January, 2011 | UN-Truth

Ben Ali out of Tunisia, Baby Doc Duvalier back in Haiti?

Are we supposed to believe that “Baby Doc” Duvalier decided, all by himself, to return to Haiti on Sunday after 25 years in exile?

Duvalier’s return to Haiti took place just two days after Tunisia’s President Ben Ali left his country, a day after vowing to remain in office until the end of his term in 2014, following several weeks of popular protests. Ben Ali, who may have originally intended to stay in France, was instead re-directed to Saudi Arabia.

Here is video of Duvalier at the Hotel Karibe in Port Au Prince last night, shot by journalist Emily Troutman:

Troutman reported that Duvalier made no public statements on Sunday, but a press conference is expected later on Monday. Troutman has Tweeted that she doesn’t know why Duvalier has returned to Haiti just now. The New York Times reported that “Haiti’s political crisis took a stunning turn on Sunday when Jean-Claude Duvalier, the dictator known as Baby Doc who was overthrown in 1986, arrived unexpectedly in the capital from exile in France … The sudden appearance of Mr. Duvalier, 59, who ruled Haiti with brutality and corruption for nearly 15 years, threatened to further convulse a country struggling to recover from the earthquake and a lingering cholera epidemic … Jean-Claude Duvalier’s departure from Haiti 25 years ago, which was arranged with the assistance of the United States, ushered in a period of halting democracy that has continued with tumultuous elections”. This report can be read in full here.

Just for nostalgia’s sake — and for purposes of comparison — here is reportage about the wedding of “Baby Doc” [Jean Claude] Duvalier on 25 May 1980:

Haiti, as all editors include somewhere in their copy, is “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”.

It was hit one year ago by a devastating earthquake. Many areas have still not recovered, many people are still homeless, and there were recent outbreaks of cholera in rural areas due to continuing poor sanitary situation. The UN has a massive “peacekeeping” operation there, and the U.S. has played a major role, particularly in the aftermath of the earthquake.

AP has just reported from Haiti that “Veronique Roy, his [Duvalier’s] longtime companion, spoke briefly to reporters at the hotel and said he will stay in the country for three days. Asked why now, she said ‘Why not?’ In the fall of 2007, President Rene Preval told reporters that Duvalier could return to Haiti but would face justice for the deaths of thousands of people and the theft of millions of dollars. It was not immediately clear why the 59-year-old former dictator — who took power in 1971 at the age of 19 — chose this tumultuous moment to return to Haiti. There were no immediate protests in reaction to his return and very few people were even aware that the former dictator had come back to Haiti, where more than 1 million people are living in crowded, squalid tent encampments after their homes were destroyed from the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake. Half the people in the country are younger than 21, and weren’t alive during Duvalier’s rule”. This report is published here.

The AP report added that “Haitians danced in the streets to celebrate the overthrow of [Baby Doc] Duvalier back in 1986, heckling the tubby, boyish tyrant as he drove to the airport and was flown into exile in France. Most Haitians hoped the rapacious strongman had left for good, closing a dark chapter of terror and repression that began under his late father, Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier in 1957. But a handful of loyalists have been campaigning to bring Duvalier home from exile in France, launching a foundation to improve the dictatorship’s image and reviving Baby Doc’s political party in the hopes that one day he can return to power democratically. ‘We want him to be president because we don’t trust anyone in this election. He did bad things but since he left we have not had stability. We have more people without jobs, without homes’, said Haiti Belizaire, a 47-year-old Duvalier supporter in the crowd outside the airport ‘… The Duvaliers tortured and killed their political opponents, ruling in an atmosphere of fear and repression ensured by the bloody Tonton Macoute, their feared secret police force. The end of his reign was followed by a period known as deshoukaj or ‘uprooting’ in which Haitians carried out reprisals against Macoutes and regime loyalists, tearing their houses to the ground. Duvalier has been accused of pilfering millions of dollars from public funds and spiriting them out of the country to Swiss banks, though he denies stealing from Haiti.”..

The timing may well be linked to Haiti’s national election crisis following an inconclusive first round of balloting on 28 November — in which, international observers believe, the current President’s chosen successor did not fare well, contrary to an official announcement — but it is absolutely extraordinary from a global view.

Counting – Al-Arakib destroyed again this morning for 9th (or is it 10th?) time

The “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Al-Arakib (Al-Araqib) in the northern Negev, inhabited by Bedouin Arabic-speaking citizens of Israel, was bulldozed and destroyed again this morning. It is being reported as the 9th demolition since this summer.

The stated purpose of the demolition is to make way for the planting, by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), of a large forest in the Negev.

Each time so far, residents have “rebuilt”, making tents and flimsy shelters with what remained from each previous demolition, and have pursued their protests with the support of Israeli activists.

The Jerusalem-based Alternative Information Center (AIC) has reported this morning that “A large number of Israeli security and special forces arrived at El Arakib at approximately 9.00 this morning and completely demolished the village. And unlike in previous demolitions, the Israeli authorities are currently clearing away all the debris from this morning’s demolition, leaving the villagers with nothing … bulldozers from the Jewish National Fund remain on the villager’s land, even though the demolitions are completed”. This news is reported here.

The AIC also reported that “On 1 September 2010, the Bedouin residents of the ‘unrecognized’ villages in Israel wrote an unprecedented appeal to US President Barak Obama, requesting his assistance in calling on Israel to recognize the Bedouin traditional ownership of land and to stop demolishing their homes – fundamental rights of all human beings”.

The report adds that the villagers have already begun to rebuild, again.

