لقاء نادي طلبة الجامعات 20-9-2017

في يوم الأربعاء 20-9-2017 قامت قوة من الجيش الاسرائيلي بالتواجد في محيط مدارس ابوديس وجامعة القدس وقام الجنود باطلاق الغاز المسيل للدموع والرصاص المطاطي تجاه الطلاب والمؤسسات التعليمية حيث أضطر مدراء المدارس الى اغلاق المدارس وارسال التلاميذ الى بيوتهم، فيما لم يتمكن طلبة جامعة القدس من الوصول الى الجامعة مما عطل العديد من المحاضرات الصباحية، هذة الاعتداءات اصبحت مع بداية العام الدراسي الجديد نمط يومي حيث يتواجد الجيش الاسرائيلي بشكل شبه يومي عند مدخل جامعة القدس ويقوم الجنود بتفتيش الطلاب وتوقيفهم والتدقيق في هوياتهم مما يربك عمل الجامعة ويهدد سلامة طلبتها ويداهمون الحرم الجامعي ويطلقون قنابل الغاز داخله، وعلى الرغم من محاولات الأهالي وحرس الجامعة التدخل لوقف هذة اإعتداءات الا ان الجيش الإسرائيلي لا يكترث ولا يضع الجنود اي اعتبارات لنداءات المستمر لوقف الاعتداء وسحب الجنود من محيط المؤسسات التعليمية مما أرغم الأهالي في مناسبات عديدة الى التردد في ارسال أولادهم الى المدارس وتردد طلبة الجامعة والإلتزام بالدارسة حيث شهدت السنوات الماضية انتقال العديد من طلبة جامعة القدس الى جامعات فلسطينية اخرى وقام أولياء أمور طلبة مدارس بنقل أولادعهم الى مدارس أخرى في بلدات مجاورة خوفاً على سلامتهم.

‘Existence is resistance’Thursady 7 th of September

‘Existence is resistance’ is a slogan that you often hear about Palestine. It sounds catchy, but what does it actually mean? Since 1948, the Israeli project has effectively been to remove Palestinians from their homeland and create an Israeli-Jewish majority – often spoken about in Israeli politics today, with their concern for ensuring the ‘demographic majority’. The project is to erase Palestinians and their existence from the land.

In November 1947 violence broke out, with Israeli militias removing Palestinian families from their homes at gunpoint all over the country. When some refused to leave, such as in Deir Yassin, they were massacred. By May 1948 the Israelis felt they had made enough progress in expelling Palestinians that they made an official declaration of independence for their new State of Israel. In response, as a symbolic gesture surrounding Arab countries ‘invaded’ the new Israeli state, supposedly in order to protect their fellow Arab Palestinians. Their ‘invasion’ was a charade, with some of their armies, such as the Jordanian, specifically instructed not to fight. Only the Iraqi Legion actually fought, hence Palestinians around Nazareth and Umm-al Fahm – where the Iraqi Legion were deployed – were not removed from their homes. Elsewhere, all over Palestine, most Palestinians had been removed. As a result, the state of Israel, with its Jewish democratic majority, had been successfully created.

This was, however, not enough for Israel. Roughly a third of the country still had a Palestinian demographic majority – areas known as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. As stated, the Israeli project is to remove Palestinians in order to create a Jewish demographic majority around the whole of Palestine – or what’s considered ‘Israel’. Israeli politicians always considered the Palestinian-majority areas of Gaza and the West Bank as territories that one day would belong to Israel, and within them, have a Jewish demographic majority. This is why today, for example, the West Bank is referred to as Judea and Samaria within Israel, why maps of the country in Israel do not show the borders of the West Bank, etc.

So the Palestinian majority areas of Gaza and the West Bank were always under threat. Whilst Israel had successfully removed nearly a million Palestinians in 1947-48, Gaza was left under Egyptian control and the West Bank under Jordanian control. However, after the complete Israeli victory in the Six Day War (1967), these areas were occupied by Israel.

