Tag: Al Jazeera English

How does Israel stop Palestinians from protesting?

by adminin Israel, Palestine, Politics, Writing

Al Jazeera English, October 19, 2015

Israeli police came to activist Adan Tartour’s home in Jaffa at half past midnight on October 7, and pounded on the door. When the Tartours opened it, police said that they had an arrest warrant.

Adan Tartour, 18, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was put under arrest for “suspicion of violence and terror” – only because she’d signed up to take a bus to a protest in Nazareth.

Tartour, and other activists, were detained on suspicion of planning “illegal” demonstrations.

“They had an arrest warrant for me and my father,” Tartour explains, adding that this was the case with other female detainees. “They were arrested with their fathers… It’s humiliating and chauvinistic,” she told Al Jazeera.

She and her father were taken to a local police station before being transferred to Nazareth, where they arrived at 4:30 in the morning. During the interrogation, which began at 5:30am, police repeatedly told Tartour that she “is a shame to her family” and that her actions are “not good for her family”.

She felt that this orientalist appeal to “family honour” was an attempt to dissuade her from protesting.

“But what they don’t understand is that our [Palestinian] families stand by their daughters,” she says.

Rights groups say that dozens of Palestinians are being detained in what they describe as a wave of “preventive arrests” that reflect Israel’s attempts to quell Palestinian resistance against its excessive use of force against protesters and the extrajudicial killings of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

According to Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the detainees have been subject to preventive arrests before they attended demonstrations. Like Tartour, most of those detained have no criminal record.

As of today, between 160 to 200 Palestinian activists have been arrested either before or during protests, according to Adalah. Of those detained, 40 are still being held as Israeli authorities seek to lengthen their imprisonment.

Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer with Adalah, says that these arrests are illegal. “According to Israeli law, you cannot arrest a person based on the fear that in the future they might commit a crime,” she explains, adding that stopping people from protesting is a “violation of their right to freedom of expression”.

It’s not only demonstrators and their family members who are being locked up. Several bus drivers who attempted to transport protesters to Nazareth – but were turned back by police outside of the city – were later arrested.

“Police claimed that the drivers themselves had participated in an ‘illegal’ demonstration,” Zaher says, even though the protest “did not need authorisation in the first place” and despite the fact that the buses did not actually reach the protest sites.

The buses were also impounded. As of October 13, the vehicles were still in police custody.

Not only have the courts upheld requests to extend the activists’ detention, but they have also, at times, accepted highly questionable “evidence”.

“Judges referred to onions [found on demonstrators] as an indication that the protesters meant for a violent demonstration,” Zaher explains. “We have never seen onions being referred to as a legal defence.”

Onions are sometimes used as temporary treatment for exposure to tear gas, which Israeli military and police forces regularly use on peaceful Palestinian demonstrators.

Zaher adds that judges have also detained Palestinian citizens based on investigation material to which she and other defence attorneys do not have access.

In one case, a minor who doesn’t know Hebrew was being held on the basis of a “testimony that was written in Hebrew” and signed by the child.

Minors’ legal rights are being violated in other ways, as well.

According to Israeli law, minors’ parents should be informed and are allowed to be with their child during questioning. Children may also have a social worker present, and minors should not be interrogated after 10:00pm.

Lawyers have seen some or all of these rules ignored by Israeli authorities during this wave of arrests.

Farah Bayadsi, a lawyer representing a number of activists and minors who were detained, echoes similar views about police preventing detainees from getting the legal counsel they are entitled to according to Israeli law.

“A police officer intervened when I was giving a 14-year-old teenage [girl] legal consultation before her interrogation, as [provided for in] the law. The policeman kicked me out of the office and told me that my time was up,” Bayadsi says.

 

For some, the recent events are reminiscent of the Israeli military regime that ruled over Palestinian citizens of the state from 1948 until 1966.

Shira Robinson, an associate professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and the author of Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the birth of Israel’s liberal settler state, remarks, “There were tonnes of preventive detentions” of Palestinian citizens of Israel between 1948 and 1966. “It was the name of the game.”

She offers the example of Israeli authorities’ attempts to stop the commemoration of the Kafr Qasim massacre, which took place in October of 1956.

In the days and nights before the anniversary, “Israeli authorities would round up known activists ahead of time. That was standard fare”.

Zaher says that it’s unnecessary to look that far afield. She remarks that the manner in which Israeli police and courts have handled protesters points to a fundamental difference in the way the state treats and views its Palestinian citizens versus its Jewish ones.

Ultimately, she says, Israeli authorities handle Palestinian citizens similarly to Palestinians in the occupied territories: “It doesn’t matter where you are – if you’re Palestinian, you’re an enemy and you’re a threat.”

The Israeli legal system, Zaher continues, “is based on a perspective of a Palestinian … as an alien. When they are viewed as an enemy and this is anchored in the law, then you have the legitimisation to do anything”.

While Adan’s father was released early morning on October 8, her detention was upheld and extended by an Israeli court. After four days, she was let go with the caveat that she might be taken in for additional questioning, and under the condition that she stay away from Nazareth for two weeks.

She is also “forbidden from joining protests”.

And that’s the ultimate goal, according to Tartour and others: The Israelis want to frighten Palestinian citizens and thus stop them from demonstrating.

Reflecting on her experience, Tartour is troubled by a number of things, particularly the treatment of minors, the court’s role in upholding and extending detention, and the state’s attempts to depict Palestinian protests as illegal.

When Tartour appeared in court and her detention was extended, Tartour recalls: “The judge said because of what’s happening in the state … they couldn’t interfere with the police’s work. So what is the courts’ job?”

Read the longer version at +972 Magazine.

 

 

Israel cracks down on anti-war protesters

by adminin Israel, Writing

Al Jazeera English, 5 August 2014

More than 1,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel have been arrested by the Israeli police since the country’s military offensive in Gaza began in early July, according to a lawyer representing a number of the detainees.

While some have been arrested for protesting the Israeli incursion into Gaza, dozens are currently being held without charge. Many say they have been detained based on policemen’s “lies”, while some have been beaten to the point of needing medical care.

Maisa Arshid, an attorney for dozens of the detainees, said that the crackdown on Palestinian citizens is only getting worse, with 20 to 30 Palestinians getting picked up every week in the Nazareth area alone.

“All of them are accused of participating in illegal demonstrations,” Arshid told Al Jazeera, adding that “part of these demos were permitted by the police themselves”.

In many cases, the Israeli authorities have presented no evidence that the accused have participated in a protest other than a police officer’s word. Arshid also said that the police frequently hold people for short periods without registering their detention, likely putting the number of those who have been picked up by the police even higher than 1,000.

