Just Vision - Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians as seen by a local boy

This is the documentary film, My Neighbourhood, made by Just Vision from The Guardian website:

Palestinian snowman and the Zionist strawman

Actually it's not just snowmen that Palestinians have been building in snow covered occupied Jerusalem.  There's definitely a snowwoman in there somewhere.  These photos are from the Palestine Center website:

Here is Manger Square in Bethlehem where the church of the nativity, the site of the first Christmas, is seen in the background along with a snow dusted Christmas tree.

 

Not too far from Manger Square snow accumulates on an iconic key above the entrance to a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem.

 

Moving north, Bab Al-Amood, or the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem, which has withstood much throughout its long and storied history, face flurries in this shot.

 

Bab al-Khalil, or the Jaffa Gate, is seen here.
  
 Through the gates and behind the walls, the crown jewel of Jerusalem's skyline, the Dome of the Rock, can be seen here amidst surrounding snow covered domes.

 

What is more majestic than that moment when the sunlight hits Jerusalem? That same moment in the snow.

What's this? A Palestinian snow man visits the Dome of the Rock.

To the north, a Palestinian stands atop the iconic lions of Ramallah covered in snow.

While snow is certainly a welcome distraction for life under occupation, it is also a vehicle for political expression. This Palestinian snowman commemorates the Nakba, or the depopulation of Palestine in 1948.

 

Here, a kufiyeh wraps the image of a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike atop the snow.

Some took to creating snowmen to express loyalty to one Palestinian political faction or another. Here is a Hamas snowman.

Another snowman, draped in a Fateh scarf, comes complete a with kufiyeh on its head shaped the way Yasser Arafat made famous.

While some used the snow to show their party allegiance, others used it as a call for unity and reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

Some snowmen wanted nothing to do with politics at all.

 

And why should men have all the fun? This snow woman, or snowmaneh as the Facebook caption on her photo reads, chills in the shade in Bethlehem.

And here's the strawman.

Defeated at the UN Israel creates more racist facts on the ground

Lost a war on Gaza, lost a vote at the UN, what's the last of the colonial settler states to do? Build more Jewish only houses and apartments in the West Bank and Jerusalem, that's what.  Here's Chris McGreal at The Guardian:

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has ordered the construction of thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories in what will be widely interpreted as retaliation for theUnited Nations vote to recognise a Palestinian state on Thursday.

Israeli officials said the construction would expand existing West Bank settlements and build more homes for Jews in occupied east Jerusalem, where the government is attempting to diminish the proportion of Arab residents. Netanyahu also ordered the speeding up of planning to link Jerusalem with a Jewish settlement, Ma'aleh Adumim, in a move that would cut deep into a future Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. The US and Europe have long asked the Israeli government not to build there.

The US and Europe have long asked the Israeli government not to build there? Well they could always stop funding Israel (US), associating with Israel (EU), providing Israel with diplomatic cover (US/EU). It looks like the tide is turning against Israel but will the EU and US turn against Israel? It will happen one day but not just yet.

British company JCB and the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem

From UK charity, War on Want:

TAKE ACTION: STOP JCB EQUIPMENT DESTROYING HOMES IN SILWAN

At 6am on Monday February 13^th, the Israeli authorities demolished the Madaa creative centre and children’s playground in Silwan, East Jerusalem. The demolitions, which will make way for a controversial tourist site, were carried out using UK-made JCB equipment.

WAR ON WANT HAS WRITTEN TO JCB demanding an investigation of the use of JCB equipment to demolish Palestinian homes and communities in Jerusalem. We're asking supporters to show solidarity with Silwan by EMAILING JCB and writing on the JCB FACEBOOK PAGE. 

The playground was the last children’s play area in Silwan, and built with funding from the American NGO MECA for Peace. This demolition comes on top of eviction orders which have been issued to 88 families in the Silwan area. The Silwan district of East Jerusalem now faces the biggest mass evictions since 1967, with over 1,000 people set to be displaced. Any such demolitions are prohibited by the fourth Geneva Convention and therefore illegal under international humanitarian law.

The world is watching what is happening in Silwan. It is up to us to show the Israeli authorities that the international community condemns any further demolitions or use of intimidation in Silwan. This is critical, since the community in Silwan will be rebuilding the playground and creative centre in time for their Mother’s Day celebrations in March. 

VISIT THE MECA FOR PEACE WEBSITE to write to the Israeli officials responsible for the area condemning the demolitions in Silwan.

Please FOLLOW @SAVESILWAN for action updates and news from Silwan.

And here's the Morning Star.

