Rather than giving security to Israeli public, this policy is sowing seeds of hatred and revenge.

This is a war against a civilian population and is a clear violation both of military war ethics and international law.

I ask you to immediately implement the Fourth Geneva Convention protecting civilians in occupied territories. I demand the immediate cessation of house demolitions and compensation to the victims.

Addresses:
PM Ariel Sharon: rohm@pmo.gov.il; pm@pmo.gov.il , Fax: +9722-5664838

Minister of Foreign Affairs Sylvan Shalom: sar@mofa.gov.il; Fax: +9722-5303506

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz: sar@mod.gov.il; Fax: 972-3-697-6990

DAY 6 August 13 2004 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

On the construction site the brick wall on the roof was completed. At lunch time Michael and Yael from Taayush, a grassroots movement of Arabs and Jews working to break down the walls of racism and segregation, talked about their activities towards constructing a true Arab-Jewish partnership. Fred Schlomka spoke about the establishing of integrated Arab/Jewish communities and integrated educational and social programs through Mosaic Communities.

After dinner, candles and a camp fire were lit and the volunteers enjoyed a peaceful evening sharing their experiences for the first week of being together in the project of resisting the occupation by rebuilding a demolished home in the occupied territories.

For more information about Taayush please visit their website:

www.taayush.org

For more information about Mosaic Communities please contact Fred Schlomka, the executive director at:
info@mosaic-coop.org

[Note: I've compiled them in reverse chronological order and will add new reports as and when I get them. WB]

DAY 13 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

Following an extraordinary breakfast of falafel and humus, the group departed to visit the “mixed” cities of Lod and Ramleh with Fred Schlomka from Mosaic Communities. We traveled on rout 44, an Israeli only road with several blocked entrances of roads that used to go to Palestinian villages. We visited the settlement of Modi'in, which straddles the green line connecting the Ariel settlements to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

We headed to Ramleh and Lod, once the biggest and liveliest Palestinian cities in the region. Yet on July 13, 1948, Israeli troops forcefully compelled the entire population of as many as 70,000 men, women and children to flee their homes. Systematic looting followed. Swarms of new Jewish immigrants flocked to Lydda and Ramleh, and within days these ancient towns were transformed from Palestinian to Jewish municipalities. Lydda is now called Lod.

We stopped at the Shatel office in Lod and heard a brief presentation from Yuval and Choria about the programs and activities of the center. Then we took a tour around Lod. We went to the old train station area. In order to get there we had to cross a check point! A police car followed us throughout the tour.

We saw the walls that the Jewish residents of Ramle and Lod have requested to disconect them from Palestinian neighbourhoods. These “mixed” cities are an example of the mentality of “separation” inside the State of Israel.

Shmuel Groag, urbanist and architect, from Bimkom, spoke about planning as a political tool. Later Devora Brous made the connection between the demolitions that the entire Bedouin encampment next to Beit Arabiya face due to the planned rout of the Wall, and the importance of challenging urban planning in the name of human rights.

DAY 12 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

In the morning we were working on site, cleaning up the floors and painting the walls inside the house. Outside the house we sprayed the walls with plaster to give the house a sandy stone look.

At lunchtime Dr Salim Anati came to talk to us about the projects for his clinic, for disabled people, for educating girls from poor families, for physiotherapy and rehabilitation, for mothers and small children. They need $7000 US per month to keep up their running costs. Some girls from the project danced Dabaka for us, dressed in traditional Palestinian dresses and they were fantastic. After lunch, we returned to the house for more plastering and more cleaning up. The electrics were finished and the lights were all working when we left.

In the evening there was a big debate about whether we wanted to watch a video about the settlers, Jenin Jenin, Fahrenheit 9/11 or ice age. We had to put our democratic consensus based decision making skills into practice for this. In the end the winner was Michael Moore and his movie Fahrenheit 9/11.

DAY 11 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

A waking to the usual hellish screaming, groaning and pounding from the caterpillar earth machine, which is now working directly in front of the camp. Two journalists from the local Jerusalem newspaper, Kol Ha-Ir (”All The City”), were early visitors as we stirred slowly to Salim's morning call of “Brrekfahst!” After breakfast Aaron went up to the house to work with the crew who continued working on the final coats of plaster, floor tiles, windows, doors and kitchen counters. The rest of us worked at Beit Arabiya, painting, cleaning, planting and general straightening up.

