On December 27, Israeli authorities closed Al-Ain Mosque, the oldest mosque in Silwan, as well as a nearby kindergarten and several shops on the main street of Wadi Helwa, in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

(Photo: Activestills.org)

A correspondent with WAFA Palestine New Agency reports that the closure orders were issued on the pretext of “ensuring public safety, due to fears of further collapses after the Monday collapse near the mosque.”   (Short video on the latest collapse here, from the Silwan Information Centre.)

Fakhri Abu Diab of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan expressed grave concern over the closures, especially as the cause of these collapses, both Monday’s and the previous ones, is Israel’s ongoing excavation of tunnels under the neighborhood, part of a scheme to connect it to the old city.

[MR: This bizarre project is driven by the powerful Israeli settlers’ organization ELAD, and executed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, an arm of the national government.  For a more detailed look at the Israeli archeological invasion of Silwan, and resistance to it, see chapter 8, ‘Facts under the ground,’ in Our Way to Fight.]

Abu Diab warned that the Israeli authorities intend to close more shops and homes in the area in order to displace its residents and seize the area.

Fakhri Abu Diab appealed to local and international communities to protect the people of Silwan from these dangerous plans.

Three years ago today, Israel launched its war on Gaza.  In Israel it was called Operation Cast Lead, in Gaza and elsewhere it is called the Gaza Massacre.

Cast lead is the original material of which dreidels were made.  Dreidels are spinning tops used in a traditional game which Jewish people play during Hanukkah, the joyous Festival of Lights.

Israel’s attack on Gaza began during Hanukkah in December 2008.  In Gaza the lights were extinguished.

Many powerful documentaries, books and testimonies have emerged from Cast Lead/the Gaza Massacre.

Here is one personal account, Samouni Street, made by a Palestinian farming family in Gaza.   A short animated video, only 12:57 minutes, it tells their story.

Watching it, I kept thinking:   This nightmare was supported fully by the government of my country (Canada), and many of the weapons of mass destruction were supplied by the government of the United States.

They continue to support the ongoing suffocation of Gaza.  In our names.

Samouni Street.

Good news, bad news and an appeal from the wonderful Freedom Theatre, under siege in the Jenin refugee camp, West Bank, occupied Palestine.

( The Freedom Theatre, after Israeli military raid.  Photo: Global Times.)

First, the bad news:

“Jenin refugee camp has recently suffered a higher number of arrests than usual.  Over thirty arrests have been made in the past month alone.  Last night (December 20), at least eight new arrests were made during a major Israeli military invasion of the refugee camp.  Among the people arrested were three members of The Freedom Theatre, a cultural centre for children and youth.

One of the arrested was Mohammed Saadi, light and sound technician at The Freedom Theatre.  He describes the experience: ‘At around midnight soldiers broke down the door to my house, they didn’t even knock.  They blindfolded me and my brother and took us up to the mountain behind Jenin camp.  There we were shoved into an army jeep.  During the approximately half-hour drive to the army base we were constantly abused, physically and orally.  The soldiers hit us with their fists and the butts of their machine guns.  In the early morning we were released after having been interrogated throughout the night.’

The reason for these arrests remains unclear.

To bring attention to Israel’s systematic  practice of military rule and arbitrary arrests, the Freedom Theatre will give a street performance on December 21 in Jenin refugee camp.  We will use Playback Theatre* to enact the stories of those who were arrested.  The performance is also a publicity event for The Freedom Bus project.  (See good news, below).”

*Playback Theatre is an interactive theatre approach used in over 50 countries as a tool for community building and community dialogue.  In a Playback Theatre performance, audience members volunteer life experiences and watch as a team of actors and musicians transform these accounts into improvised theater pieces.  Playback Theatre helps to foster community strength through the sharing of experiences that remind us of our common humanity and our capacity for courage, creativity and resilience.”

Then comes a brief report on the street performance:

“On the afternoon of the 21^st, The Freedom Theatre held a street performance in Jenin refugee camp, to bring attention to Israel’s systematic practice of military rule and arbitrary arrests.

The performance was attended by children, youth and adults from the camp as well as internationals.  Actors used Playback Theatre to enact the accounts of those who were impacted by recent invasions and harassment.  Stories were told by people recently arrested, tortured and harassed by the Israeli military.  Other residents of Jenin refugee camp also shared their thoughts and feelings about Israeli military violence and the increasing number of arbitrary arrests that have occurred over the past months.

Kamal Abu Awad, who lives in the Jenin refugee camp, is a student in The Freedom Theatre acting school.  He was recently arrested, then released from Israeli prison without charge. ‘Today’s event gave me a chance to tell my story,’ he says.  ‘Having others listen to my experience helped me feel connected to my community.   It also helped to know that my story was being heard by an international audience.’”

Then, more bad news: Continue reading →

This message arrived yesterday from Mohammed Khatib, one of 22 people arrested by Israeli border police last week in Nabi Saleh at the funeral for Mustafa Tamimi.

Mohammed Khatib is a village leader in the village of Bil’in [see chapter 18, Our Way to Fight], and coordinator of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, which links grassroots protest movements across the occupied West Bank.  He writes:

“I have just been released from jail, after three days inside.  I was arrested last Friday, together with 22 others, in the village of Nabi Saleh, during a demonstration commemorating the murder of Mustafa Tamimi.  Our arrest took place as we peacefully protested near the entrance to the Jewish-only settlement of Halamish, which is built on lands stolen from Nabi Saleh.

