Israeli soldiers and border police today used a backhoe to uproot 200 young olive trees in the Palestinian village of Susya in the South Hebron Hills.  The demolition of the olive grove began at 8:00 am and finished at 10:45 am.  The trees destroyed were planted about one year ago on land belonging to three families of the village, across a valley from the Israeli settlement of Susya.

The village of Susya has existed since around 1830, and is present on British maps from 1917.  In 1983 Israeli settlers built a settlement at Susya, and many of the village’s residents were forced from their homes.  These families now live nearby in isolated sites to the north of the settlement.  The Israeli Civil Administration has informed residents of Palestinian Susya of their intention to carry out six demolition orders for houses that were issued in the 1990′s and in 2001.  These demolition orders cover 50 buildings, including homes, animal pens, solar energy panels and water cisterns.

These demolition orders have been issued despite the fact that Palestinian ownership of the land in Palestinian  Susya is well established legally.  Israeli attorney Plea Albeck stated in a legal opinion in l982 that the land in Palestinian Susya is Palestinian owned.  Because the Israeli Civil Administration has not completed a master plan for the region, the residents of Palestinian Susya are unable to obtain building permits.

Since 2001 Israel has, through its military and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, uprooted, burnt and destroyed more than 548,000 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers and land owners.

link to Susya Blog

link to photos on flickr

Ahmed Galai Ezzar and Zeid Khemiri are two rappers from Armada Bizerta, a revolutionary hip-hop group from Tunisia. Khalid Albaih is a political cartoonist from the Sudan – his stencils about the Arab Revolutions have appeared on streets and public squares throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Sondos Shabayek and Mona El Shimi are two Egyptian theatre makers, well known for developing the Tahrir Monologues – a series of solo pieces about the Eygptian revolution.
Ahmed, Zeid, Khalid, Sondos and Mona were planning to join the March Freedom Ride, a grassroots initiative of The Freedom Theatre’s Freedom Bus.
In order to gain permission for these artists to enter the West Bank of Occupied Palestine, The Freedom Theatre was required to submit permit applications to the Palestinian Ministry of Civil Affairs.
On March 11, after months of waiting, The Freedom Theatre finally received notice that these applications had been denied by the Israeli Civil Administration.
Events such as this serve as yet another stark reminder about the humiliating system under which we live: That our own Palestinian Ministries must coordinate with, and obey Israel.
- Let us continue to fight for the day when our freedom will permit fellow poets, musicians, artists and writers to travel freely and unhindered to our historic homeland, says Alia Alrosan, coordinator for the Freedom Bus.

MARCH FREEDOM RIDE
From March 17-29, students, artists and activists from across Palestine and abroad will join the people of the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills in their struggle against Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinian communities in Area C.
This ride, organized by The Freedom Theatre’s Freedom Bus together with several grassroots organizations, will occur in solidarity with Palestinian farmer and Bedouin communities who are struggling against attempts to forcibly expel them from their traditional homelands. The March Freedom Ride will include building and reconstruction work, protective presence activity, guided walks, home-stays, interactive workshops, educational talks and cultural events. Through Playback Theatre, residents of the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills will share personal accounts about the realities of life and resistance under settler colonialism, military occupation and state-sanctioned apartheid.

ABOUT THE FREEDOM BUS
The Freedom Bus project of The Freedom Theatre uses interactive theatre and cultural activism to bear witness, raise awareness and create alliances in Occupied Palestine. In practice, this project offers a unique opportunity for activists, artists, writers, photographers and many others to come together and establish grassroots contact with communities engaged in day-to-day struggle to survive and resist occupation. Over the past year, the Freedom Bus has engaged over 2000 people in creative acts of community building and cultural resistance throughout Occupied Palestine.
FOR INTERVIEWS
Alia Alrosan (Arabic speaking)
E: alia@thefreedomtheatre.org
T: +972(0)599304523
Ben Rivers (English speaking)
E: ben@thefreedomtheatre.org
T: +972(0)592-902256
T: +972(0)544-930542

LINKS
Web: www.freedombus.ps
Blog: freedombuspalestine.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thefreedombus
Twitter: @FreedomBusPal

Watch! Susya’s Elementary School

Act Now!

On Thursday, 31 January, the RHR will be defending Susya in Israel’s High Court against a petition to demolish the entire village.

Help us prevent Susya from being wiped out.

• Spread word of the injustice;
• Write to Israel’s President Shimon Peres (Sample letter and email below), demanding that this moral stain in our name be prevented. President Peres cannot and should not interfere with the legal process.  However, if we meet our goal of 2400 letters in the next 24 hours we may be able to generated some much needed publicity before the hearing, and influence what President Peres does after the hearing.

Write to President Shimon Peres:

Email: President of the state of Israel Mr. Shimon Peres: public@president.gov.il

Fax: +972-2-5887225

Please send copies of all emails and faxes, as well as any responses you receive, to RHR at info@rhr.israel.net

Subject: Please use your power to prevent the injustice of wiping out the entire Palestinian village of Susya

Dear Mr. President

Please use your power to prevent the injustice of wiping out the entire Palestinian village of Susya, whose only offense is building for its own survival. The villagers have they been forced to build their flimsy homes on their farmland only because they have been twice expelled from their homes by the IDF.

Background: The Palestinian village Susya is located in the South Hebron Hills, one of the poorest, disempowered areas in the entire West Bank. It is one of several small communities in the region that are part of a unique culture living until this day in caves.  Susya consists mainly of tents and the few remaining caves not destroyed, with no electricity, water or sewage infrastructure. The residents barely subsist on seasonal agriculture and herding. The attempt to force these simple people off their lands has been likened to the kivsat harash,

Susya is located on its residents’ farmland, for which they have no construction permits. They didn’t move there to flout the law.  Rather, they were expelled from their previous homes. Many of the residents originally lived just on the Israeli side of the 1967 border, but joined family members in the original village of  Susya after being expelled into the West Bank in 1948.  In 1986 the Susya was declared a closed archaeological zone because an ancient Hebrew synagogue had been unearthed there. The Palestinians were expelled from their village without receiving any alternative accommodations. They moved to a different set of caves on their farmland.

In 2001 all the villagers were again expelled, this time from their farmland. Again, the army destroyed the caves in which they lived. The reason: A settler from the adjacent settlement of Susya had been murdered. The killer eventually apprehended was from the town of Yatta, but that didn’t stop the army from destroying all of Susya. The idea of collective punishment – of punishing an entire village for the offenses of one person – is distorted, destructive and unlawful to begin with. But, in the case of Susya,  the punishment was meted out to a village that had nothing to do with the murder.

The Israeli High Court ruled that demolitions must stop, and the residents must be permitted to return. Because the caves had been destroyed, the Susya residents were forced to build tin shanties and tents.  However, planning for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories has been controlled by the military since 1971, without Palestinian representation. The planning committees were unprepared to even approve the construction needed to replace the caves illegally demolished by the army. Demolition orders have been issued for all structures in the village from 2001 until today. Recently, the extremist organization Regavim petitioned the court to expedite the carrying out of outstanding demolition orders. The entire village is in peril.

This Thursday, January  31^st, a fateful High Court hearing on the Regavim petition will take place.  It will not only determine Susya’s future, but will have implications for endangered homes throughout the Occupied Territories. We are cautiously optimistic that the Court will not approve Regavim’s request, because the Court will probably accept the State’s  position that demolitions cannot be carried out before due consideration has been given to a new alternative zoning plan that has submitted by Rabbis For Human Rights.  However, if the Court merely accepts the State position, we leave in place the discriminatory planning system denying Susya and other Palestinian communities any possibility of even minimum humanitarian development. In all likelihood, the Civil Administration will eventually reject the new zoning plan, and Susya will be again in danger.

