Dismantling Settlements in Gaza and Expanding Them in the West Bank

I. ONE SMALL VILLAGE, MANY ARIEL SHARONS
II. OTHER DEMONSTRATIONS TAKING PLACE FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
III. INJURIES MOUNT AS ISRAELI MILITARY RESPONDS VIOLENTLY TO
PALESTINIAN PROTESTS
IV. AN OPEN LETTER FROM SHORA ESAMILIAN, written while detained at
Ben Gurion Airport
V. IMPORTANT LINKS TO MAIN STREAM MEDIA ARTICLES


I. ONE SMALL VILLAGE, MANY ARIEL SHARONS

BIL'IN — A gaggle of Ariel Sharon’s will start constructing makeshift settlement
structures in the West Bank village of Bil'in on Friday at 1 p.m.

No, cloning technology hasn't gotten that far out of hand just yet. Residents of the
small village located not far from Ramallah and surrounded by illegal settlements
and an annexation barrier that threatens their livelihood are donning Sharon masks
and costumes and will begin building faux settlement structures to be moved on the
road toward the area of farmland seized by Israel to build it's illegal wall.

Prime Minister Sharon, while gaining praise form international Leaders for the
alleged Gaza pullout and his disengagement plan, has vowed to strengthen and expand
West Bank settlements on Palestinian land.

While the villagers have taken the creative route to directly protest the wall, they
are usually met with a blunt, violent response from soldiers.

During the Black Thursday SOS action, peace activists in Bil'in were injured by
rubber bullets and tear gas. The previous Friday, several were kicked and injured by
soldiers while standing at the roadblock, repeating slogans and asking for the right
to pass freely onto their land.

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II. *OTHER DEMONSTRATIONS TAKING PLACE FRIDAY AND SATURDAY *

ELSEWHERE FRIDAY

1. PROTESTING THE "BARRIER" IN JENIN: Israel's illegal barrier near the northern
West Bank town of Jenin consists of a patrolled labyrinth of chain fences. At noon
Friday, residents of the town will be joined by several organizations and foreign
activists as they head toward the barrier which cuts across agricultural land to
protest the lack of access to their own territory.

People will gather at the city center of Jenin at 10 a.m. to travel to the nearby
village of Zububa, which is close to the green line, the Israeli/Palestinian border
that was stipulated in 1967. At noon, the demonstration will begin with a prayer in
the agricultural fields near the fence. Following that, participants will march
toward the fence to display banners and Palestinian flags. In the past, protesters
approaching the fence have met with a violent response from Israeli soldiers.

2. REMOVING ROADBLOCKS ON THE ROAD TO ASIRA:
Peace activists are planning to remove roadblocks from the road directly connecting
Nablus to the small farming village of Asira on Friday. The road has been blocked
since the start of the Palestinian uprising against the occupation. The Popular
Committee of Asira has requested the presence of Israeli peace activists.

The people of Asira are prevented from farming even their land that has not been
confiscated by Israel. The road from the village to the land has been blocked with
an earth mound by the Israeli army. Five families live outside of this block and are
unable to reach their homes by vehicle. Israeli army jeeps regularly patrol the area
and prevent people from accessing their land. Students, workers and the sick are all
adversely affected. Even ambulances are not allowed a quick passage to the village.

Last Friday, as villagers demonstrated to demand their freedom of movement, the army
cracked down on the protest with an assault that included use of live ammunition.
The Army also invaded the village and confiscated cameras and film from
demonstrators.

SATURDAY

A CALL FOR FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT IN HEBRON
The city of Hebron is dissected by a labyrinth of checkpoints that keep people
isolated not only from elsewhere in the occupied Palestine, but often from the other
end of town.

On Saturday at 11 a.m., Hebron citizens plan to demonstrate against this limit on
travel by marching to one of the internal checkpoints with Israeli and International
activists. At 11:30 a.m., residents along with a number of Israeli and foreign
activists will gather at Bab Al Zaweya town square to begin the march.

Being that Hebron is under a constant siege due to the round-the- clock military
presence, a violent response is expected to this peaceful call for the freedom to
move from one end of town to the other.

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III. INJURIES MOUNT AS ISRAELI MILITARY RESPONDS VIOLENTLY TO
PALESTINIAN PROTESTS

Five people thus far have been wounded in Bil'in from rubber bullets, the Israeli
response to protests taking place across the West Bank against Israel's illegal
annexation wall on Black Thursday. Starting at 10 a.m.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank village of Budrus, soldiers have launched house-to-house
searches for those who have participated in protests of the wall.

