A successful mission of investigation and solidarity

The Jordan Valley is a strip of land in the east of the West Bank which, from the north to the south, makes up a third of its surface area. Occupied since 1967, then classed in Zone C, under Israeli administration (except for Jericho and its surroundings) since the Oslo Accords in 1993, it has always been scrupulously separated from the rest of the West Bank. Sealed off by 11 checkpoints, including 5 partial ones, it is under total control by the colonists and the army of occupation. 95% of its lands are under Israeli control, confiscated by the Israeli army who has classed them as military zones or confiscated by colonists who control 98% of the water sources and who sell this water for a very high price to the Palestinians.

Hundreds of Palestinian hamlets and villages have disappeared, wiped off the face of the earth. The few villages left are trying to survive under a context of barbaric repression (see report on Bedouin tent destructions in the village of Fayacil) and under complete surveillance with the tight control put in place by colonists and the Israeli State. All this gives us the impression of a population at the absolute and permanent mercy of the occupant’s reign of the arbitrary. Which is why it’s almost impossible to openly resist as is the case in some West Bank areas and in Jerusalem. This state of paralysis often brings on a sense of resignation, sometimes even, for a minority, giving up all hope of a long-term change, exacerbated by the policy of “social peace” openly carried out by the Palestinian Authority – abandoning oneself to the occupation and even, for a handful, to open collaboration. Such as the “intermediaries”, veritable henchmen of the colonists charged with supervising the Palestinian laborers working in the colonies (see report on two Palestinians – a man and a young woman – working in the colonies of a village 2 km from Jericho).

The agricultural colonies spread out on each side of the main road running through the Jordan Valley, from north to south. These are the private grounds of the Israeli state company – Agrexco/Carmel, which commercializes for exportation 70% of the fruits and vegetables grown in the valley.

This 157th CCIPPP mission, the second “Agrexco/Carmel” mission, had as its primary objective to investigate the implication of Agrexco/Carmel in the process of colonization, principally in the Jordan Valley. But one does not go into occupied Palestine without manifesting one’s support and solidarity with the men and women who, face-to-face with open conflicts, show by their actions that there is no other way out than by resisting and by political solutions to injustice, to apartheid and to violations of international rights.

And so this mission participated in Jerusalem Day in support of the Palestinians of Jerusalem who are struggling against the evictions at Silwan. It protested against the unprovoked destruction of the tent, hand in hand with the family that was evicted from their house in Sheikh Jarrah (see report).

And demonstrated against the Wall at Bil’in, in the rain, hand in hand with Palestinians and internationals (including two other CCIPPP missions that were present that day).

The investigation of Agrexco/Carmel was carried out with Israeli anti-colonialists including “Who Profits” and “AIC” (see reports). Research projects were established in collaboration with these associations, based on our questions concerning Agrexco. These investigations were of course done in collaboration with our Palestinian partners, the BNC (the National BDS Committee) with which collective tasks are already engaged, but also directly in Jericho with the PGFTU (Palestinian General Federation of Worker’s Unions), which is the equivalent of the CGT in France and the UAWC (Union of Agricultural Worker’s Committees) who we met in Ramallah and who then guided our mission in the Jordan Valley, with the help of their local representatives, who are well implicated with us in the fight against Agrexco.

The different reports explain all this. We also brought back numerous pieces of information, statistics and contacts (notably in the judicial domain) which cannot be published in their present state but which will be used for the Coalition Against Agrexco’s work in the service of those for which these missions were conceived. During the mission debriefing the participants began work on the objectives and the composition of the next mission which might take place in February 2010…

JLM – CCIPP, Coalition Against Agrexco/Carmel

Meeting with Omar Barghouti and Hind Awwad, coordinator for the BDS in Palestine

After the team was introduced, we gave a report of the BDS reunion that took place the weekend before in Paris and announced that Agrexco will be taking primary importance in the BDS campaign in France, and also the actions that will be following, scheduled in France, which pleased them very much.

