I have just received a disturbing email from Palestine. It contained a photo of my friend Bilal in hospital with a fractured spine and heavy bandaging around his head and hands. While working on his land last week, he was attacked by a gang of settlers. It is not for no reason that the Occupied Palestine Territories are called the Wild East; as settlers consider themselves above the law.

Israel continues to see itself as a Western style democracy with a respected legal system. Israel has also signed the Geneva Convention which lays a duty of care on the occupying forces to protect the civilians under their control. So why is a country with one of the world’s strongest armies unable to control these lawless thugs? Israel never ceases to remind the international community that it has a security problem; but the Palestinians living in the shadow of settlements are absolutely without protection.

In July 2007 a Jerusalem High Court ruling stated that the Israeli police and army were duty bound to protect Palestinians from settler violence. In practice this protection is nonexistent. I have witnessed a number of confrontations between settlers and farmers. If and when Israeli authorities intervene they simply order the Palestinians to leave their lands so as not to ‘inflame’ setters. Most often as in the case above, the army are nowhere to be seen and Palestinians are at the mercy of well armed and very mobile settler gangs.

This problem is on the increase. Settlers have vowed to make ‘price tag’ reprisals against Palestinians if the government attempts to dismantle outposts or settlement. As the settler population grows, more and more army and police recruits come from settlements and outposts. Advocate Talia Sasson expressed the problem succinctly. ‘Law enforcement bodies cannot act against State authorities breaking the law. They cannot handle a mixed message, that the outposts are illegal but encouraged by the authorities.'

Meanwhile my friend Bilal lies in hospital, no redress, no compensation whilst the settlers just sit back and stick two fingers up to decency and democracy.

- MF

23/01/2010

Freedom of speech

I protest against the restriction on journalists imposed by the Israeli Government.

Toshikuni Doi, the journalist

One year has passed since the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which left around 1,400 dead and more than 5,000 injured. Even for someone like me, who had been covering news on the ground in Palestine and in Israel since 1985, these scenes of destruction and massacre were unprecedented.

My three-week efforts to gather stories on the ground following the “end” of the attacks on Gaza resulted in my appearing on a television show on NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and publishing a booklet from Iwanami Shoten. I also exhibited my video work at World Press Photo 2009 and reported on the situation in numerous meetings and rallies in Japan. At the same time, in the spring of 2009, I showed to the Japanese public a documentary entitled “Breaking the Silence.” The film provides the firsthand accounts by former soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force of the kind of oppression that is going on in the Israeli-occupied territories.

A few months later, in late August, I made my habitual visit to the Press Bureau of the Israeli Government in Jerusalem to apply for a press card. Without the card, I cannot enter the Gaza Strip, which is occupied and sealed off by Israel. The Government, however, refused to issue a press card to me. That represents the first such refusal to me for the last twenty years or so in which I covered stories in Palestine. The Press Bureau said “The assignment letter you submitted comes from a documentary production company and not from a news organization. A press card cannot be issued for producing documentaries.”
But the fact is that they had given me a press card twice in the past for a similar assignment letter from SIGLO, the same documentary production company. The only difference at this point from the two previous occasions, however, was that it came right after the showing of my film “Breaking the Silence” and my reporting on the attacks on Gaza.

Three months later, in November 2009, I made another application for a press card, this time, with an assignment letter from a news organization. But again they refused, without giving me any reason for that.

I learned later that an Israeli newspaper, Israel National News, quoted Danny Simon, the Press Bureau Chief, in its November 30th edition, as follows:

“The Government Press Bureau Chief Danny Simon said in an interview with Arutz Sheva that Israel will not recognize anti-Semitic journalists who don’t report the truth. He stressed that there are journalists who purposely lie and serve as a fig-leaf for Hamas. “

That seems to suggest that a major reason for their denying me a press card is because I am regarded as one of those “anti-Semitic journalists who don’t report the truth.”