 First and foremost, this terribly unjust. Please take to heart the Torah’s oft repeated command to remember the bitterness of Egyptian oppression when we relate to the strangers in our midst.  Furthermore,  the hatred and misery created by planning discrimination and administrative demolitions make the dream of peace and security ever more distant, and further erode Israel’s standing in the community of nations.

We know that you cannot and should not interfere in judicial decisions.  However, you can use your influence to persuade the new Israeli government to end the intentionally discriminatory planning process for Palestinians in Area C, and you can work for a moratorium on administrative home demolitions until such time as a more just system is in place.

Sincerely,

Your name

Background: The Palestinian village Susya is located in the South Hebron Hills, one of the poorest, disempowered areas in the entire West Bank. It is one of several small communities in the region that are part of a unique culture living until this day in caves.  Susya consists mainly of tents and the few remaining caves not destroyed, with no electricity, water or sewage infrastructure. The residents barely subsist on seasonal agriculture and herding. The attempt to force these simple people off their lands has been likened to the kivsat harash, the Biblical parable of a wealthy man who steals the one ewe lamb of a poor man. The prophet Nathan uses this story to rebuke King David.

Susya is located on its residents’ farmland, for which they have no construction permits. They didn’t move there to flout the law.  Rather, they were expelled from their previous homes. Many of the residents originally lived just on the Israeli side of the 1967 border, but joined family members in the original village of  Susya after being expelled into the West Bank in 1948.  In 1986 the Susya was declared a closed archaeological zone because an ancient Hebrew synagogue had been unearthed there. The Palestinians were expelled from their village without receiving any alternative accommodations. They moved to a different set of caves on their farmland.

In 2001 all the villagers were again expelled, this time from their farmland. Again, the army destroyed the caves in which they lived. The reason: A settler from the adjacent settlement of Susya had been murdered. The killer eventually apprehended was from the town of Yatta, but that didn’t stop the army from destroying all of Susya. The idea of collective punishment – of punishing an entire village for the offenses of one person – is distorted, destructive and unlawful to begin with. But, in the case of Susya,  the punishment was meted out to a village that had nothing to do with the murder.

The Israeli High Court ruled that demolitions must stop, and the residents must be permitted to return. Because the caves had been destroyed, the Susya residents were forced to build tin shanties and tents.  However, planning for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories has been controlled by the military since 1971, without Palestinian representation. The planning committees were unprepared to even approve the construction needed to replace the caves illegally demolished by the army. Demolition orders have been issued for all structures in the village from 2001 until today. Recently, the extremist organization Regavim petitioned the court to expedite the carrying out of outstanding demolition orders. The entire village is in peril.

On Thursday, January  31^st, a fateful Supreme Court hearing on the Regavim petition will take place.  It will not only determine Susya’s future, but will have implications for endangered homes throughout the Occupied Territories. We are cautiously optimistic that the Court will not approve Regavim’s request, because even the State has said that demolitions cannot be carried out before due consideration has been given to a new alternative zoning plan RHR has submitted, that would legalize the homes and school and solar panels of Susya.  However, if the Court merely accepts the State position, we leave in place the discriminatory planning system denying Susya and other Palestinian communities any possibility of even minimum humanitarian development.

We must spread the word regarding this injustice, and the desecration of God’s Name that could take place -In our name. We cannot let our country act toward the stranger in our midst in such a way that we forget our heritage. We were slaves in Egypt, and we have been commanded to remember the bitter taste of oppression.

For more information: The origin of the expulsion – A Brief history of Palestinian Susya

Please join us in the High Court on This Thursday (31.1) at 11:30 in order to Save Susya!

At-Tuwani is located in Area C, which means that it is subject to Israeli administration in all civilian matters. As a result, the villagers of At-Tuwani have had to defend their houses from demolition, as they are not included in Israel’s master plan for the region. They have also struggled to gain access to water, while the surrounding settlements are supplied by Israeli water system. The settlers themselves also frequently attack and harass villagers, shepherds and children on their way to school. The children and shepherds of At-Tuwani are accompanied by human rights volunteers from Operation Dove who act as observers and record acts of violence committed by settlers. Indeed, shortly before we visited, an Israeli activist accompanying Palestinians near At-Tuwani was blindfolded, mugged, beaten and threatened by three Israeli settlers outside the illegal outpost called “Avigail.”

The actors of the Freedom Bus performed outside with a back drop of ancient olive trees. The audience were asked to share their stories, with a focus on experiences with settlers.

A very old woman came forward to tell her story. One day she was in the fields with her sheep when she was attacked by settlers and beaten. She screamed and screamed. People from the village came and started shouting, chanting and protesting. The settlers called the Israeli police. They came and started to arrest her son. At this point she became very angry and started shouting at the police. She took off her slipper and hit a policeman in the face! This story elicited great cheers from the crowd.

A man came forward and told a story of an altercation with some settlers. He called the Israeli police to come and intervene. One policeman came. He stood near to the policeman so that we would be protected from the settlers, who fired shots in their direction. His mother was shot. They called for the ambulance but it did not come. He had to carry his mother to the hospital on the back of a donkey.

Finally, an older man, a shepherd, told a story about settlers. He had wheels made for his car that were decorated with the colours of the Palestinian flag. A settler came and stole one of the wheels from his car. The entire village and people from the surrounding areas went to protest outside the settlement to demand the return of the stolen wheel.. The protest was mainly made up of children, because it just so happened that the wheel was stolen at the same time that a summer camp for the local Palestinian children being held. The army sent more soldiers than there were children protesting to police the demonstration.

The soldiers told everyone to go home, promising that they would find the wheel and return it. The man (pictured above) said, “No! We will not go home until we get the wheel. And we will not go home until the settler who took the wheel returns it to us in person.” Eventually, the settler who had stolen the wheel came with his pick-up truck and gave the man a wheel. But it was different wheel, not the one with the Palestinian colours, but a new one that was better quality.

“This story has nothing to do with the wheel,” the man said, “The point is that we made the settlers concede to us. That is the victory.”

Images by Al Mayuk.

Although the village is allocated 300,000 litres of water per day by the Israeli Civil Administration, the only filling station is 6km away from the village, and the water, once divided evenly between the villagers, leaves only 75 litres a day per person. This is well below the 100 litre minimum put forward by the World Health Organization.

To access the water the villagers have to pay to hire tankers to collect the water from the filling station and ship it back to the village. This option remains unaffordable for many, who instead choose to collect rain water in tarps or large containers. This water is often difficult to sterilize, leading to an increase in illness.

The view across the dividing fence

The Freedom Bus performance took place outside, with a view over well-irrigated Israeli fields on the other side of the dividing fence. We were watched, from a distance, by Israeli soldiers looking through binoculars and photographing and filming the crowd over the barbed wire.

The acting troupe of the Freedom Bus performed for the villagers, inviting them to share their real-life stories of water shortage and then transforming them into short pieces of theatre, using a technique called Playback Theatre.