Palestinians in communities from Marda to Qalandia are burning tires to send out an
SOS to the world. International and Israeli peace activists have joined this direct
action to bring the world's attention to the wall being built on Palestinian land.
While the situation today is ongoing, injuries are being suffered by those who seek
nonviolent direct action against .

Injured in Bil'in so far today are:
-Imad Buranat, the Camera Man for the Bil'in Popular Committee
against the wall, shot in the chest with a rubber bullet.
-Rann Bar- On, - an Israeli activist, shot in the back with a rubber
bullet.
-Ribhi Al Khatib, - 15, shot in the back with a rubber bullet.
-Rashed ABu Rahme, - 15, shot in the leg with a rubber bullet.
-Muhammed Ashal, - shot in the leg with a rubber bullet.
-Muhhamed Yasin, - shot in the leg with a rubber bullet.

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IV. AN OPEN LETTER FROM SHORA ESAMILIAN, written while detained at Ben Gurion

The letter below was written By Shora Esmalian while she was denied entry and
detained At the Ben-Gurion airport by the Israeli authorities, she has since been
forced on a plane accompanied by police and is currently on her way to Austria.

* As soon as I arrived at Ben Gurion Airport, 15.00 on Tuesday, I was taken away by
Israeli police. After five hours of waiting, I was placed under interrogation by a
man from the Israeli Defence Department. He spoke to me in farsi, my mother tongue.

His accusation: I am a member of the International Solidarity Movement, ISM, and
have been involved in activities against the wall in the West Bank. The man,
presenting himself as "Sami", told me that he knew I am – as he said – "one of the
high stars in ISM here and in ISM in Sweden". He asserted that he possessed no less
than 168 files on me. He showed me some of the documents: press releases from the
ISM and newspaper articles with my name featured. Sami also claimed that he was in
contact with the Swedish secret service, Säpo. This was his source of information
about my political activities in Sweden.

It is true that I am a member of ISM. During spring and summer 2004 I was a
coordinator in the villages northwest of Jerusalem, working in solidarity with the
local Palestinian NON VIOLENT resistance against the Israeli apartheid wall. We
staged peaceful demonstrations week after week trying to stop the bulldozers from
uprooting trees, destroying lands and turning the villages into surrounded gettos.
Five Palestinian protesters were killed by snipers during this period; over the last
months another three were killed. As ISM-activists, we're trying to give the
Palestinians some protection and support in their struggle against the wall – a wall
that, according the International Court of Justice, is blatantly illegal and has to
be torn down immediately.

The court has also made clear that all nations in the international community are
obliged to make sure the wall is stopped and the parts already built are demolished.
So this is my "crime". I have, together with my friends in the ISM, been working to
prevent the building of this wall, deemed illegal by the international community.
Because of this "crime", I am denied entry into Israel/Palestine. I share this fate
with more than 20 Swedish ISM-activists and hundreds, possibly thousands of others
who have tried to come here to show non-violent solidarity with the Palestinians.
Last week, more than a hundred European peace activists were turned away at the
border.

To keep us out, the Israeli secret services are doing everything they can to trace
us, monitor us, track our movements and collect documents "proving" our "criminal"
activities. This, however, is not much of a suprise. All the more remarkable is the
obvious collaboration of Säpo.

In what way do I and ISM threaten the national security of Sweden?

How could it possibly fall within the purpose of the Swedish secret service to
control our activities in Sweden, which are perfectly legal?

For all of the debate about the outrageous monitoring of political activists in
Sweden in the 1970s: this is going on right now, and the information is being handed
over to the Israeli secret service in order to prevent us from participating in the
non violent resistance against the wall.

"Sami" interrogated me for four hours. He threatened to throw me in a cell where I
would not be able to reach anyone. He called my mother in Sweden and yelled at here
in farsi. He screamed and yelled most of the time and behaved very aggressively,
photographed me and my belongings numerous times, told me that he himself had been
educating agents in the infamous Iranian secret service SAVAK – "those agents you
and your mother are so afraid of" – before the revolution of 1979, or "when Iran was
Iran" as he said.

But first of all, he demanded that I would give him information about others in the
ISM and about certain Palestinians. This kind of collaboration was his condition for
letting me into the country. Of course I refused. I was then told that I would be
expelled from the country. Yesterday I was forced on a plane, but I refused to
cooperate and the police hade to take me back to the detention center.

Since then, I am under arrest. I refuse to accept that we who resist the wall are
being treated this way – by Israeli and Swedish secret services in cooperation – and
insist on my right to, in accordance with international law, work for the demolition
of the wall. I call on everyone in Sweden to make all their possible efforts to
resist the wall and the occupation – not the least by coming here to Palestine.

