Friends:

 

 you will now be able to find updates on the campaign for Jayyous at http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.skjpag.org/%20riqahome.htm. Thanks to the South Kingstown Justice and Action Group. An editorial in Haaretz today ("Not one single settlement"http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.haaretz.com) comments, "...there is energetic ground-breaking work going on in an attempt to establish new facts on the ground.  The suspicion is that the government is trying to draw up a new map strewn with Jewish settlement points before the Americans come to the region to draw their own map fo the settlements."   "Anyone who has been following the settlement project since its inception knows that most of it has come about using the method of promises are one thing, winks are another thing and construction is quite another".

 

Please help to up the pressure with phone calls today and letters, faxes and emails over the weekend.

Bobbie

Rhode Island Qalqilya Alliance

 

 

HALT THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF JAYYOUS

Latest developments in Jayyous (12/16/04)

Farmers expect bulldozing of their land to resume at any time.

On Thursday, Dec. 9th  Israeli contractors guarded by settlers arrived with earthmoving equipment and uprooted 117 olive trees belonging to a Jayyous farmer on the 75% of Jayyous’ remaining land that is trapped behind the Separation Barrier. Some trees were trucked to Israel to be sold. When the farmers protested, they were shown a document of sale of the land to the settlers.  Photos and details of the incident can be seen at http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.chris-on-the-bike.de/eappi_uprooting01.htm.   

 

On Sunday, Dec. 12th  farmers went to the regional military authority at the settlement of Kedumim to contest the documents and are now engaged in a legal battle to prove that the proof of sale was forged. However the Israeli army has indicated to the farmers that they are confident the Israeli settlers can have the land.  Temporary street signs in Hebrew have been placed on these lands, including one that says, "Sharon street." Another farmer, Sharif Omar, owns land which is designated on the new map for an expanded Israeli military training ground; on Sunday the Israeli military authority denied that his land has been confiscated. His lawyer expects that the army plans to use it on a "temporary" basis (months or years).  As Sharif Omar will not be allowed to enter a restricted military area, he will have no ability to farm his land, and he anticipates that his 1,300 fruit and olive trees will die. However, he cannot contest this in military court until he is served with a notice from the Israeli government. Often, construction on the land begins before a notice ever arrives. It seems this is also the status of the land owned by the other farmers on the land planned for the building of 1,500 - 4,000 Jewish only housing units. (3,500 native villagers live in Jayyous while 4000 villagers live in exile.) The settlement is planned to be constructed in a long strip which will also block access from the village to land on the other side of it.  It is possible that some of the village homes will be destroyed because their proximity to the settlement will be a “security” concern to the armed settlers.

 

300 of Jayyous’ 520 families are already relying on humanitarian aid to survive. This settlement spells the end of the road for a pastoral village which was once self-sufficient.  Links to reports with more detail can be found below. Watch for a special report on Jayyous on Mon 12/20/04 on www.flashoints.net

ACTION!

As a result of our phone calls over the past two weeks, the US State Department, RI Senators, US Embassy to Israel and US Consulate are well aware of the situation in Jayyous. Senator Chafee is sending a letter to the State Department about the situation. This is a good step, but it is unlikely that this in itself will stop the settlement. Our goal now is to call and write all our senators, especially members of the Foreign Relations Sub-Committee, to insist that they take strong action against the building of another Israeli settlement in Jayyous.

Please take a few of the following actions every day until the settlement is stopped. Our government is deeply committed to Israel’s interests and success in getting strong action will depend upon us overwhelming them with the volume of our calls and our insistence that our taxes and political cover not be used to destroy the community of Jayyous.

  

Our message:YOU MESS WITH JAYYOUS, YOU MESS WITH US!

1.       Call your Senators at their DC offices: 1-800-839-5276.  

Insist that they explain what action they are taking to stop the settlement.

Additional contact info for your senators can be found at: http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

U.S. Rep. Lois Capps has spoken out strongly against the Wall in the past

2.       Call the members of the Foreign Relations Sub-committee (Near East): 1-800-839-5276.  

:  

Barbara Boxer, Ranking Member (CA)

Jon S. Corzine (NJ)

John D. Rockefeller(WV)

Paul S. Sarbanes (MD)

Lincoln Chafee, Chairman (RI)
Chuck Hagel (NE)

Sam Brownback (KS)
George V. Voinovich (OH)

Demand that they convey they support of Chafee’s initiative to the State Department and follow with strong action to stop the settlement.