We heard from an older woman about how her family’s well water became polluted with sewage. The family tried everything to clean it, adding chlorine and other chemicals, but nothing worked. In the end they had to replace all the water in the well. She added that lack of access to water was so difficult because it is used for everything; cooking, bathing the children, cleaning the house, washing clothes etc. A young man also shared a story about his grandmother,  whom he described as an extremely strong woman who was able to carry large jars of water. However, fourteen years ago she was collecting water from the well when she was chased and attacked by settlers. She injured herself and broke the jar. This story highlights that the problem of water access in Faquaa is not a new one, but is part of a long struggle that goes back generations.

It was a powerful setting for the start of the September Freedom Ride.

Images by Al Mayuk and Natasha Andrews.

Did you pay attention to that last sentence?  It says an encyclopedia’s worth and it proves that the government of Bibi is evil, biased, wicked, corrupt, and perverse.

In the past year, the High Court of Justice has been asked to rule on the state’s intentions to demolish at least 12 villages south of Hebron (Susia, Dekaika, Bir al-Id, Saala and eight villages that have been declared part of army firing zone No. 918) located in Area C, which is under Israeli control, and force their residents to move to Areas A and B, which are under Palestinian civil control. Next week it will also rule on the fate of Zanuta, a village that lies on the border of the West Bank.

Lebensraum on pretense.  Landgrabbing wickedness…

Residents of Zanuta, who filed a joint petition to the High Court of Justice with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel are requesting that the Civil Administration complete a detailed construction plan for them. If the planning of their village were regularized, the demolition orders issued by the Civil Administration against their improvised structures would be reversed, and construction would be permitted in accordance with the natural growth of the population and their needs. The Civil Administration is refusing to comply with the request, and is instead demanding that the residents move to the town of Dahariya.

Palestinians don’t matter to the government of Israel under the lordship of the Bib’s (or as he should be known, Ba’al Zebub).

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Residents of targeted villages will be moved to the West Bank town of Yatta and its environs; state claims that most of those evacuated have permanent homes in the area.

The West Bank town of Yatta. Photo by Nir Kafri.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the demolition of eight Palestinian villages in the South Hebron Hills because the territory is needed for Israel Defense Forces training exercises, the state told the High Court of Justice on Sunday.

The residents of the targeted villages will be moved to the town of Yatta and its environs; the state claims, based on information it obtained from local informers, that most of these people have permanent homes in that area.

The state will allow the residents to work their lands and graze their flocks there when the IDF is not training — on weekends and Jewish holidays – and during two other periods of one month each during the year. Barak agreed to leave four villages that are in the northernmost part of the area, even though this would reduce the dimensions of training area and prevent the use of live fire.

The villages slated for demolition are the larger villages in the region: Majaz, Tabban, Sfai, Fakheit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba, and Kharuba, which have a total of 1,500 residents. The villages to be spared are Tuba, Mufaqara, Sarura and Megheir al-Abeid, which have a total of 300 residents.

The IDF and the Civil Administration regard all of them as squatters in Firing Zone 918, even though the villages have existed since at least the 1830s.

Evacuation orders were issued against the 12 villages in 1999, but were frozen by an injunction issued by the High Court of Justice in response to two petitions that were united: One by attorney Shlomo Lecker and the second by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, who together represented some 200 families. An effort to reach an agreement on the status of the residents in the area by a mediation process failed in 2005.

At that point, the Civil Administration started to issue demolition orders against cisterns and restrooms that several families had added, claiming that these additions violated the status quo as set by the court. This past April, after 12 years of various proceedings and delays, the High Court held a preliminary hearing on the petitions, with the state submitting its final position on Sunday.

Attorney Hila Gurani, a senior deputy state prosecutor, wrote in the response to the petitions that the IDF has been forced to limit its military exercises in the area because of the people living there and the illegal construction that has taken place there. For the same reason, no live-fire training is conducted there.

In addition, wrote Gurani, during the second intifada, operational activity came at the expense of training, but the Second Lebanon War exposed weak spots that substantially increase the need for training and firing zones. Gurani also noted that there was a risk that residents of the firing zone would collect intelligence on IDF methods, or take weapons or equipment that the forces might leave behind, and use them for terror purposes.

The village residents, ACRI and the B’Tselem human rights group present the issues differently. According to them, all 12 villages were natural outgrowths of cave-dwelling communities that are widely found in that area. In some of the villages, homes of unchiseled stone were built even before 1967.

The connection to Yatta is natural – and characteristic of many satellite communities that developed over the centuries in historic Palestine. For generations the cave-dwellers were farmers and shepherds, producing milk and cheese, and they have preserved their way of life to this day, while integrating into Yatta as a result of contemporary demands, such as the need to send their children to school.

The IDF had declared some 30,000 dunams (7,500 acres) in the area a closed military zone back in the 1970s. Under military law, only permanent residents are allowed to remain in a closed military zone.

Until 1997, the cave-dwellers continued to live in their communities undisturbed – which the petitioners say is clear evidence that they were regarded at the time as permanent residents. However, as happened in much of the West Bank that under the Oslo Accords was deemed Area C – under complete Israeli control – the Israeli authorities did not allow the residents to build more structures, including schools or clinics, to accommodate their natural growth. These communities were not included the master plans that were prepared for the building of the area settlements, and thus to this day these villages are not connected to the road system, the water system or to the electrical grid.

In August and November 1999, most of the area’s residents received eviction orders due to “illegal residence in a firing zone.” On November 16, 1999, the security forces forcibly evicted more than 700 residents, and the IDF demolished buildings and wells and confiscated property, leaving the residents with no homes and no livelihood.

As noted, the High Court, in response to the petitions, issued an interim injunction, allowing the villagers to temporarily return to their homes. However, because the army had destroyed many of the buildings, many residents had nothing to return to. Moreover, the security forces interpreted the interim injunction as narrowly as possible, allowing reentry only to the named petitioners and denying access to their relatives.

As a result, the examination conducted by the Civil Administration that is quoted in the state’s response to the court on Sunday found that in 2000 “there were no permanent residents in the area,” and that anyone living there was there only on a seasonal basis. On the other hand, the Civil Administration identified most of the petitioners as living in and around Yatta, as reported in the affidavit of Raziel Goldstein, who was the Civil Administration’s inspection coordinator in the region.

Goldstein also wrote in his affidavit that, “This examination was conducted with the help of three local residents, who were presented with the names of the petitioners and aerial photographs of Yatta.”

The state also claims that in recent years residents have been repeatedly violating the status quo by expanding structures illegally, adding that the number of people entering the area under the interim injunctions is far greater than the number of petitioners.

“The petitioners cannot build on the development of these illegal phenomena and now claim to be talking about permanent residency,” the state wrote.

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  By Gili Cohen | Jul.23,2012 | 
  
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By Abbad Yehya | Al Akhbar | June 1, 2012

Ramallah – Halfway between occupied Jerusalem and Nablus, in middle of the West Bank and 9km north of Ramallah, private Palestinian funds, generously supported by Qatar, and protected by the occupation army, are building a city for the “new Palestinians,” as US General Keith Dayton, US Security Coordinator for Israel-Palestinian Authority in Tel Aviv, calls them.

Rawabi is a “Palestinian settlement” currently under construction at a cost nearing US$1 billion. It is located on a 6,300-dunum (6.3 square kilometers) piece of land seized by the Palestinian Authority (PA) through a decree signed by president Mahmoud Abbas in November 2009.

After a failed attempt by landowners to reverse the decision or reduce its impact, the land was bought by businessman Bashar al-Masri. On several occasions, al-Masri called on Israelis to buy apartments and houses in his city and become neighbors with the “new Palestinians.”

