Archive for June, 2009

Ezra Nawi Sentencing Tomorrow in Jerusalem

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, West Bank on June 30th, 2009

Tomorrow, July 1, Ezra will be sentenced according to his conviction
of assaulting a police officer and participating in a riot. The
sentencing will take place at 15.00 at the Peace Court of Jerusalem by
judge Eilata Ziskind. Those who wish to show their support are very
welcome.

Ezra has written a letter that was placed on The Nation
As mentioned in his letter, the international pressure did not fall on
deaf ears, as the Israeli Ministry of Justice and other governmental
bodies have responded to our letters with confused and irrelevant
statements such as “Mr. Nawi provokes the local residents. [ie. Jewish
Settlers]” or “…Mr. Nawi who has often uses insults…”; the
official response can be found here and on my response here

see recent reports on the case in:
New York Times
YNET
We still demand the complete exculpation of Ezra, and the
investigation of his continual harassment by the Israeli police,
Israeli army and the civil administration.

Please post and forward his letter to your friends; as Ezra says “What
strengthens me and gives me energy is the widespread and constant
support I have always received.”

Thank you,

The Committee Supporting Ezra Nawi

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The Rule of Law

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, West Bank on June 27th, 2009

Cross posted at Mondoweiss

Over the last several months, Israeli and international activists have made the small village of Safa an important part of the struggle for the rule of law in the occupied territories. The village is situated next to the settlement of Bat Ayin, which was the scene of a horrific murder of a twelve-year-old boy by a mentally disturbed resident of Safa in April 2009. Since that incident and along with growing US pressure on Israel regarding settlements, the settlement has become increasingly violent towards its neighbors in Safa. This violence has been characterized by the burning and cutting down of Palestinian groves, severe beatings of Safa residents and Israeli activists and, just last week, hurling rocks on the farmers and activists that attempt to work the land.

Safa residents depend on grape and olive trees that are located in a deep gorge between their village and Bat Ayin. The settlers often descend into the gorge and rampage through the farmlands as the IDF and police look on, doing nothing to stop it during or after the act. In 2006, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case that the IDF must do whatever possible to allow Palestinians to access their land and protect them while they farm –which primarily means restraining settlers when need be. Israeli and international activists have been accompanying Palestinians to the farmlands over the past few months to ensure they can do their work safely, but we are consistently be attacked by settlers, removed with excessive force by the IDF and often arrested.

Today, 27 June 2009, the IDF and Israel Border Police created a blockade at the entrance of the farmlands. As soon as we arrived, the IDF began using excessive and violent force against the forty to fifty Israelis, Palestinians and international activists on the ground. As we walked into the area, pleading with the army to allow us entry, we were beaten, thrown to the ground, attacked and insulted. We demanded to see legal authority for such actions but that only came later after we had been ‘removed’ from the area. Multiple people suffered bruises and injuries, including an 18-year-old Israeli female whose arm was sprained and a Palestinian man who reportedly had his leg broken.

The IDF arrested 30 Israelis for violating a ‘closed military zone’ order that, according to the 2006 Supreme Court ruling, cannot be used simply to prevent farming in Safa. The activists were detained for three hours and then released without being charged with any offense.

The events today in Safa are a major escalation in IDF policy to intimidate and attack Israeli and international peace activists who wish to help Palestinian farmers maintain their livelihood, while doing nothing to restrain the settlers. No matter how much the state may sympathize with the settlers and feel the need to protect them, it must not allow this vigilante unlawful behavior to continue, as it only propagates the cycle of violence.

The following video is a visual record of the brutality we experienced today and the army’s complete disregard for the laws of the State of Israel, the rights of its citizens, and basic moral conduct.

more footage from Safa. Please make sure to watch from minute 1:30

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With Responsibility Comes Voice

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel on June 24th, 2009

Cross posted at Mondoweiss

There is a minority in Israel that is willing to risk life and limb to stand up to the occupation at its core. Multiple times a week, groups of Israelis venture through checkpoints into the West Bank in order to meet with Palestinian counterparts and help them maintain the basic necessities of livelihood and hold on to what little land they still legally own. We are continually attacked by settlers and harassed by Israeli authorities, which try to restrict our efforts and often use excessive force. Despite the constant obstacles and fear of arrest, court dates and injury, we continue to fight the occupation with nonviolence.