Under Israeli occupation, the settlements started. ‘Settlements’ are Jewish-exclusive Israeli colonies built on land confiscated from Palestinians. Palestinians are removed from their homes, which are usually demolished, and the vacated land is used for a new Israeli colony. The Israeli government creates all kinds of incentives for Jewish Israelis to move to the settlements around the West Bank: settlers are exempted from paying tax, have all their utility bills paid for, and have ample space to build large houses (compared to say, the cramped conditions of Israeli cities like Tel Aviv). Since 2005 Israel has actually withdrawn its settlements from Gaza, but this only accelerated settlement building over the West Bank. The settlement building is effectively a continuation of what started in 1947-48. Again, the Palestinians are removed from their homes and replaced by Jewish Israelis. The difference between the settlement project and the war of 1947-48 is only a difference of style; the latter was violent and fast, whilst the settlements are a slow and gradual process of removal. 

This is what ‘existence is resistance’ means: for Palestinians to just exist, to live, is itself resistance to the Israeli project which seeks to remove them from where they live, to remove their existence.

The settlement process, to create a Jewish demographic majority, is perhaps most aggressive in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is considered the key prize in Israel, with Israeli politicians often talking about how important it is for a ‘united’ Jerusalem, under full Israeli control, to be the country’s capital. Naturally this means removing the Jerusalemite Palestinians from the city they’ve lived in for thousands of years. Palestinians in Jerusalem thus live under constant threat from removal, of housing demolitions, of eviction notices, and of course, violence from the Israeli security forces.

It’s in this context that the ‘Burj Al-LuqLuq Centre’ operates. It is a kind of social centre where Palestinians can go and play sports, use computers, and do arts and crafts, among other things. It mostly caters to children, who after school, instead of just going home, can go and play football or learn karate. This might not sound spectacular, as these are fairly basic activities that people in Britain can do with ease in their everyday lives. However, in the context of living under siege, where you are under constant threat of removal, being able to use space in Jerusalem to just do things like play football or join a ceramics class really means something. It asserts a Palestinian presence within the space. Jerusalemite space is constantly contested, with Israelis seeking to control the space, to remove Palestinians from the spaces they live. So the Burj Al-LuqLuq gives Palestinians a space to occupy, to play football and make art; to live just like anyone else

There are limits to the centre of course. Many Palestinians don’t feel fully comfortable there, as it’s still on occupied land; it’s under siege and that has an obvious effect on people’s ability to feel comfortable there. The other issue that comes from the centre being under siege is that what it can do is limited. The centre’s coordinator told us that if they were going to talk about the occupation in Jerusalem, the Israelis would come and shut down the centre in two hours. If they were to declare their support for a political party, the Israelis would come and shut down the centre in ten seconds.

But even seemingly non-political actions are punished. As explained, the very existence of the centre, in occupied Jerusalem, is an act of resistance. Palestinian children playing football, occupying space in occupied Jerusalem, is an act of resistance. It is political. And as a result it is punished: three months ago, the centre’s football coach was arrested and imprisoned in administrative detention. (this is the legal loophole Israel uses to imprison Palestinians without trial and for an indeterminate period of time). It is not known when he will be released – it could be a matter of weeks, months, or even years. Of course, occupation of physical space is itself an issue in Jerusalem, so the Israelis recently came to the centre’s small greenhouse and slapped a demolition order on it, because it is supposedly a domicile, and Palestinians of course are not allowed to freely build domiciles in Jerusalem. The building is just a small greenhouse, but this issue is indicative of the whole dynamics at work, and the punitive nature of the Occupation as a whole.

In this context, the centre is a site of bravery and resistance, and should be celebrated.

CADFA Summer School Wednesday September 6th.

CADFA Summer School Wednesday September 6^th.

Walking up the hill from our meeting centre in Abu Diss takes us around ten minutes before we come to the university campus of Al-Quds. It’s impressive. Lots of large buildings, wide walkways, architectural features. A wide depression in the paving lined by concentric rows of stone steps, like a miniature amphitheatre, has a large fountain at the centre. Many of the individual buildings and departments have been financed by wealthy diaspora Palestinians and it all looks clean, modern and efficient.

We are met by staff and students who welcome us with cool fruit juices and lots of smiles. Some of our group know the students from visits and it’s clear this is going to be a very friendly exchange.

It’s hot. We’re led into the cool of an air-conditioned room we take our places in a large circle.