UPDATE: The AIC has updated its report with this information; “When the families of El Araqib tried to resist, the Israeli authorities shot tear gas and rubber coated bullets. Five children between the ages of 16-17 were injured. The families of El Araqib claim that today’s demolition and plowing are in preparation for the Jewish Arbor Day holiday of Tu Bishvat this coming Thursday (20 January), on which hundreds of people are expected to come by invitation of the JNF to plant trees in the area”…

BACKGROUND: In late August, Haaretz published a lengthy article looking into the background of Al-Arakib, which is posted here, which we previously wrote about here.

The Haaretz story reports that “The driving force behind the suit to reclaim the Bedouin lands is Nuri el-Okbi. He is a 68-year-old garage mechanic who was educated in Kibbutz Evron, studied auto mechanics and worked in two kibbutzim in the Negev, Shoval and Lahav, before opening a garage of his own in Lod. At the end of the 1970s, when he, like many of his Bedouin friends, realized that submissive cooperation with the state would not be productive and that there was no chance his claims to land would be honored, he established the Association for the Support and Protection of Bedouin Rights. He has since worked by various means, some of them quite creative, to stir attention and compel the state to address the protracted dispute over Bedouin lands in the Negev … [el-Okbi said that] the state is creating a false impression and frightening the Israelis [i.e., Israeli Jews] into believing that the Bedouin are trying to seize control of the whole Negev. ‘If the state will one day have to expropriate land for true public purposes, it can always do so, and justifiably. For example, a section of my land was taken for a road that connects Lehavim to Eshel Hanasi, and I did not ask the state for anything and did not interfere with the building of the road. But I will not agree to dispossession for its own sake and for nationalist reasons’ … According to El-Okbi, a tribal court that was recognized by the state operated in his father’s house, a stone structure whose ruins still exist. But the state was unimpressed by El-Okbi’s documents, and in the fall of 1951 informed the tribe that its land was being requisitioned by the army for six months. They were evacuated eastward, to the Hora area, near Be’er Sheva. The same story is told by many Bedouin in the Negev. Since then, nothing has happened. Everyone who tried to return to his land was removed from it and accused of trespassing. In the 1970s, the state encouraged the Bedouin to submit claims for their lands to the land regulation unit in the Justice Ministry. Members of the Al-Okbi tribe, like others, submitted claims – which have since been gathering dust in interdepartmental filing cabinets. ‘We were expelled by deceit from our land, under the auspices of the military government’, El-Okbi says. ‘That is theft. We are citizens of the State of Israel, inhabitants of this country for generations’. Since then, the members of the Al-Okbi tribe and other Bedouin have been living in a state of suspended animation. The state has amended most of the Turkish and British laws and adapted them to its needs, but in the case of the Bedouin and their lands, one Israeli government after another has effectively decided to do nothing, or at most to set up a committee, which is the same as doing nothing, but looks better’. In 2005, Nuri el-Okbi asked the land regulator to register his land in his name. In response, the state sued him for invading mawat land [n.b. – uncultivated wasteland] and expropriated areas. The land regulator referred the resulting legal entanglement to the Be’er Sheva District Court … Four years ago, El-Okbi established a one-person settlement on his land. With the aid of human rights activists in the Negev he erected a tent, moved in and made it his headquarters for managing his affairs and the wider Bedouin issues. Every few weeks, a large number of police arrive at his hill with heavy machinery, destroy the tent, remove him from the site by force and take him into detention. When he is released, he returns to the hill and erects a new tent. In February of this year he was arrested for an entire week. ‘The incarceration was intolerable … People are treated like animals. I was brought to court, charged with 40 criminal counts of invasion, uprooting trees and violations of an order. I was released on bail, conditionally, and ordered to stay away from Arakib. I must now stay with my brothers, near Shoket Junction [north of Be’er Sheva], the place to which we were taken in 1951’ …
The claimants, headed by Nuri el-Okbi, are represented by attorney Michael Sfard. ‘I took this case’, Sfard explains, ‘because it is a classic case of the state using its overwhelming force, based on 150-year-old Ottoman laws which it interprets creatively, in order to justify dispossession and infringe the few rights of a weakened, trampled, discriminated community’.”

Silwan faces crisis-point: two simultaneous evictions + evacuations

The East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan is facing a new crisis point.

According to a late-night report from the Silwan Information Center (Silwanic), posted on their website here, “Silwanic has been informed that the illegal settlement of Beit Yonatan in the Baten al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan will be evicted at 9am either tomorrow [16 January] or [Monday] 17 January. Beit Yonatan is not the only illegally-built settlement in the area, it has stood at the heart of the settlement issue in Silwan, its continued existence a telling example of the double standards of the Jerusalem Municipality, who have issued hundreds of demolition orders to date to Palestinian homes on the strength of questionable licensing issues”.

We have previously reported on this matter on this blog, including here.

Late last week, Israel’s Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein — who has previously pressed Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to execute court orders requiring the eviction of several settler families from Beit Yonathan, and the sealing of the building which does not comply with Jerusalem municpal building codes — again called on Mayor Barkat to carry out the evacuation order.

YNet reported, here, that Weinstein hinted that the Mayor could be charged with violation of the law if he failed to act to enforce the court order. Weinstein reportedly stated that “the implementation of the order was ‘an obligation set by the court’.”

At the beginning of the new year (2011), Barkat linked the eviction and evacuation of Beit Yonathan with the the fate of the Abu Nab family, whose 60 members have been living for decades in a compound they built that includes a structure that formally served as a synagogue for Yeminite Jews in Silwan before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 (when all Jews were evacuated from the area).

Barkat, who continues to want to implement an earlier plan he has proposed for the Silwan neighborhood that would reduce the number of pending Palestinian home demolitions [from something like 88 to something around 20] in exchange for retroactive “legalization” of all other structures there (including Beit Yonathan), did manage to temporarily persuaded the Aterit Cohanim settler organization to withdraw a civil suit they had filed to compel the eviction of the Abu Nab family.

