Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumSoldiers Expel Palestinians from Pool in Area A to Enable Settlers to Bathe Undisturbed
Published:
7 Jun 2015
On 7 April 2015, during Passover holidays, a group of hundreds of settlers accompanied by Israeli security forces came to Birkat al-Karmil a natural pool close to the village of al-Karmil, which lies in the southern Hebron Hills within Area A. In 2011, Yatta Municipality renovated the site, creating a park there and restoring an ancient pool at its center.
Soldiers and settlers beside the pool. Photo: Maan News Agency, 7 April 2015
B'Tselems investigation found that at about 2:00 P.M., hundreds of settlers arrived at the pool accompanied by dozens of soldiers, Border Police, and representatives of the Civil Administration (CA). The security forces ordered the Palestinian bathers to leave the pool and remain on the edge of the park. They allowed the settlers, however, free and exclusive use of the rest of the park. At about 5:30 P.M., the settlers and the security forces left the area.
"According to media reports, reveal that the settlers came to the pool on the initiative of the Susiya Tour and Study Center. In its publications, the center described the pool as the historical site of the Biblical settlement of Carmel and emphasized that the visit was authorized and accompanied by the military. The center reported that some 1,000 people had taken part in the tour, including Chief Military Rabbi Rafi Peretz, and that similar events have been held at the site for several years, particularly during the festivals of Sukkot and Passover.
According to testimonies collected by B'Tselem, when the settlers arrived at the pool there were almost 200 Palestinians there. Some were bathing in the pool, while others were relaxing in the park. Muhammad Mahaniyah, 20, a resident of Yatta, told B'Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash that when the settlers arrived, accompanied by the security forces, he was bathing in the pool with friends:
in full: http://www.btselem.org/south_hebron_hills/20150604_birkat_al_karmel
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)I guess that is unless Israeli's want something the settlers are Israeli citizens after all.
CTBlueboy
(154 posts)Black teens are not allow to swim celebrating end of the school year in Texas, and Palestinians are not allowed to swim without harassment of settlers in Israel
shira
(30,109 posts)Why should Israelis listen to people who have nothing but disdain for them, cant understand their fears, and are happy to slander them abroad and pander to the hostile international fixation with their country? BTselem once had an important job to do. It has lost its way, if not its mind.
https://www.facebook.com/matti.friedman.1/posts/10155322165440416
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Between 2006 and the end of 2011, Friedman was a reporter and editor in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press (AP) news agency.[3] During his journalistic career, he also worked as a reporter in Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Moscow and Washington, D.C.[1]
Following the 2014 IsraelGaza conflict, Friedman wrote an essay criticizing what he views as the international media's bias against Israel and undue focus on the country, stating that news organizations treat it as "most important story on earth." He cited the fact that when he was a correspondent at the Associated Press (AP), "the agency had more than 40 staffers covering Israel and the Palestinian territories. That was significantly more news staff than the AP had in China, Russia, or India, or in all of the 50 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It was higher than the total number of news-gathering employees in all the countries where the uprisings of the 'Arab Spring eventually erupted... I dont mean to pick on the APthe agency is wholly average, which makes it useful as an example. The big players in the news business practice groupthink, and these staffing arrangements were reflected across the herd."[3] Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the piece went "viral" on Facebook.[1] The Atlantic then invited Friedman to write a longer article.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matti_Friedman
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)them published. Until then, he should be deeply embarrassed of himself...his views are meaningless.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Dear friends,
Like many of you, the results of this week's election in Israel weigh heavy on the minds of all of us at B'Tselem. Thus, I want to share some thoughts with you.
The election results show, loud and clear, that the voting public in Israel favors the ongoing occupation in its present form: a military rule that denies basic rights to millions of people, settlement expansion and its inverse the expropriation of Palestinian lands and the dispossession of its owners, and an entire occupation apparatus that entrenches two separate legal systems, unjust military courts, and a permit regime controlling most aspects of Palestinian life.
The verdict is crystal clear as are the limits within which it was handed down. This week, millions of Palestinian subjects, living for more than two generations under Israeli control, again did not get to cast a ballot in an election that fundamentally impacts their daily lives and their future. As our spokesperson Sarit Michaeli noted several days before the election, in June 2017 - within the excepted term of the new Knesset - we will mark the 50th year of occupation.