We’re around 30 visitors and Al-Quds students so the first task is to break the ice and get to know each other. We introduce ourselves individually before we play a few games – funny slapstick games where we have to get up and do silly actions, eliminate each other through swift reactions, generally get to know each other and relax. .  

Our first formal meeting is with the Dean of Student Affairs who outlines the history of Al-Quds University (AQU) and its success. With over 13,000 students and several campuses the mere existence of AQU is a great achievement, given the obstacles and continual harassment by the Israeli authorities. The separation wall makes life very difficult – many students from Jerusalem and the West Bank choose to live in Abu Diss rather than endure the lengthy travel and routine humiliations of the checkpoints, but even travelling between campuses often involves passing through the checkpoints.

We’re told that Israeli soldiers can invade the campus at any time, with or more often without any form of provocation and always without warning. Such incursions are regular, as often as once a week, with tear gas grenades, rubber bullets and live rounds. We’re shown the destruction caused by some of these raids – photos of lecture halls and admin rooms filled with rubble and smashed equipment such as photocopiers. Students have been shot on the campus and it seems there is no protection, so the continual threat of violence hangs over these students, including our new friends.

There are several museums on campus and on this first day we visit two of them.

First, the Mathematics Museum. This is a large hangar-like building next to the separation wall, which adjoins the university. It’s a large space filled with interactive demonstration pieces which all illustrate various mathematical principles. There’s a chessboard with Perspex columns arranged on the squares which are filled with rice grains to illustrate exponential growth. There are pendulums, wooden rings on metal spigots, charts of numbers, all kinds of simple machines to explore. Our guide takes us though half a dozen of these, explaining the mathematical principles. It’s fun. The museum is the first of its kind in Palestine and over  eight years has seen over 250,000 visitors, mainly young children but also their families.

The second museum, a five minute walk from the first, is the Science Museum. Here again we find a succession of appliances and demonstration pieces and the museum director takes us on a tour. We see various machines grouped under themes such as electricity, audio, kinetics, visual phenomena. Many of the demonstration pieces are sophisticated and our group happily experiments with, for example, an exhibit which demonstrates the interaction of different wave forms. The bicycling skeleton is a little macabre, the chair of nails surprisingly comfy.

For lunch we’re taken to a campus / café ‘Sudfeh’, which is vegan. It’s the first vegan restaurant in Palestine and part of a project to foster animal rights. The exchange team has negotiated a special deal for us and those who stayed (several meat-cravers went elsewhere) had a treat: An outside table covered with dishes of various kinds with dips (humus, ful, baba ganoush), salad, halloumi, tomato… with plenty of bread, mint tea and cold drinks included. We couldn’t eat it all! The meat-eaters who came to eat their sandwiches nearby seemed surprised at our spread.

After lunch we all returned to Dar Assadaqa (House of Friendship), which is here the Abu Diss side of the exchange is based.

We have a rota. Each team has to take turns cooking a communal meal, and tonight is maklouba! Luckily one of the Palestinian volunteers is helping out as we need expertise for this dish.

Well, we can say that the evening meal is a great success.  Everyone has lots of delicious food, and we are joined by family members of the Abu Diss staff. Those tiny Palestinian girls can dance really well (talking about 5-year olds!

Having made various enquiries we have a general idea about how prepare maklouba, unless we’ve been misled by Ollie our man on the inside and whose identity must be kept secret:

You’ll need enough chicken pieces for everyone (1-2 each), rice, vegetables, cooking oil (not olive), salt, pepper, spices.

Clean and chop vegetables for the salad (cucumber, tomatos) nice and small.

Fry the vegetables for the dish (potatoes, cauliflower and carrots) for the main dish, remove from the pan, set aside.

Season the chicken pieces, mix with chopped onion and garlic and fry in the oil. When the pieces are well-browned, add water to cover the pieces well.

Add the vegetables. Add rice – as an estimate I’d say half as much rice by volume as the amount of water, but our informant was a little hazy on this point.

When the rice is cooked the meal is ready.

To be on the safe side I’d recommend investing in a book on middle eastern cookery – maklouba is a regional standard and I’m sure there will be less risk of failure than by following the above!

There was a fair amount to wash up but with plenty of volunteers this was soon done and our first full day was over. Tomorrow – Jerusalem!

