Khader today: the true face of the occupation in a nutshell.
Report, June 29 2001.
Summary:
A hundred Israeli peace activists tried to pay a solidarity visit to the Al- Khader residents whose lands were chosen
for yet another settlement outpost. The peace seekers, among them former Knesset Member Uri Avnery, were stopped at the
branch road leading to Al Khader. The area was declared "closed military zone". When it became clear that it was closed
only to peace activists but settlers were allowed to pass, the demonstrators sat down to block their passage. They were
forcibly dispersed and six were detained and taken to the police station at the Efrat settlement. A simultaneous
demonstration of the Al- Khader people themselves was dispersed with live bullets, leaving four wounded - one in serious
condition.
Background:
Khader today: the true face of the occupation in a nutshell.
Illegal new settlements ("outposts") are being established on newly-seized parcels of Palestinian land, without the
flimsiest pretence of legality. Rather then stop those who rob land in broad daylight, the army and police move to
provide them full protection, and no effort whatsoever is made to prevent the settler movement from bringing in mobile
homes to make life more convenient for their "Hilltop Generation." The full power of the forces of "Law and Order", or
what passes for such on the Wild West bank, is turned on the legal landowners, should they try to make any protest, and
also on Israelis who seek to protest the injustice.
It has been going on for years, all over the Occupied Territories - almost regardless of the party and PM in power, or
of whether the Peace Process was declared to be thriving or moribund. And once seized, a parcel of land was almost never
relinquished by the settlers. One of the few exceptions is a hilltop at the southern end of El-Khader village, Bethlehem
District. In 1995 it was seized by the settlers of Efrat - a large, fast-expanding settlement which is slowly but
steadily eating away the agricultural lands of those forced to become its neighbors. A joint struggle of the El-Khader
villagers and Gush Shalom activists culminated with an exceptional decision by the Rabin Government to remove the
invading settlers.
But a month ago, the Efrat settlers came back, seizing again the same hilltop and placing three mobile homes on the top.
Ever since then, El-Khader was the scene of ongoing struggle, with joint Israeli-Palestinian non-violent acts of protest
and resistance being answered by the army and police with a more and more harsh approach - as you may remember from
previous messages.
Today, several dozen Israelis set out from Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem for El-Khader - the fourth consecutive Friday to see
such a protest (and there were some also on other days of the week). The Gush Shalom contingent, headed by former
Knesset Member Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom , joined with Gila Svirsky of the Women for a Just Peace and with the fiery
young Israelis and Internationals organized by "International Solidarity". Together we travelled the notorious "Tunnel
Road": a road in the midst of Palestinian territory which is reserved for the exclusive use of Israelis, and which was
the scene of countless violent incidents in the past months - though none occured during our passage this morning. But
the branching road towards El-Khader, through which we had gone on some previous occasions, was now full of soldiers and
police. A police officer, stepping into the bus, presented a piece of paper: El-Khader has been declared "a closed
military zone".
"A closed military zone" in occupied territory is a very flexible thing. It is any piece of land, small or big, which an
offcier at the rank of colonel or higher deems to be such. It is closed to those persons which said officer wants to
keep out, but open to those he welcomes in. In this particular case, the buses loaded with peace-minded Israelis were
ordered to curb, while settler cars were merrily waved on into the "closed" zone.
There are some routines followed in such cases. Activists streamed out, took position facing the soldiers and police,
spreading out signs and banners.
"Down with the occupation!"- "Dismantle all settlements!" - "There is a solution: Get out of the Territories!". One
activist had the foresight to bring along a stack of Yesh Gvul brochures, pointing out which acts by a soldier are in
contravention of International law and may lead to prosecution for war crimes, and distributed them to the soldiers.
Meanwhile, the organizers dickered with the officer in command. They reminded him of Defence Minister Ben Eliezer's
solemn public pledge, just three days ago, to remove all illegal settlement outposts including the one established on
the El-Khader lands. But news of the minister's declared new policy did not seem to have percolated to this level of the
hierarchy. (Not that we really expected anything else).
It was pointed out to the army that our aim was entirely non-violent: to join with the inhabitants of El-Khader in
erecting a large tent on the villagers' own land, to serve as "A Peace Outpost" of Israelis and Palestinians together.
After all, if nationalist settlers could establish their own completely illegal outpost without interference from the
army, surely the same courtesy could be extended to the legal owners of the land and to the guests officially invited by
them? No, it was absolutely out of the question. Again, we had expected nothing else. In fact, the main purpose of these
talks was to win time, while others were in constant contact with the El-Khader villagers.
At the center of the village, it turned out, there were hundreds of Palestinian youths already gathered. They were
determined to demonstrate under all circumstances, but would much prefer it if we could find a way to join them. Mixed
demonstrations are virtually never answered by the army with the shooting of live bullets, while purely Palestinian
actions often are.
Eventually, we piled back into the buses, as if intending to go back home - in fact hoping to get to a certain
backpassage into El-Khader which was used on some earlier occasions. No such luck today: the other passage was also
tightly blocked, once again a closed military zone which was completely porous to settler traffic.
There was no hope left of joining with the Palestinians. What was left was to register a protest by sitting down on the
asphalt and closing the road to settler traffic, and this many of us proceeded to do - Avnery with his white beard, and
Gila Svirsky, and Neta Golan with her arm still in a sling in the aftermath of how the demonstation of two weeks ago was
dispersed.
The police was quick and efficient - waving their batons, dragging people along the hot asphalt, filling up the two
police cars which drove off to detention at the police station, located in that very settlement of Ephrat. There was
much shouting - "Peace Yes - Occupation no!" "Settlements are Violence!" Those who led the chanting were picked out of
the crowd, presumably as "ringleaders", and hauled off to custody. When seven were detained, the rest of us got shoved
and pushed into our own buses, with police standing guard to prevent us from either going out or moving off. Then some
more negotiations, ending with compromise: one bus with some of the activists would be allowed to move into Ephrat but
only to stand outside the police station, in order to pick up the detainees once they are released. The rest of the
activists would take the other bus back to Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv.
For some time, we noticed, we had been dealing with the police alone, while all soldiers had disappered. The answer to
this riddle was revealed soon enough: they had gone into El-Khader to help put down the villagers' protest. A ringing
mobile phone brought the grim news of demonstrators being shot at - four wounded, one of them severely - of a wild chase
among the houses of El-Khader ending with the imposition of a curfew over the village.
Nothing further we could do today, except trying to get the news out as widely as possible. It was on both networks of
the Israeli radio and the coverage on Second Channel TV was quite good. This message is part of the effort to get it
known further.
The struggle for El-Khader is by no means over. The villagers, to judge from what we heard through the phone, are
defiant and unbroken. There will be further demonstrations and protests, including a workcamp scheduled to take place
between July 1 and 5, an extensive international presence scheduled for August, and all kinds of actions in between.
For direct contact with the organizers: George Rishmawi: 052-281843 email pcr@p-ol.com; Huwaida Arraf ph: 052-290173,
email . Israeli liaison: Liad Kantorowicz at (03) 681-7312, email .
As always on such days, it was a slight shock to get back to the bustling streets of cultured, cosmopolitan Tel-Aviv,
just a bit more than an hour's drive from that scene of desperate struggle. But then, in the middle of a main Tel-Aviv
street, we noticed a young man in civilian clothes, wearing sunglasses and a skullcap and carrying an automatic rifle
with the practiced ease of a professional...
Adam Keller & Beate Zilversmidt
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For information about Gush Shalom visit the website:
(including the Boycott List of Products of Settlements)
email: info@gush-shalom.org