After the usual delicious lunch prepared by the amazing Arabiya, we went to the Jerusalem municipality building where we were offered the right wing views of Gaby Yair of the Mafdal (National Religious Party). A lively discussion – to say the least – followed. We then went to St. George's Cathedral for a meeting with Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli jailed for 17 and a half years for revealing Israel's nuclear weapon's program to the world. He is currently being held under house arrest by the Israeli government. This meeting with the courageous Vanunu was inspirational for all of us.

The evening featured a visit from four extraordinary women, Amneh Badran, from the Jerusalem Center for Women, Diane Butto, PLO Legal Adviser, Terry Bulata, anti-wall activist, and Amit Leshem, from the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, who presented their views on the problems, challenges and hopes of the Palestinian struggle for the liberation.

Was a full and memorable day, another in a string of extraordinary days here at Beit Arabiya.

Opening ceremony of Kabuah family home and tree planting on planned route of the separation wall disconnecting Anata from Jerusalem

Saturday August 21st, 2004
16:30 pm
Anata, Jerusalem

On Saturday August 21th 2004, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions' summer work camp will close in a festive ceremony celebrating the conclusion of the rebuilding of the Kabuah family home, demolished in June this year.
The ceremony will include:

* Speeches by Israeli, Palestinian and international participants of the camp in Bedouin tent near the home.

* Opening ceremony and toast

* Planting of trees on planned route of the separation fence, meters away from the family's home

* A festive dinner

Background on work camp:

During the last two weeks, Israeli, Palestinian and international volunteers from around the world, have rebuilt the Kebuah family home after its demolition in June this year. The work camp was organized by The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions in protest of Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories, the inability of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to obtain building permits which brings about the demolition of their homes.

Background on Kabuah Family:

The Kabuah family, of 21 members, belongs to the Jahalin tribe. After displaces from their land in the Negev, the family arrived at Anata village in Jerusalem in 1980, purchased land in the village and finished building their home in 1998. The family home was demolished in June 2004 due to lack of a building permit, and after a long legal procedure trying to obtain one. The building included 4 apartments in which the 3 generations of the family lived.

For further information:

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: 02-6245560
Devorah Borus, camp manager: 053-711800
Ashraf Abu Moch, camp coordinator: 065-389784

DAY 10 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

On Day 10, we gave our chef, Arabiya Shawamreh, a much-needed day of rest while ICAHD Coordinator Jeff Halper took us on a full-day tour of the Triangle area of central Israel, where large numbers of Israel's Palestinian population live. Palestinians make up approximately 20% of Israel's population. Although they are citizens and may vote in Israeli elections, as non-Jews they suffer many forms of discrimination in the Jewish state.

Even the drive from Jerusalem north to the Triangle gave us a demonstration of the discriminatory treatment Palestinians in both the occupied territories and Israel receive. We followed the newly constructed Begin Highway, named in memory of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, which cuts right through the middle of the Palestinian town of Beit Hanina, separating families and neighborhoods. We then continued north on the new Trans-Israel Highway, which cuts north-south through Israel and is intended, Jeff explained, to shift the center of Israel's population eastward from the coast in order to Judaize Palestinian areas and integrate Israel proper with the West Bank. Along the way, we drove beside the separation wall in the vicinity of Qalqiliyah. Although this concrete barrier is 25 feet high, it is barely visible on the Israeli side, thanks to extensive attractive landscaping-a clever way, as Jeff noted, to hide the reality of the wall from Israelis, most of whom are barely aware of its existence or its devastating impact on the Palestinians living on the other side.

At the Israeli Arab city of Baqa el-Gharbiya, we saw the wall close up. Camp Coordinator Ashraf, a Palestinian resident of the Israeli side of Baqa, took us on a walk along the wall and described its consequences for the people on both sides. Until the wall was constructed in this section a year ago, there was a thriving market, along approximately 500 meters of a road running east-west from Baqa Gharbiya to Baqa Sharqiya. In August last year, Israel demolished hundreds of market stalls and shops, as well as at least six private homes, in order to construct the wall directly across the market road and between families and service providers. Commercial activity has now come to a complete halt in this area of town, and Ashraf explained that Israel has established a system of permits that allows only 116 named individuals to pass through the gate in the wall from one side to the other. We left our mark on the wall by writing protest messages on it in Italian, French, and English.

In Nazareth, the largest Palestinian city in Israel, we paid a brief visit to a protest tent set up to show solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners being held in Israeli prisons, who had begun a hunger strike the previous day protesting the abysmal conditions in which they are held. Later, following an excellent Arab lunch, we heard a talk by Muhammad Zeidan, the Director of the Arab Association for Human Rights, which monitors the human rights situation of Palestinian citizens of Israel and attempts to defend Palestinian civil, cultural, and political rights. Zeidan gave a clear description of the kinds of institutional and legal discrimination faced by Palestinians in Israel and answered our many questions about the status of Palestinian citizens.