Omar asked us to explain to him how BDS is organized in France, which seems to him to be different, explaining how, here, the associations desiring to join BDS are obliged to:

First – sign the 2005 Call for Boycott on the official site.

Secondly – After having signed, the BDS will officially demand those signing to join it.

It is important that it is done thusly, because up till now there are very few signatories in France.

We ask Omar to explain how BDS functions in the interior of the Palestinian Territories.

The BNC organizes the coalition of numerous associations and syndicates and it’s this network that’s in charge of putting the campaign’s actions in place in each community, workplace etc. The BNC provides the strategy and organizes the network. Since the attack on GAZA, it has developed enormously and the first 172 signatories have expanded to several hundreds of thousands of mobilized workers today.

Can you confirm for us that it really was the Palestinians that demanded the boycott?

The boycott must be a general one, not only for agricultural products and technologies – but also for educational and cultural institutions.

Of course, in the Occupied Territories, the farmers are completely dependant because they’re Israel’s prisoners but, for example, the cultural boycott is complete, there are now no cultural ties whatsoever between Palestine and Israel. Some organizations have relations with the struggle but without normalization. There are also universities concerned, which considerably complicates life for their students.

Can you tell us what you mean by normalization ?

There are two conditions by which a project between Israel and Palestine can exist.

1 – That the different parties pronounce themselves in favor of basic respect for the Palestinian’s rights.

2 – That the struggle for the respect of these rights is part of their project.

For example, if a woman’s rights organization only militates for feminism, this is normalization because neither of the two precedent points are part of their project. They must therefore call for a boycott; otherwise they give a false image of the relations between Israel and the rest of the world – this is also what we call a peace industry.

What are the relations between BDS and the Palestinian Authority ?

There are no relations between BDS and the Palestinian Authority. They don’t attack us because they know that we represent a majority of the Palestinians.

Getting back to Agrexco, what can you tell us about it ?

I am not a specialist on Agrexco and you know certainly more than me on this subject.

How do the Palestinians accept the boycott ?

The organizations represent the civil population which is conscious of the price to be paid if they refuse to work for Agrexco and they totally accept this. South Africa showed us how high the price to be paid was.

To refuse to work for the colonies is to refuse to be able to live. This is how the Israelis took away all the Palestinian’s possibilities to live on their lands. Having neither lands nor tools to work them, they’re reduced to the charity offered by the United States and Europe, your country (France) paying a big part of it.

The European Union, Europe and France are accomplices to the occupation. Nevertheless, a complete daily boycott in the Occupied Territories is impossible; if you want to eat a salad, you have no choice; you are forced to buy Israeli. Therefore there is no other solution than the boycott; we must concern ourselves first with the occupation and the boycott in order to weaken the Israeli economy; all this will also have an effect on arms purchasing. As an example, Turkey recently decided to boycott causing a reduction of 44% of exportations, as is the case with Great Britain and Norway. This decision must come from the highest authorities in the countries.

Contrary to South Africa, whose richness comes from its soil, the Israeli economy is completely dependant on its foreign commerce, the interior commerce being very feeble. It is for this reason that the boycott is our solution.

We must boycott Israeli institutions because this has an enormous political impact. For example, in the European Union, the boycott of an investment funds company investing in the colonies had an immediately spectacular result.

Can you tell us of the Jerusalem Tramway project, realized by French construction companies ?

The two French companies, Veolia and Alsthom, spoke of pulling out but, as you can see today, the work continues. They’ve lost a lot of money with BDS but they’re persisting. The actions in Norway and in Great Britain, which are influential, also cost them great losses of money.

We inform them that the March for Water in France with Veolia is on the agenda and that numerous elected officials are getting mobilized for a public march and not with Veolia as is programmed in Montpellier; also of the Frêche offensive (Regional Council, Languedoc Roussillon) and his recent Zionist attacks that provoked several reactions from all over France. The fight in France is at one with that of BDS and the actions at the exterior of Israel can only contribute to a change.