But I have to tell you that I have always done my utmost to be accurate about what I report as a journalist, gathering information and making sure of its accuracy on the ground. I can guarantee that I never “purposely lie” nor “serve as a fig-leaf for Hamas.” On the contrary, I make it a point to report negative aspects of the Palestinian side such as corruption in the Palestinian Authority and the strong-handed rule by Hamas. At the same time, I depicted Israelis from different perspectives. My documentary “Todokanu koe” (Unheard Voices: Palestinians, Israelis, and the Occupation) is a case in point. This tetralogy evokes the reality and the inner feelings of those Israeli citizens who lost their loved ones or had them injured due to suicide attacks. There are also those Israelis who have a sense of crisis and oppose “occupation,” believing that it would lead to the collapse of the ethical and moral values of the Israeli society. I portrayed their struggle also in my film.

The fact that my accounts of the Israeli attacks on Gaza beginning one year ago are not biased is born out by reports that followed them. They came from such sources as Amnesty International and a fact-finding mission of the United Nations and accused Israel for mounting attacks that are “serious breach of international law.”

I have always made sincere efforts to report those facts that I think need to be reported in the interest of a genuine resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and never for the sake of so-called propaganda for the Palestinians. That is because I believe that the military attacks and the occupation by Israel would not only bring pain and tragedy to the Palestinians but could also lead to the collapse of the ethical and moral values of the Israeli nation and lead eventually to the elimination of the possibility of their own security and peace. I therefore cannot possibly accept that I’m labeled as one of the “anti-Semitic journalists who don’t report the truth.”

Without a press card, I cannot enter the Gaza Strip even if I want to cover stories there. When I was a student, I stayed at a kibbutz, a collective farming community in Israel. At a suggestion by a friend, I visited a refugee camp in Gaza. That was 32 years ago. My first encounter with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was when I was asked by one of the refugees “Do you know who used to own the land on which the kibbutz now stands?”

I began reporting the situations in Palestine and Israel as a journalist in 1985. Since then, I have visited Gaza on countless occasions to continue to gather stories there: before and during the first Intifada (Palestinian uprising), during the Gulf War, and following the Oslo Agreement, the start of the provisional Palestinian Authority, corruption of the Arafat Administration, the second Intifada, and the withdrawal of Jewish settlements. I went there during the second Lebanon War. I was also there to witness political rule by Hamas, suffering under the blockade, and the military attacks. I always tried to be on the ground to report the life under occupation and the firsthand accounts of people on the ground. In the process, you might say, Gaza made me grow as a journalist and as a person.

Israel’s refusal to grant a press card to me is now beginning to rob me of the bond I spent more than 20 years to build with people in the Palestinian communities. The desperate feeling I have now about this situation is almost indescribable.

For many years, people in the Gaza Strip have been living in a sealed off environment and under occupation. They cannot freely go out of Gaza for work, study, or even for medical treatment. The situation does not allow them to be united with members of their own family who live abroad. Of course, I cannot compare my case with the gravity of their situation, but now that I am being deprived of the freedom to visit the area, I’m becoming painfully aware of the depth of their suffering.

A close colleague of mine, who has covered the Middle East over the years, wrote to me as follows:

”There may be a need for someone like you, who is robbed of the opportunity to work on the ground but continue to work as a journalist, complaining as a stakeholder in the conflict about the illegitimacy of that kind of treatment. I think your situation is part of a larger problem than that of just a journalist deprived of chances of reporting what is happening in Gaza. That is because it’s related precisely to what the occupation is all about.”

His words awakened me to the very fact that being denied a press card and deprived of the ability to be on the ground means that I am now a “stakeholder in the Israeli-Palestine conflict” and that I have to fight the “Israeli occupation” as a journalist.

The issue does not just concern me alone. Many other journalists, who are willing to report the damages caused to the Palestinians and the true facts about Israel, may be subject to the same kind of restriction on their reporting, being labeled as “anti-Semitic journalists who don’t report the truth. “

In order for me to continue to be a journalist and to be on the ground of Palestine, I intend to use such means as press conferences, symposiums, rallies, and a petition campaign to protest against the Israeli Government’s media control and demand that the Israeli Government should respect the legitimate rights and the freedom of journalists.

I sincerely ask for your support.