Saturday 9 September 2017:

lecture a

lecture b

Bethlehem

church of nativity

Banksy museum

Saturday 9 September 2017:

The day began with a 9.30am meeting at Dar as-Sadaqah. We made our way to al-Quds University for a lecture about Palestine, the four main domains and the three proposed solutions.

the four main domains were as follows

1) Israeli Control under Civil Law

2) Palestinians living in Jerusalem

3) Military Law governing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza

4) Millions of Palestinians living as refugees

The solutions were as follows

1) One Democratic State Solution

2) Two State Solution

3) Bilateral State Solution

The lecture was interesting and was followed by an hour or so of questions and answers. We then took a lunch break until 1pm at which point we had a round-table discussion based on the lecture. Mutasem Al Nasr facilitated the debate focusing on increasing international pressure on the Israeli government. The topics ranged from social, political and economical pressure from grassroots movements up to lobbying MP's and local governments. Again, it was every interactive with lots of different ideas, views, questions and possible solutions being proposed. 

Following this we got into taxis and made our way to Bethlehem which was a half an hour drive passing a checkpoint on the way. We asked our Palestinian guide if passing a checkpoint still made him nervous and he replied of course it did since they could be wrongly accused for no reason. The Israeli mistreatment is so deep-rooted that people in their mid-fifties still fear passing through checkpoints that they must pass on a daily business.

Upon arriving in Bethlehem, we made our way to the Church of Nativity where Jesus was born. The historical church was bombed in 2002 by Israeli F16 jet-fighters and is still undergoing reconstruction. The church is opposite a mosque and is an example of peaceful co-existence between Christian and Muslim Palestinians. 

Following through the cobbled stoned streets in Bethleham we walked through the market, unfortunalty the market stalls were closed because of a strike, following a delayed release of a prisoner. As representative of Palestinian cities, the mosque stood opposite of the Church of the Nativity. Through the main roads another small town stood out on route called Beit Jarra. the road continued and the wall presented its ugliness. The wall increased and the road narrowed, there were derelict petrol stations and old sheds. 

Banksys museum was set inside the Walled Off Hotel, on the corner of the wall adjacent to the Watchtower. 

Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic

The Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic

The Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic, based in the Muslim Quarter of Old City in Jerusalem, exists to provide pro bono legal advice to Palestinian Jersualemites who face, amongst much else, housing and residency policies designed to discriminate against and alter the Palestinian population of Jerusalem. The purpose for these policies is to create a Palestinian minority to never exceed 40% of the city’s population, and a Jewish majority to never fall beneath 60% of the city’s population.

The two most overt and calculating tactics used by the Israeli authorities to establish these

demographic designs are, firstly, to remove housing options for Palestinians through the use of mass eviction, home demolition, purposefully inadequate construction of livable property, institutional discrimination against building permits for Palestinian applicants, and a slew of legislation with the explicit intent to deny Palestinians access to housing in Jerusalem, thus forcing them to leave the city. The second method involves a systematic and coordinated attack on the residency status of Palestinians through complex policies that impose strict conditions on Palestinians who must constantly meet draconian requirements to preserve the right to work and abide in Jerusalem, with the slightest infringement making them vulnerable to having their permanent residency status revoked and being stripped of even the token legal protection residency status affords.

The intent of the Israeli authorities to deliberately control the demographics of Jerusalem is a very explicit and transparent objective, with the Israeli government website unapologetically detailing both the design and objectives of their discriminatory policies in the publicly accessible “Israel 2020: Master Plan for Israel in the 21^st Century” which emphatically describes Palestinian land and people as “poor”, “empty” and “eligible for conquering”.

An example of the policies employed by the Israeli government to engineer shifts in the population is the Center of Life Policy, which demands Palestinians intensively demonstrate to the authorities that their working, family and personal life necessitate legal residency in the city. The standards set to demonstrate viability for residency are sufficiently obstinate that Palestinians must orient their lives around satisfying unreasonable criteria to prove residency, for example being unable to leave the city territory for longer than six months else be susceptible to having residency status revoked and property claimed by settlers. Since the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967 more than 14,500 Palestinians have had their residency status revoked. This reduction in the Palestinian population coincided with an increase in the Jewish population caused by the policy of universal citizenship offered to all Jews from abroad.

