Occupied West Bank

Netanyahu makes headlines by telling Foreign Press Association that Israel must retain a foothold in the West Bank

Israel’s former Foreign Minister and Vice Prime Minister Tzipi Livni once said (during the Annapolis process of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations) that Israel was not going to just withdraw from the West Bank and throw the keys over The Wall…

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said more or less the same thing, during his office’s annual reception for members of the foreign/international press in Israel.

AP reported that Netanyahu “said the experience of rocket attacks from the Lebanese and Gaza borders means Israel must be able to prevent such weapons from being brought into any future Palestinian state in the West Bank. ‘We cannot afford to have that across from the center of our country … In the case of a future settlement with the Palestinians, this will require an Israeli presence on the eastern side of a prospective Palestinian state’, he said, without elaborating”. The AP’s Steve Gutkin then noted, in this story, that “Netanyahu has not outlined how much, if any, of the West Bank he would be willing to give up”. The AP report can be read in full here.

Israeli prosecutor still has not filed charges against American editor working for Ma'an News Agency in Palestinian city of Bethlehem

Just before 2pm, according to colleagues at Ma’an News Agency in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli prosecutor still had not filed charges to authorize the deportation of Jared Malsin, an American graduate of Yale University who was working as editor of Ma’an’s English-language website.

UPDATE: An hour later, and the Israeli Attorney General’s office still has not filed charges — though it has apparently informed the lawyer retained by Ma’an that they will do so soon. This could happen at any time. To me this seems like good news — maybe it is now realized that this deportation would be a big mistake, and wrong. However, Ma’an colleagues apparently fear that it is not good news. In any case, this of course does keep pressure on Jared — who unfortunately remains in dismal detention. However, it also does mean there will not be a formal court hearing today. If the charges are filed after court hours, the judge could apparently take a decision at any time to deport or to release Jared — that could still happen this evening or tonight, or it could be tomorrow, or even some days later…

Jared was detained at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport last Tuesday afternoon, and denied immediate re-entry, when he returned from a short trip to the Czech Republic that took to renew the normal tourist visa that he had previously been given, and under which he had been functioning.

Because the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO), which is part of the Prime Minister’s office, does not recognize Ma’an as a news organization (a privately-owned and -operated Palestinian company), no Ma’an employee was granted an Israeli press card.

The Israeli GPO press card is required to get a journalist visa from Israel (which is, effectively, a variety of tourist visa (the Israeli journalist visa has two parts: a residency permit and a work permit) as a news organization).

A valid Israeli visa is required to enter the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Therefore, Jared and others like him have been obliged to come and go on an ordinary tourist visa.

He remains in detention for a fifth day.

Israeli interrogators at Ben Gurion Airport have said Jared should be deported for “lying”.

The interrogators added accusations that Jared had been “uncooperative with the investigation”, and had “unclear reasons for travelling to Israel”. In addition, the interrogators reported to the state prosecutor, Jared had “violated the terms of his visa”.

In their initial statments, the Israeli security agents who interrogated Jared said that they had googled Ma’an reporting and found that it was anti-Israel, according to a report by Ma’an News Agency, which said that the lawyer it had retained to defend Jared had been given Hebrew-language transcripts of his interrogation, in which Israeli security agents stated they had “gathered online research into the journalist’s writing history, which the transcripts indicate included news stories ‘criticizing the State of Israel’. Othercharges initially presented by the security interrogators were that Jared had “authored articles inside the territories”.

However, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mark Regev told the BBC later that “allegations that the decision [to detain Jared in preparation for deportation] was because of Mr Malsin’s journalism were ‘simply absurd’.”

Journalists are not the only ones facing the conundrum.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans and Europeans who are in Israel and the Palestinian territory now, working for Non-governmental or Church-affiliated organizations who have pumped millions and millions of dollars into their work here — and who are not participating in actions that Israel deems a security threat, such as demonstrations against The Wall — but who have had to be coached by their organizations on what to say and what not to say (in effect, to “lie”), so that they will be able to satisfy Israeli questioners at Ben Gurion airport, said one American who is well acquainted with the situation here — because, she said, they face an unpleasant and difficult and costly deportation if they say they have anything to do with the Palestinians.