Claude

Rendezvous with Who Profits (WP) Wednesday October 28th

We met with two women – Esti Micenmacher and Yona Gonen.

Who Profits is an association that is part of the “Women for Peace” coalition, which itself is made up of 10 organizations.

WP’s objective is to convince the coalition to accept the boycott, which is not yet the case for several organizations in this coalition. WP is a database on companies profiting from the colonization. WP does not participate in political actions.

The coalition was created in 2001 on the following bases:

 an interest in subjects concerning equality between Israelis and Palestinians,

 participating in political activities such as demonstrations and signing petitions,

 or more precisely developing a project on security, under a feminist angle such as, for example, economic security for women,

 to closely follow the politicization of Russian immigrant women.

By the way, for a while now, the coalition has realized that pressures from the exterior put on the State of Israel serve and aid their actions a lot – this why they created the WP, in this way enabling organizations as well as other countries to dispose of data on Israeli companies that profit from colonization.

Effectively, these pressures represent a great menace for Israel – one can tell by reading the articles in the Israeli press (for example the Norwegian pension funds).

What does WP do ?

WP goes into the Occupied Territories and the colonies with a camera and then gathers together these photos and films along with written documents of data on these companies.

Today there are more than 1,000 companies in its database of which 300 are available to the public on its website.

WP was questioned on Agrexco and responded, putting documents to their disposal. WP is also in contact with the campaigns organized against Veolia, Dexia and Apoalim (a bank that receives credits from the Central European Bank to support the development of Israeli companies), plus the campaign for openness in the European Union’s economic activities.

Very recently, WP was in the Jordan Valley with a Swiss television station and recuperated data on the products exported with, among them, those coming from the colonies.

And the BDS campaign in Israel ?

We’re only just at the beginning. The fact that the movement is developing in Palestine helps us. Here in Israel, people are worried and the people participating, including those in the activist movements, are considered as traitors.

In the cultural and university realm, the debate is particularly difficult.

Jacqueline CCIPPP Agrexco Mission

Visit to Sinokrot

Sunday November 1st. Sinokrot is a Palestinian packaging center that exports products from the Jordan Valley.

We’re received by an official who presents the company to us in a conference room.

The company packages and exports:
  tomatoes and peppers to Holland – 500 tons
  dates to the USA – 120 tons
  Tomatoes to the Gulf States – 200 tons
  tomatoes to Russia – 1,500 tons

Contracts are drawn up with 60 commercial farming businesses that receive a certification and then contract out to small farmers. The problems that the company encounters are of three types:

  the occupation – the Israelis restrict importations of fertilizer

  the water – the Israelis control its sources and it distribution. And the water is salty.

  the logistics – when the products are transported to the ports (Haifa or Ashdod), during Israeli controls, the merchandise is unloaded and reloaded, interrupting the refrigeration procedure and damaging the products.

To a question on the traceability, he responds : "Sinokrot has a total traceability, the products are all labeled Palestinian, but we can sell Palestinian products to Israelis (who re-label them) and Sinokrot also puts Palestinian products in Israeli crates (labeled Arava).”

(And we find out later that they sell products coming from the colonies as Palestinian products; all is therefore mixed together and it’s almost impossible to know which one is in the crates).

During the visit to the center, where cameras are authorized, they show us where they sort out, grade and package the products; we also notice empty crates – some are labeled “Product of Palestine” and others “Product of the Holy Land”. And this confirms to us the fact that it’s impossible to know the true origin of the products no matter how they’re packaged.

Jacqeline, mission 157, Agrexco

The burden that is the colonial occupation

Sunday November 1st. For security reasons, not only the person’s name but also the name of the village is fictive. This gives an idea of the surveillance and the repression the Palestinians are submitted to in the Jordan Valley.

