Arrests in Jerusalem

As it happens, people whom I know here in Jerusalem have been affected by the arbitrariness and partiality of the police in two recent instances. On Friday, July 9, during the weekly demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah against the establishment of Jewish settlers in houses formerly occupied by Palestinians (who have been evicted from their homes of several decades), eight people were arrested by the police for attempting to leave the usual place where the police permit them to demonstrate and go to the houses from which the Palestinian families have been evicted. As far as I know, no one whom I knew was arrested there, but several people I know were roughed up by the police in the course of their pushing back the demonstrators. People whom I trust who are involved in these demonstrations have told me of the partiality that the police show towards the demonstrators - they refuse to interact with them in any way (for example, by talking to them), they do not obey court orders which permit the demonstrators to go to the houses that have been occupied by the settlers (and in front of which the evicted Palestinian families have set up tents to live in), and they act roughly and sometimes quite violently towards peaceful protesters. The police appear to have taken the side of the settlers.

Then, today, a friend of mine, Anat Hoffman, was arrested at the Western Wall (Kotel) when she was participating in the monthly prayer service by the Women of the Wall (נשות הכותל). This is a group that has existed for over twenty years, since 1988, with the goal of leading a normal morning prayer service in the women's section of the Western Wall - including the wearing of tallitot (prayer shawls) and reading from the Torah, which is normally done on Rosh Hodesh (the first day of a Jewish month, which is today). Over the years the group has been attacked physically by Haredim - I remember times when I was in Israel from 1988-89 that they threw chairs at the women, cursed them, threw bags of garbage at him, physically pushed them, etc. (At one prayer service that I attended I was knocked down twice because I was wearing a tallit). Eventually, the Israeli supreme court ruled that the group could pray at the Kotel (Western Wall), but without wearing tallitot and reading from the Torah. To do that, they have to go outside the Western Wall plaza to an area under what is called Robinson's Arch (after the archaeologist who discovered it) - it is a continuation of the western wall of the Temple Mount but it has not been turned into an open-air ultra-Orthodox synagogue, which the Kotel area has been. The police have forbidden the women, for the last several months, from taking the Torah scroll out of its container while they are still in the Western Wall plaza. Today, apparently, Anat did take the scroll out before they arrived at Robinson's Arch, and the police arrested her. She spent several hours in a police station in the Old City and was ordered not to return to the Kotel area for the next 30 days.
Update: She's also apparently being fined 5000 NIS!

Both of these incidents are testimony to the ascendancy of right-wing religious forces in Israel. The settlements in Sheikh Jarrah are funded by a rich American Jewish businessman, Irving Moskowitz, and the people who live in them are right-wing religious Zionists. The fact that the Women of the Wall even need police protection is because of the violence of the Haredim, right-wing religious Jews who are usually anti-Zionist. If Israel is to survive as a democratic state, both of these kinds of religious right-wing forces need to be defeated.

Palestinian rights in Lebanon

I just found a rather astonishing article (to me) on the Ma'an news agency web site (Ma'an is a Palestinian news agency). This is a report on a new law being presented on the rights of Palestinians in Lebanon (there are 425,000 Palestinians in Lebanon). "According to UNRWA, the UN body set up to assist Palestinian refugees, officially registered Palestine refugees born in Lebanon were allowed by law to work in the clerical and administrative sectors for the first time in 2005. However, refugees remain unable to work in some professions, for example, as doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, or accountants." Read the article for the various other rights that Palestinians in Lebanon do not possess. I note this article not in an attempt to excuse Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and Gaza or discrimination against Arab Israelis, but simply to point out that Palestinians are mistreated across the Middle East. (I believe that of the Arab countries with Palestinian refugees, only Jordan has granted them citizenship).

Lebanese coalition to present bill on Palestinian rights

Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – A coalition of Lebanese political parties will soon resent a two-part draft law on Palestinian refugees’ rights to work and buy health insurance, the Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat reports.

The March 14 coalition’s draft bill will not tackle the issue of Palestinian ownership of property rights, as the issue is being discussed by Lebanon’s parliamentary administration and justice committee, the daily reported.