When the wave of arrests began earlier in July, Palestinian citizens were detained and quickly released while others were placed under house arrest, or ordered to do community service. But as Israel’s assault on Gaza has gone on, Palestinian citizens have been subject to much longer detainments.

This week, Arshid visited a group of detainees who had been held without charge for nine days. “Each day the court is delaying their hearing,” she said, adding that hearings initially scheduled for Sunday, were pushed back to Tuesday.

This way of prolonging their detentions has a chilling effect on demonstrations against the war in Gaza and “terrorise the population” into silence, Arshid argued. “If people in the street know that people have been arrested for nine days, it will prevent protest.”

Israeli police provide a security presence when Jewish-Israeli leftists protest against the war. But these activists are facing increasingly violent attacks from their countrymen.

Moriel Rothman-Zecher attended Tel Aviv’s most recent demonstration against the ongoing Israeli operation in Gaza, which drew approximately 5,000 protesters. There were only a few hundred right-wing counter-demonstrators, Rothman-Zecher told Al Jazeera, “but they were really, really energetic”.

Israeli police stood between the two groups, preventing any potential clashes, but when the protest ended, right-wingers confronted the anti-war protesters on the street. They shouted at the demonstrators, calling them “smelly traitors”. A counter-protester who was carrying an Israeli flag began to beat someone with the flagstick, while another started hitting an anti-war protester on the head with a crutch.

Rothman-Zecher said that the right wing “desire for violence” is not new. “But there’s a new level of acceptability,” he said.

He used the Jerusalem Day protests – when right wing Israelis march to mark the “reunification” of the city – as an example. In the past, it “was nationalistic and aggressive” but leftists would be shocked to hear right wingers openly chant “Death to the Arabs”, Rothman-Zecher said. “It was under the surface but it was still surprising. Now it’s become the baseline.”

Although no one is organising the counter-demonstrations – and Rothman-Zecher pointed out that they tend to come from poor, marginalised communities – he argued that Israeli leaders are responsible for right wing violence.

“When the leaders of the country call openly for revenge and violence, of course it becomes kosher,” he said. He added: “You have members of Knesset calling for population transfer, [a former] member of Knesset [boasting] that [he] killed Arabs… I believe very strongly that discourse shapes reality.”

Palestinian citizens have recently also been arrested for “incitement” for calling for demonstrations against the ongoing Israeli offensive. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, points out thatthese citizens “were arrested even before any demonstrations began”.

Among them was Rafaat Awaishi, who Israeli police placed under house arrest without a hearing, after he posted a call on Facebook for people to join protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Noting that Awaishi’s hearing was scheduled for July 13, “the same day that the police-imposed house arrest is to end”, Adalah called the police-imposed detention a “denial of due process”.

The conditions detainees face also seem intended to deter protests. According to Arshid, several of her clients have been beaten while in custody and needed medical treatment for their injuries. During an interrogation, police allegedly removed a detainee’s kuffiyeh [traditional Palestinian scarf], urinated on it, and then put it back on the man’s neck, Arshid said.

The arrests and detentions seem to be part of a broader crackdown on dissent and freedom of expression. On Wednesday, the Israeli Knesset heard a bill that proposes to outlaw “discrimination against soldiers in uniform” the Jerusalem Post reported.

Pnina Tamnu-Shata, the Knesset Member who presented the bill, pointed to protests against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge as proof that Israel “must set limits for words of incitement against soldiers. Not everything is allowed in the name of democracy”.

Palestinian citizens who attend Israeli universities have already been subject to disciplinary hearings and expulsion due to remarks made on Facebook against Israeli soldiers. In a letter to the Council of Higher Education in Israel, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) likened the universities’ monitoring of Palestinian students’ social media accounts to a “witch hunt”.

In a press release, ACRI stated that “only Arab students have been punished, even though the social forums are simmering with racist comments by Jewish students, which raises a concern that the heads of the institutions are acting according to patriotic and emotional motives that do not align with their professional obligations”.

Saher Jeries is a 22-year-old marketing and advertising student who lives in Haifa. He said he was at a protest there, standing in the back, when police officers began to beat him. He and other protesters were put on a bus where they were held for six hours before they were driven to the police station for interrogation.

During questioning, Jeries found that the Israeli police were not only trying to control the discourse about Gaza, but also seemed intent on reshaping his identity. “They said to me, ‘You’re Christian, why are you doing things like this?’ As though I’m not part of the [Palestinian] people,” Jeries said.

*Illustrative photo by tola via Flickr

Palestinians will not ‘raise a white flag’

by adminin Palestine, Writing

Al Jazeera English, 26 July 2014

In the West Bank’s largest demonstration in years, some 10,000 Palestinians marched on Thursday night from Ramallah to the Qalandia checkpoint, protesting Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip and hoping to reach Jerusalem. One man was killed and dozens were injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers.

While protesters and observers alike speculated that this was the beginning of a third Intifada, the mood in Beit Sahour – the small, predominately Christian town at the heart of the first Intifada – was decidedly more pessimistic.

“We lack any political movement that’s capable of moving the masses – neither Hamas, nor Fatah, nor any other group,” Beit Sahour resident Nasser, who used a pseudonym for fear of repercussions, told Al Jazeera. A veteran of the first Intifada, Nasser was arrested nearly a dozen times for his political activities.

Massive protests erupted in several cities and towns across the West Bank over the weekend, including Jenin, Beit Ommar, and Nablus, and at least nine Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in a 24-hour period ending early on Saturday.

While the first Intifada was “based on hope”, allowing people to restrain themselves and strategise, recent protests in the West Bank have been “emotional”, Nasser said. “[People are] moving out of emotions now and that becomes violent,” he said, pointing to the second Intifada, which many Palestinians feel accomplished very little.

Nasser’s sentiments were echoed at a small demonstration in Beit Sahour on Monday, as the West Bank observed a general strike to protest Israel’s Operation Protective Edge and the recent massacre in Shujayea. A few dozen protesters attempted to march towards an Israeli army base perched on a hill outside the village, but were quickly deterred by tear gas.

“This is all about Gaza right now,” one young woman told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity. “When there’s a ceasefire, the people [in the West Bank] will go back to sleep.”

For years, many Palestinians have characterised demonstrations in the West Bank as reactionary and failing to reflect clear goals, vision or a long-term strategy. Protests and strikes spurred by Israel’s last two operations in Gaza – Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 and Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 – did not evolve into a larger Palestinian uprising. Critics blame a lack of leadership, with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas widely viewed as a puppet who is preoccupied with placating Israel. West Bank protests are often derided by PA security forces.