To cap a long day, Ziad, a resident of Nazareth but the son of refugees who fled the small neighboring town of Saffourieh when Israel captured this area during the 1948 war, took us on a tour of what remains of Saffourieh. Most of the residents of the village, a small farming community, fled to Lebanon and Syria in 1948, and a few, including Ziad's parents and their families, moved to Nazareth. Few traces of Saffourieh, which is now the site of the Israeli town of Zippori, remain today, but Ziad led us through an area of large prickly pear, or in Arabic saber, cactus, which are the sure sign of the existence of a former Palestinian village. We walked through the village's old cemetery, saw the remains of a few long-destroyed pre-1948 homes, and visited a school now run by an Italian religious order for troubled Palestinian children. The main hill on which Saffourieh stood provides a beautiful view of the plains of Galilee below. In an effort to erase any recollection of the Palestinian town, Israel has turned its hillsides into a national park, planting in trees donated by Jews around the world, and the town of Zippori is a farming community. The Palestinian natives of the town have never been allowed to return.

DAY 9 17 August 2004 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

In the morning window frames and door frames were being put into place at the building site. In the afternoon students from the Student Coalition of Tel Aviv University talked about their project of uniting all the left wing political student groups into a single coalition. Dhakiyya talked about the IRA attacks in England and how the reactions of people and behavior of the government was very different to that in Israel. According to Dhakiyya's friend, from Anata, the trucks on the prison opposite to Beit Arabiya belonged to her brother but were confiscated for supplying concrete illegally to buildings with no permit. “This is the only place I've been to where there is a black market in building houses for families” said Dhakiyya.

Everything was moving fast on site in the afternoon with lots of cries for Yalla Shabaab. There was a great deal of rabble to be removed from the floor and plenty more bricks to move. We passed buckets of cement for the workers to put concrete over the walls. A student from Tel Aviv University got cement on his head and one of the Palestinian workers gently pulled the cement out.

In the evening Jeff Halper gave a talk on the “Matrix of Control”. Everyone went to bed completely exhausted.

DAY 8 16 August 2004 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

We spent the morning cementing inner walls and finishing the upper walls. In the afternoon Kathy and Bill, former CIA analysts, talked about their work, the work of the CIA, and how they realized that American foreign policy is causing a lot of suffering and oppression in other countries. We continued with our nonviolence resistance training, with role playing on how to deal with interrogation by Israeli officials. We explored what is privilege and our hidden prejudices. Some of us were surprised to find we are less privileged than we thought. This led to a fascinating discussion about what is privilege, and what values determine what privilege is.

In the evening Ram Rajat and Dan from Yesh Gvul talked to us about refusing to serve in the Israeli army and about the fact that the army is used to control a civilian population (and not to fight another army). They talked about the conditions soldiers are expected to work in and the way this inflames the situation with the Palestinians.

Later, we had a surprise 20th birthday for Lina, Salim's daughter. There was enough cake to feed all of Anata, and the girls taught us how to dance dabke.

Note: ICAHD = Israeli Committee Against House Demolition

DAY 7 15 August 2004 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

Each morning we awaken to the flies, and to screeching, piercing sounds of Israel's Caterpillars. There are extensive earthworks happening in front of Beit Arabiya: the beginning foundation for the Separation Wall, in addition to the construction of a bypass road to the settlement of Adam.

On Saturday, Devorah Brous, the Camp Manager, led us on a critical tour to the Negev. We learned about the forced displacement and urbanization of Israel's indigenous Bedouin citizens and about industrial, military and settlement expansion in the area: in and around the Siyag, the reservation. We met with an environmental scientist from Negev Sustainability, an expert on the Ramat Hovav industrial zone and toxic waste incinerator. Until now, the polluters are given license to monitor their own pollution levels. We learned about the recently released epidemiological study commissioned by the Health Ministry indicating 65% higher rates of mortality for people living in a 20 km radius of this industrial zone. This amounts to a public health crisis, affecting some 350,000 people.