3.       Fax or write William Burns at the State Dept. as he won’t take our calls. They are part of the executive branch and state that the US officially opposes Israel’s construction of new settlements, yet they say they are unable to take action without orders.

William Burns, State Dept, NEA/IPA, Rm 6251, 2201 "C" St. WA DC 20520, Fax: 202 736 4461.  

4.       Fax or email the Israeli Ministry of Justice:

Fax: 011 972 2 6285438, Email: sar@justice.gov.il.

Demand that Israel cease all confiscation of Jayyous land through forged documents or any other means.

5.      Call Israeli State Land Officer Galad at the Kedumim settlement which overseas

the occupation of Jayyous:  (from US) 011 972 057 772 9785.

6.       Please report your participation and anything you learned in your conversations to: RIQA@juno.com so we can gauge the progress of this campaign.

If you are part of an organization which is willing to participate with other groups on media work or on coordinated actions so that we can lend our collective force for local and international statements, please contact us at RIQA @juno.com

 

If you are in Europe, or have European contacts that would be interested in acting on this, please contact Aurora in the Netherlands who is coordinating with the European Coordination of Committees on Palestine:   jayyousaction@hotmail.com.  They are calling for increased physical presence in Jayyous. of the international community .  See call for action below.

 

Background to the current situation

On Nov. 29th, farmers in the Palestinian agricultural village of Jayyous found Israeli construction crews with US-made Caterpillar earthmoving equipment destroying village farmland.  The construction workers said that they had orders from the Israeli army to build 80 Jewish housing units as the start of a settlement called Zufim North and expect they may use 500 acres of land belonging to 79 Jayyous families.

Families of the community of Jayyous have farmed their ancestral orchards and fields for many hundreds of years. They first lost 500 acres of land in 1948 to Israel. The rest of Jayyous was captured in 1967 by Israel and in the years since Israel has stolen more and more of the land and water resources of the Jayyous community. The Jewish settlement of Zufim was built in 1989 on land belonging to Jayyous families.  Jewish setters from Zufim in the past have stoned Palestinian farmers and stolen their agricultural produce. The LIDAR corporation is the developer for Zufim. LIDAR is owned by Lev Leviev, who is said to be the richest man in Israel and is associated with the Lubavitch Chassidic sect which opposes giving any land to a Palestinan state, believing God meant for all the land "between the river and the sea" to be settled by Jews.  LIDAR confiscated additional land from Palestinian farmer Sharif Omar for the building of the Zufim North quarry a few years ago. The quarry has blasted deeper and deeper into the farm land and is now just 15 feet from the water reservoir which provides most of the water for Jayyous' farmers and risks being destroyed by the explosions.

Two years ago farmers in Jayyous found military orders in their orchards saying that some of their farmland would be destroyed for the building of a Seperation Barrier that would run 6km deep into Jayyous land from the Green line (Israel/West Bank border) and 75% of their remaining land would be trapped behind this barrier. Jayyous organized active non-violent campaigns to resist this. Jayyous farmers offered to share the cost of the wall to have it built on the green line instead of severing their land, but Israel was not interested. Israel stated the Barrier was for security, not illegal land theft, but farmers anticipated that the Barrier would be used to annex existing Jewish settlements and additional land to Israel to be used as “facts on the ground” in further negotiatons.  Farmer Sharif Omar testified at the Hague regarding the impact of the Barrier on his community. The US House of Representatives passed a resolution opposing the IC’s ruling regarding the illegal nature of the Barrier. Since the creation of the barrier farmers have struggled to access their land behind the barrier. Israel would only allow access through the successful application for a temporary permit; since the farmers finally accepted that they would have to do this,  permits have often been issued to babies, dead people, people living abroad, or those over 50 while many of the farmers whose families and community depend on the land have been denied permits. This, along with restriction from taking produce to markets,  has resulted in the economic collapse of this agricultural community, and devastating anguish and despair for its people whose identity and livelihood is drawn from the land.  In the past Israel has prevented Palestinian farmers from access to their land and then declared the land abandoned and confiscated it under the  Ottoman Land Law of 1858.

