Bustan | UN-Truth

Last year, the Palestinian Literary Festival (PalFest) scheduled their opening and closing sessions in East Jerusalem’s Hakawati Theater near the closed-down Orient House, almost next to the American Colony Hotel — and both were shut down by Israeli Police on orders from the Ministry of Interior.

The Israeli explanation at the time was that security sources believed PalFest was somehow working with the Palestinian Authority — which Israel bans from activity in Jerusalem.

PalFest denied this, but the events were raided — and the 2010 opening event was hastily moved to the French Cultural Center in East Jerusalem, while the closing event was held in the garden of the (prepared) British Consulate.

This year, the PalFest 2011 closing session was scheduled — and was held — in Silwan, the hottest of the East Jerusalem hotspots, where there are daily confrontations between residents (some of whom are living with the threat of possible imminent eviction from their homes) and Israeli settlers, some of whom are living there, guarded by Israeli security forces, and some of whom are excavating under the Palestinian homes, trying to build a City of David archeological/touristic complex.

And, it was business as usual in Silwan: heavy Israeli Border Police presence, clashes, stones, (1) molotov cocktail, tear gas, rubber bullets… and in the midst, after regaining their composure, internationals were reading poetry, and DAM (Israeli-Palestinian rap or hip-hop group formed in Lod) performed, on a spring night in the Silwan protest tent.

UPDATE: A video of the PalFest participants arriving in Silwan for the closing event has now been posted by PalFest on Youtube {showing, among others, Ahdaf Souef, Munther Fahmi of the American Colony Bookshop, a bit of DAM’s performance, and Silwan’s Fakhri Abu Diab}:

[According to Wikileaks, here: “In 2004 DAM released a single called ‘Born Here’ in Arabic and Hebrew. The song was released with a videoclip directed by Juliano Mer Khamis”…]

Continue reading Palfest 2011 closing session in Silwan — a night to remember

IT’s too much!

Weekly Friday demonstrations have been held since last autumn, focussing on the serial eviction of Palestinian refugee families from UNRWA-built homes (28 are targetted) who are replaced by Israeli settlers who say their aim is to restore a pre-1948 Jewish presence in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, north of the Old City. This effort to displace Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah is taking place around a tomb said to be of Simon the Just (Shimon Hatzadik), High Priest in the Second Jewish Temple, that has became a focus of Orthodox Jewish pilgrimage in the past decade, and the plan is to clear away the Palestinian homes and build a housing complex for 200 Jewish families.

This Friday, however, the weekly demonstration will be re-focussed on the situation in Silwan — completely on the other [southern] side of the Old City of East Jerusalem — where 88 houses have been under threat of demolition for the past couple of years, mostly for having been built without proper permits, and where a seven-story building (also built without proper permits, in an area where two stories are the current maximum permitted, with a future possibility of four) draped in an Israeli flag banner, towers over the Palestinian neighborhood, inhabited by Jewish religious families under organized private and publicly-funded security protection.

Photo of demonstrators gathering in Silwan on Friday under the crenelated walls of the Old City and the dome of Al-Aqsa mosque – from Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan

Photo of demonstrators gathering in Silwan on Friday under the crenelated walls of the Old City and the dome of Al-Aqsa mosque - from Wadi Hilweh Information Center

At the beginning of the week, the Jerusalem municipal planning committee refused to hear a counter-proposal from Palestinian residents, and went ahead to approve a plan pushed by the Mayor, Nir Barkat, to demolish 22 of the 88 Palestinian homes and construct a “King’s Garden” [Gan Hamelech] tourism center in the Al-Bustan [garden or park] area of Silwan. It caused an uproar.

Continue reading Friday demonstrations in East Jerusalem to focus on Silwan