The bill calls for helping Palestinian refugees attain work permits, as many are currently barred from several professions under Lebanese law. Lebanon’s parliament was divided last month over a bill granting Palestinian refugees civil rights, put forward by MP Walid Jumblatt.

On 15 June, parliament speaker Nabih Berri adjourned an extraordinary parliament session in which Jumblatt proposed the draft law.

According to Lebanese news site Now Lebanon, Hezbollah and Amal voted in favor of the bill while deputies from the Kataeb, Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement voted against.

Jumblatt, in turn, addressed the parliament following the vote, saying, “If you want to postpone dealing with the problem, then do so. But the problem will still be [unresolved],” the news site quoted him as saying.

He also slammed the right-wing parties in the parliament and said, “I have not seen anyone dumber than [those parties].”

Shortly after, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri called for national unity on the conferring of civil rights to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

“There are humanitarian, social and ethical duties, and the Lebanese state should assume the responsibility of providing them to the Palestinian brothers,” Hariri was quoted as saying in the Lebanese Daily Star. “Lebanon will not dodge these duties, which must be crystal-clear, and not be subject to any misinterpretation.”

The premier said he was committed to obtaining a cross-party agreement in exchange for security cooperation from various Palestinian factions, responsible for upholding law and order in the country’s 12 refugee camps.

Following the bill’s proposal, PLO representative to Lebanon Abdallah Abdallah said there was no intent for Palestinians to ask for political rights or access to state social services. “What the Palestinians want is the right to work like any other foreign nationals,” he said at the time.

Approximately 425,000 refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with many living in the country’s 12 refugee camps. According to UNRWA, the UN body set up to assist Palestinian refugees, officially registered Palestine refugees born in Lebanon were allowed by law to work in the clerical and administrative sectors for the first time in 2005.

However, refugees remain unable to work in some professions, for example, as doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, or accountants.

In February, Fatah's Secretary-General in Lebanon, Sultan Abul Enayn, publicly confirmed his resignation from his post over a failure of the Palestinian leadership to heed his warnings of increasingly grim circumstances faced by Palestinian refugees.

Another ship to Gaza

Conflicting reports on whether the Libyan ship going to Gaza will try to land there or in Al Arish, Egypt.

Gaza aid ship to dock in Egypt after Israel pressure (BBC)

Israeli Arab MIK: Libyan aid ship won't change course, headed for Gaza (Haaretz)

Hopefully, it will land in Egypt, and there won't be another debacle at sea.

Sheikh Jarrah demonstration

Last Friday afternoon I went to the weekly demonstration at Sheikh Jarrah - an Arab neighborhood in east Jerusalem where Jewish settlers have taken over houses where Palestinians have been living for decades. The demonstration last week was peaceful, but that was not true yesterday, as I heard from several people who were there, who got shoved and elbowed by the Border Police. According to my friends, the police are openly on the side of the settlers and are uniformly hostile to the leftist demonstrators.

See this report in Haaretz: 'Unprecedented police brutality' at East Jerusalem protest.

Some 300 left-wing activists clashed with police on Friday during the weekly protest at the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Ten activists were detained and held for questioning over blocking roadways and failing to comply with police instructions. Every weekend, Israeli protesters demonstrate alongside the Arab locals against settler activity in the Arab neighborhood. The demonstrators decry the settlers' takeover of several homes in the area.

Participating in Friday's protest were renowned Israeli author David Grossman and former Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On.
The clash erupted when demonstrators tried to make their way to the contested homes in the neighborhood. Gal-On and Grossman said that they were pushed aggressively by police officers. Gal-On said that "it was one of the more violent events. We wanted to enter the neighborhood, but the police brutality was unprecedented." "They pushed, and I too got hit," Gal-On went on to say. "They just kicked the young people who were lying on the ground."

Gal-On added that former attorney general Michael Ben-Yair pleaded with the police to calm the situation, but they were uncooperative.