Jared’s long-time girlfriend, Faith Rowold, an American volunteer for the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem who has held a valid Israeli-issued Church volunteer visa (another variety of tourist visa) for two years, according to a colleague at Ma’an, was travelling with Jared. Though her volunteer visa was normally expected to be valid for another three months, the colleague said, Faith was deported from Israel back to the Czech Republic on Thursday morning.

Though Faith apparently agreed to depart without a court challenge — she may have been unable to arrange for legal representation — her passport was, nevertheless, stamped by Israeli authorites with the red-flag phrase: “Denied Entry”.

"We didn't know he was a journalist" + "There was no security concern" — so why detention pending deporation?

This story gets better and better [do I have to say, “irony alert“?].

“There was no security concern”, an Israeli official said about the detention since Tuesday in difficult and uncertain conditions of an American journalist who is awaiting a deportation hearing on Sunday — and the deportation that was carried out already of his girlfriend.

So, these actions must be a form of disciplinary measure…

Continue reading "We didn't know he was a journalist" + "There was no security concern" — so why detention pending deporation?

A new facebook group: Jerusalem-based journalists objecting to editor's requests for Bethlehem holiday stories

Found on Facebook – a new group, “Reporters against whiny Christmas stories in Bethlehem” who say their common interest is “Philosophy”, and whose manifesto reads:
“A rebel group of Jerusalem-based reporters has reacted to the decade-long tradition of Bethlehem holiday stories by refusing to accept any holiday cheer this season. Refusing editors’ requests for ‘Christmas in the holy land’ tales of Palestinian woe and tourist shows, the group has announced it will refrain from filing any articles until an actual news event occurs. ‘We are doing this for the good of our readers. Who, if they have any memory whatsoever, will recall that we have written the exact same Bethlehem story for the past four years’, said a spokesman for the group. He continued that the decision was also financial, hoping to save the dying newspaper industry the cost of commissioning a new piece when they could just rewrite the previous versions. One journalist, who asked to remain anonymous, said the rebel group was trying to quell more extreme elements who called for a torching of all olive-wood products made in Bethlehem, and the expelling of shopkeepers who whined excessively“.
The group has 78 members.

This is the group’s icon image:

Gideon Levy: "No one will evacuate one balcony"

Today, the Israeli media reported that “Defense officials believe settlers were behind the torching of a Palestinian home and two vehicles in the West Bank early Sunday, Army Radio reported, in an apparent attempt to avenge a construction freeze in settlements. According to the report, Israeli security forces subsequently searched the area near the home, near Nablus. The incident came shortly before police on Sunday forcibly evacuated about 100 right-wing activists who had blocked roads near the West Bank settlement of Kedumin, in a bid to prevent inspectors from handing out orders to implement the moratorium. The activists included local settlers, girls from a religious high school, regional council leaders, and the settlement’s rabbi. Police arrested one protestor during the confrontation. The clashes coincided with the cabinet’s weekly meeting, during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his reasons for deciding on the construction halt. ‘These are our brothers; they’re a part of us, and we’re a part of them’, Netanyahu said” … On Saturday, about 200 people led by the chairman of the Yesha council of settlements, Danny Dayan, and MKs Tzipi Hotovely and Uri Ariel convened an emergency meeting in the West Bank settlement of Ofra to discuss tactics to thwart the moratorium. The chairman of the Binyamin regional council suggested, among other things, that ‘everyone begin building. Add a shed, and make it white so that the satellites will pick it up. Build new structures, for B’nei Akiva, for whatever, build them far from the gates so that it will take the inspectors a long time to reach them’.” According to this report, Daan said that “There are people who say that we are violating the law … To them I say: We will disobey the order, we have a moral duty to do so. This is so anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist that we are willing to pay the price. There are orders that we will disobey”. This report can be read in full in Haaretz here.

