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• Oproep/Call: Joint Statement by the Orient House and MIFTAH, 15-8-2001
• Israeli police 'carry out routine, organized cruelty', Robert Fisk in Jerusalem, 14-8-2001
• Orient House is in Our Hands! Uri Avnery, 11.8.01
• There Is No Generous Occupation, Nir Bir'am, Ma'ariv 5 August 2000.
• Commentary; Neocolonial Invitation to a Tribal War, Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2001
  
  NPK/WL, 17-8-2001

Date: August 15th, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Joint Statement by the Orient House and MIFTAH

The Orient House and the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) urge the international community to take a firm stance against Israel's illegal occupation of the Orient House in east Jerusalem.

In particular, we call upon the governments and institutions of European states (specifically the European Union) to take an active and direct role in upholding the rights and freedoms of the Palestinian people, in accordance with international legality and legitimacy.

The Israeli occupation of the Orient House in the early hours of Friday August 10th, 2001, constitutes a serious violation of international law and a blatant disregard to the Palestinian-Israeli understandings reached following the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991.

Ariel Sharon's government has directly violated the pledge made by Israel in October 1993, in which Israel's Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, declared, in a letter sent to the late Johan Jorgen Holst, the Norwegian Foreign Minister at the time, that Israel shall not hamper the activity of Palestinian institutions functioning within the boundaries of east Jerusalem. Recent statements made by Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, that the Orient House shall only be closed for 6 months, and not permanently (as stated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the wake of the incursion on August 10th), are yet another example of the 'apologist' role assumed by the Israeli left in dealing with the current crisis, and the conflict at large.

Mr. Peres has willfully adopted Sharon's policy of repression and mentality of occupation, with all its anachronisms and misperceptions. The Orient House and MIFTAH strongly reject the position adopted by Shimon Peres as a shortsighted attempt to defuse the situation and mislead the international community by willfully undermining the urgency of an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Orient House, and the immediate reopening of all Palestinian institutions recently shut down in east Jerusalem.

To that end, and in light of the urgency in taking firm steps against Israel's illegal actions, we demand that the European Union and the governments of European states:

- Boycott their official meetings (particularly European dignitaries) with the Israeli government until the Orient House and all institutions recently closed down are reopened, taking into consideration that these institutions are predominantly funded by the European Union and are an essential element of Europe's political and economic investment in Middle East peace.

- Provide immediate international protection in the occupied Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem, taking into consideration that peaceful Palestinian and non-Palestinian demonstrators against the closure of the Orient House are being met with excessive Israeli police brutality.

- Take up their committed role as mediators in the Middle East Peace Process, publicly underline the European position vis-à-vis the closure of the Orient House, and act according to the Berlin Declaration of 1999.

- Condemn Israel's illegal policies in east Jerusalem, through settlement expansion, home demolition, and ID confiscation; the implications of which only prove that Israel has not abided by signed agreements and has blatantly violated the very letter and spirit of the peace process itself since the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.

For further information, please contact:
Public Information Department MIFTAH
Tel: 00972-2-585 1842; www.miftah.org

Israeli police 'carry out routine, organized cruelty'

By Robert Fisk in Jerusalem

14 August 2001

The Arabs called it a "day of rage" but the Israelis were the ones demonstrating their rage outside Orient House yesterday. The Palestinian youth who dared to hold up a Palestinian flag made of paper was seized by six border guards and plain-clothes police, kicked, beaten, punched in the face and back and then kneed in the groin in front of us all.

Many of the police had been brought down from Haifa, where a Palestinian suicide bomber had blown himself up a few hours earlier in a vain effort to murder Israelis in a café, and there was a tangible desire to inflict pain on some of the crowd.

