From the Olive Tree Campaign of the Joint Advocacy Initiative - www.jai-pal.org

A report from the UN declares that there has been as many attacks on farmers so far this year, as in 2007 all together. Even Israeli politicians have declared that the situation is getting out of control. Prior to the olive harvest season, Israeli and Palestinian officials agreed that the Israeli defense force would prevent the settlers from assaulting farmers during their olive harvest. Instead, the Israeli soldiers accompanied settlers in harassing farmers in several occasions during the last two weeks. Farmers are being forced to start their harvesting before the actual season has started, or will have to leave their trees half-full of olives. According to the Israeli High Court ruling of 2006, it is a violation of the law for soldiers to obstruct farmers from harvesting.

- http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32281
- http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3735&Itemid=1

The Israeli settlers regularly harass the surrounding villagers by burning their lands, shooting at Palestinians, stealing their farming equipment, and attacking houses. The farmers has in total lost more than fifty percent of their olive groves.

For more information, including details of reported incidents, please see the report on the Joint Advocacy Initiative website (opens in a new window)

The National Campaign Against The Israeli Closures

in Hebron Old City

Hebron or “Al-Khalil” in Arabic, the second oldest city in Palestine, with almost 170,000 Palestinians, aging back to 5,500 years old, is adapting the spiritual shrine of the Ibraheemi Mosque, where Prophet Abraham and his wife Sara lie entombed.

Since 1967, Hebron has been occupied by Israel . During the years, Israeli Jewis have settled in the heart of Hebron and near its Old City , what resulted in many problems and made Hebron a special case in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Hebron has been divided into two parts – H1 and H2 – according to the Hebron Protocol signed between Palestinians and Israelis in 1997.

The reality of having Israeli settlements in the center of Hebron city, within Palestinian residential areas, creates high level of tension among Palestinian citizens who live under very sever circumstances. Citizens of H2 area in Hebron are suffering double aggressive actions from both Israeli authorities and settlers.

The Israeli authorities impose, through its military forces, very strict measurements on Palestinians in H2 area including denying accesses to many areas and depriving Palestinians the right to pass through them, in an attempt to isolate the area and separate it from other parts of Hebron, aiming at colonizing the old part of the city and enlarge the Israeli enclave in side it.

Twenty one military decrees have been issued by the Israeli government, preventing Palestinians to enter certain areas in the Old City of Hebron neither walking nor driving.

Hebron Governor, Hebron Municipality, Members of PLC were among seventy one Palestinian officials and other NGO’s representatives when they gathered in a joint meeting upon a call from Hebron Rehabilitation Committee on the 17^th of September and decided to hold a solidarity week under the name of “The National Campaign Against Israeli Closures in Hebron Old City” starting the 2^nd of November2008, in order to raise up a yell of rejection against what is going on in Hebron.

This week will be full of activities, which will include mainly:

· Fixing a Net next to the old city of Hebron to be used as a Head Quarter of the campaign.

• Solidarity visits to the net and to the old city of Hebron by high level Palestinian officials.
• Solidarity visits by diplomats and representatives of Arab and foreign countries.
• Visits of international solidarity movements, EU Parliament members, Arab and Israeli Kinisit members, Israeli peace movements, Palestinian universities and schools’ students and others….
• Preparing protest petition to be signed by a target of 100,000 persons.
• Raising flags on roofs of buildings throughout the city of Hebron to express their rejection of the continued closure.
• Raising banners and pictures, posters and work shirts and hats in Hebron .
• Organizing a series of cultural events in the Old City for all ages.
• Regulating intensive media campaign to cover these events.

We call upon you to participate in this campaign by being part of any of the mentioned activities. Your participation might make a change.

The National Campaign Against The Israeli Closures in Hebron Old City

http://www.hebronrc.org

For more information please contact: Emad Hamdan 0599 994 924 or at: +972 2 2255640

hebronrc@hebronet.com

Healing In Akko

Following recent violence between Jews and Arabs in Akko (Acre), northern Israel, in both communities was much one-sided blame of the “other.”
Many people stayed home hoping for “things” to change, waiting for “leaders.”
“Wanting” peace but not relationships.