In another article in Haaretz, Gideon Levy wrote that “Like every production, be it a flop or a hit, the future of this show will also be decided by the audience. In the meantime, as the first act shifts into high gear, the viewers are yawning. The government and the settlers are proud to introduce ‘The Freeze’, a show in which both sides play – in quite unconvincing fashion – already scripted parts. During the first act, no real, historic edict has been issued. Rather, these decrees are just props. Thus, nobody will evacuate one balcony in the final scene. The audience is skeptical. It does not believe the prime minister, who speaks of two states and in the same breath vows that the freeze will soon end, as if it were just a temporary shortage of construction materials that caused it. He pledges that the freeze will not include pergolas and synagogues. Most importantly, he promises that construction will resume in full force immediately after the halt. The audience is even more skeptical of the shrill, ludicrous performance displayed by the settlers, who are staging a bogus protest over the temporary freeze and sounding the manufactured cry of a bully playing the victim. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlers do not mean what they say. They freeze and they wink, for the show must go on. The settlers, as is their wont, scream to the high heavens in order to sow fear and warn of what awaits us in the future. Every local council chief in the territories who rips up the orders to freeze building in front of television cameras knows full well that these edicts were issued ‘as if’. Meaning, as if there was a freeze, as if there were edicts, and as if there was resistance. The inspectors apologize, the policemen push and shove a bit, but they also know the truth. The show must go on”.

Gideon Levy added that “It is impossible to lend support to Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan as long as there is a heavy cloud of suspicion hovering over it, one which suggests that this is nothing more than a swindle, an act of deceit designed to appease U.S. President Barack Obama … In the meantime, the settlers are generating just a smidgen of revulsion through their brazen, outrageous and lawless behavior. Yet Holon and Bat Yam are still not showing genuine rage. Even the settlers’ statements championing ‘human rights’, ‘humane living conditions’, ‘morality’ and ‘democracy’ invite only mockery, seeing as they are uttered by the most serial violators of these principles. In order for Tel Aviv and its denizens to react with the same fury – something which should have happened long ago – what is needed is a leader who is truly intent on putting an end to this behavior. But between Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, we do not have such a leader at hand. When the real leader is found and when Tel Aviv really begins to get angry, we will be surprised to find out just how paved the road already is. Yet somebody needs to stand up and point the way”. Gideon Levy’s article can be read in full here.

The Pope in Palestine

Today the Pope will spend the whole day in Bethlehem — in the occupied West Bank.

His visit will start with an early morning visit to Rachel’s Tomb, which is right next to Aida (Palestinian) refugee camp, but now totally surrounded by 9-meter-high concrete slabs of The Wall, guarded by Israeli Border Police and soldiers, with massive sliding metal gates on the Jerusalem and on the Bethlehem sides.

Then, the Pope will be greeted in the Bethlehem Presidential Palace by President Mahmoud Abbas and various other Palestinian Authority figures. He will visit the Church of the Nativity. And, in the afternoon, he will be received in Aida refugee camp.

The Pope arrives in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem

Wednesday – ALL PALESTINIAN DAY
GPO schedule
08:00-19:00 Visit to Bethlehem

PA schedule
Bethlehem Wednesday, May13th,2009
08:30 Arrival to Rachel’s Tomb.
09:00 Welcome Ceremony at the Presidential Palace.
10:00 To the Manger Square/ Holy mass.
16:10 Visit to the Caritas Baby Hospital.
16:45 Visit to the Aida Refugee Camp.
17:45 Return to the Presidential Palace.
18:00 Courtesy visit to the Palestinian President.
18:40 Farewell ceremony.

This photo shows Pope Benedict XVI in Popemobile in convoy of vehicles accompanying him to Aida refugee camp, where the large key symbolizes the keys to the houses that Palestinians lost when they became refugees in 1948, during the conflict that surrounded the creation of the State of Israel.