In the nearby village of Attara, residents whisper about Israeli officers who visit the city to eat breakfast with its developers. The visits are frequent and include officers from the Israeli Civil Administration accompanied by army units and border guards.

Villagers speak about soldiers who man the Attara roadblock, allowing everyone related to the Rawabi project to pass through while barring the flow of regular Palestinians.

Things were made clear following friendly conversations al-Masri had with the Israeli press. He sent out statements to appease “the neighbors” and inform them that everything is under control and security prevails, due to solid collaboration with the occupation army.

This is a new phase of spatial engineering. Israel went to war against the old camps and towns that were immune to infiltration during the intifada. It sought to destroy spaces of resistance in Palestinian towns. It even rebuilt Jenin in an exposed and permeable manner, financed by the United Arab Emirates.

Now, the architecture of Rawabi will suit the needs of the colonialist invaders. It will stand before them completely exposed. Ironically, the money for it also came from the Gulf. Thus, the architectural style bears a close resemblance to Israeli settlements.

Architect Lynn Jabri analyzed the building style in Rawabi. She compares the style to the criteria used to build Israeli settlements in mountainous regions, according to a guide used by the Israeli Construction and Housing Ministry. The same criteria are all applied in the city (with the exception of painting the roofs red for the Israeli air force to identify).

Jabri believes that “the search for a modern Palestinian architectural style remains superficial and does not exceed some formal features, without the proper understanding of local architecture. Actually, Rawabi’s “Palestinian” architects are proposing an architecture that looks Israeli.”

Bashar al-Masri considers the project to be part of building the Palestinian state. But he said in a “very friendly” interview with Israeli TV Channel 10 that he visited the Modi’in luxury settlement west of Ramallah to learn from the building experience there and create a better model.

On the way to the largest investment project in Palestine and inside the city itself, countless cameras monitor everything in sight. Nobody knows exactly who sits behind the monitors and sees all that is displayed.

The exposed nature of Rawabi is manifold: Broad streets, buildings aligned according to a strict plan, and a service center looking more like a control tower above the city. Thus, controlling the city becomes no more difficult than taking a pleasant ride in a military Jeep, as a young man from Ajoul, a village being suffocated by the project, likes to put it.

This is the other similarity with early Zionist colonies which erected control towers at the highest point in the settlement as part of their absolute security regulations.

Speaking about the sustainability of the project, Rawabi’s website asks visitors to plant a tree in the city because “the natural beauty of the country has been damaged by war, development, neglect, and climate change.”

The text fails to mention who carried out the ethnic and spatial cleansing of Palestine, destroyed its environment, then brought trees to plant and cover their crimes. Rawabi wants to mimic the Jewish National Fund’s project of planting trees in villages whose residents were expelled during and after the Nakba.

The city’s planners, enamored by Ramallah’s opulent neighborhoods, did not forget to build a mosque and a church. They even brought religious crews to run them following the inauguration of the city in front of potential clients and residents.

Rawabi does not tire of delegations and visitors. It is now on the map for international travelers, politicians, economists, even athletes. Al-Masri speaks proudly about his city, whether to Palestinian security officers or the United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki Moon.

The city is in harmony with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s rhetoric of building a state and its institutions. It is part of the hackneyed propaganda about “the Palestinians’ right and worthiness to live.”

In following the rhetoric of the PA and its supporters, the project owners attempt to create a fantasy completely detached from the bitter reality.

Al-Masri speaks of the city’s five gates, leading to Jerusalem, Yafa, Nablus, Gaza, and Qatar’s Capital, Doha. The latter is the location of Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, which is jointly owned by Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company and al-Masri’s Massar International.

The separation walls, the segregation, and the Green Line, along with a bitter history of 64 years of occupation, are nowhere to be seen in Rawabi’s advertising campaign. “It has a superb view of the Mediterranean,” they say.

From the onset, the PA wholeheartedly supported the project. In May 2008, it held the Palestine Investment Conference in Bethlehem in total collaboration with the Israeli army and government to finance two projects, Rawabi and the Rihan suburbs.

Thus, Rawabi is promoted as a solution to the deteriorating economic situation in language full of numbers: 10,000 new jobs in the city and the commercial activity of at least 40,000 residents.

But there is a deliberate disregard for the role of the occupation in the economic situation of Palestinians. Palestinian groups of all persuasions are either silent or complicit. This complicity is prevalent among the majority of elites and intellectuals who are afraid to challenge this “national” project and its unprecedented media juggernaut.

City planners say that Palestinian expertise has returned from outside the country to work on this city. But they fail to mention that the economic return is based on the occupier’s criteria and the time frame of the project.

Similarly, there is increased talk of the cultural and artistic life of Rawabi. We can now easily imagine the type of culture practiced in the city of “economic peace” so loved by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli press also like to talk about Rawabi. Israelis seem very interested in learning about this “new settlement.” Al-Masri was exclusively interviewed several times in the city by Channel 10, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and others. The interviews were intended to put Israelis at ease and inform them that Rawabi is different from any other Palestinian city.

Israeli media is keen on comparing Rawabi, and some parts of Ramallah, with “Hariri’s Beirut.” There were open calls for Netanyahu and his defense minister Ehud Barak to participate in the inauguration. It is ultimately an outcome of Fayyad’s “silent revolution,” whose slogan is that Palestinians “are tired and weary of conflict and are looking for a new life.”

Al-Masri uses every occasion to insist that his company works under the regulations of the PA and its ministries, namely the Ministry of Local Government. It is expected to be transferred to a locally elected body following the delivery of apartments to the owners (the first batch will be delivered in 2013) and the markets to the investors.

The real estate firm, Bayti, will have an administrative and organizational function and will preserve the architectural style of the city and its neighborhoods. The exact scope of the private company’s authority is unknown. This will allow it to complete its spatial architecture with a social architecture consistent with neoliberalism, the socio-economic framework of General Dayton’s security plan.

One of the biggest ironies is that the only real opposition to the construction of the city came from Israelis living in nearby colonies. They started to attack the Palestinian workers until they were stopped through coordination with the Israeli army.

Israelis can enter the city as visitors, workers, and experts. Relationships with Israeli raw materials providers and experts are not even controversial. The Palestinian private sector, with all its factories and contractors, cannot provide even a third of what is required.

Knowing all of this, it seems that the settlement of Atiret, occupying the nearest hill, will be a friendly neighbor. Its residents could come to the more modern and opulent Rawabi for entertainment. The earlier misunderstanding will turn into mutual hospitality and neighborly relations.

Peace-mongers on both sides now have a model consisting of a new kind of Palestinian who gladly embraces the language of consumerism, malls, and international brands!

A few months ago, Rawabi was but a mere idea of a city for refugees who will be brought back based on strict selection criteria. Their return and residence in the city is promoted as a partial solution to the refugee question.

But such talk disappears beneath the haughty buildings of a durable city that goes against the temporary and impatient architecture of refugee camps. In Rawabi, glass will prevail, signifying the brittle and exposed nature of the setting. Its stones, “expensive and rare,” will not be fit to throw at an occupying soldier.

Related articles

• Israeli police caught robbing Palestinian workers (alethonews.wordpress.com)

Palestine Information Center – 26/05/2012

WEST BANK — Haaretz newspaper said the Israeli civil administration issued 13,000 demolition warnings against Palestinians accused of unlicensed construction in Area C of the West Bank.

The newspaper stated in a report that Israel intensified its construction restrictions on the Palestinian citizens in the villages and towns of the West Bank and seeks to prevent them from building through creating criminal files against them.