This state of affairs persists largely because it is allowed, bearable, and cheap. Well expensive and cruel to the Palestinians, but fairly convenient for Israelis. In fact, it is so convenient that the issue of the occupation hardly came up in the recent electoral campaigns. Change will only come either through new developments among Palestinians, a strategic shift in the largely occupation-tolerant international community, or the effective actions of Israelis who oppose the occupation.
We, the latter, have hard years ahead of us. We must address reality without euphemisms and deal with its implications. Within these hard and sobering election results, we now clearly know where the Israeli public stands. It would have been all too easy to continue the masquerade. Now that the masks are off, the ugly reality of indefinite military occupation is staring us in the face. We must return the gaze unflinchingly, voice our dissent loudly, and remember that the future is in our hands.
The fight against the occupation did not begin yesterday and will not end now. We, at BTselem, will continue our work. As you saw, we recently published upsetting footage of dogs being seton a Palestinian youth and night raids on Palestinian homes. We will continue to bring to light the daily aspects of occupation and to fight them undeterred. At the same time, we know that only ending occupation will end these injustices once and for all, and to that goal we are unwaveringly committed.
The occupation is here to stay. With your help, we are here to end it.
Sincerely,
Hagai El-Ad
Executive Director
shira
(30,109 posts)....that Hamas' human shield strategy (and child-combatants) plays a role in combat situations.
Worst kept secret ever.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)for your Israel and it is clear how irrational your opinion is about human rights groups.
USA USA..sis boom bah.
Israeli
(4,169 posts)......and not just B'tselem Jefferson
Why is Matti Friedman so mad at Breaking the Silence?
http://972mag.com/why-is-matti-friedman-so-mad-at-breaking-the-silence/106771/
Also.....
Occupation: The missing context in Matti Friedman's 'inside story'
http://972mag.com/the-missing-context-in-matti-friedmans-attacks-on-the-media/99531/
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Silence except, they're mean to Israel.
shira
(30,109 posts)Um, you cant slander someone who is anonymous.
Anyway, and more to the point, how is one supposed to respond to the report when all the supposed soldiers who supposedly testified are nameless and do not include ANY identifying time, location or unit related to the supposed incidents they supposedly described?
Oh, wait, as a reporter you cannot possibly report in good faith on such claims since all you have to rely on is the word of a foreign and Palestinian-funded NGO that has for years claimed the IDF commits crimes. As evidence, it provides many anonymous reports. When it provides named and videotaped reports, they are typically vanilla and, at best, indicative of a failure of the soldier in question, not of the system.
What Friedman is ably and correctly pointing out is that reporters from reputable publications that, unlike 972, do not seek to advocate for one side or another but are supposed to be reporting news with a modicum of respect for journalistic practices, are, like the author of this piece, reporting about this report as if its factual. Yet, they have no way of verifying anything. They dont know if a single testimony by any soldier is true, actually happened or whether this soldier has a reason to lie.
Friedmans complaints are not only legitimate, theyre accurate.
Oh, and regarding the question of the number of casualties indicating the BTS report has merit, why dont you take a look at typical civilian/combatant ratios in other conflicts with built up areas and see how Israels actions in Gaza where Hamas makes things even harder than in other places by wearing civilian clothes and operating from civilian centers compare? I think youll find that this argument fails.
This is a confused and upside-down-logic. It seem that Mairav Zonszein and Lisa Goldman did not really read the testimonies or, at least, not with much attention.
2. Here is why:
a. As Mairav Zonszein and Lisa Goldman acknowledge, the army had dropped leaflets on high density civilian areas and warned of imminent attack;
b. The army had called the local residents of high density civilian areas on THE TELEPHONE to vacate before the attack;
c. The army had hijacked local radio- and television transmission to the local residents of high density civilian areas and broadcasted to the residents to vacate before the attack;
d. There are ample documented evidence (even from al-Jazeera) that the residents left as asked;
Given the Above, the claim that heavy, imprecise weaponry was used in high-density civilian areas is just empty, meaningless and nonsensical. The IDF did more than is required under International Humanitarian law and the laws of war and was free to employ heavy weaponry in those areas against terrorists who were operating from tunnels deep underground beneath civilian homes and firing rockets, RPGs and mortars from within- or the immediate vicinity of civilian homes!