Pope in Popemobile in convoy at Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem

The Aida camp committee wanted to host the Pope in a special amphitheatre it had built of stone (at a cost of some $90,000) right alongside The Wall, but the Israeli military ordered a change in those plans. The ceremonial visit was moved to the small schoolyard of an UNRWA boys school directly across the street from the amphitheatre. However, it was used to position a boy scout band who stood on the stone seats while playing music to herald the Pope’s arrival and departure. Camp residents expressed concerns that Israeli forces would come and destroy the amphitheatre after the Pope’s visit.

During his visit to Aida, the Pope was given a special gift of an embroidered scarf, which he immediately put around his neck. The colors complemented his white clerical robes and large gold crucifix. The scarf was white, and embroidered with a pair of red eight-point Bethlehem stars, and then a pair of golden Vatican-logo keys (the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven) on one side, with a symbolic Palestinian house key — like the one on the arch over Aida camp — on the other. The woman who embroidered the scarf, Maha Saca of Bethlehem’s Palestinian Heritage Center, said she believed it was “very important for him to have with him the key of the return”.

In the photo below, the Pope, wearing his new scarf, greeting Daoud al-Azraq, the father of the longest-held or oldest (or both, the figure of twenty years was mentioned, but it wasn’t clear) Palestinian prisoner in Israel. to the right of the Pope (and mostly obscured by Daoud al-Azraq) is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Next to Abbas is Palestinian Preime Minister Salam Fayyad. Next to Fayyad is UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd.

The Pope wearing the special embroidered scarf he was offered at Aida refugee camp - keys unfortunately not visible here

A close-up

Pope greeting Daoud al-Azraq

Another gift that the Pope was given at Aida camp was a map of Palestine carved out of a stone the camp residents had brought down from Tiberius, “where Jesus told Saint Peter that ‘You are my rock and upon you I will build our Church’, explained Issa al-Qaraaqa, a Fateh-affiliated member of the currently dormant Palestine Legislative Council elected to represent Bethlehem. And, another gift were some actual house keys belonging to the lost homes of some of the refugee camp residents, to which they hoped to return.

Pope greeting Daoud al-Azraq

Pope at ceremony at UNRWA boys school at Aida Camp in Bethlehem

AP reported that “The pontiff brought several gifts to Bethlehem, including a ventilator for a baby hospital and a mosaic representation of the birth of Jesus. He received a handwritten Gospel of Luke”. This report can be read in full here.

While at Aida refugee camp, the Pope also presented UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen Abu Zayd with a check for 70,000 Euros to reconstruct several schoolrooms in the camp.

We need bridges not walls - handpainted sign at Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem

In addition, the Pope was presented with letters written by one young (Muslim) girl from the Palestinian refugee camp, both of whose parents have been jailed by Israel for the past eight years, and from two (Christian) sisters from the Bethlehem suburb Beit Sahour (where shepherds first spotted the unusually bright Christmas star at the time of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem just over two thousands years ago, whose father is detained by Israel. This was apparently arranged by the Vatican with Palestinian prompting, to balance the Pope’s meeting a few days ago in Jerusalem with the parents of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized at the Gaza border in June 2006 and is apparently still being held somewhere in Gaza.

And, the Pope was presented with letters from some of the several dozen Palestinians who were deported from Bethlehem in 2002 — some to Gaza, others to various places in Europe — to defuse a stand-off after some Palestinian gunmen had sought refugee in the Church of the Nativity during a futile attempt at resistance to a massive IDF incursion aimed at stopping gunfire from the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala to the neighboring settlement of Gilo. An Egyptian-born Franciscan priest, Father Ibrahim Faltas, who reluctantly became the negotiator of the arrangement that ended the IDF seige of the Church of the Nativity, is now head of the Roman Catholic parish in Jerusalem, and he was present during the Pope’s visit to Bethlehem on Wednesday.