On December 27, 2009,
the first anniversary of the start of the 2008 attacks on the Gaza Strip

e-mail
doitoshikuni@mail.goo.ne.jp

HP
http://www.doi-toshikuni.net/

This, however, concerns not only myself but all other journalists who are interested in reporting on Palestine. If you can agree to the following protest, please write to me at the following address. I will list your name with your occupation as someone who endorses it. doitoshikuni@mail.goo.ne.jp

Jared Malsin

American journalist Jared Malsin has been expelled by Israel due to his pro-Palestinian stance.
This will have strong ramifications for those supporting freedom of the media.

Especially in Israel.


read more about it:

Al-Jazeera

Ma'an News

Statement from the Palestinian Progressive Youth Union

A report: fresh from Arabic translation (apologies if it takes a while to understand!)

Burin .... And brutal settlement of the land do not know to give


Report: _ Palestinian Progressive Youth Union 2009


Seemed obvious from the dust and not through statements made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli occupation on a partial freeze on settlements in the West Bank and the exclusion of occupied Jerusalem over the major focus of his Government to this city, but more obvious is that the occupation is no difference between the land of Jerusalem, Nablus, other surface or between a Palestinian town or village, all of this settlement, which became the target of no later eating endless acres of the legitimacy of any international or United Nations or any international laws have become obsolete in their eyes.
Attacks and practices become open for each small and large, clear Kodouh dominance of the occupier on the land do not know Scotta Rkuaa no surrender, no, not that the earth was united color of its soil or the unity of its people and severity of attacks were by the occupier to become equal space and sweeping confiscation and military posts and settlements.
Justice FDC
Burin, a Palestinian village located about ten kilometers south of Kailua town of Nablus distinguishes itself from the rest of the universe surrounding villages, have a beautiful and quiet countryside, but wounded Palestine extended for decades and that has not drained yet distorted the village to the other is giving it a further advantage of the settlements that surrounded the four points of the ground
Where he occupied Israeli territory from the south, the settlement known as (Yizhar) erected on the place of Salman the Persian great companion on the summit of Mount Salman As is known, contains the settlement are the most extreme settlers in the West Bank, they are relieved of their duties day and night and Itvennon exercise all types of attacks against the population of this village is the confiscation of land to cut the olive trees and burning of crops to the naked aggression on the homes of parents, especially on houses close to the settlements or bypass road between the houses and the home of Mr. Abu Marwan Najjar, Abu al-Najjar and the home of Bassam Abu Ayman Atallah,
"Um Ayman Atallah for as long as we are not attacked settlers fierce and frightening, especially the night times Black On one occasion they burning the house until they are, arriving to the room where they barricaded themselves, and became Iserpoa gasoline from the bottom of the door, but we have to face the water pouring gasoline and saved from the fire, which almost hungering for. And follow up Umm Ayman and that on one occasion stole 10 of the headers as well as livestock to the top of the horses we Nest in the land of the house.
More than either compound the problem according to Umm Ayman is after her home and unfortunately the village and this is what make people linger in the village to reach the house in case of any attack and so we had to say Atallah to fortify the house walls and metal wires into our house like a prison torturers are just a small riffraff engage us what no eye has seen no ear has heard no danger to the minds of human beings.
Right click the accuracy of

Imran Akram says Sun Ahturna farmers in the village with the settlers, (above what attacked on our soil, attack us, I mean right click) and that tells Imran that during the olive harvest in the past year when we were picking the fruit of the olive on a bypass road (the main settlement), we transferred by animals from the top of the mountain to the village outskirts in order to win time and in one instance, settlers stole olives which we put them on the edge of the road and when we got to bring the second pregnancy.
Are the methods and arts of settlers that does not end with the understanding that they create on the Palestinians to learn from new methods to attack by the villagers and towards this need or Bassam says her one of the houses near the entrance to the settlement of Yizhar the settlers attacked the house when they beat the stones from within (and Alnagafp Almkulaiap) These are tools used by Palestinians in their confrontation with Israeli soldiers, and Troy or Bassam Moreover, they utter strange terminology we have not heard a strange parallel, and adds that most of the settlers who attack homes are primarily religious and wearing strange uniforms and as interpreted by her son, one of the claims of settlers, which means ( Arab pigs Leave our land).

