel clearly “needs” this so it can continue to subordinate the rights of indigenous Palestinians to the ethnic privileges of Israeli Jews.

The needs of Palestinian refugees are that their rights be respected, especially the right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to return home — should they choose to do so — and for restitution and compensation. These basic human rights are recognized specifically and repeatedly in international law in the case of Palestinians.

These two sets of “needs” are irreconcilable. One can only stand on one side of the question: either one is for Israel’s “right” to remain a racist state, or one is for universal rights and international law and treating all human beings as equals regardless of their religion or ethnicity.These are exactly the same rights that the United States and the European Union actively supported in Bosnia, in the 1995 US-brokered Dayton Agreement. Under the agreement more than half a million refugees have returned home, in a country with a total population of just 3.5 million, to areas dominated politically and demographically by antagonistic ethnic authorities. In Bosnia, the preference of ethnonational groups to live in areas cleansed of those they consider undesirable was not allowed to trump the actual rights of individual refugees. Nor should it in Palestine.

Perhaps because Clinton knows that the US position on refugees is wrong, immoral and illegal, she does not dare spell out the implications of her words in such clear terms. It is up to Israel, the ethnic cleanser and bully, and a subservient and neutered Palestinian “leadership” to “agree” on what their “needs” are — amid radical power imbalance that guarantees (or so the United States calculates and hopes) that the result will come down in Israel’s favor.

Don’t be fooled either by Clinton’s sophistry on settlements: “The position of the United States on settlements has not changed and will not change. Like every American administration for decades, we do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity. We believe their continued expansion is corrosive not only to peace efforts and two-state solution, but to Israel’s future itself.”

In international law, all of Israel’s settlements beyond the line of 4 June 1967 are illegal. The United Nations Security Council, for example, determined that “all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention …” (UN Security Council Resolution 465 (1980)).

That resolution, like so many others, called “upon the Government and people of Israel to rescind those measures, to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning” of new ones.

The current US position, contrary to international law, questions only the “legitimacy” — not even the legality — of “continued” settlement activity. The US only asserts that there is a problem with new settlements. The Obama administration has endorsed former President George W. Bush’s 2004 written promise to Israel that the US will recognize Israeli sovereignty over virtually all settlements that have already been built since 1967.

Could there be a clearer inducement than this for Israel to continue to establish “facts on the ground”? Whatever lip service Clinton paid to opposing settlements, it is clear, based on the performance of the Obama administration to date, that for Israel there will be no negative consequences, and only rewards.

Nor did Clinton have any word of comfort for 1.4 million Palestinian (second-class) citizens of Israel who face a raft of new racist laws, policies and declarations by Israeli leaders and state-funded rabbis, dozens of whom recently issued a religious ruling calling for Jews to boycott any other Jew who sells or rents a home to a non-Jew. For the United States it is as if these Palestinians — who face increasing threats of expulsion by prominent Israeli politicians — simply don’t exist.
So what is left of Obama’s vaunted peace process “engagement”? For sure all the things that suit Israel: an “unwavering,” unconditional commitment to supply Israel with more of the weapons that have been so promiscuously used to commit war crimes in Lebanon, Gaza and across the West Bank; acquiescence to continued settlement construction; more sanctions and pressure on Iran — an Israel lobby priority; continued boycott of Hamas, siege of Gaza and support for the West Bank police state; calls on the Arab states to normalize ties with Israel; and of course putting Israel’s desire to remain a racist ethnocracy before the universal rights of human beings.

And the US prescription now is more of the same: urging Palestinians to “negotiate” with an Israel from which the US superpower itself could extract nothing, precisely because of unconditional American support!

For the discredited Palestinian Authority “leadership” which rushed to Washington as soon as Clinton beckoned, the secretary of state had these instructions: “To demonstrate their commitment to peace, Israeli and Palestinian leaders should stop trying to assign blame for the next failure, and focus instead on what they need to do to make these efforts succeed.” She warned Palestinians specifically, in reference to efforts to get more states to recognize Palestine: “Unilateral efforts at the United Nations are not helpful and undermine trust.” Recently, Brazil and Argentina joined more than a hundred countries that recognize the nonexistent “State of Palestine” declared by the Palestine Liberation Organization in November 1988.