As an Israeli actively contesting the overt and covert policies of my government, I have been struck with a feeling of familiarity and identification with the events that have been unfolding in Iran. The images of young people flooding the streets, confronting the authorities and standing up for the rule of law is similar to the Israelis who confront the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank. I see students in Tehran, of the same age as myself, using twitter and blogs to communicate information from the ground in the face of great censorship. I have been watching the YouTube videos from the front line and it conjures up the same feelings as the videos that we are making in the West Bank. It is a different situation in Tehran but one cannot ignore the common determination to challenge governmental policies, take risks and get the word out. In both countries, the only way to do that is to make your presence known in the most corporeal way.

Iran and Israel are different countries with different systems of government, histories and values. The current regime in Iran is authoritarian while in Israel we have democratic systems, at least as far as the Jewish residents are concerned. But there are also similarities: both countries’ national characters stress the bond between religion and state and are ideologically driven, such that both societies necessarily have elements of oppression and movements against that oppression. The struggle that many young people are taking up against the current Iranian government regarding the election has never taken place in Israel. But Israel’s parliamentary system is horribly flawed and it is widely agreed in Israel that it is in desperate need of reform.

Both Israel and Iran have sizeable populations of people under the age of thirty. These populations carry an unusually heavy burden. In Iran, as in Israel, the country places on its youth the weight of defending its country in the military. The obsession with defense and strength falls directly on the shoulders of the countries’ youth. With responsibility comes voice. In Iran, the youth has been finding its voice quickly and strongly in the past weeks. In Israel it has been a long process, but in both places, it requires the steadfastness of defiance.

If you feel solidarity with the struggle in Iran over elections, don’t forget that in Israel we have our own resistance, a homegrown and genuine resistance. In both countries, law-abiding citizens are looking to reform their governments’ policies out of a commitment to make their country a better place to live in.

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Update from Safa

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, West Bank on June 23rd, 2009

Last Saturday, Ta’ayush along with other Israeli and International solidarity groups went to the village of Safa in order to assist the farmers in accessing their land. You can see my video report of the day here.

Yesterday, I got the distrusting news that the many fruit and grape trees had been uprooted or set on fire by the setters in Bat Ayin. I filed these reports with Mondoweiss about the incident:

Israeli settler violence against Palestinians is routine, and unreported
Just got an update from Amiel, a Ta’ayush member, who was in Safa this morning. He told me that settlers uprooted around 150 olive and grape leaf trees in Safa as a protest of our action last Saturday. Some of the grape leaf trees in the video were uprooted this morning. The only news source covering this right now is the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency. It is telling that they are the only ones covering this blatant act of settler violence. Yesterday, in the village of Susya next to the Jewish settlement of the same name, settlers set fire to one of the main tents with people inside at four in the morning. Another act of violence only covered in the Palestinian news sources. How can we talk about the problem of settler violence if no one reports it?

Settler arson and vandalism go uninvestigated
Joseph Dana follows up on his report of this morning from Safa in the West Bank:
I just got an email from Ta’ayush activists who went to Safa this afternoon with the Palestinian land owners whose fields were burned and trees uprooted. Soon after they arrived at the farm land, IDF and police showed up. An IDF commander proudly announced that he spotted the fire last night and put it out. The Ta’ayush activists then pleaded with the forces to collect the evidence that the settlers had left behind which included matches and other material to start fires. The IDF and police refused to do so and then declared the area to be a closed military zone basically forcing the activists out of the area. After getting kicked off the land, they accompanied the land owner to file a complaint at the police station in Gush Etzion. The police said that the complaint could not be filed without sufficient evidence. There was a run around regarding the evidence in Safa ending with the police saying that they will ‘look into it’. Ta’ayush is using every possible avenue to contest this legally. There is still nothing in the Israeli press about this event.

Here is a new video of yesterday in Safa

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Hasbara, I love you

Posted by Mairav Zonszein in Israel, West Bank on June 22nd, 2009

The campaign against Ezra Nawi by the state of Israel is heating up. There have been articles in the international press and Israeli press about Ezra. The most recent by Ta’ayush member David Shulman. My friend Jesse has complied some thoughts and reflections about Ezra at his blog. Ezra’s sentencing will be on 1 July 2009. Now is the time to make your voice heard in his support. Everything counts!