Distinctive was a handful of Arab and Jewish citizens with hard-won, personal experience in peace-building.
These inventors of past Sulha and Sulhita - http://sulha.com/ - endeavors had brought into relationship thousands of Jewish and Palestinian youth and adults in the Holy Land.
In the midst of crisis, Sulha volunteers, with experience and confidence, set up a safe, open tent space in Akko on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 16-17, 2008.
SEE their invitation in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
http://traubman.igc.org/akko.pdf
For two days, local Arab and Jewish adults and youth came face-to-face in listening circles for conversations that mattered.
To support this reconciliation, local residents were joined by the Bereaved Families Forum whose relatives died from past violence, yet whose members have chosen to reject revenge in favor of meeting and healing together.
SEE PHOTOS of Akko’s tents that allowed everyone to be heard - the beginning of healing and a new future together.
http://traubman.igc.org/akkophotos.pdf

Lobby of Parliament - ‘Justice for Palestinians’

2-6pm on Wednesday 19 November 2008

Followed by a meeting at 7pm - Committee Room 10 in the House of Commons.

A lobby of parliament is being organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Council for Arab-British Understanding and Jews for Justice for Palestinians on Wednesday 19 November to mark the UN international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Previous lobbies of parliament have attracted a significant level of support from solidarity organisations, faith groups, trade unions and other groups. This broad support is very important in demonstrating to MPs and the British government the wide range of organisations calling for peace and justice.

This year the lobby theme will be ‘Justice for Palestinians’, and will take place from 2-6pm on Wednesday 19 November.

The lobby of parliament will call on the British government to implement international law and press for:
• an end to the blockade on Gaza.
• Israel to end its occupation.
• the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
• respect for Palestinian sovereignty.
• the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement.

Ensure that your MP hears your views – please contact them straight away and ask to meet them on the afternoon of 19 November.

If you don’t know who your MP is, please go to www.theyworkforyou.com

Make sure to let us know at the PSC office when you have made an appointment

Please help publicise this lobby as widely as possible. New leaflets are being printed – please contact the office for copies..

If you require any further information please don’t hesitate to contact info@palestinecampaign.org or wattg@caabu.org.

Please note: there will be a meeting at 7pm - Committee Room 10 in the House of Commons.
The Lobby of Parliament is organised by:
CAABU  -  JFJFP  -  PSC

The Lobby of Parliament is supported by:
The following Trade Unions: ASLEF, BECTU, CWU, FBU, GMB, PCS, RMT, UNISON, UNITE and Action Palestine, Amos Trust, Association of the Palestinian Community in the UK,  Britain Palestine Twinning Network, British Committee for Universities in Palestine, Christian Peacemaker Teams UK, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Friends of Birzeit University, Friends of Sabeel UK, The Green Party, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions UK, Midlands Palestinian Community Association, Muslim Council of Britain, National Association of British Arabs, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Palestinian Return Centre, Pax Christi, Stop the War Coalition, War on Want.

From Gush Shalom

Is Akko Burning?

THROUGHOUT ITS thousands of years of history, Akko has never been an Israelite town.

Even according to the mythological story of the Bible, the Israelites did not conquer the city, which was already an ancient port. The first chapter of the Book of Judges, which contradicts much of the description given in the Book of Joshua, states unequivocally: “Neither did [the tribe of] Asher drive out the inhabitants of Akko. (Judges 1:31)

Only a few of the world’s cities can boast such a stormy and checkered history as Akko (Akka in Arabic, Acre in French and English), the main port of the country. It was a Canaanite-Phoenician town, traded with Egypt, rebelled against Assyria, confronted the Jewish Hasmoneans, was conquered by the Crusaders, served as a battle-ground for the legendary Saladin and the no less legendary Richard the Lion-Hearted, was the capital of the semi-independent Arab state of the Galilee under Daher al-Omar and withstood the siege of Napoleon. All these periods have left their traces in Akko, in the form of buildings and walls. A fascinating town, perhaps the most beautiful - and surely the most interesting - after Jerusalem.