A tall, thin young man with shaggy brown hair who tried to escape a policeman's grasp at the iron security barriers was dragged back into the police lines and set on by eight men. There must have been 20 television cameras and a score of photographers running level with the Shin Bet intelligence boys as they dragged the man screaming up the road towards Orient House, kicking him in the chest and forcing back his head until he choked. The moment he was in the back seat of a white police van, an Israeli plain-clothes man in a red shirt set upon him. As he was held down from the other side of the vehicle, the Israeli kicked him again and again between the legs until the young man was crying in a high, animal voice.

It was, as one of the foreign protesters muttered, enough to turn a Palestinian into a suicide-bomber. It was also very, very weird. Here we were, perhaps a hundred journalists watching a hundred "peace" demonstrators, European, American, Christian and Jew, and Palestinian, and every few minutes, on a signal from a fat policeman in a blue shirt, his colleagues would run amok.

After all the talk of Israel being a peace-loving state among the nations, founded upon the rule of law, the police would suddenly prove that those constant Palestinian complaints of beatings and brutality were true, right in front of us. A border guard became so fascinated by the beating of one man - he could not take his eyes off the fists that were hammering into the man's stomach and ribs - that he forgot to keep the press at bay and allowed me to walk up to the van as one of his colleagues viciously assaulted another man.

Every police force can lose its cool - we have our bad eggs in Britain - but this was calculated, routine, organized cruelty. A lot of the border guards were grinning when the Palestinians screamed. After a while it was obscene to watch.

I walked over to the Israeli mounted police. One of the officers was sitting in the saddle, smoking a cigarette and laughing as he talked on a mobile phone. A Shin Bet man patted the lead horse. "Most of these are Hannovers," he said of the breed. "We've got Hannovers and quarters. They take really good care of them."

Up the street, closer to Orient House, his colleagues were taking good care of their prisoners. In front of the horrified eyes of a group of humanitarian workers, one of them American, they beat the captured Palestinians all over again.

The crowd had no chance of seizing back Orient House, occupied by Israeli troops and police after Thursday's Jerusalem suicide bombing that massacred 15 Israelis.

They were kept all of a quarter of a mile from the building. But the horses were ridden into the crowd; a couple of stun grenades were fired into it. Just one officer realized, after more than an hour, that this piece of state bullying was a public relations disaster.

"Stop carrying them," he shouted as two Palestinians were dragged past the cameras under a rain of blows. "Let them walk."

But they could no longer stand upright. One of them had his shirt dragged over his head to reveal a back covered in red welts. A thought kept recurring in our minds: if this is what the Israeli police do to Palestinians in front of us, what do they do to them behind our backs?

Nor was it difficult to guess what these young men were thinking. Just a few hours before, they had heard that a 10-year-old Palestinian girl had been shot dead by Israeli troops in Hebron, in another of those notorious "clashes", as the press likes to call them, and that, after a night of grieving, her 60-year-old grandmother had died of a heart
attack.

A little after midday yesterday, the little girl and her grandmother were buried together in the same grave.
_______________________________________________________________________

Uri Avnery
11.8.01

Orient House is in Our Hands!

Forget about the battle of Negba. Forget about the battle of Ammunition Hill. Forget about the Entebbe raid. All these are overshadowed by the latest exploits of our forces. Songs will be sung about them, victory albums will proclaim their glory.
In a daring action, in the middle of the night, the elite units of the border police and the picked commandos of the paratroops stormed the "Orient House" in East Jerusalem and the Palestinian governor's office in Abu-Dis. In a heroic battle, the two empty buildings were conquered. Our glorious forces suffered no casualties.
Every Jewish heart was filled with pride when the Israeli flag was hoisted over these two fortresses of the cruel enemy. Every man and woman sang the praises of our valiant male and female fighters. And when the generalissimo, Interior Security Minister Uzi Landau, was photographed at the scene of the immortal victory - who did not share his joy at the realization of the dream of generations? The governor's house conquered! Orient House in our hand!

If there is cynicism in this description, that's because Orient House
is very close to my heart. I was a frequent guest there, I have spent there
many many hours, both happy and sad. I love this beautiful building of
simple elegance and elegant simplicity.