The “occupied” village has a population today of 2,000 persons. Originally, they were Bedouins who were displaced in 1948; they came from Beer Sheva. The Jordanian regime gave them some lands and they lived on them as herders, as was their tradition. Their lands extended to the banks of the Jordan River. But in 1967, the Israeli occupation changed everything. The army confiscated a strip of land several kilometers wide starting from the banks of the Jordan River, declaring it a “military zone” and therefore prohibiting its access. Animal raising having become impossible, the herders started farming. But in 1987, under the pretext of relations with Jordan having been broken off, all commerce and direct exportation of fruits and vegetables to Jordan was forbidden (also to the Gulf States via Jordan). At the same moment, the colony overlooking the village took over so much of their lands that the majority of the villagers couldn’t live on what was left. They were forced to go work in the colonies for slave wages.

Nabil explains to us how at first they had tried to put their efforts into educational projects, creating schools (up to the high-school level), “But the absence of a university in the area (one has to go to Naplouse), the costs and above all the absence of job opportunities, caused a lack of motivation among the youngsters, and when one asks them what they’ll do later, they say they’re going to work in the colonies”.

At the beginning, when Nabil’s family was displaced, it was the UNWRA that gave them some land (but without a title deed) and all the houses of the village were built on these lands, with no title deeds and in respecting the Israeli interdiction – no roofs allowed with tiles (sic) except for a huge house of several stories, that of a collaborationist who has left to live in Haifa and who, so they say, has obtained an Israeli passport…

The interdiction of tiles is because it’s easier to destroy and demolish when the roof is made of corrugated iron. 2,000 persons are living in houses condemned to destruction! What’s more, in the summer the temperature reaches 50°C (122°F)… so, with corrugated-iron roofs, it’s a furnace inside. Just one more of the persecutions that the occupier loves.

Nabil “has in his possession” one dunum of land inherited from his father. This is where, a year ago, he built his house. Three rooms with a kitchen and a bathroom for 13 persons. After the first five years, he has to pay taxes to Israel (100 shekels per year) for the land and the construction. The colony, one of the first ones in the Jordan Valley, has from 40 to 45 families and possesses 500 hectares (1,235 ½ acres) of land stolen from the Palestinians, of which almost 50% is left to lie fallow!! It also possesses three stolen wells. The village had to fight to prevent the confiscation of the last well that they managed to keep. That was no problem for the colonists; they dumped fecal matter into the water pipes surrounding the well until the well-water became undrinkable. It is now used only for irrigation.

Nabil’s situation is undoubtedly typical – married, father of 11 children (from 3 to 21 years old), he is 44 years old and works as a farmhand for Palestinians. Seeing as he did a year of prison when he was young, he’s not allowed to enter into the colonies.

He was not able to pay for his children’s studies. His wife, Nadia, is 41 years old. She’s under treatment for breast cancer. For the operation, it was Nabil who had to pay because he wanted it done right away. In effect, the Palestinian Authority promised to take care of the operation and then did nothing for covering the costs, so Nabil had to pay out of his pocket 3,000 shekels (1€ = 5 shekels) to have her breast removed. The second medical expense was the chemotherapy, which the Palestinian Authority reimbursed.

Nabil smokes at least two packs of cigarettes a day; he speaks fluent Hebrew because, he tells us, if one doesn’t want to be cheated or to be mistreated, it helps to speak the language; he also speaks English. Paradoxically, when one is in contact with him, one feels that he is, at the same time, full of energy and in profound despair… He recounts to us this souvenir that he says he’ll never forget – “I was 13 years old, a group of Europeans came and visited our school. A colonist served as their guide. Coming into the classroom, the colonist threw a handful of pencils on the floor. All the children rushed over to pick them up. I can still hear the colonist saying to the Europeans – “You see, they’re nothing but a bunch of animals; you’d think they were monkeys…” In his family, three of them are working, him and his two oldest (a young man and a girl). The average wage is 70 shekels per person a day…

Nabil and his family put us up and fed us for two days and two nights, as the Palestinians know how to do – with warmth, attention and generosity.

