Welcome to Hebron where Palestinians are used as spittoons

by TD - FPC Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:25

Last Friday, as has been happening the past two years there was a vigorous protest in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalemin against the ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing of that area to make lebensraum for the "settlers," in contrast to the brutal suppression of the demonstrators - overwhelmingly comprised of Israelis with conscience - three and four weeks back where there were mass arrests, this protest was relatively benign.

However, two weeks ago the colonists came to the tent of Sheikh Jarrah evictee, the indomitable and personable Nasser Ghawi to beat the crap out of him, fought off and stymied in this they returned on their Sabbath holy day to finish the task but injured a French activist instead, there are two tents where the evicted Kurd and Ghawi families live and sleep; in the case of the Kurd family at the side of their lost house and in the case of the Ghawi family on the pavement oppossite their, again, lost dwelling. To forestall these regular attacks or at least to give warning, internationals keep watch 24 hours a day and sleep on a rota basis in the same tents - last Friday night there were activists from Tel Aviv, Germany, UK, Afghanistan, the US and France.

On Saturday morning, it was good to witness Palestinian sumoud or steadfastness in action when I was wakened by the tent being readied for their childrens school lessons. Life goes on here in severe constraint and under the cosh and guns of the Israeli police, IOF and colonists but the nonviolent resistance goes even more so; powerful, deep, undimmed and awesome.

by TD - FPC Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:29

Life Under the Tent & Settler Rocks

Caption: Video Id: k7OOaAgJfQE Type: Youtube Video
Sheikh Jarrah Protest : Life Under the Tent & Settler Rocks

by TD - FPC Mon Jan 11, 2010 14:53

The stink of corruption and criminality isn't confined to Fianna Fail and the Catholic Church in Ireland, for CRH has wafted it over here to Palestine where through its Israeli subsidiary, Nesher Cement, it provides a large portion of the cement for the construction of the Apartheid/Annexation Wall and illegal colony-settlements in the West Bank. To boot, subject to Israeli monopoly clearance, it has acquired Hanson Israel "Israel's 2nd largest building materials company, which operates illegal quarries, asphalt, aggregate and cement factories in the Occupied West Bank" http://www.ipsc.ie/
CRH (formerly known as Cement Roadstone Holdings) is clearly complicit in the breaking of international law in its activities in the West Bank, specifically, the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice which ruled in 2004 that the Wall was illegal, had to be torn down and reparations paid to the Palestinians.
The Irish Times reported on Jan 5th last that: "CRH profit to fall 55% in 2009" http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0105/...6.htm and it was these propitious tidings that stimulated Iyad Burnat, head of Bil'in's Popular Commitee, to launch a further withering verbal attack on CRH's complicity in Israeli war crimes at the Wall during last Friday's protest in Bil'in.

Wikipedia reports that: A tribunal of inquiry set up by the Irish Government to investigate corrupt payments to politicians, discovered that between 1987 and 1994, a private, unlicenced bank had been operated from the registered offices of CRH by its chairman, Des Traynor. It was further found that eight directors of CRH had control of accounts in this bank. These directors were:Tony Barry, James Culliton, Michael Dargan, Gerald Hickey, Diarmuid Quirke, Desmond Traynor, Robert Willis and Richard Wood. The scheme was run in conjunction with Guinness Mahon Bank and Ansbacher Cayman Bank. Its founding purpose was to avoid currency exchange controls, but was later used to facilitate personal tax evasion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRH_plc

Malodorous as all this is, CRH aggravates the stench further with the hum of hypocrisy as it purports on its website to comply with the “highest standards of corporate and social responsibility.”

Photo: Hamde Abu Rahma

This activist sustained a shoulder injury from a gun fire tear gas canister

IOF attempting to arrest an Israeli Anarchist Against the Wall - happily, the attempt failed

Iyad Burnat in distress after being tear gassed

Caption: Video Id: -Hrv0hBrp6o Type: Youtube Video
Bil'in protests against CRH & Egypt's Wall of Death

by Jimmy Mon Jan 11, 2010 15:40

Alison Weir, executive director of If Americans Knew lacerates Bono in a Counterpunch article for his ill informed whining in the New York Times: "I’ll place my hopes on the possibility — however remote at the moment — that...people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi."

Ms Weir informs Ireland's most notorious preachy hypocrite that: Your hope has already been fulfilled in the Palestinian territories. Unfortunately, these Palestinian Gandhis and Kings are being killed and imprisoned.

The first Palestinian Gandhi to be rounded up in this recent purge was young Mohammad Othman, taken on Sept. 22 when he was returning home from speaking in Norway about nonviolent strategies to oppose Israeli oppression and land confiscation. He has now been held for 107 days without charges, much of it in solitary confinement.