Some six weeks ago, several hundred Hebrew University students and lecturers marched from the Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem to Sheikh Jarrah in protest over the settlers' takeover of local residents' homes. The protest march included such prominent professors as Ze'ev Sternhell, Yaron Ezrahi, Ariel Hirschfeld and others.

The protesters carried signs calling for and end to settlements in East Jerusalem. "Democracy stops at Sheikh Jarrah," some signs said, while others read "stop ethnic cleansing."

Update tonight from Ynet:

8 Sheikh Jarrah protesters ordered to keep away for 2 weeks

Eight Sheikh Jarrah protesters arrested Friday during demonstrations have been ordered to stay away from the neighborhood for two weeks. Police said indictments against the eight would be submitted. Protesters complained Friday that even though their demonstration was passive, police used violent means against them when they tried to approach the Shimon HaTzadik compound. (Shmulik Grossman)

See also the report in Ynet from yesterday: Leftists Clash with Police in Sheikh Jarrah

Yemenite Jews in Silwan

I don't agree with the political point of view expressed here (Point of no return: The truth about the Yemenite village of Silwan), but the information about Yemenite Jews settling in Silwan in the 1880s is correct. To quote from Wikipedia:

In 1882, a group of Jews arrived from Yemen as a result of messianic fervor. Initially they were not accepted by the Jews of Jerusalem and lived in destitute conditions supported by the Christians of the Swedish-American colony, who called them Gadites. In 1884, the Yemenites moved into new stone houses at the south end of the Arab village, built for them by a Jewish charity called Ezrat Niddahim. This settlement was called Kfar Hashiloach or the Yemenite Village. Construction costs were kept low by using the Shiloach as a water source instead of digging cisterns. An early 20th century travel guide writes: In the “village of Silwan, east of Kidron … some of the fellah dwellings [are] old sepulchers hewn in the rocks. During late years a great extension of the village southward has sprung up, owing to the settlement here of a colony of poor Jews from Yemen, etc. many of whom have built homes on the steep hillside just above and east of Bir Eyyub,”

The Yemenite Jews living in Silwan were evacuated on advice of the British authorities in 1938, during the Arab revolt. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Silwan was annexed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It remained under Jordanian occupation until 1967, when Israel captured the Old City and surrounding region. Until then, the village had delegates in the Jerusalem City Council. (For the footnotes and sources, go to the original Wikipedia article).

See this article, also from the Jewish Refugees blog: Yemenites Lived in Jerusalem since 1881.

To make my political position clear: it's true that there were Yemenite Jews living in Silwan until 1938, and the property they were living on was owned by Jews. It was, however, lost to Israel in the 1948 war, as was all of the Old City. At the same time, Arabs had to leave the Arab neighborhoods of what is now called West Jerusalem, most notably Baka and Katamon. The houses on the street I am currently living on in Baka appear to me to have mainly been built before 1948 (judging by the housing style). The house I am living is a renovated Arab house. If it is morally correct that the Yemenite Jews (or their descendants) should be permitted to return to Silwan, then why is it not equally morally correct for the Arabs of Baka and Katamon (or their descendants) to return and reclaim their houses? I oppose both returns, even though I think that there is a good moral case to be made in both cases, because we are living in the present, not in the past. In our present, the only possible solution, in my opinion, to the situation in Jerusalem, is to enable the city eventually to be the capital of both Palestine and Israel. In order for that to happen, there has to be a recognizably Arab part of the city which would be Palestine's capital. Jews resettling in Silwan or in Sheikh Jarrah are making that much more difficult, if not impossible.

Your tax dollars at work

Tax-Exempt Funds Aiding West Bank Settlements - An important article in the New York Times abut how Americans have sent tax-deductible contributions to settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem at the same time as the U.S. government has consistently viewed the settlements as an obstacle to peace. See the graphic below of the groups who have sent money and volunteers to the settlements.

The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence

Good column today by Nicholas Kristof on the Israeli occupation, especially what's happening in the southern Hebron hills area: The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence.

As he ends his article: "Israel has a point when it argues that relinquishing the West Bank would raise real security concerns. But we must not lose sight of the most basic fact about the occupation: It’s wrong."