Meeting with S.A., a farmer from the UAWC

Sunday November 1st. This encounter took place at a kindergarten. S.A. doesn’t work directly for Agrexco, but he’s well aware of how things go on there. He starts by telling us that, for the habitants, it’s important to boycott Israel.

At Agrexco, 95% of the workers are Palestinian Arabs and the other 5% are Russians, Israelis and Palestinians of ’48. The Palestinians work 8 hours a day for 70 NIS. The others are paid 200 NIS a day.

Agrexco exports all the products cultivated; nothing is for the local market. Since last year, there are exportations to Holland of Israeli products with Palestinian names on them; the products are mixed together. The packaging center is called “Eva Likidoum”, they export under the name of Jordan Valley. The colony working for them is named M’sua. They buy Palestinian dates and mix them with Israeli dates to sell them under an Israeli label. They export daily from 22 to 25 tons of dates, from 50 to 60 tons of grapes and from 10 to 15 tons of figs.

The Israeli colonists have an extremely humiliating comportment towards the Palestinians and try to put Arabs in the position of foremen. There are also women from the colonies who are supervisors and who insult the Palestinian women; several Palestinian women have been fired from the job. The workers are mistreated – they cannot go to the bathroom without having found someone to replace them; they have no place to take their meals.

Plus, according to Israeli law, they are supposed to be paid 20.20 NIS an hour, when in fact they receive only 70 NIS per day. Officially, they export only Israeli products and because some European countries refuse them, they put Palestinian labels on them.

Are there Asian workers, such as Thais ?

They’re in the Hamra colony; they’re integrated into the colony.

And the boycott, that doesn’t worry the Palestinians ?

We think that, in the long run, it’s good for the benefit of all, even if from 300 to 400 Palestinian workers (in the pepper production) had to be laid off because of the boycott.

Since a year ago, a fig producer working with Holland (on a 20-dunum plot of land) had to lay off 20 workers, there are 7 left.

The boycott is going to hurt the Israelis more, because for them it’s a big business. During the growing season, us, the Palestinians, can be self-sufficient.

What can we say to people in France who think the boycott is hurting Palestinians ?

We are asking you to boycott Israeli products – the Palestinians are capable of making do, they have a lot less to lose. You can help us by boycotting Israel and facilitating Palestinian exports with European companies.

Jacqueline, mission 157 Agrexco

An encounter with Michel Warschawski, who runs the Alternative Information Center (AIC) and the members of the 157th mission

Michel Warschawski first wanted to present to us the position of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Obama.

Looking at things from the Israeli point of view can be important. Benyamin Netanyahu has always been opposed to pulling out of the Occupied Territories and it’s his ideology that he’s putting in place here. For around fifteen years, there was fusion between the United States administration and the Israeli neo-conservatives. There was not the slightest divergence and nobody had an interest in returning to the politics of 1967.

The arrival of Obama changed the order of things and brought to light the failure of American policies carried out up until then. Obama and his team must reassert American leadership during this crucial political turning point. The stakes are enormous with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan; the Israel–Palestine question is not a principle stake for the US.

Currently, if the American army is holding its ground in Afghanistan, it’s because Iran is keeping in the background; if it changes its foreign policy, we could very well assist in a phenomenal defeat for America. The Israelis are not conscious of this; nevertheless, Obama was very clear concerning Iran – nothing should be done without consulting the United States.

Netanyahu, and above all Ehud Barak, have always wanted to attack Iran, but this idea is far from being unanimous in the government – if Iran riposted, it would have grave effects for everyone and above all for the West, as Iran can block petroleum products in the Red Sea and has the capability to strike Tel Aviv, and it has a worldwide support network. Netanyahu doesn’t like Obama, who represents for him the failure of his ideas, and the feeling is mutual; Obama finds in Netanyahu a sort of Bush twin; they don’t get along at all. Netanyahu is so racist that it’s almost unacceptable. Obama’s campaign promises are crumbling away and the social movements against his health care project in the United States are bringing on giant protest demonstrations.