George, a professional in his mid-30s who also used a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera he was disappointed by the small turnout at Monday’s demonstration.

“There’s no one supporting the protesters,” said George, who was born and raised in Beit Sahour and whose father was arrested three times during the first Intifada. “When you have an authority that supposedly works for your benefit and you see the [Palestinian] security personnel … acting just like Israeli soldiers, there will be no motivation to do anything.”

Mazin Qumsiyeh, a professor at Bethlehem University and author of the book Popular Resistance in Palestine, said concerns about the Palestinian leadership “assume that colonised, occupied people sit down together to come up with a strategy. If you’re looking for organisation, it doesn’t happen this way. Sometimes at the peak of a revolution, leaders emerge – revolution makes leaders, leaders don’t make revolutions.”

Suggestions that leaders or political parties are necessary for an Intifada indicate that Palestinians are “still thinking paternalistically, that a father figure has to tell them what to do”, Qumsiyeh told Al Jazeera.

Many argue that the strength of the first Intifada was its all-encompassing nature: It engaged men, women, children, and families from across the economic spectrum. While the urban protests against Operation Protective Edge have been male-dominated, sustained protests in other Palestinian villages are more diverse. Since 2009, men, women, and children have been marching weekly to a spring in the village of Nabi that was expropriated by Israel.

At the same time, however, neoliberal policies have been blamed for having a sedating effect on the West Bank. Critics point to a number of factors, including former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s focus on economic development; banks that give loans to Palestinians, encouraging them to live beyond their means and accumulate debt; and a society increasingly driven by consumerism.

With so much focus on paying down debt, “there’s no time to think of the occupation”, George said, noting the financial system was much different at the start of the first Intifada in 1987.

Also problematic, Nasser said, is that Palestinians have adapted to the occupation. “We got used to not going to Jerusalem; we got used to checkpoints,” he said. “We’ve lost a major part of our self-respect. We cannot have a massive Intifada without a mental shift.”

Despite this reality, Qumsiyeh believes circumstances are ripe for a revolution and a third Intifada is inevitable.

“[Previous Intifadas] started because of pent-up frustration,” he said, noting other conditions included a paralysed peace process, lack of trust in the Palestinian leadership and Israeli arrogance.

“There’s one thing I’m sure of,” Nasser added. “Palestinians are not going to raise a white flag.”

*Illustrative photo of protesters in Bethlehem by Clare Jim, via Flickr

Analysis: UN status no panacea for Palestine

by adminin Palestine, Writing

Al Jazeera English, 8 October 2013

A year has passed since the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s upgrade to an observer state in the United Nations. But the anniversary of the upgrade came and went without fanfare. And Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech in the United Nations General Assembly – an event that generated much interest in the previous two years – went largely unnoticed last month.

Now the internationally recognised State of Palestine sits across from Israel at the negotiating table. While this might seem to bode well for peace talks, observers point out that the PLO’s upgrade has not translated into meaningful changes in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip. And critics warn that the current round of negotiations could end in another interim agreement similar to the Oslo Accords, which is widely understood to have deepened the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

Last month, Israel announced its plans to build yet another road in the West Bank, connecting Israeli settlements in the Bethlehem area to the Dead Sea. Palestinian agricultural land will be confiscated for the project and the new highway will further fracture the West Bank, undermining the chance of a contiguous Palestinian state.

While a small number of Palestinian political prisoners have been released in the wake of the UN upgrade and since peace talks began, arrests and administrative detentions continue and there has been no net change in the total number of those detained. Currently, about 5,000 Palestinians are in Israeli prisons. In September, Israeli forces arrested prominent activist and human rights attorney Anas Barghouti at a military checkpoint in the West Bank. Barghouti is currently being held without charge in an Israeli jail.

Sahar Francis is the director of Addameer, a Ramallah-based, non-governmental organisation that advocates for Palestinian prisoners. “Nothing at all” has changed for prisoners since the UN upgrade, Francis told Al Jazeera. “We don’t feel it.”

With approximately 700,000 Palestinians detained since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, political imprisonments have touched nearly every home here. But this issue, so close to Palestinian hearts, does not seem to be on the negotiating table. Francis points out that, during peace talks, only the 104 prisoners who were arrested before the Oslo Accords were discussed.

Francis adds that securing the release of these 100-plus detainees came “at a high price” of the PA agreeing not to sign any international treaties during the next nine months.

This concession undermines, temporarily at least, what little leverage the PA might have gained from the UN upgrade. The change in the PLO’s status would allow the Palestinians to join various UN agencies and to ratify various conventions that would allow the PA to hold Israel accountable for its actions in the occupied territories.

Francis offers the Convention against Torture as an example. The treaty has “protections and procedures for how to protect rights of prisoners”. Becoming party to such agreements would help enforce them.

While various Palestinian NGOs continue to push for Israeli accountability, Francis says, “When you are a state and you are requesting investigation, it’s different than relying on civil society.”

“This is why Israel insisted that the PA would agree to cancel any signatures to international treaties,” she adds. The Israelis want to “protect themselves for the next nine months”.

Mustafa Barghouti is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, the PLO, and was on the committee that planned how the PLO would use the change to an observer state. Barghouti says that by returning to negotiations, the PA lost the momentum that came with the UN upgrade. He points to the lack of public interest in Abbas’ UNGA speech this year as proof.

“People don’t believe in negotiations,” Barghouti adds. “They don’t like what’s happening with negotiations, they don’t understand why the same thing [is] repeated again and again and again.”

While the swell of hope that surrounded last year’s UN bid made Palestinians feel like unity was possible, the current peace talks have deepened divisions, Barghouti continues. He says that Fatah was the only party in the PLO that supported returning to negotiations.

Barghouti feels that the PLO should have combined “strategic” use of the UN upgrade with a grassroots movement to create “facts on the ground” and meaningful change in the occupied Palestinian territories.

He points to Bab al Shams as an example. The Palestinian village was established on privately-owned Palestinian land in the West Bank. Two days later, it was demolished by Israeli forces, reminding the world that, despite the UN upgrade and international recognition, the occupying power still refuses to acknowledge Palestinian sovereignty.

Barghouti also cites smaller, frequent acts of resistance, like going to Jerusalem without an Israeli-issued permit. “East Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian state,” he says. “I was born there, I have every right to be there, [the Israelis] have no right to prevent us from being there.”

“They [the PA] are negotiating, but we are proceeding. So there are some kinds of diversions between the official PA actions and us, the popular grassroots movements including popular resistance and BDS [Boycott Divestment Sanctions].”