In other words, Palestinians must continue to take it on the chin as Israel does what it pleases with American support. Only Palestinians intent on committing national suicide could go along with such a charade. Those who support genuine peace for Palestinians and Israeli Jews, based on universal rights, equality, restitution and the decolonization of the relationship between the populations, must escalate the real peace process: boycott, divestment and sanctions to force Israel to respect Palestinian rights and obey international law.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

Out of Failure, a Chance for Justice for Palestine

Crowley’s “change in tactics” means that the US will abandon its role as “negotiator” and do, as the British Government did in 1947, give the resolution for peace in the mid-east to the UN where it belongs since the UN carved the Mandated land into two states in Resolution 181.

By William A. Cook

– 10. Dec, 2010

Philip Crowley, speaking for the State Department, seemed to imply a new beginning for the US as it halted the peace negotiations it had started last May, when he noted there “may well be a change in tactics.” (Aljazeera.net “US Fails in settlements freeze bid: the US suspends efforts to persuade Israel on settlement building freeze” 12/8/2010.)
 
Perhaps Netanyahu’s bribery of billions of US dollars for 20 F-35 fighter planes at a time when Obama’s administration is trying to get Congress to extend unemployment benefits for 3 million Americans rankled the President; perhaps a forced written guarantee that the US would not interfere with future settlement construction while it continued its “unconditional support” for Israel as it confiscated more Palestinian land by using its veto in the Security Council pricked the President’s conscience as he realized that he was no longer in charge in his own administration; perhaps the President finally understood that America cannot be the broker for peace in Palestine because it is controlled by Israel, a decided unfair advantage for a negotiator that believes in justice; and maybe, just maybe, he recognized that after all these decades of “pretended peace talks between Israel and the PLO” the Zionist government never had any intention of bringing a Palestinian state into existence thus depriving the nations of the world their opportunity to confront Israel with true Justice in international courts. Perhaps Crowley’s “change in tactics” means that the US will abandon its role as “negotiator” and do, as the British Government did in 1947, give the resolution for peace in the mid-east to the UN where it belongs since the UN carved the Mandated land into two states in Resolution 181.
Taking such action would reduce Obama’s humiliation at the hands of Netanyahu and his hound dog, Avigdor Lieberman; it would remove, in the eyes of the world communities, the pall of distrust and hatred that the US has earned as a lackey for the Zionist regimes since Sharon ruled Israel; and it would provide a sensible and real solution to the issues that have plagued the peace process: the security of Israel, the borders of a Palestinian state, the fate of the Palestinian refugees, and the status of Jerusalem.

How?

Since the UN has already defined the borders of Israel and Palestine in Resolution 181, modified in Resolution 242 and accepted at that time by both sides, the issues of borders can be determined by an impartial body appointed by the UNSC. It follows that Israel’s security can be assured if those borders are controlled by a UN Peace Keeping force that would monitor egress and ingress for both states. It follows also that the barriers that have been used by the Israelis to control the people of Palestine could be brought down as necessary to make the borders true state borders and not a prison wall. Again, since the original formation of the two states by UN Resolution included an international status for Jerusalem, the condition of Jerusalem already exists as long as the UN takes control of the process. There remains only the problem of the refugees. International law determines the rights of the refugees, and hence, the action of the UN would have to be in conformity with that law. Various resolutions could be adopted including return to the Palestinian state as designed by 242, payments to the refugees in lieu of resettlement, and use of existing Israeli “settlements” for housing for refugees with adequate compensation provided for to Israel and the US. In short, with the international courts and the UN in charge, justice can finally prevail in Palestine.

Interestingly, just last month, Yuval Rabin, son of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, proposed an Israeli Peace Initiative, a joint venture with Koby Huberman a businessman and activist; the proposal is built on the following points:

1. A viable Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and one-on-one land swaps
2. Jerusalem as the home of two capitals and special arrangements in the holy basin
3. An agreed solution for the refugees inside the Palestinian state (with symbolic exceptions)
4. Mutual recognition of the genuine national identities of the two states as the outcome of negotiations not as a prerequisite
5. Reiteration of the principles underlying Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence regarding civic equality for its Arab citizens
6. Long term security arrangements with international components. (Haaretz, 26.11.10)

Needless to say, this proposal makes it easy for Netanyahu to act in accordance with possible UN action since it would provide an Israeli resolution to offset criticism that he was capitulating to Obama’s decision to return the problem to the UN. Crowley’s understated comment that there “will be a change in tactics” just might be an announcement of justice at last for both Palestinians and Jews. We need only look back to see the future. Time and conditions change but humankind remains the same. Greed and power are the sinews that bind minds indifferent to the havoc they wreak on the helpless and the weak; it’s time for the US to exit the broker’s role and give the peace process to the United Nations so that justice can at last prevail.

