Olives & prisoners, and a lot of alarming reading stuff
November 7, 2002
Action alerts:
[] Gush Shalom: Saturday, helping harrassed Palestinian farmers to harvest their olives
[] Ta'ayush: protesting the conditions for illegal Palestinian workers at Damoun Prison
[] Yigal Bronner transfered to Prison-4; Yesh Gvul changes location of Saturday action
Must reads
[] A Letter of Response to the General, by Yigal Bronner
[] The Falami struggle to preserve their lands and trees against The Wall
[] "What have I done!" - a hundred soldiers treated for "Intifada Syndrome"
[] Yehudith Harel: Ramallah, One Day and One Night under the Occupation
[] Amira Hass: Will you just stand on the sidelines?
[] Gush Shalom: Saturday, helping harrassed Palestinian farmers to harvest their olives
From: info@gush-shalom.org
Action: Picking Olives.
Date: this coming Saturday, November 9.
Details: On the Gush answering machine, 03-5221732.
The olive picking season is coming to an end. Next Saturday is the last day. On that day, Gush Shalom has made a big effort to mobilize as many people as possible for aiding the villages that have suffered the most from settlers harassment.
We shall help the villagers to pick the olives that have remained on the trees and can still saved!
We shall defend them by our very presence from the settlers!
We shall celebrate the end of the harvest, in the course of which Israeli and international peace activists have done their best to help saving the fruit!
It is a great experience an action that is at the same time a practical help, a political demonstration and a symbolic act of Israeli-Palestinian friendship. Those who have already taken part, please make another effort! Those who have not - you have an experience waiting for you!
COME AND TAKE PART!
For transportation details phone to: 03-5221732.
[] Ta'ayush: protesting the conditions for illegal Palestinian workers at Damoun Prison
From: Haggai Katriel
Damoun Prison (on the outskirts of Haifa) holds some 500 inmates, incarcerated under inhuman conditions - many of them Palestinians from the Occupied Territories who are being held for entering Israel to look for work.
On Saturday, November 9, 2002 at 11:00 AM Ta'ayush will hold a protest event outside Damoun Prison,
which is located at the top of the road leading from the Atlit junction to Bet Oren. During the preceding week - the beginning of Ramadan - we will bring food and basic
equipment to the prison in an attempt to alleviate the hardships suffered by the prisoners.
The prison was established in 1953 as a "temporary penitentiary", in buildings which had earlier served as storehouses and stables. The prison was in continuous use
until the year 2000, after the Minister of Police declared it "unfit for human habitation". The harsh conditions underlying the decision to shut down the place included
extreme cold, damp, and leaks in wintertime, suffocating heat in summertime, lack of a central sanitary system, and no showers or bathing facilities. Expert testimony before the Interior Committee of the Knesset indicated that raise the prison to a state fit for human habitation would take at least two years, and cost many millions of shekels.
The prison was reopened in September, 2001 as part of a new policy of imprisoning "illegal sojourners" for longer periods, after a limited and underfinanced renovation completed within two months. At present there are about 500 inmates (as opposed to 400 before it was shut down).
In the activities at the Damoun Prison we will:
* demand the final closure of the prison, in which people are being held under inhuman conditions;
For more information contact:
[] Yigal Bronner transfered to Prison-4; Yesh Gvul changes location of Saturday action
From: "ram rahat"
We are pleased to report that the campaign for Yigal Bronner has succeeded!
This morning as a result of the pressure on the army, Yigal was transferred to Military Prison 4.
On the other hand, on Tuesday Haggai Matar and Dror Boimel were re-imprisoned at Prison 4, Haggai for 28 days and Dror for 21 days.
As Yigal's transfer makes the protest at Ktziot unnecessary, we have decided to join our friends from Ta'ayush at their protest action at the Damoun prison, where Palestinians whose only crime is that they wanted to work, and did not have a work permit are held under inhumane conditions.
From Damoun prison we all go to Prison 6 (a ten minute ride) to support the refuseniks (including Yigal, Haggai and Dror and the rest of the prisoners at Prison 4).