It said the civil administration increased the issuance of severe penalties against the Palestinians in all villages and towns located within Area C under Israel’s control.

Its report underlined that the civil administration was active recently in the demolition of many Palestinian homes and structures including schools in Al-Khalil city at the pretext of unlicensed construction.

The report pointed to the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs’ recent report which condemned Israel’s restrictions on construction permits for Palestinians and its demolition of their homes while encouraging settlement construction.

Related articles

• Homes Destroyed, Lives Shattered: Criminal Displacement in Occupied Palestine (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Israeli occupation authorities demolish well near Hebron (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• IDF closes Palestinian school to make way for West Bank training zone (theuglytruth.wordpress.com)
• Center: Israel orders demolition of electricity company (altahrir.wordpress.com)

I spent time last week in the United States, in Arizona, in the desert.  Being in that landscape of rock and sand and sun brought my heart again to the days in Palestine.  The major, major difference I noted was the abundance of water used in Arizona.  Water for swimming pools, water for golf courses, water for decorative fountains.   In Palestine water is so precious and so scarce and is used as a political tool.  Used with somewhat wild abandon by the Israeli settlers, for pools, gardens and massive agricultural projects, while the villages of Palestinians have their water infrastructure demolished, unfairly and illegally restricted by the Israeli civil administration and sometimes deliberately contaminated by the settlers.

Back in Canada I read the ongoing reports of demolitions, the death of animals due to careless and brutal demolition of sheep pens, the threats of demolitions on schools, the continuing disruption of Palestinian communities by so called ‘archeological digs’.  I get so angry.

I have felt overwhelmed.  I cannot write new material for my blog, because I can find no ways to say in words what I am am seeing on line, and feeling in my soul as I imagine the peaceful, kind, hospitable people that I know being stripped of dignity and security.

And I am embarrassed, ashamed and angered that our current Canadian government seems to stand in full uncritical support of the government of Israel that continues to enact these abuses of power and humiliates the Palestinians under Occupation.  Canadians must speak out to make the Harper government take a firm, public stand against Human Rights abuses, and violations of international law. The government stands on a Human Rights record in our dealings with other nations (Libya, Syria, China), but we chose not to support the Palestinians.  Why?

The seeds of despair are being sown with every bulldozer that passes over the West Bank land; with every tree cut down or burned the roots of resistance are growing deeper.  In the villages I accompanied and in the reports I see from EAs on the ground currently, the resistance in non-violent. Sit down protests on the buses, standing in front of the demolition crews to stop bulldozers, lying under a trailer to prevent having their property confiscated.  Yet the world continues to be peppered with the images and rhetoric that paints all Palestinians as ‘terrorists’.  This week, in a bus accident outside of Ramallah, several Palestinian school children died.  Some of the commentary in Israeli websites expressed delight in the death of ‘little terrorists’.  I know that this kind of mutual disdain does nothing to build bridges of peace.

There are many many organizations in the West Bank and in israel that try to bring communities together to find common ground, to share the commitment to a peaceful future.  One such organization is The Tent of Nations, near Bethlehem.  This week, they received a demolition order from the Israeli Defence Force.  Tent of Nations

Rather than continue to write my own heartbreak and anger, I will offer some further links for you to explore and see other things that are occuring in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  May your prayers be informed, that you may pray and live for peace and justice.  May you find ways to reach out to government to express your commitment to resolutions so that both Israel and Palestine may have self-determination, peace and safety.  Please, educate others so that the international pressure to have Israel abide by International Law is increased.

Operation Dove  Is an Italian Peace and Non-violence group maintaining a presence in the South Hebron Hills.

The Villages Group (villagesgroup.wordpress.com) is based in The West Bank and brings Israeli and Palestinian activists together to report on human rights abuses and property demolitions in the West Bank.  They have recently posted about the pending demolition of the school in Susiya.  Susiya is one of the villages I spent a great deal of time in during my stay in South Hebron Hills.

Please read the stories and imagine your way into the hearts of these communities.

I am thinking of trees today.  and remembering the spiritual and protest song “We shall not be moved”  Just like a tree that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved.  The commitment to the land is firm among both Israelis and Palestinians.  If the roots that are  watered  with anger and hatred, what will be the fruits?  If  respect and fellowship and mutual understanding are lavished on the roots, the crop will be far different.

By Rev. Ted Pike
5 July 11

As the next “Free Gaza” flotilla attempts to sail for Gaza, a recent Ha’aretz article describes Israel’s high-alert response:

“The term ‘flotilla’ is understood in Israel as a declaration of war. This is the case with respect to the latest Gaza-bound flotilla just as it was with the one that set off from Turkey in May 2010…At best, the flotilla’s contribution to lifting the blockade is symbolic, in that it reminds the world that Israel’s closure policy is still partially in effect and that the population of Gaza remains under occupation. But the Israeli government imputes far greater significance to symbols than it does to wise policy. The government seems to be as frightened of the Gaza flotilla as one would think it would be of an attack by an armed naval fleet.

It appears that even though a year has passed since the first flotilla fiasco, Israel is showing that it has learned just one lesson: the military lesson. As though better military preparation or training for specific scenarios are what will save Israel’s honor. The country is not willing to give up a display of power, thereby no doubt contributing to inflating the flotilla’s importance.” (Let the Flotilla Go, Haaretz, 6June11)

Israel claims such offensive potential is necessary because the ships may carry weapons for Hamas, and any end to the embargo of Gaza would certainly lead to such military aid. There is a much deeper and more sinister reason Israel wants to isolate Gaza in poverty. (A UN study shows Gaza’s unemployment rate is among the worst in the world, with 45.2% of Gazans of working age unemployed.) With at least $8 billion in international aid waiting for Israel’s embargo to lift, the Jewish state absolutely does not want a prosperous, energetic and vengeful Palestinian territory to emerge. With the West Bank, Gaza could quickly materialize as a de facto state within a state, regardless of its official status.

Consolidation of Palestinian power on both sides of Israel could powerfully threaten the Jewish state’s dream of inhabiting the entirety of the “Promised Land.” Yet the dream of Jewish safety in the Middle East, an image central to Zionism for the last century, has proven an illusion. Last year Prime Minister Netanyahu proclaimed Israel the most dangerous place a Jew can live.

What dream then remains unchanged for Israel?

It is the dream that a Jewish state can do what God has forbidden for millennia: occupy Palestine in a state of rebellion and apostasy to His law (SeeList of Conditional Salvation/Occupation Verses). Modern Israel was founded on rejection of weighty Scriptural and historical testimony that wicked Jews can’t found a nation in the Holy Land. The pioneers of the rogue state of Israel, Jewish Bolsheviks, secularists and Christ-hating Talmudist are excluded from the covenant blessing given to righteous Abraham (See, The True Meaning of God’s Covenant with Abraham). Israel’s dream, like the dream of every sinner, is that an exception can be made: The sinner will not surely die. God’s judgment can be forever delayed. Israel can add sin to sin and injustice to injustice yet never face national judgment and exile.

Israel Multiplies Sin

God commanded the Hebrews to not oppress “the stranger in the land” (Ex. 23:9). A recent article by IMEMC News describes how Israel continues to expel Palestinians from their homes—only now, new laws force evicted Palestinians to pay demolition costs!