For a free Palestine

Shora Esamilian

Ben Gurion Airport 28/7 2005

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V. IMPORTANT LINKS TO MAIN STREAM MEDIA ARTICLES,
Whenever possible, please write letters to the editor or journalist!


PCHR, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Date: 28 July 2005
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2005/87-2005.htm
KNESSET PASSES 2 ANTI-PALESTINIAN DISCRIMINATORY LAWSIN 1 DAY
press release

ALJAZEERA.NET
July 28, 2005
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FF9C3D38-1F36-494C-9357-1CD656076C82.htm
PALESTINIANS PROTEST GAZA SMOKESCREEN
By Laila El-Haddad in Gaza

HAARETZ DAILY
Thursday, July 28,2005
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/605856.html
MK DEMANDS PANEL DISCUSS VIOLENCE AGAINST FENCE PROTESTERS
By Amos Harel and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents

THE WASHINGTON POST
Thursday, July 28, 2005; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072800517.html

DISENGAGEMENT FROM JUSTICE
By Laila El-Haddad

I spent eight hours at Gaza's Erez border crossing with Israel last month, waiting
for Israeli approval to attend a reception in the West Bank, only to be denied entry
based on dubious "security reasons."

I'm a Palestinian mother of a stir-crazy 16-month-old boy, a journalist and a
Harvard graduate. I'm not sure exactly what's threatening about me, though my son
might disagree, if he could sit still long enough to do so.


Being Palestinian is enough, an Israeli army spokesperson told me.

"As a Palestinian from Gaza, you are considered a security threat first, a
journalist second."

And that equation is not set to change anytime soon, not even after disengagement.

Under the plan, Israel will start evacuating the 21 Gaza settlements and four small
settlements in the northern West Bank next month. But it will also maintain control
of Gaza's air, sea and borders, and will reserve the right to reenter the Strip at
any time, effectively making Gaza the world's largest open-air prison, with 1.5
million Palestinian inmates.

The Gaza disengagement will simply restructure Israel's occupation. Instead of
controlling our lives from within, Israel will control Gaza from without.

Ariel Sharon's plan, in his own words, is strategic in nature. It is a
politico-strategic maneuver intended to stop a negotiated peace in its tracks.

In withdrawing from Gaza, Sharon intends to consolidate his grip on the West Bank by
holding on to the four main West Bank settlement blocs, a move that has been
publicly endorsed by President Bush in a reversal of the U.S. position since 1967.
That position had labeled the settlements "an obstacle to peace."

The withdrawal aims to minimize military casualties in Gaza, ensuring Israel's
security according to a shortsighted equation that will render a contiguous
Palestinian state impossible, derailing the negotiated peace deal envisioned in the
"road map."

Palestinians in the West Bank are reminded of this reality every day. Israel's
barrier, whose route was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice last
year, continues to snake its way around their villages and towns, annexing their
land and livelihoods in the process.

In the West Bank village of Bil'in, where nonviolent demonstrations are held weekly
to protest the wall's encroachment, 60 percent of the village farmland is being
annexed to make room for settlement expansion.

And earlier this month, the Israeli cabinet approved a new route for its West Bank
barrier that will isolate 55,000 Palestinians, more than a quarter of the
Palestinian population of occupied East Jerusalem, from the rest of the city. They
will be forced to endure the uncertainty of checkpoints on a daily basis to attend
schools or work or receive medical care. The barrier will also complete the
isolation of East Jerusalem, the Palestinian capital, from 3.8 million Palestinians
in the West Bank and Gaza.

So, while disengagement will bring some relief for Gazans, it is by no means the end
of the Israeli occupation. In June, my son and I spent 10 hours at Rafah Crossing --
Gaza's only route to the outside world -- waiting for Israeli approval to return
home from Egypt. We waited, crammed with 80 others like sardines in a tin, in a bus
without air conditioning in the scorching June heat, as the air thinned and my son
nearly fainted.

During those long hours waiting at borders, with all that entails -- uncertainty,
arbitrariness and humiliation -- it becomes painfully clear how little Sharon's
much-lauded Gaza disengagement plan will change the lives of ordinary Palestinians
in Gaza and the West Bank.

Like the much-maligned Oslo peace process before it, which for 10 years was just
that, a process and nothing more, this disengagement cannot yield a lasting peace
unless it brings justice for the Palestinian people. So long as the Bush
administration continues to turn a blind eye to illegal settlements in the West Bank
and Israel maintains its control of Gaza's borders -- including its sea and air
space and land crossings -- the disengagement will suffer a fate similar to that of
Oslo.