YNet reported last week that “Despite a compromise proposed by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat the State insists on implementing the sealing order imposed on Beit Yonatan in east Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein sent a letter to Barkat Thursday stating that a date in the near future must be set for the implementation of the order”.

But, the Attorney General has apparently accepted the logic of the Mayor’s linkage of the fate of the two neighboring structures — one inhabited by East Jerusalem Palestinians, and the other one housing Israeli Jewish settler familes and their private (though state-salaried) security guards.

YNet reported that Weinstein added: ” ‘I have asked the enforcement elements to try and have the implementation of the order be performed at the same time another order is being carried out‘ … He was referring to the evacuation of Arab residents from the Abu Nab house which is adjacent to Beit Yonatan. He stressed that the sealing order must be implemented ‘without the intervention of unauthorized elements’ and noted that he has informed the political rank of this decision. Weinstein even hinted to Barkat that he should be careful for his actions over the Beit Yehonatan issue could come to criminal proceedings. He referred the Mayor to the Attorney General’s directive which stated that “an elected representative’s attempts to intervene in favor of one defendant or another in criminal proceedings carried out by the criminal prosecution has no place and is inappropriate. ‘These actions harm the independence of Israel’s criminal prosecution system and could harm the parity of the criminal process, coloring it with political opinions, if in essence, if outwardly and in certain cases, the actions themselves could become a felony. Last month Barkat prevented the evacuation of Beit Yonatan at the last minute after the Ateret Cohanim foundation lifted its demand to evacuate the residents of Abu Nab house which previously served as a synagogue. Barkat declared that should the foundation not agree to temporarily withdraw their demand he will evacuate both sites on the same day”.

Silwan organizer Adnan Gheith, who is also a Fatah activist, withdrew his appeal at the end of December — apparently with the support of the Fatah movement — to an Israeli military order banning him, or deporting him, for a period of four months from his home and from all of the “Greater Jerusalem Municipality”, and arrived in Ramallah this week.

Look! The Gaza approach to Israel's Erez Terminal-Crossing has been repaired!

Here is an astonishing photo of the new, cleaned-up approach from Gaza to Israel, with thanks and acknowledgment to World Vision’s Mike Bailey, who visited Gaza this week (and then posted this photo on Facebook).

New entrance from Gaza to Israel's Erez checkpoint - photo by Mike Bailey 13 Jan 2011

This is a far cry from the miserable, dank, urine-scented concrete tunnel where groups of miserable pro-Fatah people without enough clout for VIP evacuation huddled, in mid-June 2007, just after the Hamas rout of Fatah/Preventive Security Forces (see note below).

It is also a far cry from the nearly kilometer-long muddy red-earth track, plowed almost daily by Israeli military equipment, and site of frequent military incursions, that was gradually lengthened, to push back a Hamas outpost, and install an Israeli-arranged coordination container (mobile home) where approved Gazans took names and passport or ID numbers (and then communicated them to Israeli soldiers in Erez watchtowers) of all those who managed to get past the first Hamas outpost and intended to approach Israel’s Erez Terminal (in order to leave Gaza via Israel).

There is a new “cage”, to the right side of the photo, to process large numbers of waiting Palestinians — very like what existed at Erez in the 1990s.

Does this mean that Israel is intending to give new permission for numbers of Palestinian day-workers to enter Israel for employment? Permission for this was abruptly and brutally halted during the Second Intifada, with severe economic consequences inside Gaza. [As Mike Bailey noted, many of the people of Gaza now live in a situation that combines poverty with a debilitating situation of aid dependency. He also believes that without the international assistance supplied to Gaza by the humanitarian community, the Gaza blockade & occupation of the Palestinian territory is unsustainable.]

How did this impressive (in the circumstances) reconstruction come about?

According to Mike, it took 11 months to complete, and:
the European Union paid for this renovation,
Israel approved and allowed in the construction materials,
the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah was on board,
and Hamas cooperated, at the very least by not making any problems.

What I still wonder is: which construction firm did the actual work? (Probably, it was an Israeli-approved company from Gaza…)

Meanwhile, Hamas has responded to (1) increased rocket fire from “factions” in Gaza, and (2) renewed Israeli retaliatory strikes, with widespread rumors of another large-scale military operation, by (A) getting agreement from the “factions” to cease fire — announced last week, then (B) deploying Hamas guards deployed all around the post-Cast-Lead Israeli-declared and enforced inner no-go perimeter of the Gaza Strip to enforce the new cease-fire…

NOTE: For commemorative and documentary purposes, here is the article I wrote in June 2007, saying there might have been worse places than Erez on earth in mid-June 2007, but not many, which is no longer visible online, because the publication’s archives were moved, and all the links broken, perhaps (or even probably) deliberately.
[Here is the original link: http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070620-075400-2326r]

Torment continues at Erez checkpoint, uneasy peace holds in Gaza
Marian Houk
Middle East Times
June 20, 2007

GAZA CITY — There may be worse places on earth, but not many. The Erez checkpoint between the northern Gaza Strip and Israel is designed for hostile crowd control.

Over the past few days, its concrete corridors have become fearful, squalid holding cells where hundreds of Palestinians have been trapped in fear, without food, water, sanitation, or shelter. Adamantly refusing to return to Gaza, they have been barred by Israel from passing through, even if only to reach the West Bank.

Those trapped in this limbo have been traumatized by weeks of horrifying factional fighting that culminated in a stunning Hamas rout of Fatah security forces late last week. Some 300 Fatah security officers leaders fled by sea to Egypt June 15 after prior coordination with Israel. Another 200, whose names were on a list submitted by the Palestinian Authority (PA), were cleared through Erez June 16 and June 17, and bussed to hotels in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, the less privileged flocked to the Erez crossing point, and have since refused to leave.