A committee of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) passed a first draft of a law that will require that Palestinians whose homes are destroyed by Israeli forces pay the Israeli government for the demolition costs… Since 1967, Israeli forces have demolished 24,813 Palestinian homes. Ninety percent of these homes were destroyed for “administrative” reasons—because they either lacked a permit or were in an area designated for expansion by the Israeli military. No permits have been issued by Israeli authorities for Palestinian construction in the Occupied Territories since 1967. The remaining 10% of the demolitions have been “punitive” demolitions of the homes of Palestinians accused of attacking Israel or of their families’ homes.

In the first 5 months of 2011, Israeli forces demolished more Palestinian homes than in the entire year of 2010, rendering homeless 706 Palestinians, including 341 minors. This is according to the most recent numbers released by Israeli Civil Administration. If the law passes the full Knesset, any Palestinian whose home is destroyed by the Israeli military will have to pay thousands of dollars to cover the cost of the demolition. Already, many Palestinian homeowners, mainly in Jerusalem have been forced to pay for the forced demolition of their homes.

Israelis and Zionists believe that the Jewish people are above God’s law. Yet Scripture prophesies that this defiant dream will turn someday into a nightmare: the worst Jewish suffering in the history of the world.

Despite world protest that we see today, the centuries of investment by Jewish activists in control of government, finance and media will endure, especially in the west. Israel will someday dominate a global government and summon the arrival of her messiah. For a short time, says the Bible, this united Jewish government will run the financial and political systems of the world (See, ‘Babylon the Great’ is Israel). She will seem to have fulfilled her dream of prospering in sin and say, “I sit a queen and shall not see sorrow.” (Rev. 18:7)

Yet Scripture proclaims that in “one hour,” her power will collapse. The anti-Christ she has ridden will throw her down and gore her with the “horns” of world armies. The proud queen will be desolated and her children exiled once again, fulfilling God’s timeless law. Jews will be hounded into near extinction among the nations.

As one dream ends, another will be realized. The Arab world will tread Jerusalem underfoot (Luke 21:24). As anti-Christ finally fulfills the Arab dream and allows them to possess the Holy Land, they will “eat, drink and give in marriage” (Luke 17:27), rejoicing that the hated Jews are now vanquished. Israel had her time to rule the nations. This will be “the time of the Gentiles” as a bitterly vengeful world tries to solve the “Jewish problem” by killing every last Jew in the ultimate holocaust. Yet Christ at His second coming intervenes, raining fire and brimstone on the massive armed camp of defiant Gentiles and Arabs who battle Him in the valley of Armageddon. Again, since God’s Holy Land can’t endure wicked inhabitants, God will destroy and the land will “vomit out” the Arab oppressors, just as happened to the ancient Canaanites.

As Zionist and Arab dreams are devastated, another final dream, a divine one, will spring to vivid life. A beleaguered humbled minority of Jewish survivors, including their Khazar proselytes (Ezekiel 47:22) will be transformed through repentance at Christ’s appearing. Their obedience will restore the remnant’s right to national occupation of Palestine. With pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon them and Satan and his demonic minions cast into the bottomless pit, such national obedience becomes possible. The remnant will be as infused with desire to glorify their Messiah as were their forefathers inflamed to denigrate Him. Jesus will be their passion and praise for 1,000 years.

The Zionist and Arab dreams are destined to turn into nightmares. Yet this final, divine dream has been held by righteous men and prophets since the beginning of God’s saga with Israel. It is inspired by Christ and will be gloriously fulfilled. Under the benevolent rule of Christ, a battered, blood-soaked planet will not return to the habitual cycles of hate and war. Instead, the “knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as waters cover the sea!” (Is. 11:9) Jesus Christ literally proves to be the salvation of the world. He brings with Him not only joy in human hearts but peace to the whole earth—a peace beyond man’s wildest dreams.

In French, Talaxcala Translation.

Independently of the recently published article of the Swedish journalist Donald Boström about the Israelis murdering Palestinians in order to harvesting of organs for sale, and independently of the hysteric screeching and denials by the Israelis, I want to present my readers what I witnessed, saw, observed and heard during my 22 years of journalistic work under the Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. My personal experience confirms what Mr. Boström wrote: while I do not know the particular case which he describes, it is typical for what the Israelis do in Palestine all the time, what is “normal” since the early seventies.

The Israeli military occupation started in the early 1970s to capture and keep the bodies of the Palestinians who they murdered. Since the early seventies, thousands of Palestinians have been buried in secret and number graves of the Israeli military. Since the early seventies, thousands of Palestinian victims of the occupation were “autopsied”, and many of their bodies kept in military numbered graves. Most members of the resistance who were killed were taken for “autopsy”, and also those who were wounded were abducted from the hospital by the Israelis. This practice became somewhat less widespread only when the PA came to power, meaning that people murdered in areas controlled by the PA were not “autopsied” any more, but this would still happen to people murdered or wounded in areas controlled by the Israelis.
The Israeli military leadership, the Central Command and the so-called “defense” Ministry cannot hide these well- and widely known facts: the Israeli military murders people all the time, and most if not all of the murdered are taken for “autopsy”, many of them are buried in Israeli military cemeteries in numbered and secret graves. These facts cannot be hidden by the fancy statements issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, by the deranged terrorist and war criminal Ehud Barak and the corrupt extremist Benjamin Netanyahu.

In many cases, the so-called “civil administration”, military commanders and officers were returning to their families the bodies of Palestinians who they had murdered after the middle of the night, and after a few days “detention” of the bodies. The military officers would call the families of the victim after the middle of the night (usually at 1-3 in the morning), demanding that a few relatives, “not more than 10”, wait on the street for burying the body.

The first condition of the military “civil” administration was that the burial should take place immediately after receiving the body, in the dark of the night, for “security reasons”, the second condition of the Israelis was that women should not participate in the secret funeral, also for “security reasons” (actually they wanted to avoid that the screams of grieving mothers, sisters, daughters of the victim would be heard, so alerting the neighbourhood to the crime). The Israeli officers always used “security reasons” to justify and cover up their criminal activities!

On each such occasion returning the body of one of their murdered victims, the “civil” military administration officers would follow the funeral procession, driving their armored grey cars and waiting until the end of the burial. A number of other military vehicles filled with soldiers would surround the funeral, watching the burial of their victims, always ready to shoot the small number of participants in the funeral. Of course, the officers would always insistently make it clear to the family that they were doing them a great favor in returning the body of their beloved one and allowing them to bury it.

Empty Bodies, Stuffed With Cotton

What is the reason to bury somebody in middle of the night, with a company of IDF soldiers and the Israeli military “civil” administration officers surrounding the procession? If the burial is normal, and the organs of the victims were not stolen, then why should they be buried in the dark of the night? The families of the victims all knew that they were receiving empty bodies, filled with cotton, to be buried in the middle of the night.

One fact for Ehud Barak: near the end of the first Intifada, after the start of the so-called Oslo peace negotiations, the brother-in-law of one of my paternal uncles was murdered by the Israelis at the Qalandia checkpoint, he was returned to his family stuffed with cotton some days after the incident. My uncles relative, Monzer Naji Rashid Abdullah, was a small transportation entrepreneur; he was not involved in political activities of any kind. He was murdered on 14 April 1991, two days before Eid Al-Adha, a festivity comparable to Christmas. As a result of his to date unpunished murder by Israelis manning the checkpoint, his wife and children were reduced to dependency on charities.

The deranged war criminal Ehud Barak and his corrupt “state” should better stop denying what the Swedish writer Donald Boström published in Aftonbladet. I personally was witness of the Israeli soldiers and military vehicles kidnapping the bodies of dead Palestinians from the emergency rooms of hospitals, in some other cases I saw the soldiers following the Palestinians to the cemetery, to steal the body from the family before the burial. This vile practice became so widespread that many people started carrying the bodies of the murdered to be buried at home, in the garden, under the house or under trees, instead of waiting for the ambulance to take them to the hospital.