And another generation of young Palestinians, including my son, Yousuf, will grow up
prisoners in their own land, with only their imaginations left free to wander.

The writer reports from Gaza for English Aljazeera.net.

Just to remind folks, it was "non-violent Arab journalists", that on the pretext of seeking an interview, assasinated Massoud, the lion of the Afghan Northern Resistance four days before the jets hit the World Trade Center.

"Dismantling Settlements in Gaza and Expanding Them in the West Bank "

Good plan...let the arabs kill each other in the Gaza....
They'll be so busy blowing each other up, they'll forget about Israel for a while

Israel Radio: West Bank Flooded with Weapons - PA Doesn't Need More
Israel Radio Arab Affairs Correspondent Avi Yissakharov explained Sunday that "anyone who visits the West Bank cities can readily see that they are flooded with weapons already - what with the heavily armed security forces, paramilitary forces, and others on the streets with assault rifles." Yissakharov noted the frequent heavy exchanges of gunfire between various groups is a good indication that ammunition is readily available.(IMRA)

Palestinians Fire Rockets at Israeli Kibbutz
Palestinians fired three Kassam rockets Sunday at Nahal Oz, a kibbutz in Israel's western Negev region. (Jerusalem Post)

Palestinians Fire Rockets at Israeli Town
Palestinians fired three Kassam rockets Friday at the southern Israeli town of Sderot. (Ynet News)

Palestinian Rockets to Threaten Tel Aviv - Ali Waked
Palestinian terrorists have already installed the necessary infrastructure to transfer Kassam rockets to the West Bank from Gaza, according to Abu Abir, spokesman for the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees terror group. "It's clear to everyone that [the rockets] brought the victory and liberation in the Strip. And they will continue to serve us in our struggle until the liberation of all of Palestine," he said. "We have already set up the units who work to smuggle the necessary knowledge from Gaza to the West Bank for fighting techniques, especially those having to do with the rockets." (Ynet News)

A Golden Opportunity Squandered - Jackson Diehl
Arafat's death last November created, it was commonly said, a golden opportunity for Palestinians to arrest their society's downward spiral into squalor and suicide bombing. It also set up a test for all those who believed that Arafat himself was the principal Palestinian problem. Six months ago, Arafat was abruptly replaced, via a fair democratic election, by Mahmoud Abbas, a civilized moderate with a long record of opposing violence and a clear commitment to negotiating a peaceful settlement with Israel. Yet what difference do we see in Palestinian behavior?
An experts' study recently concluded that Palestinian security forces remain factionalized, underarmed and undertrained, and that they are more easily commanded by local warlords than their official leaders. Corrupt hacks populate Palestinian ministries and dominate the legislature and the ruling Fatah party. It all sounds, in short, very much like Arafat's Palestine. (Washington Post)

Hamas Camp: Sun, Fun, Indoctrination - Matthew B. Stannard
Prime Minister Sharon's spokesman, Ra'anan Gissin, described Hamas summer camps as "indoctrination camps" comparable to the Hitler Youth camps, and accused Hamas of taking advantage of Gaza parents' desperate economic straits by offering to care for and feed their children while concealing the organization's true motives. "This is where you create cultural hatred, so by the age of 15 or 16 you can send them out as suicide bombers. That's the whole purpose of them," he said.
At one camp, a group of younger children - most between 10 and 12 - sat in a circle singing one of the "intifada songs" they learn at camp: "We want revenge....If it will take a thousand martyrs....Kill Zionists.... Wherever they are....In the name of God....Hamas!" Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said in a recent interview that the group will continue to attack Jewish settlements in the West Bank and that he remains devoted to the elimination of the State of Israel altogether. (San Francisco Chronicle)

The Human Cost of Disengagement (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Against the background of more than four years of terrorist bloodshed, Israel has initiated its Disengagement Plan in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, both to enhance its security and to put the peace process with the Palestinians back in motion.

The plan requires a considerable sacrifice on the part of some 1,700 families, or about 8,000 people, who must leave the homes and livelihoods they have built over the course of several decades.
In the short term, it is these settlers who are paying the greatest part of the price for peace. It is they who were encouraged by previous governments to settle barren land and turn it into homes, gardens, and farms, in the same pioneering spirit that built the State of Israel. They are now being asked to relinquish these accomplishments for the greater good.

What could have been. If he would have lived Afghanistan might be a much different place.