During some of these periods, there existed in Akko a small Jewish community, but it never was a Jewish town. On the contrary: among the Rabbis there was an ongoing discussion whether Akko, from the point of view of religious law (Halacha), belonged to Eretz Israel at all. This was important, because certain commandments apply only to the Land of Israel. Some rabbis believed that Akko did not belong, while others asserted that at least a part of the town did. (That did not prevent us in our youth from singing “Akko, too, belongs to Eretz Israel” - meaning the old Crusaders’ fortress on the sea-shore, where the British held prisoners from the Jewish underground organizations.)

In the 1948 war, Akko was occupied by the Israeli forces, and since then it has lived under Israeli rule: 60 years out of a history of 5000 years and more.

This is the background of last week’s events in Akko. The Arab inhabitants consider Akko as the town of their forefathers, which was forcibly occupied by the Jews. The Jewish inhabitants consider it a Jewish town, in which the Arabs are a tolerated minority - at most.

For years the town was covered by a thin blanket of hypocrisy. Everybody praised and celebrated the wonderful co-existence there. Until the blanket was torn, and the naked truth was exposed.

I AM a very secular person. I have always advocated a complete separation between state and religion, even in the days when that sounded like a crazy idea. But it has never entered my mind to drive on Yom Kippur. There is no law forbidding it, no law is necessary.

For a traditional Jew, Yom Kippur is a day like no other. Even if one does not really believe that on this day God makes the final decision about the life or death of every human being for the next year and writes it all down in a large book, one senses that one has to respect the feelings of those who do believe. I would not drive on Yom Kippur in a Jewish neighborhood, just as I would not eat in public during Ramadan in an Arab neighborhood.

It is difficult to know what the Arab driver Tawfiq Jamal was thinking of when he entered a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in his car on Yom Kippur. It is reasonable to assume that he did not do it out of malice, as a provocation, but rather out of stupidity or carelessness.

The reaction was predictable. An angry Jewish crowd chased him into an Arab house and besieged him there. In a distant Arab neighborhood the loudspeakers of the mosques blared out that Arabs had been killed and that an Arab was in mortal danger. Excited Arab youngsters tried to reach the house of the besieged Arab family but were blocked by the police. They gave vent to their feelings by wrecking Jewish shops and cars. Jewish youths, reinforced by members of the extreme right, burned down the homes of Arab inhabitants, who became refugees in their own town. In a few minutes, 60 years of “co-existence” were wiped out - proof that in the “mixed” town there is no real co-existence, only two communities who hate each other’s guts.

IT IS easy to understand this hatred. As in other “mixed” towns, indeed as in the whole of Israel, the Arab public is discriminated against by the state and municipal authorities. Smaller budgets, inferior education facilities, poorer housing, crowded neighborhoods.

The Arab citizens are the victims of a vicious circle. They live in crowded towns and neighborhoods that have turned into neglected ghettos. When the standard of living of the inhabitants rises, there is a desperate demand for a better environment and better housing. Young couples leave the neglected and underfunded Arab neighborhoods and move into Jewish areas, something that immediately arouses opposition and resentment. The same has happened to Afro-Americans in the USA, and before them to the Jews there and elsewhere.

All the talk about equality, good neighborliness and co-existence goes up in smoke when Arab families live in a hostile Jewish environment. Reasons are always to be found, and the incursion of Tawfiq Jamal was only an especially grievous example.

Such a situation can be found in many places on earth. Religious, nationalistic, ethnic or community sensitivities can explode at any time. It took a hundred years after the emancipation of the slaves in the US until the civil rights laws were enacted, and during those years there were regular lynchings. Another 40 years passed before a black candidate could come near the White House. The police in London is notorious for its racism, citizens of Turkish origin are discriminated against in Berlin, an African can play football for the French national team but has no chance of becoming president.

In these respects, Akko is no different from the rest of the world.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE said that each of us contains a little racist. The only difference is between those who recognize and try to overcome him and those who give in to him.

As chance would have it, I spent Yom Kippur, while the riots were shaking Akko, reading the fascinating book by William Polk, “Neighbors and Strangers”, which deals with the origins of racism. Like other animals, ancient man lived from hunting and gathering. He roamed around with his extended family, a group of no more than fifty people, in an area that was barely sufficient for their subsistence. Every stranger who entered his territory was a mortal threat, while he tried to invade his neighbor’s territory in order to increase his chances of survival. In other words: the fear of the stranger and the urge to drive him out are deeply embedded in our biological heritage and have been for millions of years.

