InsIDe: - Palestine Solidarity Campaign

spring2011 in briefpalestine news 25report of 2009 which said that Palestinians pay five times more thanthe settlers for obtaining water which encourages settlers to use anexcessive amount.•Latest triumphs of the“only democracy...”Several new laws have further consolidated Israel’s relentlessdrift towards apartheid and oppression of dissent.The so-called “Boycott Law” which would impose punitive fines onIsraelis who call for academic or economic boycotts passed its firstreading in the Knesset in March with 32 MKs voting in favour and 12against. Several MKs known to be opposed were absent for the vote.The draft law explicitly includes boycotts of goods from settlements.Opposing the law, MK Hanna Swaid of the Hadash party said it“violates freedom of expression and every citizen’s right to chooseto boycott products from the occupied territories. There is racismhere which must be condemned.”This was soon followed by the passing of the first reading ofthe “Citizenship Law” which would allow the State to revoke thecitizenship of anyone convicted of terror or espionage offencesagainst Israel or of undermining Israel's sovereignty, instigating waror aiding the enemy.The bill’s initiators, MKs David Rotem and Robert Ilatov of YisraelBeiteinu, said the legislation is aimed at stressing the connectionbetween the right to Israeli citizenship and loyalty to the state.Another law passed in March allows towns built on state landinside Israel not to sell land to Palestinian citizens of the state and toban them as residents.This blatantly apartheid law follows other recent ones such asthe “loyalty oath” law that turns Palestinian Israelis into secondclass citizens and one which does not allow them to live with theirPalestinian spouses from the Occupied Territories.•Kidnap in UkraineIn another outrageous flouting of international law, Israeladmitted that its secret service, Mossad, kidnapped Gaza’s chiefpower plant engineer while he was in Ukraine and illegally renderedhim to an Israeli torture centre and then prison.Dirar Abu Sisi, 42, was snatchedfrom a passenger train on 18 February.His Ukrainian wife, Veronika Abu Sisi,told a German press agency that helater telephoned her and said he wasbeing held in a secret Israeli prison.“Dirar said Israeli secret agentshad grabbed him and snuck himout of Ukraine,” she said. “He hasdone nothing, and I am absolutelyshocked.”Maksim Butkevych, spokesmanfor the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees inUkraine, said: “What happened looks like a violent abductionand not a legal extradition or any other legal action on the part ofauthorities.”•Call to visit Palestine inJulyMajor Palestinian civil society organisations and human rightsdefenders have issued a joint appeal to activists around the world tovisit Palestine on July 8 to 16 to take part in non-violent actions.The date has been picked because it was on 9 July, 2004, thatthe International Court of Justice ruled that the wall and settlementsbuilt in occupied territories are illegal and that Palestinians shouldbe compensated for the damage they have caused. A year laterPalestinian civil society organisations called for help in demandingthe implementation of the resolution through non-violent actionsincluding BDS.There is a rich programme planned including peace building inJerusalem, the Bethlehem area, Hebron old city, the Jordan Valley,refugee camps, the Ramallah area (including villages like Bilin) andthe Negev.The organisers say they “believe in the power of collectivenonviolent action” which has “shown its efficacy to bring hope andto transform reality.” They add: “We believe that every single oneof us is a change maker, and nobody has the right to deny us theaccess to suffering populations.”For more information visit www.bienvenuepalestine.com andpalestinejn.org•Stars fight to savebooksellerWorld class UK writers, Ian McEwan, Roddy Doyle, John Banvilleand Simon Sebag Montefiore and Israelis, Amos Oz and DavidGrossman, are among the host of voices petitioning for bookseller,Munther Fahmi, be allowed to stay in Jerusalem, the city of his birth.Fahmi, 56, runs an English-language bookstore in the forecourtof the world famous American Colony hotel, stocking it with worksof history and literature written by Arabs, Jews and scholars fromaround the world.Michael Palin and Munther Fahmi at the Palestine Festival ofLiterature 2009. Photo: Raoof Hajj YehiaWhile Israel gives anyone from anywhere in the world whohas one Jewish grandparent the right to live in Israel or its illegalsettlements, Jerusalem-born Palestinians are issued with residencypermits which they must keep up. Fahmi let his lapse when he spentseveral years in the US and since his return in the 1990s has beenliving in his home city on a succession of temporary tourist visaswhich 18 months ago the authorities warned that they would notrenew.David Grossman told The Observer newspaper that Fahmiwas one of many Palestinians whose residence in Jerusalem wasthreatened by Israeli laws. “What is being done to him is an outrage.It’s part of an attempt to embitter the lives of Palestinians so thatthey leave.”•Ill-treatment of childrenmust endA report by a group of MPs who watched children being tried inIsraeli military courts and were shocked and appalled by what theysaw calls for Israel to put an end to the mass arrest and ill-treatmentof minors.The report was released in March by the Britain-Palestine AllParty Parliamentary Group (BPAPPG) and based on a visit lastNovember to the West Bank by some of its members along with theCouncil for Arab British Understanding (Caabu).It shows that approximately 700 Palestinian children areprosecuted every year in military courts and that at the end ofJanuary 2011, 222 Palestinian children were being held in Israelijails.Richard Burden MP, Chair of the BPAPPG, said: “Having beento Palestine many times, I thought the area had lost its capacityto shock me. But when I saw the military court and what went on