commentary from Israel & the West Bank
Villages
Ezra Nawi is sentenced to 30-days in Prison
Oct 21st
Ezra Nawi has been sentenced to 30 days in prison and a fine of 750 NIS after a long court battle stemming from the accusation that he assaulted two border officers. Ezra is a close friend and his story has been documented on this website extensively. In response to his verdict, Ezra argued that “the court has been permitting the occupation. The punishment doesn’t scare me, and neither does the judge.” The most important and difficult aspect of the sentence is that the judge also sentenced him to 6 months in prison if he violates law in the occupied territories in the next 3 years. This is worst than the 30-days he got, as most of Ezra’s work in the occupied territories is about protest and nonviolently opposing the occupation, which in many cases translates to violation of law according to the Israeli legal system. None of the media outlets are reporting this important detail.
High Court Rulings are treated as ‘Recommendations’
Oct 13th
Akiva Eldar has written an article in today’s Haaretz exploring an issue that Ta’ayush knows well: Israeli High Court rulings dealing with Palestinians. Below is the article along with two videos from the past summer in the West Bank with Ta’ayush in which you can see what he is describing in action.
Israel sees court rulings on Palestinian land as mere ‘recommendations’
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent
So what if the Supreme Court rules? In Israel those decisions are just recommendations, especially if they deal with Palestinian land. In most enlightened democratic countries, saying that decisions of the courts obligate the state authorities is like stating that the sun rises in the east. But that may not be so for Israel.
Last week, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch had to state that “rulings of this court are not mere recommendations, and the state is obliged to abide by them and to execute them with the necessary speed and efficiency, according to the circumstances of the matter.”
The head of the judicial system added: “In the case before us, the state took the law into its own hands.”
The case dates back to June 2006. The High Court of Justice at that time responded to a petition from Hamoked – the Center for the Defense of the Individual, and instructed the Defense Ministry to move the route of the separation fence near the villages of Azzun and Nabi Ilyas in the northern West Bank.
Aharon Barak, who was then president of the Supreme Court, stated in the ruling that “the petition points to an event that cannot be tolerated according to which the information that was supplied to the court did not reflect all of the considerations that were taken into account by the decision makers.”
Some examples of the disregard of Israeli High Court rulings in the Southern West Bank
What is Ta’ayush and Why Should You Care?
Oct 13th
From the earliest beginning, below is a document about the ideological motivations of Ta’ayush.
Taayush – Seen from the Inside
Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount accompanied by 1000 policemen in September 2000, and the murder of Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem, signaled the outbreak of the second Intifada. Palestinian citizens of Israel demonstrated in the Galilee, in the ‘Triangle’ district and in the Negev, and the Israeli police force shot and killed 13 demonstrating Israeli citizens.
Everything churned in those October-November days. Most of the Jewish Leftists became confused and ‘rhinocerized’, and retreated to the old stiff and patronizing Zionist positions. Palestinian citizens of Israel, for their part, used to varying degrees of harassment by the authorities ever since the state was founded, felt more alienated than ever. This time alienation was paired by real, tangible fear. It was an historical moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but there was one flicker of light: at the October 2000 watershed, the Israeli Left was delineated once again, and the goals of its struggles clearer than ever. Taayush was founded following these events, as a partnership of Arabs and Jews.
Taayush was started by people who, though not lacking in political experience, were no longer willing to act within their former frameworks. People new to this type of activity joined them. In November 2000, a busload of activists from Tel Aviv and Kufr Qassem went on a solidarity visit to Umm el-Fahm – the town that had become a symbol in those days – to hear about the goings-on directly from parents of the detainees, to break the isolation and total boycott that the Jewish public placed on its Arab neighbors; to hear about shortages in fuel, baby food and commodities in general. The suggestion was made to enter the Occupied Territories in food convoys. “One hundred” private cars, someone said, and provoked bitter snickers. “Where would we get a hundred cars?” The food convoy was meant to be a kind of motorized demonstration to the public – no fanfares. Food, aid – these would be the signs of solidarity.
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Why We Refuse-World Tour
Oct 7th
Some of the bravest Israelis that I know are on tour right now in the United States and South Africa. The “Shministim” (12th grade high school students) are on speaking tours talking about the reality of Israeli conscientious objectors and the peace movement in Israel in general. For more information and tour dates, please visit the website.
Phil Weiss has an excellent comment on a recent Shministim event at NYU on his website:
Among the Shministim– excommunication and self-hatred
The two visiting Israeli women who refused to serve in the army spoke at NYU last night. I ran into a woman whom I’d gone to Gaza with on the elevator. We sat together, and I told her about my plan to visit Israel. I feel a need to go see my family friend who moved there a long time ago and talk the situation over. “I’m in the Jewish community the way you’re in the Episcopalian community,” I said, “and she’s a better Jew than I am.” I saw Terry’s face fall, and I felt pathetic. “Is that ridiculous?” “Not ridiculous emotionally. Though it is ridiculous on its face.” Well I meant that my parents’ friend was religious and had raised her children as Jews. Still I could see Terry was disturbed by my comment, that it expressed some self-loathing.
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Yesterday’s Man while Jerusalem Heats Up
Oct 6th
Jerusalem is starting to boil over again. The dust must settle before comments of consequence can be made with a clear head. In the meantime, please have a look at this important and stimulating performance from a brilliant Portuguese philosopher named Tiago Rodrigues. Those visiting Jerusalem would be wise to follow his advice on exploring a city.