We are persuaded that there are also a number of Protestant fundamentalists in this movement, evangelists who are likely to support Israeli policies; they make up more than 60 million voters with the neo-conservatives and the right wing – Obama is aware of this. For the moment, almost no one is calling into question the alliance of the United States with Israel, but there is obviously a certain tension in the air and the US demand to freeze the colonization process was clearly and violently refused.

Obama has shown a definite weakness and he’s lost lots of confidence in himself; if he doesn’t progress, he can only retreat. The Israeli lobby is brought up often, but I think it’s not as strong as it seems – sufficiently strong, however, to block future elections and this is where foreign intervention could make a difference. We hear a lot of rumors here; their goal is to bring down Obama by any and all means and in certain circles they don’t exclude the worst possibility – assassination.

The positions of all parties concerned are today clear; the refusal to follow up on the Goldstone Report and the hardening of political lines could very well bring about a war.

Personally, I don’t see a war breaking out with Iran, but with Lebanon, which would extremely humiliate Iran. But the result is known in advance and it’s not the balance of power that must be considered but the capability of using arms. The situation has changed and, for the first time in 50 years, Europe is openly on Israel’s side.

France’s position is nightmarish here and Bernard Kouchner’s visit was a catastrophe; the media underlined “this warm, hearty visit marking the change in the French government’s policies”. Here in Israel, we’re surprised to see the unification in face of the massacre in Gaza – as opposed to what happened in 2006, it didn’t bring about the slightest opposition.

Claude

Sheikh Jarrah, the forced and criminal Judaizing of Jerusalem continues…

Some notes taken after my visit of October 25th and of the 30th 2009. We are all aware of the problems in Sheikh Jarrah, this neighborhood where, since March 15th 2009, Palestinian families are exposed to eviction menaces and then to being violently thrown out in the street, in spite of the presence of internationals and Israeli associations for justice, and in spite of the international community condemning this. We went there on October 25th, then on the 30th to participate in a demonstration in the presence of Louisa Morgantini, a member of the European Parliament…

When one looks at a map, on can see that Sheikh Jarrah is very “badly” placed – at the extreme limit of East Jerusalem, north of the Old Town, touching West Jerusalem, that is to say Israel with, on top of this, the eastern neighborhood, which is behind it and crawling with old colonies spreading towards Mount Scopus. One can see clearly that Sheikh Jarrah is in extreme danger in face of the habitual Israeli appetite for conquest – to expand their territory and shove out the Arabs living there and, at the same time, establish territorial continuity between Israeli West Jerusalem and the colonies, putting an end to their relative “isolation”. It’s the same technique of “nibbling away by linking” that is being used here in Jerusalem, just as in the colonies in the West Bank, which Mikado points out to us as he’s showing us around.

In fact, these attempts at annexation have been going on for 40 years, carried out by Israeli authorities and colonist organizations that relieve them, using all kinds of judicial subterfuges, aided by the Israeli justice system that never recognizes the rights of the Palestinians, who are often refugees from 1948. And these attempts concern the entire neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where four areas are under threat – Shepard Hotel, Karm el Mufti, Kubaniyat im Haroun and Karm Al Ja’oun where evictions are now being carried out.

Karm Al Ja’oun – the court battles have been engaged since… 1972! A Jewish Sephardim, and of course American, association is waging the court battle and, taking advantage of their ancestors which were refugees in the Ottoman Empire after having been chased from Spain in 1492, produced an Ottoman deed dating from… 1870 that justifies its ownership of the place. Even though the lawyer of those being evicted proved that it wasn’t a title deed of ownership but a rental deed, the Israeli courts decided in favor of the Jewish association, in accordance with the habitual parody of justice here (which permits Israel to call itself a democracy!) The court also confirmed this judgment, rejecting the appeal on August 9th, after the eviction on the 2nd. The Israelis had attempted a financial transaction, offering a derisory sum. This transaction was refused – the Palestinians clearly expressed the fact that IT IS THEM who were the refugees and that they are not going to accept returning to the previous state that they came out of… 57 years ago.