Many Palestinians express frustration with how little has changed since the UN upgrade. Some, including Barghouti, point out that paperwork that used to bear the insignia of the Palestinian Authority now reads “State of Palestine”. But, otherwise, becoming an observer state has been meaningless.

Similarly, Barghouti is concerned that negotiations will lead to an empty agreement that will just help Israel consolidate control of the West Bank, leaving Palestinians confined to isolated urban centres.

“What is the value of a state that is becoming a cluster of Bantustans? What we need is not just the name. What we need is a reality and that’s why the issue is not just about getting recognition but building a real and true state.”

Some believe that the Quartet’s Economic Initiative for Palestine, which is being spearheaded by Tony Blair, might provide support for a fledgling state. The proposal seeks to slash unemployment and bolster the private sector, with an emphasis on tourism. But Barghouti is critical of the plan.

“Why concentrate on tourism and not on education and not on healthcare?” Barghouti asks. “And for the benefit of whom? For the people who have monopolies in the private sector.”

When asked if the PA has taken full advantage of the UN upgrade, Nabil Amr, the PA’s former Minister of Information, responds, “It’s not easy to use it against the Americans’ policy.” His comment points to a widely held sentiment here, that the United States throws its weight behind Israel.

However, Amr also points out that peace talks cannot happen without US patronage. But he’s quick to add that negotiations are unlikely to bring a solution. They, like the upgrade, are just one of many possible avenues the Palestinians are forced to explore. Amr explains, “As Palestinians [we] must go in every direction at least to put our goals on the agenda.”

*Illustrative photo by Norway UN, via Flickr

Unruly building engulfs East Jerusalem life

by adminin Palestine, Writing

Al Jazeera English, May 4, 2013

Every day, investors knock on the door of a small home in Kufr Aqab, a village on the Palestinian side of the separation wall but inside Jerusalem municipal borders. The tidy, one-storey, two-room house is surrounded by new apartment buildings, some reaching nine stories high. Contractors are currently finishing more than 1,000 units in the area; billboard advertisements suggest many more are to come.

The same phenomenon is occurring in other Palestinian neighbourhoods that are technically part of Jerusalem, but separated from the ancient city sites by the huge concrete wall.

Apartment buildings are popping up like mushrooms in these areas. The sound of construction fills the air.

Kufr Aqab – once full of open, green spaces – is now “crowded” and “dirty”, says Amira, an 18-year-old Palestinian woman who lives here. She asked not to be identified by her real name out of fear of endangering her Israeli-issued Jerusalem residency permit.

Residents pay taxes to the state of Israel but receive far fewer services than the neighbouring Jewish districts of Jerusalem. While Palestinians constitute approximately 35 percent of the city’s population, only eight to ten percent of the municipal budget is allocated to their communities. “We have to hire someone to come and take [the garbage] because the city won’t come,” Amira says. “They will pick up everything on the main street but not behind it.”

Refuse collection is a long-standing issue for Palestinian East Jerusalemites; even Israeli officials have raised concerns about the issue, and the influx of new residents means things will only get worse.

Numerous requests for comment from the Jerusalem municipality for this article have been unsuccessful.

Unplanned growth has already stretched Kufr Aqab’s infrastructure to the point of breaking, Amira and other residents say. “What once was a spacious entrance into the neighbourhood is now a small, rough, tight road that does not allow cars to pass through it. The entrance [has been narrowed] by two new buildings on each side that have taken space from the road to enlarge their buildings,” Amira explains.

Residents say contractors are left to their own devices. And the investors who knock on Amira’s door everyday – asking the family to sell their home so they can tear it down to make way for even more apartment buildings in the already stressed area – are said to be more concerned with turning a profit than making sure that the neighbourhood is livable.

Munir Zughayer, chairman of the local neighbourhood committee, says the building damages infrastructure. “In too many places, [contractors] have built over [water] drains. [The buildings] are pushing [on the sewage system] and it’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller,” he said. “It’s a mistake to build on it but we don’t have the power to tell people not to build.”

With nowhere to go, runoff pools in the streets, damaging the roads. After heavy snowfall in January, dozens of potholes opened up in the streets. Because the drainage systems are no longer functioning properly, the melted snow ran into a number of houses – Zughayer estimates that more than 40 homes incurred water damage.

Mohammed Reith, a contractor, agrees with Zughayer’s claim that the area’s sewage system can’t handle the influx of residents. Reith estimates that the area’s population has doubled since 2005 and that there remains a huge demand for land and apartments in the neighborhood. “At the moment, the area is not prepared for this number of people.”

It’s not just the streets, garbage, and sewage system. Kufr Aqab, like all of East Jerusalem on both sides of the wall, does not have enough schools. And on this side of the wall, there are no police. Emergency services are also lacking, as Israeli ambulances and fire trucks cannot pass Qalandia checkpoint, which is just outside Kufr Aqab.

“No-one is responsible for security [here] – not the Israelis or the Palestinian Authority,” Reith says. “If there is a problem, no-one will come. The PA needs permission from the Israelis to enter and the Israelis are interested in making chaos [in Palestinian areas].”

But, as Reith and Zughayer correctly point out, the areas on the Palestinian side of the separation wall, such as Kufr Aqab, are the only places in the city that East Jerusalemites can build.

Israel rejects more than 90 percent of Palestinian requests for building permits; structures built without permission in the Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem on the Israeli side of the wall are threatened with demolition and steep fines. These restrictions have created a housing shortage that critics say is intended to push Palestinians out of Jerusalem and into the West Bank. Critics call this “quiet transfer.”

But the separation wall has actually had the opposite effect. It has fuelled demand for homes on the Israeli side of the wall as Palestinian East Jerusalemites fear losing their residency and access to health care, schools, jobs, and their families. The wall and checkpoints have also made commuting more difficult and time consuming, so many Palestinians prefer to live inside the enclave created by the wall, in order to shorten their travel time.

As the wall has pushed Jerusalem ID holders into a confined space, prices have skyrocketed. But most Palestinian East Jerusalemites cannot keep up with the rising rents, nor can they afford to buy homes in this increasingly expensive market. So they move to areas such as Kufr Aqab, where apartments cost a third of the asking price on the other side of the wall. Because these areas remain a part of Jerusalem, the Palestinians who live there can keep their residency.

However, Israel says it has no development plans for the area. And many residents are concerned that Israel will redraw the municipal lines of the city, excluding Palestinian areas beyond the wall and revoking residents’ Jerusalem IDs. This fear isn’t unfounded – Israel unilaterally redrew Jerusalem’s lines following 1967’s Six Day War.