Continue reading Look! The Gaza approach to Israel's Erez Terminal-Crossing has been repaired!

Shepherd's Hotel update

The hotel part of the Shepherd’s Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah is what was demolished on Sunday by Israeli heavy equipment hired by a settler organization. The only work done since the initial frenzied hours has been rubble removal.

The “palace” part is still standing.

That is, the part that is most historic, and most architecturally beautiful, with references to principles of great Islamic form and design, and that was built in the 1930s as a private home by Hajj Amin al-Husseini — though he never lived in it a day — is intact.

Only the (large) extension, added in the 1960s to turn the property into a hotel, has so far been crushed.

Are Israelis searching for a compromise? Is international pressure playing any part? Are any Muslim countries playing an important off-stage role? Is the settler organization that was given title to the hotel (and its backers in the current Jerusalem municipality and Israeli government) being prudent, as Husseini heirs wage multi-front last-ditch legal battles in the Israeli court system to stop construction of the first major Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, a settlement so strategic that it could change, perhaps forever, the prospects for a peaceful sharing of the “Holy City”?

Hajj Amin Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestinian nationalist leader exiled by British Mandate forces in 1937, is detested in Israeli and Jewish circles because of his efforts, as part of his struggle against British rule, to form an alliance with Hitler.

Hajj Amin cultivated Islamic ties and relations with leaders of Muslim countries that he met during pilgimages to Mecca and in travels throughout the Islamic world, as part of his mobilizing effort to throw off British rule and gain the independence that Palestinians hoped to achieve.

At the time, this meant opposing large-scale Jewish immigration into Palestine, which the League of Nations had not only endorsed, using the exact language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, when the League’s Council formally awarded the Palestine Mandate to Britain in 1923 (though Britain had de facto administered it for the five previous years), but also (by British design and complicity) actually required the British Mandatory authorities to enforce. Britain had to report back annually to the Council of the League of Nations on how it implemented its obligation to assist Jewish immigration.

Triumphalist statements made by Israeli settler supporters at the beginning of the week about grinding down and crushing any remnant of Hajj Amin’s presence have not been borne out in fact.

Are wiser heads attempting to prevail?

Saying that would probably be going too far … Haaretz reported today that “Right-wing activists also said they plan to turn the main part of the historic building – originally constructed by the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini – into a synagogue commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. Activists see this move as all the more poignant as Husseini was known for his collaboration with the Nazis. However, contrary to some activists’ claims, the mufti never lived in the building himself, instead giving it to his personal secretary, George Antonius … ‘As we were forced to preserve the building, we will turn it into the neighborhood synagogue and dedicate it to the memory of the Holocaust victims’, said Jerusalem councilman Elisha Peleg (Likud ). ‘The synagogue will be doubly symbolic: It will replace the house of the mufti and it will mark the point where 78 physicians, nurses and patients were murdered on their way to Mount Scopus in 1948’. While the first phase of the project is getting underway, the settlers have also submitted a larger plan to the municipality, requesting to add another 50 housing units. All in all, the project intends to include 70 units meant for Jews. The sensitivity of the site, however, means the plan will likely be delayed for an extended period of time”… This Haaretz report is published here.

This, however, is not too far from an idea reportedly harbored by at least one member of the Husseini family, who is said to have entertained the idea of proposing to the financial backer of the settlement project, Irving Moskowitz, that the “palace” that Hajj Amin built be turned into some kind of joint Israeli-Palestinian museum for peace…

Foreign Press Association in Israel protests security abuse before Netanyahu press conference

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel issued a formal protest about security abuse and harassment of journalists trying to enter a press conference that was given on Tuesday evening by Israel’s Prime Minister Benyahim Netanyahu.

“All Government Press Office (GPO) cardholders are known to authorities + have already undergone extensive background checks”, the FPA protest noted.

Citing “despicable treatment” in security checks prior to the Netanyahu press conference, the FPA said in a statement that “it is not remotely acceptable to invite people for cocktails at a five-star hotel and then make them undress at the door”.

The FPA said, in a decision approved by its board, that it is “outraged over the treatment members received at the hands of Israeli security personnel at Tuesday’s invitation-only event with the Prime Minister”, and added that it is “incomprehensible that anyone would think such humiliating treatment is necessary at such an event”.

The Israeli news website YNet.com reported in some gruesome detail, here the experience of an Al-Jazeera team.

The Israeli General Security Service (GSS, or Shabak, or Shin Bet) commented cooly to YNet that “All guests were subjected to a security check in accordance with the customary security procedures in such events. Three female reporters refused to be examined under these procedures and chose not to attend the event.”

Al-Jazeera producer/reporter Najwan Simri Diab commented to YNet: “So what? Am I supposed to feel better because others are humiliated? I felt I was being humiliated for the sake of humiliation”.

She reported that “Before our arrival, I received an angry phone call from our photographer, who was asked to arrive two hours earlier. He said everyone was allowed in apart from him and that all of his equipment was taken apart, including the screws of his camera’s battery. He said he and his assistant were asked to undress” … [When she and another reporter and their bureau chief arrived, she said, she complained, after waiting for more than half an hour] “that she couldn’t stand up much longer because of her pregnancy. The security guards told her to sit down and wait. They later took me downstairs to the security check cell. They asked me to take off my coat and then my vest. I did. Then they asked me to take off my shirt. I took a deep breath and did it. I was left with just my undershirt and trousers, without my shoes and the rest of my equipment. The female officer felt me with her hands for 15 minutes in any place possible. I told her I was pregnant and asked her not to use the manual device, but compromised on that later too’ … she was later asked to remove her bra. ‘After she examined the bra under my undershirt, she asked me to take it off as well. I asked why, but she insisted. Her supervisor came over later and insisted as well. I refused, and she said, ‘Everyone removed it and so will you.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking it off even if I can’t go in.’ And she said, ‘So you won’t go in.’ According to Simri-Diab, men saw her too. ‘A spokesperson from the office saw me in my undershirt and asked what was going on. When I told him what happened, he said, ‘Don’t create a drama.’ The woman at the security check told him, ‘She refuses to be checked’. They sent me aside for 20 minutes and refused to return my belongings. They checked every single paper and document in my purse. They later returned all my items inside a box, and I had to arrange them for a long time’.”