The Israelis always murder or gravely injure some people at demonstrations, and first the Israeli soldiers themselves would take the bodies, then they would besiege the hospitals where the bodies were taken by Palestinian ambulances – finally people present at demonstrations started taking the murdered and injured directly to their families. Everybody in Palestine knows that the Israeli soldiers besiege the hospitals in order to kidnap the bodies. The most disgusting thing I witnessed was when the criminal soldiers of Barak and Netanyahu were following Palestinian funeral processions to the cemetery to kidnap the bodies.

The issue of stealing the Palestinian organs is known to everybody in Palestine. I reported several times about this crime. In many cases my reports were rejected by the criminal military censorship of the occupation, these reports are until this moment stored at the military censorship office in “Bet Agron” in occupied Jerusalem.

I know that the criminal “state of Israel” was harvesting the organs of Palestinians who were kidnapped by the Israeli military from the emergency rooms of the Palestinian hospitals in Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin, and everywhere in the West Bank and Gaza, and transferred to the Israeli hospital (or rather, butchery) of Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv. The families of the victims know the criminal israeli officers of the so-called “civil administration” who were covering this crime. Everybody knew Captain Eyal, Col. Fuad Hahul, Col. Amnon Cohen (now head of the “infrastructure department” of the “civil” administration  in occupied Palestine), Rafi Geoli, “Alex”, and many other officers whose name I don’t know, but who were always present.

Everybody knew the higher commanders, above them brigadier general (res.) Gadi Zohar, (former head of the civil administration, and IDF intelligence officer for 30 years), brigadier general (res.) David Shafi (former head of the civil administration), Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni (former IDF brigade in Hebron and the current head of the central command), Col. Baruch Goldstein (formerly with the IDF “civil” administration in Hebron and currently with the municipality of Jerusalem), Lt.Col. Baruch Nagar (former head of the civil administration and the current head of the water administration for the West Bank and Gaza), Col. Yigal Sharon, (former brigade of Hebron and the current, Coffee Salesman), Brigadier General (res.) Dov Sedaka, (former head of the civil administration and the current head of the zionist Chairman of the steering committee), Maj.Gen. Matan Vilnai, Brigadier General Noam Tivon, Col. Yehuda Fuchs ,
Lt. Col. Udi ben Muha, the military commander of Hebron, and others. And everybody knew that these people were involved in the harvesting of organs of their victims.

Captain Eyal, Col. Fuad Halhal, Col. Amnon Cohen, Rafi Geoli and many of those mentioned above and many others were the ones calling the families of the murdered Palestinians, in the middle of the night to inform them about the bodies of their loved ones. These criminals were telling the Palestinian families that they “had worked hard to make it possible to release the bodies of their relatives from the military headquarter” – implying that it was a favor, and that the military commanders Shamni, Goldstein, Nagar, … had ordered that the bodies should be buried in the dark and that “not more than ten persons” were allowed to be present at the funeral.

Often the relatives of the murdered people were screaming and shouting, as they had received an empty body stuffed with cotton. These criminal officers and their soldiers forced them to shut up.

All this criminal activity is not only a clear violation of the human rights, a horrendous crime against humanity, but a disrespect of the sanctity of life which can only be explained with mental deficiencies of the perpetrators.

If Israel did not steal the ORGANS of the murdered Palestinians, and if Israel did not want to cover up their inhuman crimes, and if Israel respects the Geneva conventions and other humanitarian  laws, in peace and in war, then Israel would not kidnap and transfer to the Abu Kabir “hospital” in Tel Aviv hundreds, perhaps thousands of Palestinians bodies of people who were murdered during PEACE demonstrations in the cities of the West Bank.

If it is not true that Israelis are harvesting the organs of murdered Palestinians, then why were they transferring the bodies of their victims to be butchered at Abu Kabir? The reasons of the death were known. The victims all received bullets in the head, or in the chest by Israeli snipers.

After all the whining and screeching of the Israelis after the Swedish newspaper article, the fact stands that hundreds, perhaps thousands of bodies and even people known to have been alive were transferred to the Abu Kabir autopsy center and returned to their families stuffed with cotton. Hundreds of victims who were buried in the dark by their families, and hundreds or thousands more bodies which Israel keeps in their numbered graves.

During the first Intifada and during the so called peace time I personally witnessed how the Israeli military were kidnapping Palestinian bodies and gravely injured people from the emergency room of Princess Alia hospital in Hebron. Some years later I also witnessed how the Israeli army kidnapped the bodies of the Palestinian dead from the then new Al-Ahli hospital: All the area would be declared military zone, the hospital surrounded and invaded by troops, nobody was allowed to move inside the building. All these kidnapped bodies of Palestinians, and also people known to have been living, were killed before taken to Abu Kabir for “autopsy”.

Taking in consideration these facts, everything I know, and until Israel comes clean on who are the members of the organ harvesting mafia, the only conclusion is that:

• All the Israeli officers and civil personnel of the so-called civil administration who served in the West Bank since the early seventies were involved at least covering up the harvesting of organs from Palestinians, at the very least conniving, but  probably taking part in the racket for money.
• All the Israeli doctors and other personnel who worked in Abu Kabir since the early seventies were involved in harvesting and selling organs from Palestinians.
• All the IDF snipers and other soldiers who shot Palestinian (and foreigners) at peace demonstrations are and were involved with the mafia which harvests and sells the organs of murdered Palestinians, at least some of the involved in the crimes are given money.
• The IDF central command and most if not all officers in the chain of command until the field fully know what is going on, and they connive with the harvesting of organs from Palestinians they murder, they offer planning and logistics for the commission of the crimes, and make the families of the victims shut up. All the Israeli State and the whole Israeli Nation who accept the continued military occupation are involved in crimes against humanity.
• Most if not all the Israeli medical establishment knows what is going on, and they keep silence because they either get money, or they are rewarded in other ways for conniving in these crimes. This is confirmed because of repeated complaints of doctors from other countries because Israel is one of the few jurisdictions which does not forbid commerce with human organs and body parts.
• The Israeli health ministry is fully informed of what goes on. This would be corroborated by reports that organ traffickers captured in Brazil and South Africa in 2003  stated as much as that they had been given “business contacts” by “people from the Israeli government”, and that the Israeli government financed organ transplants.

I think that the Israeli government and all those suspected of being involved have some hard questions to answer, rather than complaining about a well written report in a Swedish newspaper which speaks about only one case among thousands:

• Where are the bodies of the two brothers Imad and Adel Awad Allah from Al-Bireh in the district of Ramallah, who were murdered on 10 September 1998 on the farm of Akram Maswadeh near Hebron?
• Where are the bodies of Hani Ahmad Kharboush and Adel Mohammad Hadaideh who were murdered on 6 June 2003 in “Ateel”, a town north of Tulkarem in the West Bank?
• Where is the body of Sarhan Borhan who was murdered on 4 October 2003 in the Tulkarem refugee camp?
• Where is the body of Hasan Isa Abbas who was murdered on 9 October 1994, in Jerusalem?
• Where is the body of Hisham Hamad who was murdered in Gaza on 11 November 1993?
• Where is the body of Salah Jad Allah Salem who was murdered on 14 October 1994?
• Where are the bodies of the two Japanese citizens who were murdered in 1972?
• Can Israel prove that the organs of these people, and those of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Palestinians which are buried in numbered graves of the Israeli military, were not stolen?
• Why does Israel bury the victims of their occupation in secret, numbered graves, if their organs were not stolen?

