(from my e-mail)
In the middle of the ceasefire, Israel’s Zufin settlement is going to build 1500 new houses on the Palestinian village of Jayyous’s farmland.
Already, hundreds of Jayyous’s olive trees have been uprooted, and farmers have been unable to get to their land because it’s been blocked off by the Wall. Read the NY Times feature about Jayyous here.*
Even though Israel has redrawn the path for the Wall, it still cuts the West Bank into fragments, cutting people off from their land, from neighboring villages and cities, and from the rest of the West Bank. See the new path of the Wall here.
Two months ago, Senator Lincoln Chafee wrote a letter to the State Department objecting to Israel’s confiscation of Jayyous’s land. Recently, the State Department replied, but with no intention of changing the grave situation for the people of Jayyous.
The reply said, among other things, that the Israeli government intended to stop uprooting olive trees while the situation was to be investigated, but failed to mention that all the olive trees on the land in question have already been uprooted. Observers in the area saw the trees replanted in West Jerusalem, bearing backhoe and chain marks.
Help the people of Jayyous reclaim their land by sending a letter to your elected representatives, asking them to investigate the situation in Jayyous and to halt Zufin’s expansion. We’ll CC your letter to Caterpillar CEO Jim Owens, whose company’s bulldozers are uprooting Jayyous’s trees.
*(my link)