Menahem Kahana, a press photographer for 23 years, told Haaretz that ” ‘We waited 20 minutes on the side after the security man stopped us … Afterward they took me down to a room for a security check’. Kahana said he was checked with a hand-held security wand, and then asked to remove his trousers. ‘I refused and told them I was going to leave, but the security man said I was in the middle of ‘a security process’ and could not leave. They simply went crazy’.” This Haaretz report is posted here

The Haaretz report added that “The secretary of the Foreign Press Association, Glenys Sugarman, told Haaretz: The Shin Bet [security service] responded by saying that the people who were asked to strip had not cooperated during the regular procedure. But that is a crude lie. In the United States they also do security checks, but the difference is that the security people are not allowed to act in a humiliating, insulting and hostile manner. To hold people for hours and threaten them with arrest is unacceptable to us. It’s terrible treatment’.”

The new Director of the Government Press office, Oren Helman, told Haaretz that many Arab journalists did attend, despite the security procedures. ” ‘I certainly intend to investigate the association’s complaint and ask for answers from those responsible for the check – the Shin Bet’, he continued. “I regret the mishap. We invited the journalists and clearly the intent was for them to get into the event … unfortunately the mishaps that occured are not our responsibility”…

As Dimi Reider reported for +972 Magazine, here the formal protest issued by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) suggested that the organization “will decline further invitations unless given assurances this will not recur”.

In a comment on Reider’s piece, Tahel Ilan wrote: “For the rest of the foreign journalists to attend the event after having experienced similar ‘security checks’ or after realizing this was happening to others, is in a sense, like crossing the picket line. If the FPA wants to get the message across they need to show the PM office that none of them will stand for it, not that some of them will stand for it. And in a case like this, where not only the FPA needs the PM office in order to make their living, the PM office needs the FPA just as much in order to get their ‘Hasbara’ out, it should be made very clear to the PM office that if the GSS doesn’t act according to appropriate and respectable standards, the FPA won’t be willing to play the ‘Hasbara’ game anymore”.

Heads held high – three activists

UPDATE: Jonathan Pollack was released one month early (even more than one month early, actually), for good behavior, on Thursday 24 February…

(1) Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, convicted for protesting the Israeli-military-administered sanctions against 1.5 million people in Gaza, reported to jail at Hermon Prison this morning to start serving a three-month prison sentence, apparently for “illegal assembly”. He previously told the court, in a statement he made at his sentencing on 27 December, that he had no regrets and would go to jail “head held high” for opposing Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and lives. A Haaretz editorial today here, entitled “Shameful Imprisonment”, denounced Pollak’s jail term.

The Haaretz editorial said that “His arrest should trouble every citizen who cares about human rights in Israel. Pollak had participated in a peaceful, non-violent demonstration, which is not merely the right of every citizen, but also the duty of everyone who wishes to fight against wrong. In similar demonstrations that took place on highways, such as that of the motorcyclists against raising insurance rates or the demonstration by firefighters, no one was arrested. The fact that Pollak was the only one arrested in the cyclists’ demonstration raises serious suspicions that he was being singled out by police and the courts because of his long struggle against the occupation … Pollak’s incarceration is a dark day: not only for Pollak but for all those who fear for democracy in Israel”.

UPDATE on Wednesday: To mark the start of Pollak’s jail sentence, a “critical mass” bicycle protest — in reference to the January 2008 event at which Pollak was arrested and for which he was sentenced to jail (this arrest activated a previous suspended sentence for a previous anti-occupation protest, and he received a separate sentence for the January 2008 event) — was held in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening. A video was posted on Youtube here.

(2) Abdallah Abu Rahmah, who was not released from prison some weeks ago when he finished serving a one-year prison sentence at the end of November for “incitement” due to his role in leading weekly protests from his West Bank village, Bil’in, against The Wall (which has cut off about half of the village’s agricultural land), was sentenced by today to an additional three months at the request of the Israeli military prosecutor. Amnesty International has now declared him a “prisoner of conscience”. Late last year, the European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said Abu Rahmah was a “human rights defender” — therefore, an activist that is supposed to receive support and protection from the UN human rights bodies and from the international community.

More than three years ago, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Israeli military to re-route The Wall in the Bil’in area to release back to the village some portion (but not all) of its confiscated land, which has been used an extended security zone to protect Israeli settlements in that area of the West Bank (Modi’in Illit + Matityahu East). The Israeli military began “work” last February, nearly a year ago, to carry out the Supreme Court order, and have just said it will take at least another three months.

(3) And Silwan activist Adnan Gheith is due to leave his home in Jerusalem tomorrow for four months according to an order issued under military emergency regulations dating back to the British mandate. Whatever this is called, this is deportation — and as such it is an Israeli violation of the Road Map (Phase One) which the U.S. + EU developed and then promoted within the Quartet (along with Russia + the UN)… Gheith, upon advice, withdrew his appeal against the order to leave Jerusalem — because of “lack of confidence in the Israeli justice system”, as reported here.
“I was a bit surprised”, commented one Israeli lawyer who has been active in supporting rights for East Jerusalem Palestinians in the city, “because I thought he had a decent chance” of winning the appeal.