William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. He’s written three books about the mid-east, Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, The Rape of Palestine and most recently The Plight of the Palestinians. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu and at www.drwilliamacook.com.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

After Leaving Office Former European Leaders: Sanction Israel over Settlement Building

Former European Leaders: Sanction Israel over Settlement Building

10/12/2010 A group of 26 senior former European leaders who held power during the past decade are calling for strong measures against Israel in response to its settlement policy and refusal to abide by international law.

In an unusual letter sent Thursday to the leadership of the European Union and the governments of the EU’s 27 member states, the signatories, including former heads of state, ministers and heads of European organizations, criticize Israel’s policies.

Among those signing the letter are the former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, former German President Richard von Weizsacker, former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales, former president of the EU Commission and former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, and former Irish President Mary Robinson.

The European leaders are backing the Palestinians’ efforts to rally international support for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state as an alternative to the negotiations that have reached an impasse. They note that the Palestinians cannot expect to be able to set up an independent state without international political and economic assistance.

As such, they are calling on the European Union to play a more effective and active role vis-a-vis the United States, Israel and others. They also want it made clear that a European Union decision to upgrade relations with Israel and other bilateral agreements will be frozen unless Israel freezes settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

“PA to Cancel all Security Commitments to Israel” & Clinton Intensifies Meetings in Bid to End Palestinian, Israeli Impasse

“PA to Cancel all Security Commitments to Israel”

10/12/2010 “The Palestinian Authority will stop coordinating its security with Israel, in response to the US’s official announcement that peace talks have failed,” Al Quds al-Arabi reported on Friday.

Khana Amira, a PLO official, told the UK newspaper that the PA is also considering canceling its other commitments to Israel, including the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, which demand that resistance organizations will stop.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official and an adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly plans to convene a meeting with the PLO and Fatah central committees on Friday afternoon, in order to make a new plan for the Palestinians.

Palestinian officials told Al Quds al-Arabi that they expect US President Barack Obama to attempt to restart “peace talks” between Israel and the Palestinians. “Maybe the meeting will give the American government another chance,” an official told the paper.

The Palestinians are also considering seeking the UN Security Council’s recognition of a Palestinian state on all the Palestinian territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967.

Clinton Intensifies Meetings in Bid to End Palestinian, Israeli Impasse

10/12/2010 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is holding a flurry of talks to find a new way to break the deadlock in Middle East “peace talks” following a failed US push for an Israeli settlement freeze.

The chief US diplomat was scheduled to meet in Washington on Friday with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, US officials said. These talks follow those she had with Israel’s chief peace negotiator Yitzhak Molcho from whom she sought “a perspective on the Israeli side of how to move forward,” her spokesman Philip Crowley said, without elaborating.

Crowley said Clinton had spoken twice over the telephone on Wednesday with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to encourage him to send Erakat to Washington. The burst of talks will be capped by an evening speech Clinton will give to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, outlining new ideas to rescue the Obama administration’s struggling diplomatic efforts in the region.

Talks were thrown into disarray on Tuesday when the United States conceded it had failed in its weeks-long efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s former defense minister Shaul Mofaz, a member of the centrist Kadima party who will attend Clinton’s speech, told reporters in Washington on Thursday that the United States and Israel got off to a wrong start. “I believe that the freeze was a strategic mistake for both sides,” Mofaz said, referring the 10-month Israeli moratorium on settlements that expired in September. “It was the first time that preconditions were forced into the process. After 10 months of freeze in Jerusalem and the settlements, nothing happened and the issue of the moratorium became the main issue,” he said.