3. The IDF did what no other army has even done in the entire history of mankind. The United States Armed Forces dont even come close in this regard!. Ms. Zonszein and Ms. Goldman failed to understand all of the above. Matti Friedman did and is correct in his analysis.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)on posting sombody's hissyfit over not being loved?
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Pro-occupation Israelis should have to listen to people who have nothing but disdain for them because they are supporting evil.
The only way the occupation will end is if it becomes uncomfortable for the perpetrators, not just for the victims.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)I didn't find any other source though, but that's OK - B'Tselem is one of the few sources that are always accurate.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Israeli
(4,169 posts)which is why there is pressure on to close them down just now....along with other Left wing NGO's our Gov despises ......for telling the truth no less .
Here is another source for you with more details :
Bitter waters: Settlers invade ancient pool under Palestinian control
Dozens of Israeli soldiers ordered Palestinian children to get out of a swimming pool in Area A ostensibly under PA control in advance of a visit by hundreds of settlers.
By Gideon Levy and Alex Levac.
Its a day that wont be forgotten in the arid, far-flung village of Al-Karmel, in the southern reaches of Mount Hebron. Even now, two months later, the resident are overwrought when they tell the story of what happened, their rage and feeling of humiliation still palpable.
No blood was shed that day, no one was arrested or beaten, no home was demolished, no disaster occurred. But still, in Al-Karmel they havent forgotten. The mayor of the nearby city of Yatta remembers; the lifeguard, the gardener and the eyewitnesses remember. But above all its the children who remember: It was they were removed, forcefully and under the threat of rifles, from the water, because the settlers were coming. The lords of the land swept into the park under the aegis of the Israel Occupation Army, which kicked the Palestinians out of the only recreation site in the area.
It was April 7, the third day of Hol Hamoed (the intermediate days) of Passover; the same thing also happened a few days later, albeit on a smaller scale. But everyone in Al-Karmel remembers the day apartheid came to their ancient pool.
Isa Abu Sabiyah was at his home in the village. Hes 45, unemployed, the father of five children. In the late morning he noticed dozens of Israel Defense Forces soldiers swooping down on the swimming pool at the bottom of the slope below his home. He became anxious; hed never seen so many soldiers at the pool.
Birket Al-Karmel, an ancient water reservoir, was renovated in recent years, at a cost of millions of shekels, and turned into a recreation site. We visited this pool many years ago, when it was still a neglected site dating from the Ottoman period. We watched the children of Al-Karmel jump from high up into the stagnant water, risking their lives with every leap. A series of pictures taken at the time by photographer Miki Kratsman became iconic images.
The pool was renovated with funds from Yatta and donations, collected from both wealthy West Bank Palestinians and from abroad, at a cost of about 4 million shekels ($1 million), and the place was transformed. The pool is surrounded by a low wall, to prevent from jumping in, and the city now is planning to install a high fence, to prevent access to the site when it is closed. The terraces, decorative landscaping, Hebron stones, washrooms and a spring that gushes from the rock next to the pool all make this one of the most spectacular outdoor sites in the West Bank.
The renovations are scheduled to be completed this year. A restaurant and café will be built, at a cost of another 1.2 million shekels, says Yatta Mayor Mussa Mhamra, in addition to the fence. The fence is obviously sorely needed.
Abu Sabiyah watched as the soldiers rushed into the park. They surrounded the pool and ordered the children, all of them Palestinians, out of the water. Abu Sabiyah remembers that there were about 20 children swimming at the time, and all of them were forced to climb out. There were a few dozen local adults on hand as well. The soldiers, reinforced by a contingent from the Border Police, concentrated them all one corner of the park.
The troops cleansing operation was quickly accomplished. Abu Sabiyah called the Yatta municipality, which manages the site, to report on the intrusion. The mayor rushed over immediately, but to no avail.
Later that day, the lords of the land arrived. Hundreds of settlers. It was the Passover week holiday, and this was, according to the ads, a heritage trip sponsored by the Susiya Tour and Study Center, under IDF protection, as usual.
Some of the settlers jumped into the water, others stood and listened to the guides, who explained that this place belongs to the Jews. A few prayed Abu Sabiyah says some of the men also put on tefillin.
They even put dogs in the water. Did you ever see dogs in a pool? We dont do that, but they do, he adds.
This week, BTselem: the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, posted photographs shot by one of its field investigators of this disgraceful event. Hundreds of settlers, the men in skullcaps, triumphantly encircle the huge pool while a few of them splash about in the water. The Palestinians stand to one side, in the corner allotted to them, shamed and cowed, while armed soldiers secure the settlers.