OECD collaborates with the occupation but don't tell anyone

I think that's the position. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is holding a tourism conference in Jerusalem which is bang out of order when you think about it because the international consensus is that Israel is illegally occupying Jerusalem and the OECD is an official international body. Well typically the Israelis have started bragging that the situating of the conference in occupied territory means the conferment of legitimacy which of course seems to be a correct interpretation. Well this has caused some embarrassment to the General Secretary of the OECD. Here's Ha'aretz:

Angel Gurria, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), sent a harsh letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that due to comments made by Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov (Yisrael Beitenu), the decision to hold a tourism conference in Jerusalem could be hindered.

Misezhnikov said in an interview with Haaretz on Monday that although some countries have cancelled their participation in the OECD conference to be held in Jerusalem later this month, the fact that most countries have not cancelled their participation is a show of support for Israel's territorial claims in Jerusalem.

It's interesting that the OECD is so put out by this because by holding their conference in Jerusalem they are clearly poking even minimalist Palestinian aspirations in the eye but the OECD still wants to play ball with Israel:

Gurria wrote in the letter that he demanded clarifications regarding Misezhnikov's comments and claimed that the OECD had made it known to Israel that their decision to hold the conference in Jerusalem was not meant to have political implications.

The Secretary-General protested the fact that Misezhnikov had linked the conference to political issues and said that the incident could hinder the planning of future conferences in Israel.

Now I don't know how often these conferences take place but with 30 members why do they have to be considering now whether or not to hold future conferences in Jerusalem? It would appear that the spectre of not holding future conferences in Jerusalem is a gambit to go ahead and support Israel's claim on Jerusalem whilst appearing to take action against it. Unless Israel digs in and embarrasses the OECD still further, the scheduled conference will take place in Jerusalem and the location of future conferences will be largely forgotten.

I hope I'm wrong of course and, according to the Ha'aretz article, the UK and Spain are actually boycotting the conference this time around specifically because it is being held in Jerusalem.

Protest against an ethnic cleanser in London

URGENT ACTION: Protest against Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Monday 22nd March, 5pm, London

Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem behind the announcement of 1,600 new settlement units in East Jerusalem, will be visiting London early next week. A total of 50,000 housing units have planned in the coming years - doubling the settler population - and reducing the Palestinian population to a third. Israel's plans to restore Hurva synagogue a few hundred meters from Al-Aqsa mosque has led to clashes over the last few days - men under 50 have been refused entry into Al-Aqsa since Friday. Israel has deployed some 3,000 security forces across the city.

He will be speaking at Chatham House (10 St James's Square, London SW1Y 4LE). Come along and protest against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem.

Organised by: Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, British Muslim Initiative, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Friends of Al Aqsa; Friends of Lebanon, Friends of Sabeel UK, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine, Britain Palestine Twinning Network.

You can let Chatham House know what you think about their recent briefing ‘Jerusalem: the Cost of Failure' and the event by ringing 020 7957 5700 or emailing: contact@chathamhouse.org.uk.

Palestine Solidarity Camoaign

Ha'aretz demands right of return for Palestinians

Well not all Palestinians, just the ones whose ethnic cleansing

paints Israel in the world's eyes as a country that maintains a cruel regime of occupation, oppresses the weak and strives to create political facts in the disputed city under the guise of the "rule of law."

The Ha'aretz editorial really shows the cleft stick that liberal/left zionists find themselves in.

Israel has evicted thousands of times more than just two Palestinian families. Ethnic cleansing is one of the pillars on which the State of Israel stands. Whoever writes for Ha'aretz knows this. Look:

A democratic state that strives for peace and justice simply has no right to uproot families who became refugees in 1948.

Where was the writer in 1967? Does he or she not know that the 67 war was accompanied by another bout of ethnic cleansing by Israel. Many of the victims of that round were refugees from 1948. And when did Israel ever strive for peace?

But there's more:

No thinking person will be persuaded that Jews have a sweeping right to return to their homes in East Jerusalem as long as Israeli law not only bars Palestinians from returning to their homes in West Jerusalem, but even evicts them from the houses where they have lived for the last 60 years. The Israel Lands Administration's regulations do not even allow Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to buy land and houses in many parts of the city.

Are they saying that the average Israeli is unthinking? Or are they saying that Gideon Levy is an average Israeli?

It is impossible to ignore the injustices of 1948 while hundreds of thousands of refugees rot in the camps. No agreement will hold water without a solution to their plight, which is more feasible than Israel's strident scaremongers suggest. But rulings like the current one make it harder to distinguish clearly between Sheikh Jarrah and Sheikh Munis, between the conquest of 1948 and the conquests of 1967. My house stands on land stolen by force, and it is the obligation of Israel and the world to redress the injustice without creating injustice and new dislocation. My house stands on land that was stolen, but the whole world has recognized the Jews' right to establish their state there. At the same time, no country in the world has recognized Israel's right to conquer Sheikh Jarrah as well.