Transportation:
Jerusalem:
Tel-Aviv
Haifa:
Karmiel-Sakhnin-Be'ene-Misgav junction:
[] A Letter of Response to the General, by Yigal Bronner
GENERAL, YOUR TANK IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect: It needs a driver.
(Bertolt Brecht)
Dear General,
In your letter to me, you wrote that "given the ongoing war in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and in view of the military needs," I am called upon to "participate in army operations" in the West Bank.
I am writing to tell you that I do not intend to heed your call.
During the 1980s, Ariel Sharon erected dozens of settler colonies in the heart of the occupied territories, a strategy whose ultimate goal was the subjugation of the Palestinian people and the expropriation of their land. Today, these colonies control nearly half of the occupied
territories and are strangling Palestinian cities and villages as well as obstructing -- if not altogether prohibiting -- the movement of their residents. Sharon is now prime minister, and in the past year he has been advancing towards the definitive stage of the initiative he began twenty years ago. Indeed, Sharon gave his order to his lackey, the Defense Minister, and from there it trickled down the chain of command.
The Chief of Staff has announced that the Palestinians constitute a cancerous threat and has commanded that chemotherapy be applied against them. The brigadier has imposed curfews without time limits, and the colonel has ordered the destruction of Palestinian fields. The
division commander has placed tanks on the hills between their houses, and has not allowed ambulances to evacuate their wounded. The lieutenant colonel announced that the open-fire regulations have been amended to an indiscriminate order "fire!" The tank commander, in turn,
spotted a number of people and ordered his artilleryman to launch a missile.
I am that artilleryman. I am the small screw in the perfect war machine. I am the last and smallest link in the chain of command. I am supposed to simply follow orders -- to reduce my existence down to stimulus and reaction, to hear the sound of "fire" and pull the trigger, to bring
the overall plan to completion. And I am supposed to do all this with the simplicity and naturalness of a robot, who -- at most -- feels the shaking tremor of the tank as the missile is launched towards the target.
But as Bertolt Brecht wrote:
General, man is very useful.
And indeed, general, whoever you may be-- colonel, brigadier, chief of staff, defense minister, prime minister, or all of the above-- I can think. Perhaps I am not capable of much more than that. I confess that I am not an especially gifted or courageous soldier; I am not the best shot, and my technical skills are minimal. I am not even very athletic, and my uniform does not sit comfortably on my body. But I am capable of thinking.
I can see where you are leading me. I understand that we will kill, destroy, get hurt and die, and that there is no end in sight. I know that the "ongoing war" of which you speak, will go on and on. I can see that if the "military needs" lead us to lay siege to, hunt down, and starve a whole people, then something about these "needs" is terribly wrong.
I am therefore forced to disobey your call. I will not pull the trigger.
I do not delude myself, of course. You will shoo me away. You will find another artilleryman -- one who is more obedient and talented than I. There is no dearth of such soldiers. Your tank will continue to roll; a gadfly like me cannot stop a rolling tank, surely not a column of tanks,
and definitely not the entire march of folly. But a gadfly can buzz, annoy, nudge, and at times even bite.
Eventually other artillerymen, drivers, and commanders, who will observe the senseless killings and endless cycle of violence will also begin to think and buzz. We are already hundreds strong. And at the end of the day, our buzzing will turn into a deafening roar, a roar that will echo in your ears and in those of your children. Our protest will be recorded in the history books, for all generations to see.
So general, before you shoo me away, perhaps you too should begin to think.
Sincerely,
[] The Falami struggle to preserve their lands and trees against The Wall
[Several of us spent this week one or more days in Falami, to take part in the struggle against The Wall - pretext to annex kilometers of cultivated Palestinian land and get control of the water sources. Most of you got Adam Keller's report "From the square to the orchard, or where we
were when the government fell". If you didn't see it, you can order it from otherisr@actcom.co.il.]
From: Huwaida Arraf
Wed, 6 Nov 2002
[Falami, Qalqilya] Tear gas and sound grenades have just been thrown at Palestinian villagers and international civilians engaged in a wedding celebration out in the olive groves of Falami. Traditional dress, singing and dancing was part of the villagers plan to change the mood on the
ground and assert their presence on land that is being destroyed by the Israeli military. This
nonviolent act of protest is being attacked by Israeli soldiers who have already used tear gas, sound grenades, and now have their weapons aimed at the unarmed civilians. The group of Palestinian villagers and internationals are refusing to be dispersed. Yesterday the French Consul General visited Falami and attempted to negotiate with the Israeli authorities over the destruction and isolation of this agricultural land, which is the source of livelihood for thousands of Palestinian farmers in this region.
The French government, which is invested in an agricultural irrigation project on this land, failed to persuade the Israeli authorities to halt its destruction. The Israeli military accompanied bulldozers to the olive groves this
morning to find the wedding celebration in full swing.
Video footage and digital pictures available.
Thurday, 7 Nov 2002
In Falami village (Qalqilya region), at least 4 military jeeps are in the village harassing the people, overturning fruit / vegetable stands and beating young men. Over the loudspeakers soldiers are announcing that they'll make sure "there is no one left in the village." The olive groves of Falami have been the site of illager/international protests over Israeli destruction of Palestinian agricultural land
For more information, please call:
[] "What have I done!" - a soldiers treated for "Intifada Syndrome"
translated from Ma'ariv by TOI-staff
A special "rehabilitation village" has been set up to take care of former combat soldiers who suffer from a deep mental crisis, a hundred of whom are at present undergoing treatment. Some suffer from nightmares, and are unable to face up to operational failures and having harmed civilians. Veterans of elite units are being treated at the "Izun" rehabilitation village near Caesarea, by a staff
including seven reserve officers. The project is supported by Orit Mofaz, wife of the new Defence Minister. The treatment is financed by the ex-soldiers' parents. Today four new patients will be admitted, ex-members of Duvdevan
[Special Forces unit carrying out arrests and assassinations while disguised as Arabs].
Exclusive - by Ethan Rabin
They joined the most elite of units, full of motivation. They served terms of three years and more, fought in the hardest battles of the initifada, but also had to face the civilian Palestinian population. Now that they had been
discharged the difficulties are exposed, the personal problems and crises.
Dozens of them went on backpacking trips to the Far East where they became drug addicted to Heroine, Cocaine and other hard drugs. Some tried to commit suicide. In face of this difficult situation, reserve colonel Omri Frish,
former combat officer and a social worker by training, took the initiative of trying to save these "backpacking soldiers". He and several other former officers had
set up the Izun Rehabilitation Village near Caesarea. In fact, when we set up the village, we just knew that more and more of the young Israelis who go on backpaking trips to India, Thailand and other places are coming back in a condition of total collapse and are in urgent need of help. But when we took up the task of helping them, we realized that in the majority of cases the phenomenon is related to
experiences of military service prior to their going abroad. So we decided to take up all cases of former combat soldiers in crisis, also those who had not gone first through the Far East. We made the new Rehabilitation Village known and were staggered by the number of calls we got, from ex-soldiers and especially parents - more than 900 so far. The parents told very painful stories of sons becoming drug addicts and trying to commit suicide. Many of them were veterans of the most prestigious elite units such as Sayeret Matkal, the Naval Commandos and Duchifat." One of the main issues arising in talks with the soldiers is the Intifada. "The soldiers burst out crying and accuse themselves of mistreating Palestinians and humiliating them. Now, after being discharged, the vision of what they had done is playing itself in their minds like a
non-stop film. Suddenly the soldier, the tough fighter who had been nicknamed 'Rambo', goes to India. There he experiences another reality, a quiet and peaceful situation. When he comes back he realizes what he had done. He tries to escape from reality, to escape into drugs, and
his life becomes a ruin" says one of the doctors. It is difficult to categorize precisely the mental damage caused to the soldiers. "it is not exactly shell shock. It is not precisely a post-traumatic condition, either. It is just a very severe mental crisis. This situation is a real time
bomb" says a senior IDF officer. One of the main problems arising, especially in treating former members of elite units, is extreme anxiety about failure. "These people are not taught to accept the possibility of failure. In these elite units they are told that failure is unacceptable, and that a 90% success also counts as failure. When you are 18, 19 or 20 you can believe in such standards. Afterwards, they become more realistic - but that's too late. When you tell soldiers that failure is completely unacceptable and they nevertheless fail, they just break. Then they go
into a mental crisis and get into drugs. The drugs help them to rearrange the reality".
One of the staff's main problems is the patients' strong feeling that it is illegitimate to break, to cry or ask for help. "They were told that they are supermen, and supermen don't ask for help. Supermen can solve all problems by themselves. But they don't succeed to solve all the
problems, and then they go around with an enormous guilt feeling, a feeling that they are worth nothing". S., a former paratrooper fighter who is under treatment for the past three months, said: "We went into houses. We saw children and old people crying. We shot at their TV sets.
At the time you feel no pity, you just have a job to do and you do it. But when afterwards you sit at home, you start realizing what you have done and it hurts you deeply." Since the village was opened, hundreds of parents asked to have their sons treated there.
So far, 120 people were treated, about a 100 of them discharged soldiers. "The problems are severe. Soldiers who killed Palestinians, soldiers who by mistake killed a fellow soldier, soldiers who failed in their military tasks. When we ask 'why did you do it', they say 'I don't
know why, it was as if there was another person inside me'" says Omri. "There are cases where the request for help comes too late. There was an officer of Sayeret Matkal who fought against the Palestinians for two consecutive years. After discharge he went to Thailand and became a drug addict. In Israel he went on to become a very heavy cocaine user. His parents called and asked us to help him. We agreed but on the day before he was due to arrive here he was found dead in his room". Another former fighter had gone to Latin America and became hooked on the cactus-derived San Pedro drug. He drank it and went under the table and refused to come out. He said 'No, no, I can't go out, I am on ambush.' He also refused to take food and drink, and said 'You don't eat and drink while on ambush'. This is one of the seeming successes, the man is now trying to find a job and rebuild his life. A former fighter of the Duvdevan Special Forces unit, only recently discharged from the army, told: "We all the time went into houses and confronted the Palestinians. Many of them were innocent. At the time, we did not care. We were told that that was our
assignment, that we had to do our job, and we did it. Now I am sorry for some of the things I did. I can do nothing, I have no work and I talk to nobody. I just sit all day
watching animated films on the children's TV network, and from time to time I get up and start hitting my head against the wall, and I don't know why I am doing it. Another soldier said: "I served three years in the territories. We killed dozens of terrorists. I saw my friends getting killed. It made me very nervous. A few months ago I went on drive in my parents' car. Somebody bypassed in his car, and that made me angry. I chased him, caught him at a traffic light and then I just opened his door, dragged him out of his car and started to
beat him up."(...)
A whole group of soldiers who needed treatment were those
concerned with liquidating the senior terrorist Iyad Batat, a year and half ago. "At first we were happy and elated with our success. We posed for photographs over the remnants of the mangled body, some of us smiling and
laughing while holding his torn-off organs. Suddenly, a few weeks later, the Operations Officer came, reprimanded us and demanded that we hand over those photographs. He burned them in front of us and warned us never to take such
photos again.
When we started realizing what we had done we felt very upset. A short time later, two of us went to party where they took a lot of Extasy pills. They came back to camp totally doped. We had to take away their guns and close them up in a room, until the psychiatrists came to take them. One of them didn't recognize anybody, and was all the time shouting "Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad." He became totally crazy. The intifada has finished him." (...)
[] Yehudith Harel: Ramallah, One Day and One Night under the Occupation
From:
Ramallah, One Day and One Night under the Occupation.
Yehudith Harel
Just one short glimpse into another reality, a reality of the Israeli Occupation of Ramallah, the most central city of Palestine. October 2002. Why should an Israeli just "visit" Ramallah these days? For sure it is not the most pleasant place in the world to "visit" and there is a big question mark over the legitimacy of such a visit by an Israeli these days. Despite of various possible reservations, I think it was an important visit for me. One has to see and feel what Occupation really looks and feels and smells like. It is one thing to hear about the Occupation and another thing to be there, to see and hear and feel and sense and smell and touch it, even if for a short time.
It was a difficult visit - just to see all the devastation - to realize to what extent have we reduced the lives of the Palestinian People into shambles, for every practical purpose. It was difficult for me to look into the eyes of people I know and I respect, people I know that they have no real life any more. And why shouldn't they? What gives us the right to impose on them such a cruel and impossible reality and deny them that rightful and legitimate space of normalcy that they deserve as human beings? The most difficult thing people report about is the fact that they are denied from controlling their lives and their schedules. They cannot plan anything because they don't know what the next day will look like "curfew wise", what arbitrary regulations will be imposed on them, viciously penetrating into the very privacy of their every day routine, violating their liberties. So they have no fix schedules and they are all the time preoccupied with finding out what the schedule will be the next day and how to get organized with their kids and their other duties. People can't concentrate, they can't create and they
simply can't live a normal life.
We are robbing them their freedom in every possible sense. There is no life under Occupation. All the precious vital energies are sucked up, consumed and eaten up by the Monster called the Israeli Military Occupation and its various daily practices. And this reality is not pre-
ordained it is man made - it is our doing. The once beautiful streets look awful - all the sidewalks and street lamps are destroyed. Many nice plants and trees, some old and some newly planted in the centre of the city and along the streets and between the driveways are all smashed and uprooted. The municipality does not function and there is garbage all over. That beautiful and once graceful city looks like a dirty and neglected village in a third world country. And this reality is not pre-ordained it is man
made - it is our doing.
There is still curfew from 6 pm in the evening till 6 am in the morning and people don't dare to stick their noses out after 6 pm. On Fridays - people's day off - there is curfew during the day too - around the clock. The once lively city, bustling with commercial activities and a vivid night life, cafes and restaurants and a wide variety of rich cultural activities is completely dead.
Some people do dare to disobey the orders and go to friends houses in the evenings but is only a small minority. When the army catches people driving during curfew they take their car keys and fine them with 3000 NIS. People of course have spare keys and never go to pay the fine but
still - most people are afraid. I did go to see some people at night and it was a nice surprise. My host took me to the house of Jewish couple from England who came to Ramallah as an act of solidarity. They have been there since the first incursion. She is a Psychologist writing a book about the effect of the Intifada on Palestinian children. He is an architect working on documenting the destruction and devastation perpetrated by the "most humane and enlightened
army in the Middle East".
Friday morning - Curfew as usual. I heard with my own ears how they went around in a Jeep calling some threatening orders in their loudspeakers. I couldn't hear exactly what they said but I was told that sometimes they say the following: "Ya Sha'abul Jabarin - stay at home or you
will be shot like dogs" . ( Sha'bul Jabarin ' means "people of the heroes" - words used by Arafat when he makes a speech to the people). I went to see the Muqat'aa. It's one thing to see the destruction and the bulldozing of the buildings on TV and another thing to see it with your own
eyes. The formerly majestic complex - all fenced with a big paved courtyard and many buildings inside - all destroyed and rendered into rubbles. A huge and monstrous "field" of smashed concrete and rubble...And this reality is not pre-ordained it is man made it is our doing.
Sticking out from the rubble one could see some smashed barrels still carrying slogans from some better days in Hebrew and Arabic: "We have partners to talk with" and "There is what to talk about". One couldn't stop wandering where are the Israeli Partners, where have they been when all this devastation took place? Had I been a Palestinian I could not have stopped myself from thinking what is there to talk about with people who allow their leaders to commit such acts of sheer barbarism, stemming from blind hatred and madness. And this reality is not pre-
ordained it is man made it is our doing.
Then I went to see the former new main street - a new boulevard connecting the centre of the city to the road to Bir Zeit - Share'a Irsa'l. It used to be a very nice boulevard - with new and modern buildings on both sides - residential condos, Banks, high-tech companies etc. It used
to be such a busy street - now everything looked deserted and the street itself ruined. The new asphalt was dug up in many places just in the middle of the road, the sidewalks broken, the trees and flowers planted in the middle all uprooted and ruined.
Here and there one could still have a glimpse of a heap of deliberately smashed private cars being used as building blocks for an occasional road block. People told me that they started to be very particular about where they parked their cars so as not to allow for them to become easy prey for an "occasionally needed" road block... And this reality is not pre-ordained it is man made it is our doing.
I also went to see the different roads leading in and out of the city - all of them were blocked. One cannot get in and out of Ramallah except for through Qalandia or Surda checkpoints with all the harassments included...The city has practically become one big prison -one big
concentration camp. And this reality is not pre-ordained - it is man made - it is our doing.
I met people who are really afraid from a possible Transfer. I met a woman, who experienced the transfer out of Beirut in 82' and she is absolutely terrified from another possible transfer. She told me that she has already packed her most precious belongings and papers so that she
does not forget anything in case "they come and tell me to go" I saw the fear in her eyes. This home of hers in Ramallah is her first decent home that she has ever had in her life since Beirut, a place that she can once again regard as Home, where she has hanged curtains over the
windows...
I found out that the wives of PLO people who came back within the so called "Oslo Returnees pact" were not granted a permanent residence permit. I know personally two such people whose wives are "foreigners" . These men came back within the above mentioned agreements and got permanent resident permits and passports but not their wives. These women have to go out of the territories every 3 months and come back in order to renew their "tourist" visas. Otherwise, if they don't - they become illegal and can be transferred out any time. Now they are afraid that any time they go out and want to come back they will be denied the entry visa. An what then???
Some of these women are considered privileged because they have Western passports and connections but there are many ordinary Palestinian Women, formerly refugees in Jordan or other places, married to Palestinian men, with the same "stateless" status. These women have to go out to Jordan and come back etc, but now the Jordanians are making
difficulties, it's also difficult to get to Alenby because of the curfew and the siege and the closures. It is also very expensive - you have to pay 200$ for being taken by a so called "VIP" taxi hacker who will carry your luggage in case you have to walk, and take you to the bridge on
roundabout dirt roads and occasionally walk with you across the mountains, as all the roads are blocked...
So many of these women gave up - they simply can't take the stress and the hazards of such journeys, nor can they afford the luxury of getting to the bridge and crossing to
Jordan. So they stay at home, become "illegal" in their own homes and therefore are afraid to go out because they fear to be picked up by the army in a checkpoint, found to be illegal and consequently risk immediate deportation. So they sit at home, fearing the moment when they
might be visited at night by the Israeli army - being picked up and thrown out of their homes to Jordan - never to be allowed to come back. And this reality is not pre-ordained - it is man made - it is our doing.
Can one believe all this??? It is true, so how can we live with this reality?? And this is just one tiny human aspect of the Occupation. And one should see Qalandia checkpoint - how dirty and neglected it is... It looks so awful. You are coming from Jerusalem - all nice and green and clean and orderly and all of a sudden you are in a different world
- a world of neglect, of dirt, of sewage running free on the "road" where people have to queue up and walk between barbed wire fences, in the midst of all the dirt that seems to be building up in a very quick pace. As if
we are telling those people - "you are dirt - you are garbage - therefore thou shall live in the dirt -
that's what you deserve". And then one "crosses" back to the "other world" - in a couple of moments one is in a totally different world, back in the so called
Civilization, in the world of the Lords...
I came home absolutely devastated - exhausted - emotionally drain and decimated by the pressure of what I have taken in. I was so ashamed - I cannot express the shame and the guilt. I came home and went to sleep from 14:30 till 19:30, woke up made some dinner and went back to sleep till the next morning as if I was moonstricken...
[] Amira Hass: Will you just stand on the sidelines?
By Amira Hass
After the elections the preachers of the "transfer solution" will be strengthened, the surveys say. It doesn't matter right now exactly how much stronger they'll become. The important thing is that every day that goes by, the preachers of transfer feel ever more confident about raising their "permanent solution" in the Israeli public.