In the meantime, Zughayer and other members of the neighbourhood committee are trying to force the city to take responsibility for the municipal areas on the Palestinian side of the wall. They have sued for better garbage services. And because there are not enough traffic lights in the area, locals have pooled their money to build roundabouts. Zughayer intends to pass the bill along to the Jerusalem municipality.

Zughayer says their work is “an example of regular people who aren’t battling with weapons but are battling with their words for our rights. We’re not working for ourselves – we’re working for our people, the residents, to help the person who has water entering his house.

“As long as the municipality is taking the taxes, we have to get our rights as human beings, to have everything like we are in Israel – streets, garbage, schools. We live like we’re in the middle of Africa, not in a democracy. Where is democracy? Where is it?”

 

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.

Israelis react to rocket fire from Gaza

by adminin Israel, Writing

Al Jazeera English, November 16, 2012

At a commercial center in Kiryat Malachi, a short walk from the apartment building where three Israelis were killed Thursday morning by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, an elderly man selects tomatoes at a small produce stand. The 74-year-old man, who immigrated to Israel from Algeria with his family when he was a teenager and who does not wish to be identified, says that he is not worried about additional rockets.

“I’m safe here,” he says, as he examines a tomato, “I’m following the [Israeli Army Home Front Command’s] directions and doing what they say. So there’s no problem.”

The father of six and grandfather of nine said that he like most Israelis support “Operation Pillar of Defense,” which has taken the life of 15 Palestinian residents of Gaza since it began on Wednesday.

“I support our [army] officers, Defense Minister [Ehud Barak], and Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu],” he adds.

***

Two men, sipping beer out of plastic cups outside of a nearby cell phone accessories store, voice similar feelings.

Eli Chalilo, a 38-year-old who emigrated from Uzbekistan with his parents when he was 18, says, “Right now we feel fine, but this morning was a little stressful.” He adds that his house is just 200 meters from the building that was hit by a rocket.

Chalilo, who is currently unemployed, wears a white sweat suit and sunglasses. He sent his two children to family in Jerusalem because he is worried about their safety. But, he adds, he is not concerned about his own security. He points to the sky, “God’s up there.”

The two men are joined by Eli Pozielov, 31, the owner of the cell phone accessories store. The father to three children, aged three, four and five, says, “My kids are crying. They’re scared, I’m scared, I don’t know what to do, where to go.”

His wife works in Ashdod and, with schools and kindergartens closed, Pozielov left the children with his sister so he could come to work. But, “no one’s coming to the store [to buy anything]. People aren’t going out of the house.”

Pozielov feels the operation is necessary and thinks that Israeli ground forces need to enter the Gaza Strip. “We must, we must. We have to do like we did during Operation Cast Lead but this time stronger.”

He adds that Israel needs to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. When asked about the 1.7 million Palestinians who live there, he answers, “They got used to it already.”

Chalilo jumps in, “The Arabs are like donkeys.”

“Like animals,” Pozeilov agrees.

“You have to give them a beating so they won’t raise their heads,”  Chalilo continues, adding that he knows what he’s talking about because he came from a Muslim-majority country.

When asked about his experience living in Uzbekistan, however, he admits, “Everything was fine.”

But Israelis can’t live with Arabs or Muslims, Chalilo insists, “Because this is the Jewish state. It’s our country.”

Although a four-year-old and seven-year-old were killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli army fire, both men insist that “Operation Pillar of Defense” is “pointed” and that “only terrorists” are dying.

***

Esti, a 31-year-old math teacher, was home with her children Thursday morning when a missile fired from Gaza hit Kiryat Gat. The bomb shelter attached to her building was locked, she says, so she and the children stood in the stairwell.

When asked how she feels in the wake of the strike, Esti, a religious woman who wears modest clothes and a wig to cover her hair, says, “The messiah needs to come.”

She adds that the army needs to enter Gaza “to show [the Palestinians] who is really in control.”

Like the men in nearby Kiryat Malachi, she feels that Israel should reoccupy Gaza or, “do something absolute to finish [the conflict with the Palestinians].”

“We’re suffering [from rocket fire] now,” she continues, “but someone who lives in Gaza is suffering [from Israeli fire] all the time. For how long now? So we have to find a solution. If the solution is an occupation, it’s an occupation.”

When asked about the implications for Israel’s demographics—wouldn’t reoccupying Gaza mean that a Jewish minority is ruling over a Palestinian majority?—Esti answers, “I don’t know. The solution has to come from above. We’re just people.”

She looks towards her kids, including a little blonde boy who wears a colorful, embroidered kippah (religious skullcap), who are sitting on play horses inside the dark, deserted mall. Only the food court is open. “The people there [in Gaza] also have children,” Esti says. “There are people there who want to live a normal life and an occupation would give them a chance to [do so].”

Despite the fact that Palestinian citizens of the state receive disproportionately less resources and face discrimination in both the public and private sectors in Israel, Esti points to them as an example. “Look at the Arabs in Ramle. They have work, they’re living well.”

“I think the solution is to occupy Gaza and then manage it like a normal state, give them their rights and benefits.”

***

A handful of Israelis have gathered on a lookout point outside of Sderot. From here, they can see smoke rising from the Gaza Strip. Two men drink beer and eat potato chips; I’m there to cover Israeli reactions for Al Jazeera English and, when I ask the men if they are willing to be interviewed by AJE, they curse. A few boys joke that they have come “to see the fireworks.”

But Amos, a 53-year-old mechanic from Sderot, says that he felt scared and anxious alone in his home with the siren going off. His ex-wife and son live in Jerusalem. So he came to the look-out because he feels safer here.

The siren goes off in Sderot moments before I enter the small, depressed city in the south of Israel. I’m with a group of journalists and Phil Weiss, who is driving, stops the car. I crouch alongside a rear door, as though the thin metal could defend me from a missile. The Iron Dome defense system intercepts the rockets fired from Gaza, rendering them white puffs in the sky above my head.

When we enter Sderot, I see that the streets are mostly empty, save for African refugees milling about near a bomb shelter and a few families that have ventured out for food. Cars rush through town, pausing at stop signs.

Bert Luski, an unemployed factory worker, stands outside of a restaurant that serves falafel and other Middle Eastern foods.

Luski, 56, remembers the days that he worked alongside Palestinians from Gaza. Although he got along fine with the laborers, he says, “They don’t understand peace. They want to take our girls, our money, our houses, our pants.”

Despite “suffering 12 years” of rocket fire, Luski says he’s not scared and he won’t leave Sderot. “What, every time someone throws a stone, I should run from here? That’s absurd.”

“If Bibi Netanyahu stops now, he’ll be making a mistake,” he adds.