I just got an email from a friend who is involved in the Jewish blog world in the United States. The friend received a letter from the Israeli Ministry of Justice regarding their thoughts on Ezra. The letter is a telling example of Israeli hasbara (propaganda) and should be distributed widely along with the video evidence on youtube discrediting the government’s viewpoint. The international campaign to support Ezra is making waves. Please go to Support Ezra and see how you can help.

Click Here for the Letter

Read his verdict here in English

Mairav and I want to unpack this letter point by point:

Mr. Nawi arrives every week to southern mount Hebron area and recently also to
Etzion area and joins Palestinian residents there. Together with these Palestinian
residents he knowingly enters areas in close vicinity of Israeli settlements that are
closed military areas.

Israeli citizens are, by law, free to travel in Area C of the West Bank. We are also allowed to meet with Palestinians in those areas. It is ridiculous to state that Ezra “knowingly enters areas in close vicinity of Israeli settlements” since the reality of the settlement project is that they are purposely built in the midst of Palestinian villages –visiting and assisting Palestinians thus necessarily means being in close vicinity of settlements. Furthermore areas Ezra and Ta’ayush travel to are not closed military zones until we arrive, and there is plentiful video evidence demonstrating that the areas are declared closed military zones strictly in order to remove us from the area. To make matters worse, often times this order is not applied to the settler (essentially trespassing on Palestinian land!), thereby creating a situation in which the IDF is operating outside the boundaries of law.

During these weekly occurrences, Mr. Nawi provokes the local residents.
Subsequently, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the Israeli Police arrive, and are
confronted by Mr. Nawi who has often uses insults and sometimes even force
against members of the security forces.

The provocation comes from the settlers who would prefer to attack and pillage without the documenting eyes of Israeli citizens. But there is something more to this statement. Ezra is a citizen that is persistent in maintaining relationships with Palestinians and working with them against the occupation in nonviolent ways. The IDF and government consider this to be a provocation since it challenges their role as occupiers. The fact that Israelis would attempt this is considered a crime in the eyes of the government and this document is a testament to this alarming trend. Lastly, omitted here are the vociferous insults on Ezra by the Israeli military, army and by settlers as well as constant police harassment. I have heard commanders of the Israel Police in Hebron refer to Ezra as a transvestite pedophile to which Ezra replied “you are stupid.” Calling someone stupid is apparently a major insult that could land one in jail in Israel. As for the accusation of force, I can say that in all our time going out with Ezra to the West Bank, he has never used force against anyone, despite being verbally and sometimes physically abused. If you read the testimony of the IDF officer accusing Ezra of force you can easily see that the officer is lying and that his story does not make any sense.

Mr. Nawi was detained, arrested and investigated several times for his behavior and
on March 19, 2009 was convicted of participating in a riot and assaulting two
Police officers (Cr.C. (Jerusalem) 3246/07 The State of Israel v. Ezra Nawi). His
case is scheduled for sentencing on July 1, 2009.
Note that Mr. Nawi is represented throughout these court proceeding by legal
counsel.

Please read the verdict, available here in English, and see for yourself how the line that the government takes does not add up and amounts to aggression against a citizen who refuses to accept the party line of the country. Finally, it is nice that Israeli officials are insecure enough in the quality of the justice system here that they feel the need to remind us that Ezra was granted the basic right to legal counsel. What it does not say is that Ezra, a Jewish, Israeli-born citizen, is provided an Arabic translator in the courtroom (his family is of Iraqi descent and he speaks fluent Arabic) despite the fact that he speaks fluent Hebrew. Another form of the underlying yet blatant racism that is rampant in the Israeli system.

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More Footage from Safa

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, West Bank on June 21st, 2009

Here is some excellent additional footage from Safa yesterday.

If you are able to read Hebrew you can read the High Court ruling that we were citing yesterday here. Sorry no English translation as of now.

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Hebron: Another Day in the Occupation

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, Southern Hebron Hills, West Bank on June 21st, 2009

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Love Letters

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel on June 21st, 2009

A love letter from a fan of the site:

Hi Joseph,
I hope someday that your loved ones get murdered by Hamas.

It would be fitting

Jeff Mailcity
jeffnyc@lycos.com

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Safa: Another Day in the Occupation

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, West Bank on June 20th, 2009

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Safa

Posted by Joseph Dana in Israel, West Bank on June 20th, 2009

Settler violence today in Safa. We are working a video clip of the day tonight. In the meantime, Haaretz has covered the events in Hebrew and English.

Here is a brief clip of the settlers attacking us with stones:

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