Its important to point out that all this occurred in Area A, which under the Oslo Accords is under Palestinian control. But who cares?
If I go now to the [nearby] settlement of Carmel, would anyone let me in? Abu Sabiyah says bitterly. Would I be allowed into the settlement of Maon? And why would I go there, anyway? They come here only to make trouble.
The settlers frolicking went on for about two hours, until dusk. The uninvited guests left at about 5:30 or 6 P.M. The settlers left, the soldiers left, the Border Policemen left, too.
A similar event occurred again about two weeks ago. The parks gardener, Yakub Abu Haram, relates that at dawn on May 28, when he arrived for work, he saw a military force there, and about 10 settlers in the pool. The soldiers tried to prevent him from entering the site, even after he told them he works there. The lifeguard, Osama Mhamra, says that he too saw the soldiers from his house, before he left for the pool.
The IDF Spokespersons Unit says that the army has no information about this more recent occurrence.
As for the event during Passover, the IDF Spokespersons Unit offered the following response when asked whether its the armys task to secure events in which settlers invade Area A: On April 7, 2015, specific authorization was given by the relevant personnel in Central Command for settlers to enter a pool in whose area the biblical settlement of Carmel was located in the past and which is now in Area A. Nothing exceptional was recorded during the event. The Palestinians were allowed to be present in the area of the compound, and there were Palestinian attendants there.
As a rule, Israelis are not allowed into Area A, and any such entry requires specific authorization of the GOC. After the entry during Hol Hamoed of Passover, no additional entry of soldiers into the pool area has occurred that is known [to the IDF].
A few children were playing in the pool this week in the middle of a broiling-hot day. Theres still no shade at the site; creating shaded areas will be part of the next stage of development. Mayor Mhamra arrived in his pickup, accompanied by a uniformed security man from the Palestinian Authority and a member of the municipal council. Mhamra and the councilman have saved a video clip of the Passover visit on their cellphones.
The mayor heads a metropolitan area that covers a huge area and has 110,000 inhabitants. The Al-Karmel pool is its only recreation site. A lawyer and a member of the Palestinian Peoples Party, formerly the Communist Party, he was active on the Committee for the Protection of the Lands, a Palestinian organization. Only after the interview does he reveal that he speaks fluent Hebrew, as does the councilman, Yasser Bader. The two have just come from the village of Susiya, which the Palestinian prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, visited that day in the company of European diplomats who came to protest Israels plan to demolish the village.
Mhamra, in a white shirt, denies that the settlers visit on Passover was pre-arranged with him. We have bitter experience with the settlers in the region, he says. They are undesirable guests here. They are guests with swords. We will treat them in the same way they treat us. If we can go to Tel Aviv, if there is peace and equality, then we will host Israelis here. Now we will build a fence here and post guards day and night, so that similar incidents do not recur.
To which the muscular lifeguard, Osama Mhamra, adds, You know, if I were to try to get to Al-Aqsa [on the Temple Mount], I would be shot.
Gideon Levy tweets at @levy_haaretz
Source: http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/twilight-zone/.premium-1.660601
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)The Palestinians are dehumanized through degradation, the soldiers who have to enforce it have beome enablers of racism, and the settlers lose their empathy towards the Palestinians.
In the end, everyone will have to remember the part they took, and try to deal with it, somehow.
Israeli
(4,169 posts)......only take into consideration that our soldiers in the main are conscripted ...they either join the IDF and take orders or are jailed for not doing so ....add to that not doing so means rejection by their peers and Israeli society in general ...it also makes it much more difficult for them to find employment or scholarships to study etc .
Not doing your time ...whether you be male or female ....is a stigma that follows you the rest of your life.
The settlers dont have any " empathy " towards the Palestinians Little Tich.....sure there are always exceptions to the rule.....but they are few and far between .
" In the end, everyone will have to remember the part they took, and try to deal with it, somehow. "
Thats what ' Breaking The Silence ' is all about :
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)what excuse does Israel have for this, national security?
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Israeli
(4,169 posts)Amira Hass received an unusual phone call on her Palestinian cellphone the other day.