Mairav Zonstein, who follows Silwan developments, wrote in +972 Magazine, here, that “The decision, according to his lawyer [Rami Othman, apparently], stems from the fact that Adnan was convinced he would lose the appeal, among other things, because Israel’s General Security Service was expected to submit classified documents that he would not be able to view and therefore not be able to refute – effectively barring him from due process in making a case in his defense. Furthermore, he argued, the legal proceedings would constitute recognition of the court’s authority and would set a legal precedent for more Palestinians like him to be expelled on the same grounds. Rumors have been going around that the GSS has composed a list of a few hundred Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem to be targeted for similar expulsion orders.”

East Jerusalem Palestinians have what they believe is a very fragile permanent residency status (but not citizenship), in Israel since 1967. As non-citizens, the East Jerusalem Palestinians do not have the right to participate in Israeli national elections, for the Knesset, whose winners form the next governments. But, East Jerusalem Palestinians do — in theory — have the right to participate in Jerusalem municipal elections. Since the start of the occupation in 1967, the vast majority has decided to boycott these Jerusalem municipal elections — and there is considerable social and political pressure to maintain this line, though the net result has been a loss of any political influence in decisions that affect their daily lives as residents of a Jerusalem which the Israeli government unilaterally expanded after its victory in the 1967 war…

[The Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territory have the theoretical right to participate in two elections: Under an interpretation of the Oslo Accords urged by the American government (among other powers), the Israeli government has in principle agreed to allow East Jerusalem Palestinians to participate in Palestinian “national” elections held since 1996, both for the currently-dormant Palestine Legislative Council and for the Palestinian Authority [PA] President. However, Israeli authorities have put substantial roadblocks in the way of the participation of East Jerusalem Palestinians in the PA elections.]

UPDATE on Wednesday: Gheith, who is a member of Fatah as well as an activist in his own Silwan neighborhood, reportedly arrived
in Ramallah by 11:00 am “in compliance with the Israeli military 4-month deportation order from Jerusalem”, according to the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center in Ramallah. Ma’an News Agency later reported, after speaking briefly with Gheith in Ramallah, that he said “his move comes as an implementation of the Israeli decision … [and that] immediately before his deportation he was in the Al-Bustan sit-in tent holding a meeting when the Israeli police arrived to drive him out. He said the officers chased him in the streets of the village. His lawyers decided that he should move to Ramallah immediately. He also said that the Israeli prosecution decided to expel five more young men from Silwan including his brother Hani Ghaith”. This Ma’an News report is posted here.

Demolition of "Shepherd's Hotel" in East Jerusalem starts

At 5am today (Sunday — the first day of the Israeli work week), Israeli demolition machines that look like large mechanical dinosaurs arrived at the site of the “Shepherd’s Hotel” in East Jerusalem.

Just over an hour later, these dinosaur-like machines began their work:

Hagit Ofran of Peace Now writes on her blog, Eyes on the Ground in East Jerusalem, that today’s move was the “demolition of hope”.

Haaretz says ownership of Shepherd’s Hotel in East Jerusalem is “contested”.

The property has stood vacant for years, as a behind-the-scenes struggle was waged over its fate. It is not far from the Hyatt Regency Hotel that Israel constructed in the nearby Mount Scopus neighborhood, where a main campus of Hebrew University is located, as well as the Hadassah-Mount Scopus Hospital.

The demolition of this “iconic” building — which Palestinian negotiator Sa’eb Erekat reminded us today was originally constructed in the 1930s as the family home of the then-Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and nationalist leader, Hajj Amin al-Husseini — will make way for “a major new Jewish settlement…backed by American settler financier Irving Moskowitz”, according to the report by Hagit Ofran.

She adds that it will be the first settlement construction since the June 1967 war in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (north of the Old City of East Jerusalem).

Husseini was exiled by the British, who seized his house and turned it into a military base. In the 1948 fighting that surrounded the creation of the state of Israel in the former British Mandate of Palestine, the property was under the control of the Jordanians, who allowed a trustee for the Mufti’s estate to “rent” it to “hoteliers”, Sa’eb Erekat’s message said.

However, a Palestinian source in East Jerusalem previously recounted that the Farwaji family, which operated several hotels in East Jerusalem, acquired control of the property during the Jordanian administration, and operated it as the Shepherd’s Hotel. Upon the death of the principal member of the family, some of his heirs — his sisters — decided they could not keep up the Shepherd’s Hotel, and it was sold.

In 1984 or 1985, Irving Moskowitz reportedly bought it…

The Los Angeles Times reported (perhaps at least partly wrongly?) here that “Israel took control of the building in the 1980s on the grounds that it was absentee property, meaning the owner did not live in Jerusalem or was a member of an enemy state. It later sold it to Irving Moskovitch, an American multimillionaire and strong supporter of the Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem”.

The Guardian reported here that “His ownership is contested by the Husseini family”.

The Guardian story added that “A handful of settler supporters witnessed the demolition. Daniel Luria of Ateret Cohanim, a rightwing pro-settler organisation, said: ‘There is no more beautiful sound than the destruction of the house of a notorious, not just Nazi sympathiser, but Nazi’. Haj Amin al-Husseini was an ally of Hitler”.

The Jerusalem Post reported here that “The building received a construction permit from the municipality six months ago, the last stamp of approval needed before construction can begin. Construction was delayed for six months over a dispute with [AbdelQader?] a son of Faisal al-Husseini (1940-2001), a cousin of Haj Husseini and a former Palestinian Authority minister for Jerusalem affairs, who claimed that the family owned part of the parking lot that will serve as an entrance to the future complex. They lost the court case about a month ago, allowing Moskowitz to start demolishing the building”.