The Pope prays in the Grotto of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Father Faltas is at far left of photo.

The Pope had started his day with Palestinians in Bethlehem by making an appeal, at the Presidential Palace welcoming ceremony, to “the many young people throughout the Palestinian Territories today: do not allow the loss of life and the destruction that you have witnessed to arouse bitterness or resentment in your hearts”. The Pope then added: “Have the courage to resist any temptation you may feel to resort to acts of violence or terrorism”.

It was the Pope’s only direct mention of terrorism so far during his present trip.

By contrast, during his time in public with Israeli officials and Israeli audiences, the Pope has not, for example, spoken out against the government policy of targetted killings of Palestinians, nor against some of the harsh military strategies adopted during the IDF’s recent Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

Nor, for that matter, has the Pope so far mentioned, during his current trip, the indiscriminate firing of rockets, mortars and missiles from Gaza onto nearby Israeli territory.

At the end of the day, the Pope returned to the Presidential Palace in Bethlehem, for a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and with representatives of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank and a delegation of some 93 Christians who were finally granted Israeli permits to leave Gaza to meet the Pope. Participants later reported that Dr. Eissa Tarazi (Head of the Council of Arab Orthodox Christians in Gaza) made a vivid presentation of Gaza’s suffering over the past two years, including the recent military operation in Gaza, and the debilitating effects of an Israeli-imposed blockade that includes severe economic sanctions. But, those present say, the Pope did not react. He just listened.

At that meeting, which was the last scheduled event in a long day for the Pope and everyone else in Bethlehem, the Pope was presented with a carved olive-wood model of a Christmas nativity scene, complete with the Holy Family, the animals in the manger, the Beit Sahour shepherds, the three Kings — updated by The Wall and the 9-meter-high concrete cylindrical IDF military control watchtowers.

In one of the more symbolically-significant parts of the Pope’s visit, he entered and left through a huge sliding metal gate that is part of the concrete structure of The Wall at the entrance to Bethlehem. This made it possible for the Pope to avoid going through the inspections at the main checkpoint. But, for Palestinian officials in Bethlehem, such openings in The Wall are extremely rare. “Only the Pope has opened The Wall”, one said, while watching the Pope’s unusual transit on a live video transmission in a media unit in the Bethelehm Presidential Palace. But, he added, “unfortunately it is only for a few minutes, and then The Wall is quickly closed again”.

The Israeli media has concentrated on the Pope’s remarks against The Wall.

In the Aida refugee camp, the Pope said that “Towering over us, as we gather here this afternoon, is a stark reminder of the stalemate that relations between Israelis and Palestinians seem to have reached – the wall. In a world where more and more borders are being opened up – to trade, to travel, to movement of peoples, to cultural exchanges – it is tragic to see walls still being erected.”

Later, the Pope stated that walls do not last forever, and can also be torn down. But first, he said, “it is necessary to remove the walls that we build around our hearts”.

Pope leaves Aida refugee camp - AP photo

Palestinian President Abbas said earlier, in his speech welcoming the Pope in the morning, that “In this Holy Land, the occupation still continues building separation walls, instead of building the bridge that can link us. They are using the force of occupation to force Muslims and Christians to emigrate.”

The Pope has referred only very indirectly to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a number of calls during the day for an end to the Israeli occupation.

The occupation was also cited by frazzled officials in the Palestinian President’s media office, as tempers flared, in explanation for some of the organizational and logistical problems, and security excesses, that hindered journalists’ promised access to various appearances of the Pope during the day.

What happens in a snowball fight…

… if you’re Palestinian, and the others are Jewish settlers in Hebron?

Photo captions: “An Israeli soldier detains Palestinian youths who had a playful snow fight with Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron January 31, 2008”.
MaanImages photo by Mamoun Wazwaz Another photo from Hebron by Mamoun Wazwaz for MaanImages

Ma’an Images adds that “the boys were released after less than an hour”.