The first warning of the current land confiscation came in mid-July of this year, when a group of Jewish settlers and Israeli army troops arrived in busses and jeeps and filmed staged confrontations, some of the Israeli settlers playing the part of Palestinians. Afterwards, Jayyous residents saw signs posted in the area with the names of famous Zionists, and saw that further properties had been marked to be confiscated. A new dirt road was built leading towards the illegal settlement of Zufim, which has already confiscated 450 acres of Jayyous' farm land. in November, Military Order #04/75646-2004 was issued,  stating that "no building is to be allowed within a 300 meter wide area on the eastern side of the Wall," further hampering development of towns already hemmed in by the barrier, and possibly presaging demolition of already-built structures near the fence. (StopTheWall.org, Dec. 1)

Intervews with a farmer and a landowner from Jayyous about the situation can be heard online at  http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.flashpoints.net/  (report from Wednesday, Dec. 1st : http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/209.81.10.18/data/20041201-Wed1700.mp3).  Photos of Jayyous can be found at  http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.jayyousonline.org/ in the Arabic section of the website at the blue highlighted tab. We also have video interviews and footage from Jayyous available.

Efforts in the US to halt the settlement:

When Jayyous first informed us of the situation on   (see email below) RIQA and others around the country began to contact our Senators, the State Dept, The US Consulate in Israel and the US Embassy in Jerusalem to inform them of the situation and demand that they intervene. One of the RI organizers had several meetings with government representatives in Washington to explain the situation in detail with photos and maps. The state department continues to tell us that although they are part of the executive branch, and although the US position officially opposes the building of settlements, they have no power to intervene, our government does not tell Israel what to do. We were told that not since the time of James Baker has the State Dept had that kind of direct and open dialog with the Israeli government (despite the free and open dialog the US treasury has with the Israeli treasury).   In one case David Green hung up on a caller when Jayyous was mentioned. The US embassy in Jerusalem claims they have been reporting to Washington on the situation but only do what they are instructed to by Washington. Senator Chafee, who is head of the Foreign Relations Sub-committee on the Middle East, has recently returned from Jerusalem.  He described the situation as "heartbreaking" to one caller, and his office is writing to the state department to express concerns. Senator Reed has shown no indication of responding to constituents. Rep. Kennedy and Rep. Langevin have on their record the recent vote denouncing the International Court of Justice for daring to rule that the Israeli wall through Palestinian lands is illegal.

 

Efforts in Europe

Netherlands Palestine Committee: Emergency Call To Save The Land Of JAYYOUS http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67921

Links to articles on the current situation in Jayyous

Israelis hasten land grab in shadow of wall: Bulldozers go in as expansion of settlements continues

                                                                                                                                             

The Guardian.Chris McGreal,Dec 14, 2004 http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1372963,00.html

Israel's wall hems in livelihoods -- and dreams                                                                  

Sharif Omar from Jayyous,   Dec. 16, 2004                     http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030818/5415257s.htm

Photo story:

http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.chris-on-the-bike.de/eappi_uprooting01.htm

http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.chris-on-the-bike.de/eappi_uprooting02.htm

Two Years in Jayyus.  Photos and Info
Credit: PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.    Date: December 15th, 2004.
http://stopthewall.org/photos/828.shtml

Do the Wall’s Roots Start to Reveal Themselves?


Personal Testimony, Abdul-Latif Khaled from Jayyous,, December 5th, 2004

http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/stopthewall.org/communityvoices/823.shtml

Olive Trees uprooted in Jayyous apparently to make Room for another Settlement

EAPPI, Christoph Gocke  living in Jayyous,

http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.eappi.org/eappiphotos.nsf/collectionslist/59.html

More Land Grabs possible in Jayyous                                                                                           

EAPPI, Iaian Connon, 10 Dec. 2004                              

http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.eappi.org/eappi.nsf/index/rep-ic-04121002.html

Update From Jayyous: Israeli Settlement Seizes Palestinian Farmland                                       

World War 3 Report David Bloom                                  

http://www.ww3report.com/105/palestine/jayyous

The Slow Creep of Israel's Annexation

Zmag, John Petrovato, Dec 9, 2004

http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=6828

Israeli settlers uproot olive trees in Palestinian village

John petrovato 11 Dec 2004

http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/135633/index.php

Settlers uproot Palestinian olive grove
Haaretz, Arnon Regular, 10 December 2004
http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/512917.html

Haaretz A one-time Hanukkah miracle The story of a very large cruse of oil, an Orthodox kibbutz and a Palestinian village                                                                                                   

Akiva Eldar December 10, 2004                    http://mail.ccae.org/Redirect/www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/512422.html