To compare and contrast the conditions inside the 7 recognized and the 45 unrecognized Bedouin villages, we drove through high-voltage electricity fields that criss-cross the Wadi el Na'am unrecognized village, and met with their Bedouin leadership for a traditional meal in the Shig. This village, as the others unrecognized by Israel, is populated by 4,500 citizens who are denied adequate access to a host of rudimentary rights such as electricity, water, and health care. We visited a resistance project: the eco-built, solar-powered medical clinic designed and constructed by volunteers from the NGO, Bustan. We learned that institutions refused to staff the clinic without a building permit (there are no permits in unrecognized villages) and many doctors were unable to staff the clinic for fear of the health hazards of working anywhere near Ramat Hovav. After overcoming many bureaucratic and technical hurdles, three volunteer doctors have agreed to staff the Wadi el Na'am medical clinic—starting this Tuesday! They are seeking donations of sealed, non-expired antibiotics and medical supplies to keep the Wadi el Na'am medical clinic stocked.

Afterwards, we went to a planned township, Tel Sheva, and met with the local leadership. Bedouin living in these townships had to relinquish their land claims to obtain water, electricity, and health care.

To finish our day we went to the Jewish suburb of Omer, flanked by the Bedouin village of Tarabin el-Sana. We learned about the discriminatory allocation of resources in the Negev, in particular water consumption. Then we met with Bedouin leader Nuri el-Uqbi to learn about his land struggle with the Givot Bar settlers over their tribal land.

After a hot day in the desert we drove back to Anata for Arabiya's Mejaddra. Ronni Shendar from ICAHD's Daila project presented heterogeneous angles of Israeli society and we engaged in a discussion about the important role of the Mizrachi Jews in the peace and justice movement.

ICHAD = Israeli Committee Against House Demolition

MM

August 14, 2004

Dear Friends,

During the Second Intifada alone, Israel has demolished more than 4,500 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Most of these homes were not demolished during combat but rather as part of Israel's pro-active policy of asserting its control over the Territories.
Rafah in Gaza has received special attention due to Israel's unilateral decision to disconnect it from the border with Egypt. For this reason Israel has already demolished about 1,500 homes in this tiny but densely populated area — an area whose inhabitants have been made refugees and left homeless by Israel time and time again— this time leaving 15,000 persons displaced and without a home. Israel's policy of house demolitions is an act of war against non-combatant Palestinian civilians, a fundamental violation of international law and the ethics of war.

All of you reading this take coming home as a commonplace and routine act. For most Palestinians this is not the case. More than 40,000 Palestinians have lost their homes in the past four years. Some 11,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Thousands of innocent families live under the constant threat of the destruction of their homes and lives.

We ask you to help us in our struggle to stop the continuing policy of house demolitions and to compensate those who have already lost their homes. We ask you to contact Israeli government officials, your ministry of foreign affairs and your parliamentary or congressional representatives, asking for the immediate halt of this illegal policy and compensation for the victims.
Following is a sample letter addressed to Israeli officials (addresses supplied). You can adapt it to your own political representatives.
To the Minister ofÖ.

DAY 5 August 12 2004 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

Following Wednesday's car bomb attack in Kalandia. The Shufat check point was temporarily closed yesterday morning. The truck that was to refurnish the construction site with bricks got stuck in the check-point and the work on the construction site was therefore somewhat delayed. However work in the house proceeded smoothly and fast in the afternoon. (The idea of visiting Anata and Shufat was dropped due to security concerns.)

In the evening the journalist Yuli Chumchinko from Ha'aretz was our guest and spoke about the role of the Israeli media in the second Intifada.

DAY 4 August 11 2004 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

In the morning the participants of the Summer Work Camp heartily walked up the hill from Beit Arabiya to continue the rebuilding of the Kabu'ah's home. Cement was poured on the second floor and needed drying, so we went to an informative critical tour of the settlements and the wall around Jerusalem. The tour had to change the planned rout due to the explosion south of the Qalandiyah checkpoint at the northern entrance to Jerusalem that killed two Palestinian bystanders and injured another 18 people. As the participants were out on the tour, the IDF entered Anata. Luckily the workers were not at the building site. The army jeeps entered the area, stopped on the hill overlooking Beit Arabiya and turned round.

During the tour we visited the biggest settlement in the West Bank, Male Adomim, an insulated Jewish neighborhood were people are not ideological about the place they live. We also saw in Abu Dis very clearly how the wall is separating Palestinians from Palestinians radically affecting their lives and livelihood.

In the evening we saw the stirring yet in some contexts dangerous film by Juliano Mer Khamis and Danniel Danniel: “Arna's Children.” It is always difficult to see the other side of a coin, and more so in the middle of fighting, when pain, anger and hatred rule. This film presented us with a rare opportunity to get a fuller and more realistic picture of the Palestinian Intifada.