UN, EU: Israel Obliged to Freeze Settlement Construction
Meanwhile Abbas’s militia kidnaps 28 Hamas supporters
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Defiant Jerusalem Palestinians say "we will remain here"

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, The Electronic Intifada, 9 December 2010

Hundreds of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals demonstrate against the Israeli occupation in Issawiya, occupied East Jerusalem, 3 December 2010. (Anne Paq/ActiveStills)

A huge Palestinian flag was carried up a steep hill in Issawiya on 3 December, passed hand-to-hand between the at least 200 Palestinians, Israelis and international activists taking part in the first-ever solidarity march and demonstration in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood.

People cheered and shouted as the flag passed over their heads, and many carried signs reading “Stop the imprisonment of Issawiya” and “Stop the occupation of Issawiya.”

Indeed, in recent weeks, the contrast between the Israeli settlement of French Hill — home to the main campus of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and Hadassah hospital — and neighboring Issawiya has been magnified by the near-constant presence of Israeli soldiers and police forces in the Palestinian village.

“It’s as if civilization ends at the borders of French Hill and Issawiya,” said Hani Isawi, member of the Issawiya Follow-Up Committee, during a resident-led meeting on 24 November in the neighborhood.

“On the one hand, we are suffering because as the rest of the Palestinian people, we are living under the Israeli occupation, and at the same time, we are suffering from a very clear policy of discrimination from the Jerusalem municipality,” Isawi said.

Recently, the Israeli media reported that a group of Palestinian youth stoned a car of Israeli Jews that had gotten lost in Issawiya and were asking for directions back to West Jerusalem.

In what residents say is collective punishment for the attack, the Israeli authorities have closed the entrances and exits to Issawiya. Today, only two entrances remain, including one that has been turned into an Israeli army-monitored checkpoint that causes routine delays for the neighborhood’s 15,000 Palestinian residents.

“We very clearly discourage and criticize these kind of actions, such as attacking civilians,” Isawi said. “But the Israelis are using this as a pretext for implementing very harsh policies against us.”

Israeli soldiers and police forces have arrested at least ten children under the age of 16, and more than two dozen others above that age since October, according to the Issawiya Follow-Up Committee. They have also routinely blanketed Issawiya in clouds of tear gas during clashes with groups of Palestinian youth, including shortly after Friday’s demonstration.

On 24 September, an 18-month-old Palestinian child died in Issawiya from tear gas inhalation, after Israeli forces threw cannisters at a demonstration protesting the killing of Samer Sarhan in the nearby Silwan neighborhood.

No room to grow

Three kilometers away from Jerusalem’s Old City walls, Issawiya sits between the Israeli settlements of French Hill to the west, and Maale Adumim — one the largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank with more than 34,000 settlers — to the east.

In 1968, the Israeli state confiscated 400 of the 3,000 total dunams (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters) of land in Issawiya to build the French Hill settlement, which connects Hebrew University and the Hadassah Hospital to West Jerusalem.

In addition to confiscating land, Israel has also designated 2,000 dunams in Issawiya as “green areas,” thereby making it illegal for village residents to build anything in the area. Today, Issawiya residents only have 600 dunams on which to build homes and other structures.

“We are facing a very serious problem of providing a sufficient amount of houses to coincide with the natural growth [of the population in Issawiya],” Hani Isawi said. “While we hear on the news all the time about thousands and thousands of new residential units to be built in Jewish neighborhoods, since 1990 there hasn’t been one single zoning plan for Issawiya that would actually allow us to build more houses to satisfy our need for natural growth.”

In the past few weeks, Israeli forces have destroyed animal pens, agricultural land and other structures in the village.

“The Israeli border police and other administrative people destroyed twelve farms in the area. This also included the uprooting of trees,” explained Sheikh Riad Isawi of the Issawiya Follow-Up Committee.

“Israel is probably the only place in the world that actually allows the uprooting of trees. So not only human beings are suffering from the Israeli occupation but also the trees and nature,” he said.

The full extent of Israel’s destructive policies in Issawiya was clear as early as July of this year, when Israeli forces destroyed homes and devastated agricultural land in a two-week span.

“We constructed a well, they destroyed it. We planted trees, they uprooted them. We put barbed wire around the area so that wild animals won’t enter, they took that off also,” said Issawiya resident Abid Darwish in July, as he watched his land being destroyed.