The JPost story added that “Moskowitz’s original plan included 100 apartments, but it was scrapped because it would have needed to go through a lengthy approval process by the Local and District Planning and Building committees. Since the plot had been zoned for up to 20 residential units under the a master plan for Sheikh Jarrah, by not exceeding the zoning plan Moskowitz was able to bypass the regular approval process, which includes approval from the Interior Ministry”.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said: “this move contradicts the logic of a reasonable and necessary agreement between the parties on the status of Jerusalem. We believe that through good faith negotiations, the parties should mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem, and safeguards its status for people around the world. Ultimately, the lack of a resolution to this conflict harms Israel, harms the Palestinians, and harms the U.S. and the international community”.

Earlier, the EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton issued a statement saying: “I strongly condemn this morning’s demolition of the Shepherd Hotel and the planned construction of a new illegal settlement. I reiterate that settlements are illegal under international law, undermine trust between the parties and constitute an obstacle to peace. Furthermore, we recall that East Jerusalem is part of occupied Palestinian territory; the EU does not recognise the annexation by Israel”.

And Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said “The demolition of Shepherd Hotel by Israeli settlement organizations in the Arab Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, which seek to impose new realities on the ground, runs counter to international law and the relevant UN resolutions”. He urged immediate international action.

Despite all the international comment, and all the local outrage, the site was quite quiet on Sunday evening. One — just one — police van was on stand-by across the street. And the two demolition machines were folded up like two great dinosaurs, sleeping on the front lawn… ready to resume work in the morning.

Bil'in protest commemorates last week's tear gas death

Hundreds of Israelis went to the West Bank village of Bil’in today for the regular Palestinian weekly demonstration against The Wall and its confiscation of half of Bil’in land — at least some of which should be returned, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled three years ago.

Some photos showed demonstrators actually across the dirt security road and up to the chain-link fence, talking face-to-face with Israeli soldiers, something that has not happened in the recent past.

One demonstrator with a T-shirt wrapped around his head was actually cutting the chain-link fence, and an Israeli soldier was standing directly in front of him, but doing nothing. The IDF has said in the past, and many times in the past week, that this is an act which damages public property, which justifies calling a demonstration a violent riot, and which justifies “crowd control” measures.

But, other photos show Palestinian ambulance crews being affected by clouds of IDF-fired tear gas…

Bili'in Tryptich

(1) On Monday, apparently late (9:30 at night), the IDF invited selected journalists and “right-wing bloggers” (according to +972 magazine) to cast doubt on reports (and evidence) that Jawaher Abu Rahmeh (Abu Rahman) somehow died of teargas inhalation on 1 January that was used by the Army a day earlier, at a regular weekly demonstration in Bil’in.

According to various reports, the a senior IDF official said in the briefing that Jawaher died from some other medical condition (cancer, it was strongly suggested).

Doubts were raised about whether Jawaher even participated in the briefing — perhaps she was just an onlooker.

And, accusations were made that the reports about Jawaher’s death from tear gas were the latest “blood libel” against Israel.

Some of the earlier attempts to dismiss Jawaher’s death were based on claims that her death was an “honor killing”, covered up.

One of the earlier of those attempts was published on 2 January on the Samson Blinded blog, here, and said: “A Palestinian rioter in Bilin, Jawaher Abu Rahma, died after allegedly inhaling tear gas. Which is odd, since she was discharged from the hospital after a few hours. This is not how one dies from tear gas. Recall that Jawaher’s brother Bassam was killed by a tear gas canister at Bilin. Since the number of deaths there was minuscule, such a coincidence is improbable. It seems that Jawaher was killed by her own in order to maximize the PR effect of creating a martyr family”.

However, Yossi Gurvitz wrote for +972 magazine that “The briefing held last evening for all of the main Israeli media (as well as a select group of right-wing bloggers, people you can rely on not to ask difficult questions and who would understand their role in the Hasbara choir) was given, according to a source, by Major General (Aluf) Avi Mizrahi, general commander of Central Command. Mizrahi – first noted by the public when his colossal failure to supply the troops in the 2006 Lebanon war led him to permit limited looting – is a major figure, which may explain why his remarks were given such space by all of the Israeli media, even though he was not named. It should be mentioned again that this is not the official IDF Spokesman position; it refused to answer the question whether it was Mizrahi who gave the briefing, claiming it cannot expose a person providing ‘background information’; but Mizrahi’s briefing was anything a ‘background briefing’, it was entirely for immediate publication … Mizrahi hinted during his briefing that Abu Rahmah was ill with cancer, and she conveniently died during the demonstation, just to screw the IDF. His proof? She received medicines which may also serve cancer patients; this made him jump to the conclusion that she was sick with cancer, and died of it … In short, the IDF asks us to believe that a 36 years old woman died suddenly, just on the day of the demonstration from cancer which showed no earlier symptoms; that a large number of people conspired to fake her death; all of which, by the way, without any results of an autopsy (which was not held)”. This was published In short, the IDF asks us to believe that a 36 years old woman died suddenly, just on the day of the demonstration from cancer which showed no earlier symptoms; that a large number of people conspired to fake her death; all of which, by the way, without any results of an autopsy (which was not held). In short, the IDF asks us to believe that a 36 years old woman died suddenly, just on the day of the demonstration from cancer which showed no earlier symptoms; that a large number of people conspired to fake her death; all of which, by the way, without any results of an autopsy (which was not held).

Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, who has himself been sentenced to three months in jail starting on 11 January for participating in a bike ride protest against calculated and calibrated Israeli military-administered sanctions against the Gaza Strip, has sent out an email on behalf of the Popular Struggle Committee saying that “Jawaher Abu Rahmah was killed after Israeli soldiers used excessive amounts of tear-gas to disperse the demonstration in Bil’in from afar last Friday. She passed away Saturday morning from cardiac arrest caused by the collapse of her respiratory system. Despite an enraging smear campaign by the Israeli Army, unsubstantially alleging that Abu Rahmah did not at all die as a result of tear-gas inhalation, all evidence support the demonstrators’ version, including the ambulance and medical reports. Contrary to Israeli claims, Abu Rahmah is not the first to have died as a result of tear-gas inhalation. Already during the years of the First Intifada, Amnesty International had reported forty deaths from CS tear gas inhalation from December 1987 to June 1988 alone in its report ‘Israel and the Occupied Territories: Amnesty International’s concerns in 1988” (published 1989)’. This email links to a report, not by Amnesty International, but rather to a back issue, dated 1992, from The Washington Report which reported here that “The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is suing Federal Laboratories, a division of TransTechnology, Inc., on behalf of eight Palestinian families that have lost members due to inhalation of CS tear gas, a chemical weapon used by the Israelis. The complaint and request for jury trial seeks compensatory and punitive damages for wrongful death of the Palestinians. The suit alleges that Israel’s misuse of the CS gas is well documented. The complaint charges that by 1988, Federal Laboratories was aware of Israel’s abuse of the gas by firing directly at unarmed crowds and by using the gas indoors in crowded residential areas, and in and near structures that do not have windows that close. The suit charges that the firm knew the Israelis were using the gas without proper warning and where victims had no means to escape, and that the Israelis were failing to provide medical assistance to the victims. Amnesty International has reported [in a report entitled “Israel and the Occupied Territories: Amnesty International’s concerns in 1988″ (published 1989)] some 40 deaths from CS tear gas inhalation alone from December 1987 to June 1988”.

While the IDF said, in the meantime, that it had issued directives changing some of its practices, there are still questions about what happened to cause Jawaher Abu Rahmah’s death last Saturday. While, as one “right-wing blogger” noted, if the tear gas used was of a particularly lethal composition, Jawaher would not have been the only casualty. However, any armed force is also supposed to take into consideration other extenuating circumstances — such as possible medical conditions, or drug interactions — that might turn tear gas from an extreme irritant into an outright lethal weapon. And, by almost all accounts (except the IDF’s), Israeli solidiers used tear gas very liberally, to say the least, in Bil’in last week.

[[The Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) — which is part of the Prime Minister’s office — published a Tweet on 5 January saying that Jawaher Abu Rahmeh died of cancer, despite all the editorial space devoted to debating this question and the medical reports and testimonies that have been published. It is interesting, by comparison, to read on 6 January that “leaks” from the Prime Minister’s office, however true, are not at all acceptable, where as the defamatory spin from the IDF is perfectly acceptable. Arutz Sheva (a very nationalist and pro-settler website) reported on 6 January that “Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahi ordered the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) to investigate senior members of his administration on suspicion that they leaked sensitive information to journalists, a report said Thursday. The investigation is underway, and several officials have already been questioned, some using a polygraph to determine if they were the ones who leaked the information. Among the officials the Shin Bet has questioned, the report on Army Radio said, are National Security advisor Uzi Arad, government secretary Zvi Hauser, and former Netanyahu spokesperson Nir Heffetz”. This Arutz Sheva story is posted here.]]

**********

(2) On Sunday evening, results were announced after a year-long IDF inquiry into the death of Jawaher’s brother, Basem Abu Rahmah, who died after being hit directly in the chest by a high-velocity tear-gas cannister.

Haaretz reported that “The IDF delayed its decision for over a year, until finally releasing a statement on Sunday. ‘We have approached military officials for their comments on the alleged incident. After examining the materials we received, we came to believe there was no basis found to the claim a tear gas grenade was aimed and fired directly at Abu Rahmeh’, the statement read. ‘The inquiry shows that there are two possible explanations for the injury: A. The injured man was standing on an elevated spot, and intersected the firing line of the grenade or B. The ammunition fired hit the upper wires of the fence, which changed its trajectory’.” This report is posted here.

**********

(3) In the aftermath of the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah, some 30 Israeli women’s organizations expressed shock and outrage, and called on their government to stop “the use of weapons to disperse popular demonstrations in the West Bank”.

A statement issued by the groups said: “We express solidarity with our sisters across the Palestine and Israel and support their inalienable right to non-violent protest”.

Their statement accused the Israeli army of “trying to … disseminate false information regarding the circumstances of the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah last Friday in Bil’in”, and they said they “will join the weekly demonstration against the Wall this Friday (the 7th of January) in Bili’in”, expressing solidarity and “a firm position of support for the protesters and family, according to which Abu-Rahmah’s death was caused as a result of tear gas inhalation, in contrast to versions circulated in recent days by the IDF spokesperson”. Among the groups who announced plans to participate in the Bil’in demonstration on Friday are: Coalition of Women for Peace, Progressive Women’s Front, TANDI, Machsom Watch, Aswat, Kayan and New Profile.

A press release stated that “Jawaher Abu-Rahmah, 36, a sister to Bassem Abu-Rahmah, who was killed in April 2009 from a high-velocity tear gas canisr shot directly towards him, was an active and appreciated figure in the village and used to organize conferences and workshops on feminist issutees”.

In addition, Dr. Dalit Baum, member of the Coalition of Women for Peace, who initiated the petition stated: “Abu-Rahmah’s murder is a form of violence against women, and it is plastered in the exact same way as other forms of violence against women are. As in all such cases, we, women’s organizations, will not silence until those responsible will be held accountable”.

Mahasen Rabous, Coordinator of the Coalition of Women for Peace, said: “nearly thirty women’s organizations have expressed today support for the struggle in Bil’in, and for the Palestinian struggle for liberation from occupation … solidarity between women does not stop at the checkpoint”