Minutes after we got to the gate, Israeli Border Police officers moved in to remove us from the scene.  Palestinians, Israeli and international activists, we were all shackled and dragged away into military jeeps that transported us to the adjacent military base, which is in fact part of the settlement.

In the military base, still shackled, I was assaulted by a settler who hit me in the face, leaving me with a bloody nose.  Shortly after, the settler also attacked a female Israeli activist who was by my side.  The soldiers and policemen present did not prevent the attack, nor did they bother to detain the settler after the fact.  Instead, the zip-tie locks on my hands were removed, only for my arms to be bound again, this time behind my back.

Hours later, at the police station, I learned that to cover up their responsibility for my attack, the soldiers have laid a bogus complaint against me for assaulting them.  My hands were tied, my face was bleeding, but it was I who spent the night in the inside of prison cell.

Mohammed Tamimi from Nabi Saleh was also arrested during that same demonstration.  While the police decided to release all the others, he and I were to remain in jail.  During our demonstrations, soldiers often take pictures, to later use them as “incriminating evidence”.  This time, the soldiers used one such picture to accuse Mohammed of throwing stones during a demonstration a few weeks or months back. The man pictured in that photograph is not Mohammed Tamimi from Nabi Saleh; regardless, he remains in jail.  [MR: Mohammed Khatib is familiar with this false-photo tactic, which was also used against him in military court.]  Military law allows Israel to keep us Palestinians in jail for eight days before seeing a judge, and even then, it is a soldier in uniform who is the so called neutral arbitrator.

As the prison doors closed behind me, my happiness was clouded by the fact that Mohammed Tamimi was not released.  The battle for his freedom is only beginning, as our lawyers prepare the petition for his release.  If you can, please help us fund legal aid for him and for the countless others who are regularly arrested protesting the Israeli occupation.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to Ayala Shani, an Israeli comrade who was arrested with me.  She refused the injustice of being released while both me and Mohammed Tamimi were still detained.  As these words are written, she is still in jail, despite having been offered her freedom twice already by Israeli courts.

Sincerely,
Mohammed Khatib.”

Please give his message wings by passing it on, far and wide.

Across the West Bank and in Gaza, Israeli soldiers and police continue to beat, gas, imprison, torture, and kill unarmed Palestinians.  [See posts 65 and 66 on  this blog.]

In Cairo, Egyptian soldiers and police continue to beat, gas, imprison, torture, and kill unarmed Egyptians.  The dirty work they used to do for Mubarak, they do now for Mubarak’s generals and their corporate backers.

In Washington, Congress has just passed a law that will entrench in US law “indefinite detention without trial,” and broaden the role of the military in holding “terrorism suspects.”  At the same time, the definition of terrorism continues to get wider, accommodating more and more people.  In a moment, this law wipes out several centuries of hard-won gains in fundamental legal protection and civil rights.

Simultaneously, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced measures this week that will broaden the use of Israeli military detention without charge and military trials.  These ‘measures,’ which have long been used against Palestinians under military occupation, will now also be used, selectively, against Israeli citizens.

Usually in my work I identify and amplify voices of people who resist such measures, often risking their own safety, sometimes their own lives.  Such people need to be heard; their stories offer inspiration, an antidote to despair.  This is why I choose – or try – to keep my attention not on the headlines, the war room, the cabinet office, the CEO’s penthouse where the 1% live with their acolytes, servants and drones, but on the ground where most of us, the 99%, live.

But sometimes – now – the ‘measures’ being constructed over our heads and behind our backs become too overwhelming, too frightening to ignore.   Some connectable dots:

On December 15, Joel Brinkley, former Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times, wrote in the Washington insider journal Politico:  “Administration officials are seething over Israel’s refusal to negotiate with its neighbors — even as the tumult of the Arab Spring imposes increasing and unprecedented isolation on Israel.  Still, said Martin Indyk, who twice served as US ambassador to Israel, the Netanyahu government can do more or less what it wants ‘because they know they have Congress in their back pocket.’”  [The same can be said of elected parliaments in Canada, Britain, Australia, and far too many other countries that claim to be democracies.]

In Washington, the carrot/stick that keeps the US Congress firmly lodged in Netanyahu’s back pocket is the Israel lobby.  Others far more learned than I have argued this for some time, with mountains of evidence.  But any attempt to challenge the lobby’s unparalleled power to dictate US political careers and policy is met with instant, ferocious and well-orchestrated charges of anti-Semitism.  Not so much denials, which would be hard to sustain, just very sharp reminders that the lobby is sacred and untouchable in the land of the free.   [In fact its tentacles reach far and wide.  For example, See Fight continues for academic freedom in the US, by Nora Barrows-Friedman, December 15.]

Even star Israel-booster Thomas L Friedman is not immune.  On December 13 he wrote in his New York Times column:  “I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics.  That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”  Of course Friedman came under immediate attack.   His recanting and apology are awaited.

At the same time, as if to confirm his assessment, on December 15 the US House of Representatives passed, by a margin of 410-11, the “Iran Threat Reduction Act,” a ‘measure’ long demanded by Israel’s backers in Washington, among others.  Its stated purpose is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, its background agenda to ensure that Israel retains its monopoly on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.  But behind it is a deeper purpose: to reduce Iran to a client state by destroying its economy and subjecting most of its people to abject misery.  As with Iraq, and now Libya. Continue reading →