Month: December 2012

Demolition fears haunt Israeli neighborhoods

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Al Jazeera English, December 18, 2012

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last week that the state cannot extend its separation barrier through the West Bank village of Batir, located next to the Green Line that divides Israel from the Palestinian territories.

Petitioners argued the wall would destroy Batir’s ancient agricultural terraces and unique irrigation system, both of which are still in use today, shattering the ecosystem and villagers’ livelihood.

Meanwhile, though, another battle dragged on just a few kilometres away in Jewish neighbourhoods on the Israeli side of the Green Line. Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim, two communities visible from Batir, are also fighting the state to preserve their identities. While the agricultural terraces that characterised these areas before the 1948 war are long gone, as are the Palestinians who tended them, locals say there is still something worth saving here.

Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim are struggling against the Jerusalem municipality and investors’ attempts to gentrify the area. Their story is a microcosm of Israel – a state that was once socialist-leaning, a people that boasted “us Jews take care of one another”, has given way to rampant capitalism. New apartment buildings are mushrooming up all across the country, often on lands that were Palestinian-owned.

The Israel Land Administration (ILA) now controls Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim’s lots, which were just a handful of the tens of thousands of hectares of Palestinian land the state appropriated under the 1953 Land Acquisition Law. With the ILA’s blessing, the city has given investors permission to demolish some 900 apartments and build high-rises in their place. The new towers will include commercial centres and about 3,600 apartments that will attract more than 10,000 additional residents.

Meir Pele is the investor behind the first phase of the project, which will see some 250 apartments destroyed and 900 built on Nurit Street. Speaking to Haaretz, the Jerusalem municipality called it a “golden opportunity” for residents.

But those living there say the government and city gave the land away without their knowledge or consent. In some instances, they gave developers the green light to destroy buildings that include privately owned apartments. And developers’ plans are likely to push low-income locals out of their homes.

Mike Leiter is an Ir Ganim resident and activist. Leiter says that Pele is offering residents apartments in the new towers and will waive building maintenance fees for the first three years. But after that, residents will be subject to charges that will be unaffordable for many.

For developers to move forward, however, they must get residents to sign a contract saying they agree to the plans.

The city, which is struggling financially, stands to make a tremendous amount of money from the taxes the new residents will pay. The municipality, Leiter says, “is so hungry for this to succeed that they have let loose this [investor, Pele]. He’s threatening people that if they don’t sign, he’ll take them to court.”

Pele denies claims he is coercing people into signing contracts.

But whether Pele is pressuring them or not, the fact is many in Ir Ganim and Kiryat Menachem are Ethiopian immigrants who barely speak and read Hebrew. Under Israeli law, if a majority of those in the buildings designated for demolition sign, the developer can sue the holdouts, twisting their arm into agreeing.

“[Pele is] aggressively pushing people to sign a 68-page contract – 68 pages. I couldn’t sign that without a lawyer,” adds Leiter.

While a number of residents have signed, word quickly spread through the Ethiopian community not to agree to anything without an attorney.

A number of the buildings slated for demolition are in poor condition. Residents complain about a lack of insulation and leaky pipes that drip sewage. It’s a runaway process: Because the occupants are poor, they can’t afford to pay maintenance fees. And so the buildings continue to deteriorate.

Gabriel, an Ethiopian resident of Ir Ganim who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, immigrated to Israel 15 years ago. He managed to buy his apartment with a special government-subsidised mortgage that is offered to new citizens from Ethiopia. His home is one of those that will be torn down to make way for the towers.

“I want a new apartment. The building is falling apart,” he says. “If there will be an earthquake our building will crumble. When people go down the stairs, [those inside the apartments] can feel the building moving.”

However, he is concerned about the impact of the high-rises and the massive influx of new residents. The area’s infrastructure isn’t built for large neighbourhoods. The traffic in and out of Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim will be unbearable during rush hours, Gabriel and other locals say.

When asked if building maintenance fees might eventually drive him out of the new towers, Gabriel shrugs. “I don’t know what I will do. Maybe my financial situation will improve in the meantime.”

Desperate to provide his wife and baby girl with a safe home, Gabriel isn’t thinking about the long term. “I’ll solve today’s problems today,” he says. “Tomorrow I’ll take care of tomorrow.”