The world? Was it really the whole world?

In my morning musings on the way to the pool, I sometimes think about the land's original owners. I long for the day when Israel takes moral and material responsibility for the injustice done to them. Now, because of the court ruling, my right to continue to swim here may also be in doubt.

The world can always change its mind, can't it?

Tehran shows Palestine the love; now how bout the Saudis?

From Stop the Wall:

Tehran drops Veolia from city transport network
Worldwide Activism, Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, June 17th, 2009


Left: The light rail cuts through Jerusalem, linking the surrounding settlements.


Following pressure from BNC, the mayor of Tehran announced that Veolia would no longer have a key role in city's urban transport system. This victory in Iran, along with others France, UK, Sweden, and Holland, has cost Veolia an estimated $7 billion in lost contracts and were key in pushing the company to leave the Jerusalem light rail project.

Veolia and Alstom are both active in Iran. The Tehran Municipality and Veolia had agreed to collaborate on the implementation of some projects concerning the environment and the development of the urban transport system. Alstom has a headquarters in Tehran and received a number of large contracts, including a 192 million euro contract with Iran's state railways in 1999 and a larger 375 million euro contract to supply 50 turbo compressors to Iran in 2002.

In April, representatives from the BNC called on Iran to back up it's rhetorical support for the Palestinian cause by acting on the BDS call and taking "the necessary steps to ban Veolia and Alstom and their subsidiaries from any contracts and operations in the country."

This demand did not go unheeded. The Islamic Human Rights Commission sent out a call in Iran, rallying students to write to Tehran’s Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, pressure him over Veolia’s role in developing the city’s transport system. IHRC also contacted Ghalibaf directly over the matter. After a week's time, Ghalibaf announced the city’s decision to cancel Veolia’s involvement in the Tehran transport project.

A big shukran to the mayor of Tehran. Wish we could say the same to the Saudi rulers. A 2008 call from the BNC for the Saudis not to deal with Alstrom was met with silence. In February it was announced that Alstrom was part of a consortium winning a contract to build part of a proposed Mekka-Medinah high-speed rail. Alstrom, which has not pulled out of the Jerusalem light rail project, of which it owns 20% (Veolia owns 5%), is in the running for the contract to build the rest of the Mekka-Medinah line.

Grass roots pressure cost Veolia 7 billion dollars. It convinced the mayor of Tehran. Here's how you can help nudge the Saudis into doing the right thing by Palestine:

Prevent Alstom from building the Haramain Express Railway

With friends like Saudi Arabia, who needs enemies

Saudi Arabia awarded $1.8 billion dollars to a consortium that would build a rail link between Mecca and Medina. One company in the consortium is the French Alstom, which is also building a light rail that will connect the Jewish settlements around Jerusalem to the city center. The rail link will be another important step in the colonization of the Jerusalem center, enabling Jewish settlers to avoid the overcrowded, badly maintained and often blocked roads left to Palestinians. The rail will of course make the settlements around Jerusalem more attractive for Jewish Israeli settlers. The project involves the Israeli government and the French contractors in making permanent changes to the infrastructure of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids, without any military necessity but to facilitate the illegal colonization.

There is a campaign against the companies, mostly Veolia and Alstom, in Europe and Australia, which includes both lawsuits in France and popular appeals for boycotts. This campaign has already bore fruits, with the involved companies losing a number of big contracts and being excluded from pensions funds. The Australian ASN Bank divested from Veolia, and so did the Swedish National pension fund. Likewise, Veolia lost a $1.9 billion waste improvement plan with the Sanswell Metropolitan Borough, the contract to operate the subway in Stockholm and an urban Network in Bordeau (Nadia Hijab, The Israel Boycott is Biting). Saudi Arabia has other priorities.

It is noteworthy that, According to Gulf News, Palestinian authority officials, despite usually supporting normalization with Israel, are involved in putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to rescind that contract. If the U.S.-E.U.-Israel effort to normalize the occupation cannot rely even on Mahmoud Abbas's "authority" to stand against the global anti-apartheid movement, that is bad news for Israel.

As it were, at least according to Gulf News, the "authority"'s pressure is somewhat underwhelming.

Palestinian foreign ministry officials have expressed reservation at a recent Saudi announcement awarding the contract for the Haramain Express railway to a consortium consisting of French company Alstom Transport....Backchannel talks with the Saudis are ongoing," a Palestinian foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Not exactly a profile in leadership, but significant nonetheless.