It’s all here – the unfortunately strategic situation, the American Jewish association, the so-called historic background and the parody of justice. One can add the building land, the religious justification and the outcome, including political, for the Palestinian habitants.

This neighborhood is situated in fact at the back of a sort of small valley, named the wadi Al Guz. The habitants evicted by force from their homes (53 persons including 20 children) and those who are in the process of being evicted, are situated in this valley, except for one that is right next to it and is owned by the Maer Hanoun family who will be showing us around and explaining to us. There is still a lot of open land left in this small valley, a paradise in the city, and the colonist’s project is to construct a colony here after having destroyed 24 houses and evicted 300 Palestinian residents.

These plots of land are in extreme danger because of their geographic situation but, once again, religion is at the root of its predatory nature. The evictions are justified by the presence of a carved rock tombstone that is the object of a cult for Sephardim Jews and which is opportunely situated in the valley – the tomb of the grand Priest Simon, called the Just (Rabbi Shimon HaZadik) who supposedly met Alexander the Great around 333 B.C.!!...

The Palestinians affected by this situation are refugees of ’48, who were chased out of West Jerusalem, among other areas, and to whom the UNAWRA and the Jordanian government, in 1956, gave land to build their houses, in exchange for the ABANDON of their rights as refugees. Their establishment here is therefore legal but, as happens every time here, as in other colonial countries, the owners have no title deed to their property. However, the transaction must have left some traces somewhere…

Then on August 2nd 2009, when the presence of internationals was at its lowest, according to Maer Hanoun, 53 persons, including 20 children, the Hanoun and Al Ghawi families, were thrown out of their houses, which were immediately occupied by colonists. During the eviction, 13 people were wounded and 35 arrested.

The Hanoun family is camping in front of their house under an olive tree – this is where they received us… close to their home where Israeli flags are flying overhead and security cameras watching – we watch as a couple of colonists come out of the house… As for the Al Ghawis, they are under a hastily constructed shelter, with a few mattresses and cooking pots, installed with their children in front of their house, which was also immediately reoccupied by colonists who, behind a wire fence, watch over the situation. Plus, they’re protected by an armed guard who looks to be a private militiaman. Regularly, their thin tarp is ripped away by policemen under the eyes of Israeli soldiers, with an extreme violence that provokes the women and children to tears and screaming. We were there one of the times when the tent was ripped up, in the presence of Louisa Morgantini, and it brought tears to our eyes and hatred into our hearts. A neighbor on the other side of the street, from one of the low houses with a well-kept fruit orchard in front of it, just came to tell us that he’s received an eviction notice for a date in the near future. He has already gone to prison, as has Maer Hanoun, as part of this struggle.

While we’re here we meet a Rabbi from the “Rabbis for Human Rights” association. He’s wearing a kippa, which make us think at first that he’s a colonist! Once the situation is clarified, a kinship springs up between us and he presents his association, with which I picked olives at Yannoun in 2003.

There seems to be no issue to this situation. In the Israeli logic of conquest without respecting rights, these superb lands are effectively ripe for the taking. Here, the religious and historic backgrounds are present. The Palestinians are already refugees, without title deeds, without power or fortune. International support exists but is not devoted enough to actually do something (numerous visits from the French Consul, in contact with the evicted people, who sympathizes but his hands are tied…).

The rain and cold weather arrive… The situation cannot go on and we know where the power lies… The presence and the testimonies of internationals delay the fatal date but we have our doubts that the Israeli forces will pull back… Like the cat with a mouse, they observe, they wait patiently, they play with their victims, knowing that, as always, time is on their side and that, in any case, they will gobble them all up.

Testimony of Colette Georges, member of the UJFP, on the civil “Agrexco” mission; 11/15/2009.