Racism can be overcome, or at least reined in, but that needs conscious, systematic and consistent treatment. In Akko - as in other places in the country - there has been no such treatment.

In this country the racism is, of course, connected with the national conflict which has been going on already for five generations. The Akko events are just another episode in the war between the two peoples of this country.

The Jewish extreme right, including the hard core of the settlers, does not hide its intention of driving out all the Arabs and turning the entire country into a purely Jewish state. Meaning: ethnic cleansing. It looks like the dream of a small minority, but public opinion research shows that this tendency is gnawing at a much wider public, even if only in a half-conscious way, hidden and denied.

In the Arab community, there are probably some who dream about the good old days, before the Jews came to this country and took it by force.

When Jews carry out a pogrom in Akko, whatever the immediate reason, it becomes a national event. The burning of Arab homes in a Jewish neighborhood at once arouses fear of ethnic cleansing. When the Arab young people storm into a Jewish neighborhood in order to save an endangered Arab brother, it immediately evokes memories of the 1929 massacre of the Jews in Hebron - which, at the time, was also a “mixed” town.

THERE IS reasonable hope that at some future time we shall end the national conflict and reach a peaceful solution that both peoples will accept (if only because there is no alternative.) A Palestinian state will come into being side by side with Israel, and both peoples will understand that this is the best possible solution.

(The Akko events should give rise to second thoughts in the mind of anyone who believes in the “One-State solution”‘ where Jews and Arabs would live in brotherhood and equality. Such a “solution” would turn the entire country into one big Akko.)

But peace, based on two states living side by side, will not automatically solve the problem of the Arab citizens in Israel, a state that defines itself as “Jewish”. We must be ready for a long, consistent fight over the character of our state.

The extreme rightist Avigdor Liberman has proposed that the Arab villages on the Israeli side of the Green Line should be attached to the Palestinian state, in return for the Jewish settlement blocs beyond the Green Line that would be attached to Israel. That would not affect, of course, the Arab inhabitants of Akko, Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and the Galilee villages. But even in the villages near the Green Line, no Arab agrees to this idea. Although Liberman proposes to turn over the entire villages to the Palestinian state together with all their lands and properties, not a single Arab voice has been raised in agreement.

Why? The million and a half Arab citizens in Israel do not like the government’s policies, the flag and the national anthem, not to mention the treatment of the population in the occupied territories. But they prefer the Israeli democracy, the social progress, the National Insurance system and the social services. They are rooted in the life and mores of Israel much more deeply than they themselves recognize. They want to be citizens in this state, but on terms of equality and mutual respect.

The Jews who dream of ethnic cleansing do not understand how large a contribution the Arab community makes to Israel. Like the other inhabitants of Israel, they work here, they contribute to the GNP, they pay their taxes like everybody else. Like all of us, they have no alternative - they pay value-added tax on everything they buy and they, too, get their salaries only after income tax is deducted.

There are many questions that have to be recognized and discussed, and from which conclusions must be drawn. Is it desirable or not desirable, at this stage, for Arabs to live in Jewish neighborhoods and Jews in Arab neighborhoods? How can the Arab neighborhoods be elevated economically to the level of Jewish neighborhoods, in practice and not only in talk? Should every Jewish child learn Arabic and every Arab child learn Hebrew, as the mayor of Haifa proposed this week? Should Arab education receive the same status and the same budgets as, for example, the independent but government-funded Jewish Orthodox education system? Should autonomous Arab institutions be established? Finding solutions to these problems, or at least to some of them, is a vital part of the fight against racism - attacking its roots, and not only its symptoms.

Actually, there is no alternative: the citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs, are “condemned” to live together, whether they like it or not. But, as the Akko events have shown again, the joint fabric is still weak. In order to change this, we must all have the courage to look the problem in the eye, to see it as it is, without hypocrisy or falsification. This is the only way we can find solutions.

permlink: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1224366421