While Leiter’s building will not be affected by the plans – known as “pinui-binui”, or “evacuation-construction” – he is concerned about the impact they will have on Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim’s character.

Tensions between different groups of Jewish Israelis are common throughout the country, sometimes pitting secular against religious; Jews of Eastern European descent against those with roots in Arab countries; and immigrants against native-born Israelis. But Leiter says Ir Ganim is an exception to this rule, and that’s one of the reasons why the neighbourhood must be saved from gentrification.

The area is home to Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe; Jews who immigrated from Morocco, Egypt, and Iran; Russians who came to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union; recent arrivals from Ethiopia; and American-Israelis such as Leiter, who has lived in Ir Ganim for more than 30 years.

“What’s beautiful about this neighbourhood is that we have three elementary schools and there’s a big population of Ethiopian kids and they all go to the schools here,” Leiter says. “It’s not like other places [in Israel] where we hear on the radio that they’re not letting [Ethiopian] kids in.”

Ethiopian Israelis face widespread discrimination in Israel. In 2010, British journalist Jonathan Cook revealed that Israeli doctors were pushing Ethiopian immigrants to take Depo Provera, a birth control shot with a wide range of side effects.

Last week, Israeli journalist Gal Gabbai reported that Ethiopian women are being coerced into taking the drug and, in some instances, are not being told the shot is for birth control.

Ir Ganim is a rare bright spot, a place where most, Leiter says, “make an effort” to get along regardless of their ethnic background.

Gabriel’s take on coexistence among the various ethnicities is less than rosy. “There’s racism here … I didn’t expect it in a state where the people went through so many problems all over the world. I didn’t expect it from a people who experienced racism themselves.”

While Gabriel doesn’t think developers’ plans constitute discrimination, many believe the city and businessmen have targeted the area because the population is disadvantaged.

“It’s a [population] transfer,” Leiter says. “They’re pushing out weak people. We say, as a community, we want these people here.”

The Jerusalem municipality and ILA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Strained Silence

by adminin Israel, Writing

The Caravan: A journal of politics and culture, December 1, 2012

As is the case at most falafel stands across the country, the radio station of choice at my neighbourhood falafel stand is the Israeli Defense Forces’ Galgalatz. The station, I thought yesterday afternoon as I waited for lunch, is inescapable. It blasts from my neighbours’ stereo on Friday mornings; it drifts from the windows of passing cars. From clothing stores to coffee houses, it’s “Gal-Gal-Gal-Galgalatz”, as the jingle goes, “because of the music”.

The station plays a mix of Israeli and international pop (excluding that from the Arab world, of course). But the feeling of normality is broken by the top-of-the-hour-every-hour news bulletins that follow an alarming series of beeps, reminiscent of those that signal an emergency broadcast, lest listeners forget we are surrounded by “enemies” and that we are in a state of war. This radio station is run by the IDF, after all.

In recent days, there has been another reminder that Galgalatz is government-owned and soldier-manned—the station has refused to play a new song by famed Israeli musician Yizhar Ashdot. Titled ‘Inian Shel Hergel (A Matter of Habit)’, the song is highly critical of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and describes, in explicit detail, soldiers’ abuse of Palestinians. As military service is mandatory and nearly every Israeli has a relative, friend, neighbour or acquaintance in uniform, the army is something of a holy cow. No matter what one thinks or feels about the occupation, you don’t criticise ‘our’ soldiers.

While Galgalatz has taken flak for its decision, others support the station’s choice. “I don’t think [Ashdot] should even be called a singer,” a commentator on the radio remarked yesterday as I waited for my falafel.

Maybe it’s just a song; and maybe it’s unrealistic to expect a station manned by soldiers to play something critical of soldiers. But the controversy over Ashdot’s song is symptomatic of a larger crisis in Israeli media, which has suffered in recent years as the government has, in numerous instances, clamped down heavily on freedom of speech.

For instance, during Operation Cast Lead, the December 2008-January 2009 war between Israel and Hamas, both local and international media were banned from entering the Gaza Strip to cover the conflict. Even after the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the ban, the press was still not allowed to enter—suggesting that the army and the state hold little regard for the judiciary.