The second was Abdallah Abu Rahma, a schoolteacher (from Bil'in) and farmer taken from his home on Dec. 10, the only one to be charged with a crime. After holding him for several days, Israel finally came up with a charge: “illegal weapons possession” – referring to the peace sign he had fashioned out of the spent teargas cartridges and bullets that Israel had shot at nonviolent demonstrators. (One such cartridge pierced the skull of Tristan Anderson, an American who was photographing the aftermath of a nonviolent march, causing part of his right frontal lobe to be removed.) ... Full article on link.

by Fred Johnston Mon Jan 11, 2010 20:46

This is the Bono who has given away millions of his own personal wealth to charities in impoverished countries and who intends to do a U2 concert in aid of the refugees in Gaza? Thought not.

by Iyad Burnat - Bilin Popular Committee Mon Jan 11, 2010 20:48

As head of Bil'in's Popular Committee, I ask all activists in Ireland and particularly the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign to increase the pressure on CRH through pickets of their HQ in Dublin, petitions, public awareness flyers, etc, as with the recent dramatic drop in that company's profits they are now vulnerable. A similar campaign against Veolia has already yielded results with that rogue outfit losing billions worth of contracts worldwide through its involvement in the illegal East Jerusalem tramway.

Caption: Video Id: c4E1ENvkYMU&feature Type: Youtube Video
Bilin weekly demo. 08.01.2010. By Haitham Al Katib-media. Coordinator of f.f.j

by Fred Johnston Mon Jan 11, 2010 20:50

By the way, Tommy, yours is the best and most on-the-spot reporting we're getting over here, so congratulations to you, highly commendable. CRH . . . well, how can we be surprised?

by TD - FPC Tue Jan 12, 2010 11:03

Last night in an accelerating campaign of arrests and sheer terror raids by the Israeli Occupation Forces on Bil'in, the home of 22 year old Yaseen Mohammed Yaseen was raided at 3.14am approx where he was arrested, bundled into the back of a jeep and ferried to the military checkpoint at the nearby Apartheid Wall. Yaseen was arrested for ostensibly stone throwing at one of the Bil'in's Friday weekly demonstrations at the Wall, this followed hard on the heels of several previous failed attempts to do so, what is chilling is the cold dedication of the IOF to terrorise and cow the villagers of Bil'in into submission and to spare no effort to suppress any resistance to the occupation, for some 35-40 soldiers infiltrated the village through the olive groves between the village and Wall, all this effort for a young man whose real "crime" was particitating in the nonviolent demonstrations but who grew tired of running and wishing for closure returned to the village last week knowing the high risk involved as Israel's "internal security" Shabak forces have informers seeded in the community. Yaseen didn't know why the IOF were hunting him but the usual suspect, catch all charge was stone throwing which brings jail sentences of nine months or more in Israel's draconian and corrupt judicial system for the Occupied Territories and Yaseen also knew of the IOF's ruthless framing of some of his fellow villagers and maybe he should have kept evading his hunters but he was tired, tired of running: Mohammed Khatib, a member of Bil'in's Popular Committee was charged with stone throwing which he easily refuted when he proved he was abroad at the time of the alleged offence on a speaking tourAlso, media coordinator of the Committee, Abdallah Abu Rahma is currently in Israeli custody pending his trial for "possession of arms" - spent tear gas canisters collected at the Wall for display to the many fact finding internationals visiting Bil'in.

Yesterday, in Ramallah an arrest was effected which has put the international activists in Bil'in on tenterhooks: Eva Novákováa a 28 year old Czech national and media coordinator with the International Solidarity Movement was lifted from her Manara square apartment at 3am by the IOF and Israel's special "Oz" immigration task force and she awaits deportation. Maan News reports that: Her attorney, Omer Shatz, said Israel's alleged use of its special "Oz" unit was illegal. "This arrest is part of the continued and illegal use of the immigration police against activists, for political purposes," Shatz said in an ISM statement. Immigration police, in general, work under the explicit authority of the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, Shatz added, and thus would have no business operating in Palestinian cities (Link).

Three weeks ago, Bil'in's international house was raided by the IOF and Shabak and now it appears the "Oz" unit in tow - no arrests were effected as all the internationals on Israelis visas were within the prescribed time period.

Aftermath of the arrest

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IOF Night Raid on Bil'in : Yaseen Mohammed Yaseen Arrested

by TD - FPC Tue Jan 12, 2010 20:57

Nawal Akram

Photos: EAPPI activist Miranda Pinch (Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel)

by Conor Sun Jan 17, 2010 03:12

Thank you T.D for all of your up to date reporting & coverage. Keep it up, solidarity.

by David L - IPSC (pers cap) Sun Jan 17, 2010 14:29

To echo the others - thanks a million Tommy for your reporting and work out there in the West Bank. In the IPSC, we're responding to the Palestinian call to focus on CRH, which is helping build the apartheid wall and settlements. We're rolling out a campaign, asking folks to divest from CRH, councils to rethink giving them contracts etc while they are engaged in illegal activities in Israel. Part of this is on-the-streets action, but the campaign is going to have to work on all levels to succeed.