“In all this, we can’t find a place for us to just sit and breathe. This land is for the families here in Issawiya: Darwish, Mustafa, Alayyan, Abu Hommos and many others,” Darwish added.

Since July, 440 trees have been uprooted and at least 16 structures have been demolished in Issawiya.

Annexation continues

E1, Israel’s stalled settlement project that was initially proposed in 1994, would annex another estimated 12,400 dunams of land from Issawiya and the neighboring villages of al-Izzariya and al-Tur. The E1 settlement bloc would contain 3,500 housing units — for nearly 14,500 new settlers — and would solidify Maale Adumim by connecting it to West Jerusalem, according to the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem.

To date, the Israeli authorities have built a police station and army base in the area, and have paved some roads, checkpoints and other basic infrastructure in preparation for the project to go ahead.

“Any link between Maale Adumim and West Jerusalem is going to be at the expense of Issawiya,” said Hani Isawi. “The aim of these measurements is to pressure more and more of the people of Issawiya, and also to facilitate for future land confiscation in our area.”

Still, according to Isawi, whether or not the E1 settlement project goes ahead, the need to stay in Issawiya despite relentless Israeli pressure remains.

“Our struggle against the Israeli authorities is expressed by our staying here in our village and facing all the confiscation plans,” he said. “We will remain here. We will always be part of the Palestinian people.”

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in occupied East Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at http://jilldamours.wordpress.com.

Israel, US PA Talks on Settlement Freeze Reach Dead End

08/12/2010 The US-led diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is going back to the drawing board, a senior US official announced Tuesday night. Following consultation with the sides, it was determined that a further settlement moratorium would not provide the basis for a framework agreement.

The diplomat, briefing reporters in Jerusalem on condition of anonymity, said Washington was “ending the contacts to try and achieve another moratorium.” “We reached the conclusion this is not the time to renew direct negotiation by renewing the moratorium”, he indicated. He added that Washington would now seek to work toward a deal on security and border issues.

The official said that Israeli and Palestinian officials would visit Washington in the coming days for discussions.

A senior Israeli official said the talks between the two countries have reached a dead end, and that they will try to find new ways to advance the so-called Middle East peace process.

Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee Yasser Abed Rabbo said Wednesday that the American effort has failed “and we must turn to the broader framework of the international community,”.

Abed Rabbo, who was visiting Greece with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, questioned the American announcement that the efforts to resume the negotiations between the sides despite the failure to reach an agreement on a new settlement construction freeze.

“It’s unclear how the United States plans to succeed where it has so far failed, and it has failed mainly because of the Israeli policy,” he said.

Ynet has learned that Israeli officials are looking into the possibility of offering the Palestinians another military withdrawal and handing over security authorities to the Palestinian Authority.

But according to Abed Rabbo, “Instead of declaring Israel responsible for the talks’ failure, the American administration is giving the Israelis an opportunity to waste more time by calling for the renewal of the talks.”

The senior PLO official, whose stand represents the official Palestinian leadership, said the US failure proved that the exclusive American efforts had been utilized to the fullest and that “we must turn to the broader framework of the international community” – referring to the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.

Abed Rabbo expressed his wonder over the American administration’s denouncement of Brazil and Argentina’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. “It’s unclear why instead of dealing with the Israeli policy thwarting the American effort, the US chooses to condemn Brazil and Argentina for recognizing an independent Palestinian state.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that contacts with the United States over a renewed moratorium on West Bank construction had been frozen in the wake of the WikiLeaks crisis and the tensions between North and South Korea.

“We have not reached understanding with the United States on how to resume the construction freeze,” Barak told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “The negotiations with the Palestinians are of utmost priority for Israel and we must aspire to make them happen.”

Barak said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had reached a gentlemen’s agreement in their discussions over trading a freeze for certain American guarantees, adding that a deal was not yet “closed” and that the approval of Congress was still needed.

State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley responded to Barak on Tuesday, and expressed more optimism regarding negotiations. “Our efforts are not suspended. We are having conversations even as we speak today with both Israeli officials, with Palestinian officials,” said Crowley.