The discussion afterwards kept the participant's attention until very late at night. Juliano answered questions from internationals, Israeli's and Palestinians. His charisma, integrity and talent are commendable.

For more information contact:

Lucia Pizarro
International Coordinator
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
PO Box 2030, 91020 Jerusalem,
Israel

Tel: 972-(0)2-624-5560 Fax: 972-(0)2-622-1530 Mobile
972-(0)547704307
mailto:lucia@icahd.org Web: www.icahd.org

DAY 3 August 10 2004 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

The Kabu'ah house is truly beginning to take shape. By the end of yesterday, all four exterior walls and many of the interior walls were completed. Late into the night, in order to avoid drawing attention to the rebuilding, our dedicated workers and two volunteers used large and noisy machinery to pour cement onto the roof for the floor of the second story.

The camp was a bit startled when in mid-morning two Israeli security officers approached the building site. However, when a couple of camp volunteers attempted to speak with the officers, it became clear that they had no interest in the rebuilding, but rather were there to oversee the earth works being conducted just a stone's throw from Beit Arabiya and the future Kabu'ah house.

In fact, a segment of the wall – or “Separation Barrier” – is being built less than 100 meters from our rebuilding site. “The irony is that while we are rebuilding a Palestinian home in resistance to the trademarks of the Occupation, Israel is actually building one of those very trademarks, the Wall,” said Lucia Pizarro, ICAHD International Coordinator.

Yesterday also included important talks by Arik Asherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, presenting a religious, Zionist approach to defending Palestinian human rights; Jodit, an American-Israeli Jewish educator, presenting a mainstream Israeli approach to the conflict; Alex of Women in Black, discussing the role of women's NGOs in the peace movement; as well as an evening presentation given by Ivy of Anarchists Against the Wall, including a documentary on the violence that ensued when the IDF took over the village of Deir Katis in order to build a section of the wall there this past May, 2004.

We also had visitors from German television in Munich who interviewed Salim and Arabiya extensively, as well as our two German speaking ICAHD interns, Heike and Rainer. They told the reporters the story of Beit Arabiya and then took them to the rebuilding site to discuss this summer's project. We are also pleased that Nicolas, a camp volunteer and filmmaker from France, continues to film a documentary on the Summer Work Camp.

The presence of bulldozers down the hill, the nearby demolition on Monday, and the two “visitors” in uniform yesterday did not for one moment deter the group from joining in this important act of resistance and action. In fact, group solidarity has increased dramatically over the last few days; discussions reach greater depths and fields; and the growing sense is that the group is sharing a common experience.

DAY 2 August 9 2004 (Cont.) Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

Despite demolitions yesterday in nearby Shu'afat Refugee Camp, the ICAHD Summer Work Camp continued in full force. Under the particularly hot sun, our camp of internationals, Israelis and Palestinians poured their energy and sweat into the Kabu'ah home. By the end of the day, almost all of the exterior walls were completed and the wooden framework for the roof begun.

In the evening, Bassem Eid from the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) spoke to the participants about human rights violations and the role of the Palestinian Authority. After an active discussion, everyone slept from a full day.

Today will be another solid rebuilding day, as we will continue to lay bricks for the walls and iron for the roof. The house is truly becoming a reality before our eyes, and everyone is in high spirits.

DAY 2 Beit Arabiya Summer Work Camp 2

This morning the camp started with a high security alert: Bulldozers were approaching the area. As the bulldozers were on their way to demolish houses at the Shu'afat Refugee Camp just around the corner, the participants of our Summer Work Camp eagerly walked up the hill from Beit Arabiya to continue the rebuilding of the Kabu'ah home. The camp participants comprise people from all over the world, Australia, Mexico, US, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Israel, Sweden, Palestine, and of all ages, from 16 to over 70.

Yesterday, the theoretical foundations for the Camp and the physical supports of the house were successfully built. First, we spent most of the day in a nonviolence training workshop led by the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT), the International Women's Peace Service (IWPS), and the Quakers' Service Jerusalem. Then, we joined the workers at the building site to form a human chain carrying cement from the mixer to the columns of the house. In the evening, we watched the documentary film, “Jahalin,” followed by a panel discussion with one of the directors, Talya Ezrahi, the head of the Jahalin tribe of Anata, Abu Musa, and the Kabu'ah family. We learned about the numerous displacements of the Jahalin Bedouins since 1948 and the difficulties of the Jahalin community today in Anata.