A Portuguese man visits the town of Beirut year after year. He is several people that are always the same. Several men that year after year walk the same path throughout one day, in centre Beirut. The city changes, it metamorphoses at the mercy of times’ erosion and History’s convulsions. This man never changes but he always lives different days in each visit. The days that the ever changing city allows him to live.
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Water Convoy to Villages in the South Hebron Hills
Sep 29th
From Ehud Krinis of the Villages Group:
In one of the most remarkable activities in recent time, Palestinians and Israeli activists succeeded this Saturday (alas, only for few hours) in breaking the occupation blockade on the southern part of the caves dwellers area in south Mt. Hebron. A convoy of more than 100 Israelis (lead by Yaccov Manor, Ezra Nawi and other Taayush activists) with many local Palestinians brought much needed water supply to the drought struck communities of this area.
Amiel and Eli
Sep 26th
From David Shulman comes another powerful testament to Ta’ayush. During this period of religious reflection, I am proud and thankful that we have people like David and Amiel among us.
September 22, 2009. Jerusalem District Court. Amiel and Eli
It’s become a little too familiar, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court. I’ve been here several times in recent months because of Ezra Nawi’s ongoing trial; and today I’m here because Amiel and Eli have been charged with disorderly behavior and (in Eli’s case) hindering a policeman in carrying out his duty. Originally, the police wanted to charge them with “endangering human life on a public road”—a serious offense carrying a penalty of up to twenty years in jail, put on the books in order to punish Palestinian stone-throwers during the first Intifada—but the prosecution eventually decided on less severe charges. Here’s what happened. On October 8, 2006 Ta’ayush organized a demonstration march near the Al-Khadr check-point, south of Jerusalem, to protest against the slow starvation of the Palestinian population caught between the Security Barrier and Highway 60, the main north-south highway in the southern West Bank. Since the Security Barrier has been built deep inside Palestinian territory, far to the east of the highway, and since the whole of the territory between the Barrier and the highway is clearly slated for Israeli annexation, the Palestinian farmers, shepherds, and viniculturists still living there, a population of perhaps 20,000, are trapped: they no longer have access to medical clinics, offices, schools, and, above all, to their traditional markets. Lots of grapes are grown in this enclave; once they were marketed in Gaza, Jerusalem, Israel, Jordan, and the northern West Bank; now, because of the Barrier and the army roadblocks, and because grapes have a very short shelf-life after picking, they mostly rot on the vine or in storage. Al-Khadr itself is east of the Barrier, cut off from its own vineyards to the west of it which produce 11,000 tons of grapes each year. Amiel’s idea was to march along the highway with large cartons of grapes, to distribute them (together with an explanatory flyer) to passing drivers and, when the police arrived and tried to put an end to this subversive effort, to dump the grapes on the ground in protest—also to make sure that the media, local and international, captured this moment on film. A similar tactic has been used quite effectively in public protests by French farmers and just might work, whatever “working” means, in Palestine as well.
Amiel and an IDF Solider in the South Hebron Hills
How dangerous are these people?
Nov 2nd
Posted by Joseph Dana in Villages
4 comments
When I was in high school, I studied with a teacher from the West Bank settlement of Shiloh. He was an American guy who had moved to the West Bank out of a discovery of religion and deep feelings of Jewish ownership over the land of the West Bank. One shabbat I joined him at his settlement and stayed at his neighbors house. Waking up in the morning, I asked the family where their son was, as I was staying in his bed for the night. They informed me that he was in jail as a result of being caught walking to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem with explosives in an attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock in order that a third temple could be built. The extremists are everywhere in the West Bank and one does not have to look deeply to find people, both in groups and individuals, that are ready to use extreme violence for religious and political reasons. I know that most settlers would classify themselves as peace loving people who believe in the right of Jews to have control of the West Bank. That is well and good but the bottom line is that there is a group of absolute extremists within the greater settler community that operate with the full knowledge of the settler community. These people would not be able to do what they do without the full knowledge of the great community and ultimately the State of Israel itself. Does anyone think that the Yesha council will come out with a statement saying that a real soul searching needs to take place within the settler community as a result of the arrest of this extremist?
The internal security services of Israel have arrested an American born Israeli settler who is responsible for at least two murders of Palestinians in the West Bank as well as a number of attacks against Jews including the leftist Zeev Sternhall. Avi Issacharoff makes the point that this settler’s mistake was targeting Jews as well as Palestinians because crimes against Palestinians rarely go to trial despite the efforts of Ta’ayush and Yesh Din. There is ample evidence on this website to support Issacharoff’s claim.
Settlers Near the West Bank Outpost of Asahel
What is a surprise in the news today is the amount of security forces that were needed in taking this guy into court as well as his treatment in prison which until now has been reserved for leftists and Palestinians. When he was plucked off a Jerusalem street, he was armed and security forces found arms caches in his house and another location. It is amazing that these types of people, extremist settlers that is, are some of the only people in the country that are allowed to carry weapons around. Perhaps, that would be a sensible place to begin an overhaul of our weapons policy with these people and in general.
As someone who deals with settlers on a regular basis, I hope that the government increases their crackdown on these types of people. Not all of the settlers are as extreme as this one caught today but there is a definite support base, like in most terrorist environments, that allows this activity to continue with implicit support. The coming days should feature a number of settlers and settler groups arguing that this person was somehow crazy and not like them. The sad truth, as far as I can tell based on experience with these people, is that he is not far off from the rest of the “proud settler” community that uses the state and its resources to continue to put us all on their path to insanity and implosion.