Her Highness blessing and a curse, but ........
After they built a settlement in the south had to be justice in the balance of the settlement in order not to tilt toward the other of this took place north of the village settlement known as (Bracha), which means the pool and extend the settlement of the north of the village to the west along the more than 200 m and this is gobble up dozens of acres of the village.
They contain the settlement on the settlers are not the best from the settlement of Yizhar they all occupied one Icbakoa among themselves which one will damage and harm the people of the village, if we compare between them and the settlers Esthar as Nael Abu-Zabin owner of one of the affected territories, the settlers of Yitzhar and Bracha have to fight the olive tree is the first three methods cut the whole tree while the other method is the burning of the tree, but he says Nael Abu when they found out that the trees shoots that grow from a new rejects all such practices, which have endless third deadly manner, thereby eliminating the olive tree remains fully and any hope of growth of namely the elaboration of a new pesticide that does not preclude the tree to the color yellow, but also dissolving them in order, keeping only the remnants of small twigs says faintly sad that this place was a tree.
Nael Abu stresses in spite of all these practices, the villagers will not give in to the settlers and burned a single tree instead Snzera tens of trees Snroyha of blood and the blood of our sons and our succeeding generations.
East and West ..... Beatings and death
Was not expected after all the greed and the greed of the occupier on both sides of North and South to leave the East and West without the arrogance that used by Good Earth, where he was for both the East and West to command their share of the settlement that justice corrupt each other equally.
Middle Vtlal in Burin octopus has become the large number of excavated streets, let alone the point where the military above all this, where you prevent people from accessing their lands near the settlements on the one hand the other hand, guarding the settlers who attack the village and herders who wander Bognamanm to pasture near the village.
On this holiday, "says Walid (Abu-Musa), one of the shepherds Buren was the most villages in the area to land area owned by the occupier that the confiscation and razing hundreds of acres and adds Abu-Musa we can not stay away from the village, only 300 meters Bognamna fear of the wolf that preys on and Siftersna sheep after devour our land and Abu-Musa tells one of the experiments with the history of the settlers where they attacked him in the month of Ramadan and killed him 5 of the rat after they shot him, forcing him to take refuge in Bognamh to which he owes his life and they also kill the donkey, who had covered his head with a knife and this Do not expect to be Abu-Musa, had told us the story of Laila and the Wolf, but we cut the story of Buren, and the wolf.
And not the west side is better than the East soon to look at the western side of the time of sunset did not expect that Tekhal your eyes see the sun set, but you will see the lights of the camp, which may have occupied the lights the sun as well.
Unless account
Thus the people of the village of Burin had grown accustomed to all those practices of the settlers right Just say the town for as long as the settlers had to burn the whole village and the mountains especially in the summer and even subjected to many farmers in the beating and the olive harvest and this all comes with the support of soldiers , but not in mind that the settlers be able to launch homemade rockets and the transfer of the Palestinian experience in Gaza to West Bank settlers Jews.
On this Talking Najjar, owner of one of the rockets damaged houses say, when we were the first of this kind and to hear the explosion, we thought that the voice output by a bomb delivered by one of the soldiers we lived next to a military post, but when I came out of the house did not believe what I saw, I saw a settler launch its missile second again, but fortunately that his rocket is not a long-term is not up to long distances, and adds that the carpenter did not fear the days and rest the belief that the settlers to be developing missiles capable of reaching farther warheads and explosive materials is greater.

Buren to the demise !!!!!!
This statement uttered by an officer of the army did not Mursi Abu Walid Said one of the shepherds in the village when he was grazing in a mountain stage near the Jewish settlement of Bracha, "says Abu-Musa said the officer told me" I do not expect to stay here too much because the land is ours and your fate to the demise "
He Mursi Abu Arif, I do not mean one Shaw tells بس Elly believed they (Dar Dar Father and Lago West Itahona)
This remains the case the village of Burin, and many Palestinian villages which still retain their land to draw so inspired by these practices, which still Itvennon settlers painted on your pride and resilience that the people of the village that refuses to be a settler, is a painter.