Minutes after the signing of the Oslo agreement on the White House lawn, I stood, with many others, Israelis and Palestinians, on its stairs. We embraced each other, feeling that it was the right place to be at this moment, because for us Orient House was a symbol of the struggle for peace. Several times, when right-wing demagogues in Israel tried to achieve a cheap victory by "closing Orient House", I was with the peace activists who rushed to the building in order to express our solidarity with its defenders. Again we stood on these special stairs, Israelis and Palestinians together, while in the street hate-mongering Cahanists were shouting their blood-thirsty slogans, under the protection of the Border Police,. How many hours did we spend in this building with the unforgotten Faisal Husseini, talking about peace? About united Jerusalem that will truly be "ours" - ours, both Israelis and Palestinians. About the refugee problem, for which Faisal proposed solutions that were amazingly moderate and sensible. About borders. About the settlements. About a relationship that
will last for generations.

How many demonstrations for peace did we plan in this building? Against the provocative settlements in Jebel Abu-Gheneim ("Har Homa") and Ras-al-Amud. For the release of Palestinian prisoners. How many times did we celebrate there? A joint concert of Palestinian and Israeli musicians. The marriage of a Palestinian cabinet minister. Always together, side by side, with mutual respect and equality.

The "conquest" of this building is a cynical, treacherous, stupid, evil and disastrous act.

A  c y n i c a l  act, because it utilizes the terrible suicide attack at the Jerusalem restaurant, the suffering of the families and the fury of the public, to do something that has absolutely nothing to do with "the fight against terrorism". The extreme right, headed by Sharon, Landau & Co., just waited for an opportunity to do what they wanted to do. The blood served as a pretext.

A  t r e a c h e r o u s  act, because it is a brutal violation of a solemn promise. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signed this undertaking on behalf of the State of Israel in the wake of the Oslo agreement. It said that Israel would not close any existing Palestinian institution in Jerusalem. Another piece of papers torn by the government in which Shimon Peres serves as a Foreign Minister.

A  s t u p i d  act, because it officially confirms the fact that East Jerusalem is an occupied city. As long as the big Palestinian flag was hanging from the flagpole at Orient House, it represented the hope of the city's 200 thousand Palestinian inhabitants that the problem would be solved by peaceful means. This hope has now been struck down. Like their brethren on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, they have now been convinced that "the Jews understand only the language of force". The teachings of Faisal Husseini will be displaced by the teachings of Hamas. The conquered building will become a symbol of occupation and resistance - much more so than at its times of splendor.

An  e v i l  act, because it sends an unequivocal message to the Palestinian people and the whole world: this is the end of the peace process. At Camp David the mantra of "Undivided Jerusalem, eternal capital of Israel" was put aside. Even Ehud Barak, who was quite insensitive to Palestinian aspirations, understood that there can be no peace without giving East Jerusalem back to the Palestinians (or at least appearing to do so). Now come Sharon and his henchmen and throw us many years back. What they are saying is: Peace is out! No Oslo, no Madrid, no nothing. War against the Palestinians, War against the Arab world, today, tomorrow, for generations to come.

A  d i s a s t r o u s  act, because it is a step in a terrible direction. After Orient House, after Abu-Dis, what is left to conquer? Once people start to run amok, they cannot stop. The right-wing demagogues who feed on the occupation will not be satisfied with this. Their appetite is growing. Where to go now? One doesn't have to search long: just around the corner, the golden Dome of the Rock is shining. No doubt, that is the real aim of this madness: the Temple Mount, the Holy Sanctuary, the Dome of the Rock, al-Aksa. That is where the dance of the daemons started, where Ehud Barak and Shlomo Ben-Ami let Sharon loose. And That is where it will end, in a regional blood-bath. I do not know when this will happen. But as from this week I am convinced that it will come, if the world does not pound on Sharon's table with an iron fist.