While interviewees disagreed on the goals of “Operation Pillar of Defense” and they also disagreed as to who is responsible for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip—with some blaming the Israeli government itself—all called the offensive necessary. But they also agreed that the current round of fighting is unlikely to bring peace.

Israeli policy splits Palestinian families

by adminin Palestine, Writing

Al Jazeera English, November 7, 2012

To Westerners and Palestinians, Gaza “is hell”, says Ali Batha. “It’s a scary place … It’s the last place in the world [people want to go].”

There’s Gaza’s 30 per cent unemployment rate, and the Israeli blockade that restricts imports and exports. Clean drinking water is increasingly scarce. Fuel and electricity shortages cause daily blackouts.

And, according to the United Nations, the Gaza Strip “will not be liveable by 2020” unless the blockade, isolation, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict all come to an end.

 

Despite the bleak outlook, and despite the fact that Batha, 31, is in the prime of his life, he is planning to leave the West Bank to move to Gaza. It’s the only place where he and his wife, Rehab, can live together.

Because of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement, it’s been three-and-a-half years since the two have seen each other.

Batha and Rehab are just one of thousands of Palestinian families who have been torn apart by Israel’s “separation policy”.

“The dominant aspects of it are to disallow travel between Gaza and the West Bank, to prevent Palestinians from Gaza from moving to the West Bank, and to induce or coerce Palestinians from the West Bank to move to Gaza,” says Sari Bashi, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement.

When asked about the separation policy and its aims, Guy Inbar, a spokesman from the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activity in the Territories, answers that because “terrorist groups in Gaza” seek “to relocate the existing terrorist infrastructure to [the West Bank], Israel has adopted a policy which reduces movements between Gaza and [the West Bank]”.

Batha and Rehab met in 2000 at Birzeit University in the West Bank, where Batha studied economics and Rehab earned a degree in business administration. “It was in a discussion about mythology,” Batha recalls. “She started to talk and I was like, ‘Oh my god, there is a beautiful girl and she is talking about serious things in an [intelligent] way.'”

The two quickly became friends. After one month, Batha confessed his love to her, adding, “I don’t need an answer from you, just take your time.”

He then embarked on a campaign to win Rehab’s heart. “I did a lot of crazy things,” Batha smiles. He scaled the side of her dormitory to reach her balcony. He also covered the sidewalk to her building with drawings and poetry.

Rehab fell for him and they moved in together.

When Rehab graduated in 2004, the couple struggled to decide whether Rehab should travel to the Gaza Strip to visit her parents.

Although Rehab was born in Lebanon, her family moved to Gaza in the early 1990s, as Israel was beginning to restrict Palestinian freedom of movement. In 2000, Israel blocked Gazans from travelling to the West Bank to study. Rehab was one of the last to receive permission to do so.

Because Rehab worried that she wouldn’t be able to return to the West Bank to complete her studies, she did not visit Gaza while she was earning her degree.

After much discussion, Batha and Rehab agreed that she would spend a month in Gaza with her family. But, just as the couple feared, Israeli authorities refused the travel permit she needed to return to the West Bank.

The couple reunited and married in Dubai in 2007. When they tried to go back to the West Bank a year-and-a-half later, Israeli soldiers refused entry to Rehab because she had a Gaza ID. So the two went to Egypt, where Rehab’s family now lives, and tried to solve the problem from there.

They conferred with high-ranking officials from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) who, according to Batha, suggested they obtain a referral to a West Bank healthcare facility. Israeli authorities allow a small number of Palestinians to travel from Gaza for medical purposes.

While Palestinians are free to move to Gaza, Israel prevents family reunification in the West Bank, Bashi explains, “unless you are an orphan under the age of 16 with no relatives to care for you in Gaza, an elderly person in need of constant care with no relatives to care for you in Gaza, or a chronically ill person with no relatives to care for you in Gaza”.

Bashi calls the policy “extraordinarily restrictive”, pointing out that it excludes “any healthy adult”.

In addition to recommending that Rehab get a medical referral, PA officials said she might have a stronger case if she were in Gaza. So in 2009 she went alone. As a woman who does not wear a hijab, Rehab found the move to conservative Gaza difficult. But she remained there, without family, for three years before returning to Egypt.

On numerous occasions, the couple submitted the necessary paperwork to the PA, which passes on requests to the Israelis.

“[Our] file has been with the [Palestinian] Ministry [of Civil Affairs] for a long time,” Ali says, adding he has made countless attempts to follow up on the application.

“The Israelis say, ‘We didn’t receive anything from you’ … [The PA] says ‘bring your papers, bring your papers’. I don’t know where [the PA] put the papers. Maybe in the garbage.”

While Batha is angry with the PA for not doing more to help, he blames the Israeli government for the painful separation from his wife, which he likens to “a prison”.

Israel also maintains the Palestinian population registry, which gives it the final say regarding official address changes.

In Nisreen Asaid’s case, this means that Israel decides whether or not the 30-year-old mother of two will be able to live with her children.

Asaid was arrested at an Israeli checkpoint inside the West Bank in 2007 as she tried to travel from Ramallah to Qalqilya. Soldiers told Asaid that her address was registered in Gaza, where she had lived until she was 14.

She was interrogated and then transferred against her will to the Gaza Strip. Asaid was not allowed to say goodbye to her daughter, who was 10 at the time, or her toddler. She has not seen her children, who remain in the West Bank, for more than five years.

Thanks to a 2011 gesture brokered by the Quartet, Asaid has managed to update her address to the West Bank. But she has been unable to get permission from Israel to travel back from Gaza.

Her son doesn’t understand why his mother disappeared from his life and why she can’t come back to Ramallah. When they talk on the phone, Asaid says, he sometimes tells her, “We will bring a car to the Erez checkpoint and we will raise the fence and you can go underneath.”

Another family has a similar problem. A mother who is stranded in Gaza, raising five children on her own, got her address changed to her husband’s home in the West Bank city of Jenin.

Now Israeli officials say she must pick up the new ID in the West Bank. They refuse, however, to issue her the necessary travel permit.

Bashi says Israeli attempts to control Palestinian movement within Gaza and the West Bank violate international human rights law.

“Because Gaza and the West Bank are part of a single territorial unit, Israel is obligated to respect the right of Palestinians to travel freely within the territory and to choose their place of residence within the territory,” she explains.

“Any restriction on that right can only be implemented for security reasons, or out of security concerns about the passage [through] Israel.”

But a spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories disputes this, saying the Israeli Supreme Court has found “no fault” with the policy.