“I mean, the Israeli government itself has been fully occupied, understandably, in recent days, with the challenge of the fires. We remain determined to work with the parties on a path forward and, try to determine how best to advance the process back to direct negotiations and to ultimately a framework agreement.”

“The process has not stopped. We obviously recognize that, we face a difficult obstacle, and we will continue to engage the parties on the way forward,” he said.

USA gives up attempt to convince Israel to renew building freeze

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

IOA deports MP Abu Tir to the West Bank as razing homes continues

IOA deports MP Abu Tir to the West Bank

[ 08/12/2010 – 10:43 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– An Israeli court decided on Wednesday to deport Jerusalemite MP Mohammed Abu Tir from his native hometown of occupied Jerusalem to the West Bank.

The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has been detaining the lawmaker for five months under the claim of “illegal presence” in Jerusalem.

The Israeli interior minister had ordered the deportation of Jerusalemite MPs Abu Tir, Mohammed Totah, Ahmed Attoun, and former minister of Jerusalem affairs Khaled Abu Arafa out of Jerusalem at the pretext of their “non-allegiance to Israel”.

The Israeli occupation forces apprehended Abu Tir after conclusion of the period granted by the minister for their banishment, prompting his other comrades to take refuge in the Red Cross headquarters in Jerusalem to highlight their issue. They pitched a sit-in tent since then.

MP Attoun said that the trial of Abu Tir was of political nature and was not based on any legal foundation, charging that the Israeli judiciary was under the control of the Israeli intelligence.

OCHA: Israel razed 12 homes in O. Jerusalem during one week

[ 08/12/2010 – 10:40 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said that Israel demolished 12 Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem from 24 to 30 November at the pretext of unlicensed construction.

OCHA added in a report issued on Tuesday that since the beginning of this year, Israel has destroyed 54 Palestinian homes in the holy city and 291 others in the West Bank.

For its part, the information center of the Palestinian ministry of planning in Gaza said in its monthly report that three Palestinians were killed and 35 others were wounded by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in last month.

The information center noted that the three victims were killed during an Israeli aerial attack on Gaza.

It added that the IOF troops carried out nine limited incursions into Gaza and 84 others in the West Bank in the reported month, during these operations they kidnapped 288 Palestinians, 100 of them from Al-Khalil city.

Statistics: Israel razed about 1, 000 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem in 10 years

[ 07/12/2010 – 01:30 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– Statistics published by the land research center of the Arab studies society stated that Israel have demolished 995 Palestinian homes and displaced 5,783 individuals, including 3,109 children in occupied Jerusalem since the start of 2000.

These data was published in a book issued on Monday by the center under the title “Jerusalem under occupation.”

According to the book, the Israeli demolition of structures in the “western” part of Jerusalem is confined to walls, garages and cottages.

Since Israel occupied the “eastern” part of Jerusalem in 1967 and until 1984, it has not issued construction permits to any Palestinians, but afterwards it issued only 33 permits in 2008 and 2009, researcher Waleed Habbas said in the book.

The researcher pointed out that 34 settlements have been constructed since 1967, and there is only 12 percent of the land in east Jerusalem for Palestinians, while 38 percent for the Israeli settlements and 50 percent is green areas reserved for the building and expansion of settlements.

He also gave brief information about the history of demolition, saying that 16 out of 19. 5 square kilometers were occupied at the end of the British occupation in 1948, while 39 Palestinian villages were erased and 98, 000 Jerusalemites were displaced.

In 1967, Israel destroyed three Palestinian villages in addition to Ash-Sharaf neighborhood in the old city of Jerusalem and annexed 71 square kilometers to what is known now as the boundary of the Israeli municipality.

In another context, the secretariat of the Arab League called on everyone invited to the ceremony which the Israeli government intends to hold in east Jerusalem on the occasion of the Christmas to boycott this event that represents a clear violation of international law.

The Arab League warned that attending this event would encourage the Israeli occupation to persist in its violations of international law that considers east Jerusalem an occupied territory, saying this Israeli step poses a threat to the peace and stability in the region.

The Arab League also hailed in its statement the governments of Brazil and Argentina for recognizing the Palestinian state within the borders of June 1967.

• Lieberman: No reason for renewing freeze on settlement building
• Abu Sha’ar: Israel is racing against time to Judaize O. Jerusalem

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian