AAARGH
The destruction two weeks ago (July 9) of fourteen Palestinian
homes in Shuafat Refugee Camp at East Jerusalem was the shocking
news to be seen on TV screens all over the world - as was the
arrest of Rabbi Arik Asherman who lay down with other Israelis
and Palestinians in front of the bulldozers. The additional destruction
of a score of Palestinian homes at Rafah on the day after didn't
leave place for anymore doubt: the Sharon government is not interested
in achieving calm. Foreign Minister Peres felt obliged to criticize
the rendering homeless of hundreds of people though he did not
emphasize any principled objection but rather that "such
actions hurt Israel's image" and "severely damage the
Foreign Ministry's international public relations campaign."
In these weeks in which killings (the ones called "liquidations"
as well as the ones called "terrorist attacks") became
a daily routine, as well as the ever more strangling sieges of
Palestinian towns and villages, we had to complete the long-overdue
task of producing and sending out the July issue of The Other
Israel newsletter. The increasing tensions in a way made it possible:
the situation was bad enough for the mainstream media to pick
up themselves the things which so often only get the attention
of peace and human rights groups sending out desperate alerts
and press releases. In the past weeks it was forces bigger than
us who warned about the apparent preparations of our government
for full-scale war. And at last the need of international intervention,
at least at the level of sending observers, has become an issue
with which our government must reckon.
In the newsletter, a double issue of 24 pages there is a long
and thorough analysis of the first 100 days of the Sharon-Peres
government, from which it becomes crystal clear that Sharon has
been trying to collect credit points from the international community
in order to gain a free hand against the Palestinians (you can
read the full article, The Option Of Naked Force, which is editorial
of The Other Israel 98/99, July 2001 at http://members.tripod.com/~other_Israel/ed.html).
Or - if you didn't see the printed version before - make use of
the free sample option (don't forget to include your postal address).
In the printed version, you find also reports on a variety of
many little, sometimes bigger actions through which hundreds of
very devoted peace activists mobilized by such groups as Gush
Shalom, Coalition of Women, Rabbis for Human Rights, Ta'ayush,
Committee Against House Demolitions, International Solidarity
have been trying, together and alternatingly, to confront government
policy - often leading to an involuntary visit to a police station
located in a settlement, and sometimes to the first aid section
of a hospital. Special attention was given to the long-drawn struggle
of El Khader villagers against the encroaching Efrat settlers.
.
Together with the newsletter the readers of this issue also receive
the concrete maps which show what Barak's so-called "generous
offers" were really worth - produced as handbills in great
quantity by Gush Shalom, for those who didn't yet see it on the
Gush Shalom website http://www.gush-shalom.org/. (You find there
also the weekly statements published as paid ads in Ha'aretz and
posted on the site in Hebrew and English, as are the most current
articles of Uri Avnery.) *** Furthermore:
- The Feisal Husseini Memorial - The solidarity visit to Khares.
- Signs of a revival of the larger peace camp - Increasing number
of CO's and manifestations of reservists' discontent
- The Feisal Husseini Memorial The government's attempt to ban
the memorial service 40 days after Feisal Husseini's death at
the Orient House, Palestinian headquarters in East Jerusalem,
backfired. The heavy police cordons greatly reduced the number
of people able to attend, but they also drew worldwide attention
to the defiant ceremony which did take place in the besieged building,
and underlined the fact that Israel is an occupier in East Jerusalem.
We have been able to play our part: a handful of Israelis did
manage to penetrate into the Orient House and were treated as
guests of honor in the memorial (Uri Avnery prominent among them)
while activists of Gush Shalom and Peace Now who were denied entry
held a nicely-covered protest at the massive police barrier.
- The solidarity visit to Khares. Last week the army imposed a
tight siege on the villages of Khares, Kif-el-Khares and Dir Istiya,
with a total population of more than 10,000 people, prohibiting
movement in and out, even on foot, and erecting barriers cutting
off the three villages even from each other. All this, supposedly,
in retalation for some shooting on a settler bus, in which nobody
was hurt. (Needless to say, the army took no measures of this
kind when on the same day a settler-based underground organization
claimed responsibility for the random killing of three Palestinians,
including a baby, and the wounding of four others). This week
several dozens of us - activists of Gush Shlom, Women for a Just
Peace, Ta'ayush and Rabbis for Human Rights - managed to elude
the army and slip into Khares, climbing terraces and walking through
olive tree groves. We were able to bring a message of solidarity
to the crowd of unbroken villagers, to walk with them through
the streets of the village and together with them take up shovels
and break down one of the earthen barriers erected by the army.
But we could not be there on the following night, when the army
and security services made a late-night raid on the same village,
hauling eight Palestinians out of their homes and taking them
off to detention on unspecified charges...
- Signs of a revival of the larger peace camp The open calls for
all-out war made by cabinet ministers and generals, and the detailed
plans for such war made by the army and leaked to the international
press, seem to start arousing the larger peace camp from its lethargy
and disarray. The leaders of this camp - Peace Now, Meretz and
what is left of the Labour doves - conducted talks with an impressive
group of Palestinian leaders, culminating with a joint paper presented
at a press conference yesterday; there was good media coverage
for Peace Now's "stop the unnecessary war" vigil in
Jerusalem; there is an increasing number of articles in the mainstream
media contesting the myth of "Barak's generous offers"
whose rejection by the Palestinians was made into a justification
for all acts of oppression; Yossi Sarid of Meretz, long the head
of Sharon's "loyal opposition", started to make statements
rather more suitable for the head of Israel's largest dovish party
- such as outright support for sending international observers
to the territories, criticizing (in at least some cases) the "liquidation"
(in newest government euphemism "interception") of Palestinians
deemed to be terrorists, and also admitting that Israel has broken
the US-brokered cease-fire at least as often as the Palestinians
did. It is all supposed to culminate with a march and rally against
the threatening war, which the "Peace Coalition" intends
to hold in Tel-Aviv on the evening of August 4. It remains to
be seen whether these forces would be able to hold to their posts
in the kind of eventuality for which the Israeli warmongers are
openly waiting, and which many actions by the army and settlers
seem calculated to provoke: another suicide bombing at an Israeli
population center...
- Increasing number of CO's and manifestations of reservists'
discontent Official Israeli Army estimates, leaked to the foreign
press and from there retranslated and prominently published in
Israel, put the price of reconquest of the Palestinian cities
at hundreds of Israeli lives and thousands of Palestinians. It
might not be a coincidence that the past month saw a clear increase
in the number of Conscientious Objectors imprisoned, either for
refusal to take part in the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians
or for refusal to enlist altogether. And it might be no coincidence,
either, that the media is nowadays full of reports about far wider
manifestations of discontent among reserve soldiers - not directly
challenging the occupation and government policy, but more than
tangenially connected with them. Reservists charged with protecting
one of the illegal "outposts" created by settlers on
seized Palestinian land are complaining of harsh conditions and
of haughty treatment by the settlers which they protest, and who
refuse to let their protectors use electricity from the settlers'
generator; at another reserve unit, whose revered commanding officer
was killed in the beginning of the intifada and which was now
called up again, dozens of reservists are known to have obtained
psychiatric discharges or simply failed to show up; a whole battalion,
soldiers and officers together, threatened not to show up for
a tour of duty unless guaranteed state-finaced insurance in case
of being killed or disabled, and negotiated with the miltary authorities
in the exact manner of well-unionized workers... With the ongoing
struggle requiring more and more intensive use of the army's limited
manpower pool, the incidence of both phenomena - principled outright
refusal of service by individuals and organized discontent in
whole units - is likely to increase.
We would like to end this message by asking you to send letters
of solidarity to three conscientous objectors presently spending
time behind bars in the military prisons and thus at the forefront
of the struggle to prevent the coming war. - Conscript David Haham-Kherson
(18.5), jailed for refusing to serve with his unit near Jericho
in the West Bank. At his trial he declared: "I believe in
an army of defence, not an army of occupation. As a Jew, I am
not prepared to take part in a campaign of repression and denial
of freedom." Letters (preferably postcards) to: David Haham-Herson,
I.D. 7189924, Military Prison 4, Military Post 02507, IDF, Israel;
or via his parents, Tel: 972.2.6783418, e-mail: nono
bgumail.bgu.ac.il - Conscript Hilmi Nafaa, now on his third term
of imprisonment for refusal to serve in the IDF, is member of
the Druze community of Israel - a community whose members are
subject to military conscription just like Jews, and also to the
discrimination in all spheres of life against Arabs. Hilmi Nafaa
prefered imprisonment to conscription. In prison, too, Druze CO's
are habitually treated much more harshly by the military authorities
than Jewish ones.
Letters: Hilmi Nafaa, Military Prison 6, Military Post 03734,
IDF.
- IDF reserve Serg. Alex Lyakas (26), who refused either to serve
in the occupied territories or to support the units there by cooking
meals for them at a kitchen located within pre-`67 Israel, (the
compromise offered by his commander). Lyakas, a student of computer
science from Haifa, and an immigrant from Lithuania in the former
Soviet Union, wrote to his military superiors: "I am not
prepared to participate in taking human lives, violating their
freedoms or other natural rights, as I believe is being done today
in the West Bank and Gaza."
Letters to: Alex Lyakas Military Prison 4, Military Post 02507,
IDF.
Yesh Gvul is planning a solidarity vigil outside Prison 4 (Tzrifin)
on August 2 (info: Cherryk@zahav.net.il). To get current news on CO's,
you can subscribe to New Profile's special new list (send a blank
e-mail message to: NewProfileCO-subscribe@topica.com).
========================================================= The
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ARTICLE 19
<Tout individu a droit à la liberté d'opinion
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inquiété pour ses opinions et celui de chercher,
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