Who will be the accomplices in this crime? Usi Landau, the smiling fanatic, a right-wing bully disguised as a civilized human being. Ehud Olmert, the mayor of West Jerusalem and military governor of East Jerusalem, a mayor making war on half his city, a cynical politician if ever there was one, a man without principles, who treads on human bodies on his way to power (see: the tunnel incident). Defence Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a man for every season and every policy, whose sole interest is in himself. Shimon Peres, who always objects to Sharon's actions and always serves him faithfully. Avraham Burg, who hopes to become Labor's chairman, who was rejoicing with us on the stairs of Orient House on the day of Oslo and is now eager to join the Sharon government. At the head of the pyramid: Sharon himself, determined to close every door and window that could serve as an opening, not only for now but forever, in order to "inherit the land" and fill it with settlements, as commanded by a god he does not believe in. And in the background, Binjamin Netanyahu is trying to outflank Sharon on the right, causing him to move even more to the right.

 
Indeed, a small step of the occupation, a giant step towards disaster.

A Leftist Israeli Writer, Ma'ariv 5 August 2001.

When René Descartes discovered himself as a speculative suspicious thinker he enthused, with certain logic, facts that doubted the existence of God. One such evidence is the principle of cause and outcome. Descartes thought a grand outcome would not result of a trivial cause and vise versa.

Descartes is truthful yet wrong at the same time. Here is a contradicting example. The cause: Yehuda 'Atzion + 12 weird men with a blonde woman = One. The outcome: Chaos, bullets, rocks and more. This is a significant incident where the outcome is grand compared to the trivial cause. Unfortunately, Des Cartes did not have the honor of knowing Yehuda 'Atzion.

We needed Descartes because of this new fashion, known as the Left, spreading in the Israeli context. This new fashion is based upon looking at things from a very narrow angle and persistently striving to get in the limelight.

Question: How many cases of tormenting Palestinians do we remember during the last decade? Answer: Dozens plus hundreds that we were not aware of.
The shock by their behavior was behind the blame directed at soldiers from Samson unit. Only the naïve believe insults, punches and oppression are the norm under occupation. Why can't the Palestinians travel on selected highways? Why do they stand in long queues at roadblocks? Simply, because the army must separate them from settlers!

Only the good-natured prefer getting touched by a single incident projected by the media. But the Palestinians are discriminated against every day regardless of the current Intifada. Discrimination against the Palestinians began ever since Israelis settled there and will continue until they leave the settlements.

Attackers commit suicide inside Israel and the army assassinates those wanted. Palestinians meet Israeli soldiers at roadblocks in a suffocating atmosphere for both. Another insult, a curse, more despair and another mourning. The killing of Arabs and Jews continues and hatred grows until it explodes. Things, simply, are just like that.

There is no enlightening, generous or kind occupation. Occupation breeds many such cases. But we only care to be touched by selected incidents and then condemn soldiers and leaders, the Left and the Right together. These are not cruel words. It is an anticipated outcome of brutality in the first place.

The Left does not seem shocked by settlers appropriating highways -Yes, before the current Intifada- nor by raids on homes in the night or by the prevailing anguish and poverty. The Left seem to be shocked only when the mask falls off the real face of occupation, when the illusion of enlightening occupation evaporates or when our wailing is heard from Gaza to Tel Aviv.

As long as the army's goal is to protect settlers -which should be as long as they live in their settlements- there will be more strikes and more insults. The army is a Jewish one committed to discriminate, insult and strike the Palestinians in order to protect those Jews living amongst Palestinians on Palestinian land.

Every thing is abusive, frustrating and painful for every Palestinian. It is meaningless to talk about one kind of pain. The situation will continue to be as such as long as our soldiers and settlers are suffocating them. Occupation has none but one face.

We could simply be like the Right and reject the vision. But we cannot look at the occupation through a microscopic lens that only concentrates on a single point to the extent that the general picture -that of occupation as seen by the whole world- gets distorted or fades in the muse of Ron bin Yashai.
-END-