First we’ll take Ajami
Lily Galili, Ha’aretz, 24 December 2007
The city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa was jealous of the Holiday of Holidays that Haifa has been holding for years, and decided that it too would hold an event for its Jewish, Muslim and Christian residents this weekend. The mayor himself, Ron Huldai, personally blessed the mixed residents of the city: His signature graces the “Happy Holidays” posters that were put up in Jaffa.
However, for visitors to the city and the mayor himself, there was a surprise that was not quite a holiday gift. Among the decorations adorning the streets were posters stating in large letters, “Ron Huldai wishes the Arabs of Jaffa, happy expulsion.” Brutal? Annoying? That’s precisely the intention of the people behind Jaffa Struggle, a group of social activists that has been fighting to stop the eviction of residents and the scheduled demolition of 497 homes.
Privatising Zionism
by Neve Gordon and Erez Tzfadia – PalestineChronicle.com
A destroyed Bedouin home in the Negev
For less than four dollars an hour, the Jewish teenagers removed furniture, clothes, kitchenware and toys from the homes and loaded them on to trucks. As they worked diligently alongside the many policemen who had come to secure the destruction of 30 houses in two unrecognised Bedouin villages, Bedouin teenagers stood by watching their homes being emptied.
When all the belongings had been removed, the bulldozers rapidly destroyed the homes. All those present, Jews and Bedouins, were Israeli citizens; together they learned an important lesson in the discrimination characterising civic life in the Jewish state.The current demolitions are part of a strategy that began with the foundation of the state of Israel. Its ultimate objective is the Judaisation of space.
Palestinian farmers, including child, beaten by masked Israeli settlers near Nablus
by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News – 26 December 2007
Masked Israeli settlers wearing Jewish prayer shawls
Palestinian sources reported Tuesday that a group of farmers in their fields near Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank, were badly beaten by a group of Israeli settlers living illegally in the area.
The settlements in the Nablus area are illegal under both international and Israeli law, but Israeli authorities allow the settlements there, deep within the Palestinian West Bank territory, to continue to expand on stolen Palestinian land.
Local sources reported that four farmers, including one fifteen-year old boy, were badly beaten with sticks and sprayed with pepper gas by Israeli settlers. Israeli police were called, but did nothing about the incident, and the assailants were not apprehended.
Of the four who were attacked, two were injured moderately and had to be treated at a local hospital in Nablus. “They parked on the road and we thought they were just hiking, but suddenly they put on masks and they sprayed me in my eyes and beat me and I couldn’t see who it was,” reported Hussein Asida, 46, one of the Palestinian farmers who was attacked.