“There is no legal obligation to allow free movement between Gaza and [the West Bank] … Regarding this specific issue, Gaza and [the West Bank] cannot be declared as a single territorial unit.”

Bashi points out that Israel does not have security claims against any of the families interviewed. “And there is certainly no security reason to prevent these families from being together,” she says.

As the peace process stagnates and the blockade grinds on, Asaid waits and hopes to see her children. And Batha contemplates his next move: “I can go to Gaza, I can go to hell – whatever – just to feel that I can be with her.”

Israelis fight over neighborhood’s soul

by adminin Politics, Writing

Al Jazeera English, September 27, 2012

Just like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ongoing struggle for Kiryat Yovel began with a small strip of land.

Residents of this predominately secular neighbourhood of West Jerusalem call it “Warburg Lot”. Located in the heart of Kiryat Yovel, locals have taken to holding cultural events on Warburg on Friday nights, sometimes offending their ultra-Orthodox neighbours. Friday night also marks the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, the holy day. The observant do not use electrical appliances, handle money, or play musical instruments during this time.

Perach Adom, a band whose name means Red Flower, plugged into amplifiers and played Greek rebetiko to an audience of several hundred secular Israelis on a recent Friday night. A table set up on the edge of the field offered beer and snacks in exchange for a donation. Volunteers asked concert-goers to sign a list to get emails from Free Kiryat Yovel, a grassroots movement that would like to preserve the “pluralism” that residents say define their neighbourhood.

The fight for Kiryat Yovel began on a hot August morning in 2008, when tractors arrived and began digging on the Warburg lot. Residents understood the lot to be public and they used the space to exercise, walk their dogs, and to park cars. Surprised to see the construction, locals rushed out and asked the workers what they were doing.

When the workers hesitated to explain, residents stood in front of the tractors and called the municipality. Eventually, it became clear that the men had come to install two caravans and connect the structures to water and electricity. The buildings would serve as kindergartens to the ultra-Orthodox community, a group that insists upon having their own educational system, separate from both the Palestinians, as well as secular Israelis.

But there was no ultra-Orthodox community in Kiryat Yovel. And the workers did not have the appropriate papers from the municipality to carry out the construction. Rather, they had received verbal permission from then-Deputy Mayor Yehoshua Pollack, who is ultra-Orthodox and was later arrested in an unconnected real estate scandal. Among other charges, he was accused of taking bribes.

Dina Azriel is an activist with Free Kiryat Yovel. She says the attempt to build the kindergarten was reminiscent of the founding of some Israeli settlements. “They come, they dig, they put a caravan, and that’s it.”

Just as infrastructure helps pull Israelis across the Green Line, schools and synagogues serve as a magnet to attract new religious residents to traditionally secular neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. Additional infrastructure is then built to accommodate the new residents. Religious buyers sometimes come and make secular homeowners generous offers, and little by little the veteran residents are edged out. It has happened across Jerusalem – to the extent that some 20,000 secular Israelis have left the city in recent years.

While secular Israelis represented about 40 per cent of Jerusalem’s population a decade ago, today the city of 800,000 is split almost evenly into thirds between the secular community, Muslim Palestinians, and the ultra-Orthodox.

Though their birthrates have dropped in recent years, the ultra-Orthodox still have more babies than Palestinians, Arab Israelis, and secular Jewish Israelis. It is estimated that 20 per cent of the country will be ultra-Orthodox by 2034 – meaning they are expected to change not just the landscape of Jerusalem, but the face of Israel.

But the secular residents of Kiryat Yovel are determined to stay. The day after construction workers attempted to build the ultra-Orthodox kindergarten, Azriel and other locals started a committee to protect the neighbourhood.

“We blocked the entrance to the lot with cars so tractors couldn’t enter,” Azriel recalls. The community also filed a lawsuit that effectively prevented the ultra-Orthodox from using the land for their own purposes.

Still, the ultra-Orthodox community – or Haredim as they are known in Hebrew – have made inroads in Kiryat Yovel. They have a visible presence in the neighbourhood and managed to open a kindergarten next to a secular kindergarten. To the alarm of many secular and some ultra-Orthodox residents, the city erected a separation fence between the two schools. And, because the ultra-Orthodox complained that their children would see secular Israelis with immodest dress and little boys without kippot  – the skullcap worn by observant Jews – through the fence, the barrier was covered with a blue tarp.

Azriel and her husband, Danny Unger, emphasise that they and other members of Free Kiryat Yovel do not take issue with the ultra-Orthodox themselves. Rather, they are concerned by the anti-pluralist and anti-democratic trends that, they say, come with the community.

“The problem is not that they’re coming,” Unger remarks. “We’ll gladly accept them. The problem begins when you come and want to make a separation [between yourself and the existing community].”

Azriel and Unger are also concerned about the allocation of the city’s resources. They say that public space should be used for the good of the whole neighbourhood, not for a specific population that is new to the area and that will keep others out.

“Public space has to stay equal and open to everyone,” Azriel says.

City councilwoman Laura Wharton shares this sentiment. “This is my position also about East Jerusalem,” she says, where Palestinians receive services that are disproportionately less than those received by their Jewish counterparts, despite the fact that Palestinian residents pay taxes. “The resources of a given area [should be] devoted to the people who live there.”

Wharton lives in Beit HaKarem, a predominately secular neighbourhood where a park was bulldozed to make way for a mikveh – a bath for ritual immersion – despite the fact that the area is home to only a handful of ultra-Orthodox residents.

While they remain a minority in both Jerusalem and Israel, the ultra-Orthodox wield a disproportionate amount of political power because they tend to vote in a bloc. And perks like subsidised housing and financial assistance for large families come with that power.

The ultra-Orthodox are, for the most part, poor and don’t pay a lot of taxes. Because Jerusalem is struggling to stay afloat financially, the municipality has given developers the green light to build luxury apartment buildings and commercial spaces in the place of apartment buildings that are home to low- and middle-income Israelis. The occupants of these new buildings will pay more taxes, carrying those in the city who don’t pay enough.

As Israel moves away from the welfare state that characterised the country’s early days and becomes increasingly capitalist, in part to keep the ultra-Orthodox afloat, more Israelis are attracted to the ultra-Orthodox’s ranks.

“A lot of their appeal is related to the growing socio-economic disparities,” Wharton explains. “Because the ultra-Orthodox are well-organised and they raise money abroad and obtain funding for things, not always legally, they can do things like offer kindergartens that work until later.”

Wharton points out that the ultra-Orthodox have gotten a stronger foothold in poor areas of Kiryat Yovel, where residents need the services once provided by the state.