I know the answer of the criminal sophists of Israel in advance: they will say that all these people buried their numbered graves were “terrorists or unknown”. But I say that these are LIES and the usual propaganda which Israel uses to cover their crimes. Many people who were buried in these graves were not “terrorists” but legitimate resistance, many of them were peace demonstrators, and none of them were unknown. The only thing unknown or silenced until now is that the israelis are murderers, thieves of organs, a criminal occupational state which commits to all kind of crimes against humanity for fun and profit.

Dr. Yehuda Hiss Butchered Three Teenagers From Gaza

Another issue about which the Israelis have some explaining to do is the story of three teenagers from Gaza. On the evening of Sunday 30 December 2001 the Israeli military occupation fired several artillery shells towards these three north of Beit Lahiya in Gaza. They were Ahmed Mohammed Banat, 15 years, Mohammed Abd El-Rahman Al- Madhoun, 16 years and Mohamed Ahmed Lebed, 17 years.

After murdering them with flechette shells, a military vehicle drove over one of them, and their bodies were delivered to Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv, for “autopsy”, without the consent of their families, and without the issuance of a warrant to conduct an autopsy according to the law. The chief pathologist at Abu Kabir (the so-called “Israeli forensic institute”) Dr. Yehuda Hiss, said that they received the children without knowing their names, they had all been found killed by nails which the tank shell contained (flechettes).

Hiss broke the law Israeli when he accepted the bodies of the children without knowing who are were and without the knowledge of their families, but that is of no concern. The bodies the three were given to the PA stuffed with cotton several days after their murder.

The director of the Jerusalem Center for Democracy and Human Rights, Salim Khalleh, stated that their organization has been able to document 270 cases of Palestinian bodies “reserved” in hands of the Israeli occupation, which are buried in numbered graves in secret military cemeteries, or in numbered compartments of cooling facilities. Among these cases, 24 are of Palestinian citizens of the city of Tulkarem. On 8 April 2009 the families of these persons whose bodies are still in the power of the israelis held a demonstration in Tulkarem. The demonstrators presented a petition to the director of Red Cross, in which they demanded that the international organizations make pressure on Israel to release the bodies of their sons.

What follows are some of the names of Palestinians published by the Jerusalem Center for Democracy and Human Rights and whose bodies still in the hands of Israel, among other hundreds. The question is, where are these bodies? Are they in the refrigerated facilities, or were they buried in numbered graves after their organs were harvested? Why are they not returned to their families if not because Israeli crimes must be covered up?

• Abdel-Fattah Mohamed Badir – murdered near Jericho on 15-7-1975.
• Murad Mohammed Abu Assal – murdered on 30-1-2002.
• Sarhan Burhan Sarhan – murdered during the invasion of the Tulkarem refugee camp on 4-10-2003.
• Saif Allah Bashir Badran – murdered near the illegal Mawr colony on 1-1-2003.
• Adel Mohamed Hadaydeh – murdered in “Atteel”, a town north of Tulkarem on 16-6 -2003.
• Tarek Samir Sfaqeh – murdered in the illegal Hermesh colony on 30-10-2002 .
• Faiz Mohammed Awad – murdered in Lebanon on 17-8-1967.
• Ramzi Fakhri Ardah – murdered on 3-4 – 2004 in the illegal Avnei Hefetz colony.
• Khalid Ahmed Abul-Ezz – murdered on 30-10-2002 in Zeita near the Apartheid wall.
• Khaled Subhi Sandjak – murdered in the illegal colony of Sha’ar Ephraim.
• Muaiad Mahmoud Salah Al-Din – blew himself up on 8-11-2001.
• Abed El-Basset Mohamed Odeh – blew himself up on 27-3-2002.
• Ahmed Sami Gawi - murdered in Netanya on 12-7-2005.
• Mohammad Jamel Faraj.
• Ahmed Ibrahim Abed Allah – murdered in Jerusalem June 1967.
• Iyad Naeem Radad – murdered on 15-7-1979 in Al-Zawieh near Salfit.
• Rami Mohammed Idris – murdered in Netanya on 31-3-2002.
• Mahmoud Ahmed Marmash – blew himself up on 18-5-2001.
• Mufed Mohammad Asrawi – murdered at Baqa Al-Garbiah on 21-2-2002.
• Muhammad Ali Abu Zeneh – murdered in the Jordan Valley on 12-5-1969.
• Lutfi Amin Abu Saada – blew himself up in Netanya on 25-12-2006.
• Omani Ahmad Kryosh – murdered in “Atteel” town near Tulkarem on 5-6-2003.
• Mashhour Aruri - murdered on 18 May 1976 together with other three persons from Lebanon.
• The bodies of 88 Palestinian from Gaza who are known to be in the hand of Israel (no names given).
• Abed Allah Kallab and his friends Mohamed Abed El-Qader Abu Al-Zulof and Mohamed Hanafi – all from the Rafah refugee camp, disappeared on 7 March 1988.
• Fadi Ahmed Al-Amoudi age 22 years from Beit Hanoun – murdered on 17 April 2004 at the Erez military checkpoint

Abed Al-Naser Ferwana, Director of the Department of Statistics, at the Ministry of Prisoners in the Palestinian National Authority, a former prisoner and researcher about Palestinian prisoners of Israel, a competent speaker for prisoners affairs, said that the number of Palestinian prisoners who were murdered after their arrest and detention in the Israeli jails sharply increased during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. They are in sum the double of the number of people who the Israelis murdered in a quarter of century since they occupied the West Bank and Gaza. The bodies of these murdered prisoners are also kept in the secret Israeli cemeteries, in a few cases the dead are released two weeks after the Israelis murder them. This is a new proof that the Israelis harvest their organs according to Ferawneh.

The deranged criminal Ehud Barak, the people from the Israeli Central Command, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the others involved in these subhuman crimes should stop threatening Swedish journalist Donald Boström with criminal complaints, as they are the first persons who should be investigated not only for these monstrosities, but also for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The time of silencing journalists and curtailing freedom of speech is over.

The public opinion of the world is loath the criminality of Israel and the repetitive and stupid screeching of “anti-semitism” whenever one of their crimes is uncovered. Constant and inappropriate invocation of the holocaust is boring to the point where nobody cares anymore, and it does not help anymore to cover up their crimes. The criminal sophists of Israel would better clarify were all these bodies are buried, and were their organs are.

If  the Israelis go forward and cause troubles for Donald Boström in court, I will volunteer to testify in his favor about these disgusting crimes of the Israelis, and I appeal to all Palestinians who have such a case in their family, to also offer to testify in favor of Mr. Boström should this become necessary.

Addition:

Many Palestinian bodies which had their organs removed are still in the refrigerators of the Israeli jails, hospitals, and in secret cemeteries, and the UN, the Red Cross, and other human rights organizations must use their power to investigate this issue and have a look at these bodies stored in different places in Israel.

I would ask Israel to invite a team composed of international doctors and journalists, to see all these bodies so that they can see whether these accusations against the innocent State of Israel are unjustified, or if the State of Israel actually continues violating the international humanitarian laws and customs and is keeping these bodies from the families of the victims in order to hide these crimes.

I challenge if the Israeli government would accept to open their refrigerators and other storage places were they still have many empty bodies of Palestinians before any teams of  journalists and human rights organizations.

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