Another factor facilitating the expulsion of Palestinians and the immigration of Jews is the authorities legal support for descendents of Jews who fled Jerusalem after 1948 to reclaim abandoned property, despite the habitation of Palestinians having resided in these properties for more than half a century. While a legal argument does exist supporting the challenge that the property rightfully belongs to those forced to flee as refugees, this concern for property rights does not extend to the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who also have been forced to flee because of conflict, instability and persecution. This double standard shows clearly the design of social engineering motivating the judicial apartheid between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians.

Favouritism and categorical discrimination in the areas of planning permission, construction of housing and the allocation of municipal funds further illustrate the disparity in the attitudes of the authorities in their treatment of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. Between the divided East and West Jerusalem, the vast majority of building violations occurred in the western part of the city at 78.4% compared to 21.5% in the eastern section. Yet only 27% of buildings in West Jerusalem were subject to demolition orders compared to 84% in East Jerusalem. These disparities continue in how Jerusalem’s municipal expenditure disproportionately allocates funds between the Jewish Israeli and Palestinian populations, with almost 90% of funds going to Jewish Israeli population which accounts for 63% of the population, and approximately 10% on the Palestinian population which accounts for 37% of Jerusalem’s inhabitants. Permission to build homes shows a continuation of this state-sanctioned unequal treatment, as 93% of housing permits were issued to Jewish Israelis and only 7% to Palestinians, the latter of which is in need of an additional 43,000 housing units which could rise significantly in the future as 60,000 Palestinians are at risk of having their homes demolished.

Underlying all this is the Wall of Separation built in 2002 which divides the majority Palestinian East Jerusalem from the West Bank, thereby dividing families and communities as well as severely complicating transport and access between the two areas by the construction of an impenetrable concrete wall, guarded by high watchtowers which may openly fire upon Palestinians, and accessible to Palestinians only through heavily militarized and inhumane checkpoints. And access is only granted to those who hold a Blue I.D. card, one of two possible colours assigned to Palestinians, the other being Green which prohibits movement across the Jerusalem checkpoints. All those separated from each other have no knowledge of when they may be reunited with their loved ones.

Thus there is an urgent need for the legal empowerment of Palestinians to enable their already disadvantaged position the capacity to navigate a judicial system with the uncompromising and undisputed aim of forcing them from their homes and tearing apart their communities. 

The terminally-ill, terminal route to Jerusalem

On route to al-Aqsa today the route was complex, what is a 7 minute drive and a 3km distance from Abu Dis, took an hour and a half to get to Jerusalem. .
We took the Palestinian route through the checkpoint. It was awful.  People were herded together, surrounded by large walls, metal cages and barriers; there were cameras built all around; a watch tower nearby whilst local residents were being treated like cattle.
All the while the Israeli Military- with large automatic weapons and an air of carelessness  were sat in their ivory tower, behind bulletproof windows, sipping coffees and looking chilled out.

I saw a 2 year-old green-eyed baby. She was so cute. Her mother and father were taking turns to hold her. She had large inquisitive eyes and I could see her looking around at the walls and metal bars. It was so difficult to watch, her life at that age is getting accustomed to the kind of things she'll have to deal with on a daily basis. I was quiet and observant through the 'terminal' and I think it had a greater impact on me. I was feeling really low and upset leaving the terminal. No-one should have to endure the humiliation imposed on Palestinians

The fact that there were no personnel physically stood at the security check-in area at the terminal struck me most. There is no physical contact and the Palestinians are just expected to move on like animals when the order comes from 'above'. It was so hard to watch and be a part of. People talk and try to be normal but there is nothing normal about it though for many it is all they have ever known so maybe it could be argued that it is normal?

Palestine Summer School starts

Very happy to hear from the CADFA visitors joining the Summer School at Al Quds University that they arrived safely in Palestine yesterday and must be meeting the Palestinian participants now! In Palestine the students involved are from the Al Quds University. The UK group includes students from London universities, Hull, Southampton and others as well as  people who are not students. But all will be looking and learning and then working together to plan future activities to promote human rights.
Look here in the next 10 days for updates from the group.