But the ultra-Orthodox struggle with housing and infrastructure issues of their own. As their population has outgrown their traditional neighbourhoods, they head toward secular areas – or the illegal settlements over the Green Line.

“The biggest and fastest-growing settlements …are ultra-Orthodox,” says Wharton, who is also a political science lecturer at Hebrew University. “The current government is interested in attracting settlers, and they offer land for free and really good mortgages and really good social systems … so the state uses the [ultra-Orthodox] and the [ultra-Orthodox] use the state.”

Which is exactly what Azriel and Unger don’t want to see in Kiryat Yovel. “Israel can be a democratic state,” Azriel says. “But there has to be a separation between religion and state.”

Israeli settlers lured by subsidies

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Al Jazeera English, August 23, 2012

It is the stereotypical image of an Israeli settlement: a man with sidecurls and skullcap, and an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. A mob uproots olive trees and harasses Palestinian farmers. A mosque is set ablaze in a so-called “price tag attack”, retaliation for a slight – real or perceived.

But surveys have found that many, if not most, of those who moved to East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank are not driven by ideology, religion or politics. They have been lured by government subsidies that significantly lower their cost of living.

Bar Malul, 21, lives in the West Bank settlement of Ariel and works at the health food store in the town’s commercial centre. As she weighs freshly ground coffee, Malul explains that her parents moved the family from Israel to the West Bank 15 years ago, “because it was comparatively cheaper than other places”.

A sign in Ariel advertises four-bedroom homes starting from $200,000. In Tel Aviv, the same amount of money buys a two-room apartment in Kiryat Shalom, a poor neighbourhood in the south of the city.

The settlements are also appealing to young families. The Israeli Ministry of Education spends more per pupil there than it does in Israel proper. According to the Israeli non-governmental organisation Peace Now, the ministry invests about 8,000 Israeli new shekels ($2,000) a year on every student over the Green Line – the pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank. That is nearly double what it spends on a pupil inside Israel.

Most of Ariel’s residents are here for economic reasons, Malul says. “There are a lot of Russian [immigrants]; the majority are Mizrachim… a small amount are Ashkenazim.”

Both Mizrachim, Jews from Arab countries, and recent immigrants crowd around the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Ashkenazim, Jews of Eastern European descent, are generally more affluent. Under greater financial pressure, the Mizrachim are pushed toward the settlements and Israel’s less desirable peripherial areas. The Ashkenazim tend to cluster towards the centre of the country. The daughter of a Tunisian father and a Russian mother, Malul reflects on this trend.

Now, Ariel residents say prices are rising. Evgeni Siprmov, 29, emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the Israeli city of Petach Tikva with his parents in 1994. He moved to Ariel four years ago to study at the settlement’s college. He was also drawn by the low cost of living.

“The food was never cheaper but the rent, yes, it was cheaper,” Siprmov says as he sits at a green plastic table outside a kiosk and cracks open a can of beer. “It used to be that you would pay 400,000 [Israeli new shekels, or $99,875] to buy a small house here. It’s 600,000 [$149,813] now – the same as Petach Tikva.”

Siprmov, who just finished a bachelor’s degree in economics and has yet to find a job on either side of the Green Line, adds: “There is no true [free market] competition here … It’s all cartels.”

Inside the Green Line, Israelis struggle to keep up with runaway housing costs, high taxes, and increasing food, gas, and electricity prices on relatively low wages – which sparked last summer’s “social justice” protests. But, rather than investing in affordable housing inside of Israel, the state has instituted austerity measures and is giving more to the settlements.

According to the Israeli financial daily the Calcalist, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has increased spending on settlements by 38 per cent. Peace Now reports that 2011 saw a 20 per cent rise in settlement construction. And the number of settlers has grown by 4.5 per cent in 2012.

While Ariel is quickly becoming unaffordable, it still holds some economic appeal.

Yusuf Jaber, 23, lives in a nearby Palestinian village and works at a restaurant in Ariel. Education and job opportunities are limited for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Many like Jaber are left with no option but to work on the settlements built on Palestinian land, which pose a threat to an independent Palestinian state.

Jaber says he’s less concerned about politics and more worried about making a living. He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter if the [residents] are Palestinian or Jews – it’s work.”

Lea Gal, 57, is an alternative medicine practitioner. She lives in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, but spends an hour and a half each day commuting to Ariel. An immigrant from Russia, Gal explains, “I speak two languages [Hebrew and Russian] and that’s needed here.”

While the economy squeezes them out of Israel proper towards work and homes in the West Bank, small numbers of ideological settlers have begun moving back. Some relocate to Jewish-majority areas in hopes of radicalising Israeli society, and harnessing more support for settlements. Others have moved to mixed areas, where Jewish Israelis and Palestinians live in relative harmony, in order to assert a Jewish presence.

In south Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighbourhood, a small group of former West Bank settlers have been instrumental in whipping up anti-African sentiment. Sharon Rothbard, a Shapira resident and historian, says the settlers’ move to the area is an attempt “to build a coalition” on both sides of the Green Line.

As economic pressure grows, settlements expand, and the Israeli public drifts to the right, prospects for an independent Palestinian state fade. When asked if she believes settlements are an obstacle to peace, Malul expresses her disagreement with a curse. “No,” Gal says. “The [Second] Intifada started in 2000 and there was nothing here.”

While Ariel was founded in 1978, nine years before the First Intifada, many of the settlers interviewed echoed Gal’s sentiment: settlements and occupation were both a response to the Intifada.

Ariel residents agree an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is unlikely. But they find a one-state solution just as improbable. Gal says while she is opposed to evacuating Israeli settlements, she is also against the evictions of Palestinians. According to the United Nations, the rate of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian and Bedouin homes and structures in the West Bank has increased in 2012, resulting in the “forced displacement” of more than 600 Palestinians – about half of them children.

The Palestinian villages of Susya and Zanuta are under threat of imminent demolition, and 1,500 Palestinians who live in an area the Israeli army calls Firing Zone 918 face eviction.

When Palestinians are displaced, it is usually to make way for expanding settlements and infrastructure. “What is there to do?” Gal asks. “Throw thousands of people from [the West Bank]? It doesn’t matter [whether they’re Palestinian or Israeli], it’s impossible.”

Malul agrees, adding Palestinians should be able to move freely between Israel and the Occupied Territories. “They were born here and I was born here … they should be able to enter, too.”

Malul admits, however, her views are not necessarily representative of most settlers, or mainstream Israeli society. “It pains me to hear ‘death to the Arabs’ … and at the checkpoints when [soldiers] take them off the buses. [The Palestinians] are good people … they’re people who want to work, who want to make a living for their families.”