In July 2011—just days before Israeli protesters pitched tents in Tel Aviv to protest the ever-rising cost of living—the Knesset, the Israeli legislative body, passed the Boycott Law. The legislation penalises public calls to boycott individuals and institutions that represent the state of Israel, as well as Israeli goods, including those produced in the West Bank settlements—though many argue that the settlements themselves are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Those who break the Boycott Law are subject to stiff fines. The legislation drew widespread criticism from both the right and the left as an unconscionable curb on free speech—and, by extension, democracy—in Israel; this is particularly significant since Israel has long-promoted itself as an oasis of democracy in the Middle East.

The legislation has had a chilling effect on Israel’s media, which finds itself unable to print opinion editorials that support boycotts. According to some observers, the July 2012 conviction of journalist Uri Blau has further frightened reporters and editors into silence. A reporter for the prestigious, left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, Blau received classified military files from a former soldier Anat Kamm. After he used the leaked information for several articles that were critical of the Israeli military, Kamm was arrested and eventually sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail; this, despite the fact that the articles had passed through and been approved by Israel’s military censor. Blau’s own conviction in the case resulted in four months’ community service. According to Haaretz, Jack Hen, one of Blau’s attorneys called the prosecution “precedent-setting… The public’s right to know and freedom of the press were seriously damaged by the decision to put a journalist on trial.”

Other factors, too, have long undermined the country’s freedom of press—such as the military censor, which has the power to pull any story it deems a threat to national security. Also of concern is the influence of oligarchs in leading publications, such as Israel HaYom (Israel Today), owned by Sheldon Adelson, an American billionaire and staunch supporter of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The paper, which openly promotes Netanyahu’s Likud party, is distributed for free throughout the country, reportedly at a loss for Adelson.

Ben-Dror Yemini, who is a columnist for Maariv, the country’s third most widely read paper, has calledIsrael HaYom a “danger to democracy”. But the editorial voice of the relatively independent Maarivitself has been susceptible to pressures. Speaking of 2011’s tent protests, which were anti-capitalist in nature, Maariv reporter Haggai Matar said that there was “less coverage or negative coverage in the privately owned papers. In the case of Maariv, support would risk the other parts of the company.”

Publications also worry about losing readers if they are too critical of the establishment. “The attempt to be accepted by the mainstream and not scare readers or viewers away and not to be branded as the ‘leftist media’ has an effect, especially on coverage of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict,” said Matar.

This kind of self-censorship in the Hebrew media starts with reporters, who are sometimes fresh out of the army themselves, and reluctant to criticise the military. It occurs at the level of language, with outlets repeating the government’s words rather than using neutral terms; one example is the Israeli media’s tendency to call African refugees “infiltrators”—a loaded term favoured by right-wing politicians. Human rights organisations say that using the word “infiltrators” is akin to incitement.

Censorship also occurs at the editorial level. In 2009, a reporter for Yedioth Ahronoth—Israel’s second-most popular daily—wrote a lengthy exposé about Israeli military officers intentionally breaking the rules of engagement during Operation Cast Lead. Editors killed the story. Eventually it was published inThe Independent, a British newspaper, instead.

Haaretz is one of the few publications whose writers are consistently critical of government policies, the army, the occupation, as well as the oligarchs who have increasing economic control. In the words of Uri Tuval, an editor at Haaretz and a member of the newspaper’s union: “[Haaretz] is the only independent newspaper in the country without political or capitalist interests. We have absolute freedom.”

But Haaretz represents only a sliver of the Israeli market, pulling in between five to 10 percent of the country’s readers. And like many media outlets in Israel and around the world, Haaretz is struggling to convince subscribers to pay for news they can find for free on the Internet. In an attempt to tighten its fiscal belt, the newspaper has laid off dozens of workers; more pinks slips are soon to come. Both former and current employees report that the newspaper’s wages have been stagnant for years while rents and expenses throughout the country continue to spiral upward. Tuval and other Haaretzemployees have protested the paper’s downsizing—a recent, day-long strike brought the paper to a temporary halt.

Some observers say that market pressures—both to adopt a more conservative stance, as well as to compete with free online sources of information—could force Haaretz to close. “The fall [of Haaretz] is predicted because some people won’t subscribe to the printed paper,” Tuval said. But in his view, the paper will survive this challenge. “We’re not a big paper. We were never a big paper,” he said. Haaretz’s small size, in Tuval’s view, will allow it to survive through these turbulent times in the Israeli media, without compromising on its liberal editorial vision.