From: "mart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
from www.communards.org
Collective punishment leaves 500 Palestinians homeless - from Gush
Shalom
It happened on July, 3rd: The government of Israel demands a ceasefire
- "complete, utter quiet, with not a shot fired and not a stone thrown" in
the words of Prime Minister Sharon. At the same time, settlers are allowed
to continue expanding their armed enclaves and dispossessing their
neighbors, under the protection and with the active cooperation of the
mightiest army in the Middle East.
Last night, an Israeli settler named Yair Har-Sinai was shot to death
near the settlement enclave in the south of the West Bank. Fellow-settlers,
who were today very extensively interviewed, told two things about him: that
unlike other settlers, he did not carry a gun and claimed to be in favor of
coexistence; and that more than any other settler, he was zealous in
constantly staking a claim to "state lands", i.e. confiscated Palestinian
lands, day and night herding his sheep on them so as "to make them into
Jewish lands in practice" - which, from their point of view, is the highest
praise possible.
One could feel sorry for this misguided man, as for the
ever-increasing number of victims which are claimed by the violent whirlwind
of the past nine months. But any impartial observer would have to admit that
Har-Siani's two attributes were in flat contradiction to each other. You
just can't be a seeker after coexistence, much less an unarmed pacifist, and
at the same time actively engaged in disposing your neighbors. Har-Sinai
died of that contradiction.
This happened last night. This morning, just hours after Har-Sinai's
body was found, Israeli military forces entered into neighboring Palestinian
villages, systematically blowing up houses and the caves in which many of
the poor Palestinian peasants of this area have their dwellings, destroying
terraces and filing up wells. Some 500 people were rendered homeless. Full
details are as yet not available, since the army surrounds the whole area,
allowing in neither human rights field workers nor even the Red Cross which
offered to provide tents to the newly-dispossessed families.
This was, clearly, an act of collective punishment, in flagrant
violation of international law. It was also something even worse - using a
killing as a pretext for continuing the implementation of a long-lasting,
comprehensive plan of dispossession. Already in 1982, the whole area - some
86,000 dunums - had been declared "a closed military zone" and the
Palestinians residing in it ordered to leave, so as to make place for the
creation of Israeli settlements.
They refused to live the string of small villages, often consisting of
caves rather than houses, where their ancestors had lived for hundreds of
years: Wad Rakhaim, Karbet al-Nabi, Imnaizel, al-Shatneh and Kharbet
al-Sussia (the name of the last, as well as its lands, were appropriated for
the Israeli settlement created nearby). For the past two decades they had
been living precariously on the fragments left of their land, subject to
harassment and constant encroaching by the settlers. Now, it seems, the
killing is being used in order to complete the work of dispossession. (For
some of the above information we are indebted to the Palestinian human
rights organization Al-Haq ).
This tragic and infuriating affair illustrates as nothing else the
deadlock in which we are. The government of Israel demands a ceasefire -
"complete, utter quiet, with not a shot fired and not a stone thrown" in the
words of Prime Minister Sharon. At the same time, settlers are allowed to
continue expanding their armed enclaves and dispossessing their neighbors,
under the protection and with the active cooperation of the mightiest army
in the Middle East.
Weary as you may be of our asking you again and again to send protest
messages still it is needed again. You can by doing so give an immediate and
powerful starting signal to the further struggle from within. You may use
the sample letter later in this message or make your own, and send it by
email and/or by fax to your choice (or all) of the following addresses. (We
have to warn you, that not all the email addresses may remain accessible
during this campaign, but many of them will go through.)
Protest Letter
For information about Gush Shalom visit the website:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (including the Boycott List of Products of
Settlements) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED];
Thursday, July 5, 2001
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