No law stops them from posting thousands of leaflets and placards calling for the expulsion of Arabs, or as they put it rather more bluntly, "Them there, us here." Nobody in the law enforcement agencies shows any enthusiasm for fighting them. No attorney general has forbidden them to raise their "ideas" in various media interviews, when the more appropriate titles, "fascists" or "racists" and even "neo-Nazis" are used to describe people like them
in Europe. The Transferists hide little and show off much; with smooth talk they speak of "willing and agreed transfer" without going into explanations that there is no such thing. They speak mercifully about the residents of the refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza, for whom, they say, and for the benefit of their children, should be resettled - east of the Jordan River. The preachers know
well the distress in which the refugees live; many of them live but a spit away from the camps, in the villas of lushly gardened settlements.
Not all the transferists come from the settlements, though
presumably the settlers are disproportionately represented among all the transfer voters. The settlers and their lobbyists can be accused of extremism, but they are only taking to the logical conclusion the settlement policies in the territories; this policy, officially founded in Israeli military orders and legitimized by civil laws, has had two faces: Israeli development and limits on Palestinian
development. All the limits on development - whether by
expropriation of some 45 percent of the West Bank, or by
prohibitions on construction - have included the partially hidden element of applying pressure to "thin out" the Palestinian population. During the years of direct occupation, for example, there were orders issued that quickly led to residency rights being stripped from West Bank-born Palestinians who traveled overseas.
The settlers of the Golan, the Jordan Valley, Hebron and Ofra were pioneers who did first what the Labor Alignment governments and senior members of the Zionist movement wanted and encouraged. It's time to end the myth that the pioneers forced themselves on helpless governments. Therefore, if the settlers were the tip of the spear,
today, with the preaching for transfer, the cries of anger should not be directed at them. Lessons should be learned from the past: They are succeeding because there are strains in the regime (military and ideological in particular) that support them. They are doing and saying what others think.
The question must be directed to the Labor Party, Meretz and even Shinui and to some of the more balanced social elements that still exist in Shas and the Likud: Do you intend to stand on the sidelines, encouraging with your inaction the transferists, who more than ever are motivated by divine messianic delusions?
Will you prevent including moral objection to transfer in your election campaign materials, because it will drive some voters away? Will the military people in your ranks warn the soldiers among the transferists that any attempt to conduct a transfer operation will be met with active resistance?
Will your field activists make do with lighting candles and inviting rock bands to Rabin memorials and forever be afraid to confront the transferists, to avoid civil war? Will law professors and historians, members of those parties and movements that support centrist governments, remain silent until after the ethnic cleansing has taken place?
Will the religious among you, forsaking their Judaism for the mounting brutal propaganda, join other "mitzvah-abiding" people, who sanctify the land and scorn human beings?
Will the authors who picked olives with the Palestinians make do with that, and not demand that the law enforcement authorities in Israel make clear their position? Is transfer an inseparable part of the founding ideology of the State of Israel, or a twisted mutation, which should not be allowed to rise up against its creator?
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What is happening at the Damoun Prison?
* protest the imprisonment of Palestinians whose only offence was a desire to feed their families;
* express solidarity by providing them with food for the Ramadan.
- Iana (067-222518),
- Kobi (04-8371051, e-mail: kobi@math.haifa.ac.il).
9:00 Binyaney Ha'uma
Please call Nora in advance 050-264141
10:00 Rakevet Tsafon (Train Station North)
Coordinator Paulina 053-661053
10:30 Solel Bone Sq.
11:00 Merkaz Horev
Coordinator: Ray 04-8363364 052-733635
10:00 Central Station Karmiel
Please call Ithamar in advance 050-737853
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.
Yigal Bronner
[The following update about the Falami struggle is compiled of two messages from the International Solidarity Movement.]
Chuck - +972-52-574-462
Heidi - +972-67365-669
[box on front page, Ma'ariv, 5/11/02]
Ramat Ha Sharon, 6.11.2002
Haaretz
6 November 2002