By Amira Hass
There is nothing exceptional today, said the woman soldier from the Israel Defense Forces spokesmans office when I asked why a crowd of hundreds of people waited for an hour and a half and longer at the Qalandiya checkpoint at the southern edge of Ramallah last Friday in a line that did not budge. Nothing exceptional, meaning that its always like that, the usual crowded group of people lining behind and between the bars at the checkpoint. Routine. Nothing special.
In the course of the event, there were no exceptional events, the spokesmans office told the Israeli human rights organization BTselem, which sought to find out why over Passover soldiers and police officers accompanying West Bank Jewish settlers had forced Palestinians swimming at Birkat al-Karmil in an area of the West Bank formally under full Palestinian control to get out of the water so the settlers could swim there as they pleased. So there is nothing unusual about expelling people from a pool that the local Yatta municipality had refurbished and maintains within the park. There is nothing unusual about members of the fortunate race disrupting a little leisure time from those of misfortune at a one of the few recreational spots in the area.
A routine step, said an Israeli bureaucrat, referring to the expected visit by a delegation from the prosecutors office at the International Criminal Court in The Hague as part of a preliminary examination of the possibility of war crimes having been committed after June 13, 2014. Totally routine, really a matter of no concern that people should get excited over, that an International Criminal Court delegation is coming to look into the possibility that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed. It happens all the time everywhere. Its a routine step, just as the war crimes (as defined by the Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute) being committed here (the settlements, for example) are routine.
The multiplicity of unexceptional incidents make us used to the screech of the increasing decibel levels, creating a constant din that stifles thought, increases the ceiling required to attract attention for a moment and prompting a questioning of the situation. After the wars on Gaza, anything that isnt mass death and destruction at a level of 7 on the Richter scale, anything fewer than 500 children killed, is less likely to attract glancing attention. Think of the thousands of children that have been injured in war there, disabled for life. Where is the verbal sleight of hand and the attractive photos that will depict them in a way that shakes the viewer from complacency?
An illegal settlement in the Jordan Valley reached the ceiling last week after an actor, Norman Issa, refused to perform in a production there and Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev weighed in on the issue. But who knows or cares or gets all excited about unexceptional incidents occurring in the Jordan Valley last week alone?
On June 10, the residents of the Khirbet Humsa community were evacuated for seven hours so the IDF could conduct military training, according to a BTselem report. When they returned, the residents discovered that grazing and agricultural land of theirs had caught fire and that dud ammunition had fallen near where they live. They have received another order to evacuate on June 16, for more exercises, and three other communities have received similar orders.
And speaking of dud ammunition: On the morning of June 4, a 9-year-old boy, Kataiba Sawafta of the northern West Bank town of Tubas, was severely burned when dud ammunition exploded near the village of Ibzik in the northern Jordan Valley in an area that the IDF closed for training exercises. That too is routine in the Tubas area (and something should have been added at this point in this column that would exceed the necessary ceiling against the background noise of the sanctification of the IDF and training exercises, but I dont know what I could write).
And on June 4, representatives of the Civil Administration in the West Bank, in the company of soldiers and a bulldozer, demolished structures, including five tents that served as homes, along with animal pens, in the shepherding community of Al-Makhsar in the northern Jordan Valley. Thats what Israelis are sending their children to the army to do; that boring, invisible routine, peaking with the routine matter of delegation from The Hague.
A time-out
Last Tuesday, my Palestinian cell phone rings. Caller ID shows its from an Israeli number. Hello, this is Yad Lachim, the young voice on the other end says. Excuse me? I respond.
Im speaking from Yad Lachim. Weve heard that you live in Ramallah. Is that true? Are you interested in our assistance?
Assistance with what? I say. If you want to leave, comes the response. Why would I want to leave? I ask. Just asking, the caller says. Just asking if everything is OK. If everything is OK, then stay there.
His name is Yitzhak, and I ask him: And if I do want to leave, how will you get me out of Ramallah? Do you go into Ramallah? Or set a place to meet?
Im just a volunteer, he says diplomatically, but the minute that you say you need to get out, I will tell the call center, the management at the office. They will know what to do.
No, he has not yet had the chance to get someone out of the West Bank, but he has prepared for it. He hasnt been volunteering for very long, he explains, but he tries to help, just volunteering here for his national civilian service. Anything that Jews and Arabs need help with, I try to help.
You also help Arabs? I ask.
I help everyone. I try. I am not officially doing national service. Its like picking up hitchhikers at every hitchhiking post.
Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.661145