Israel threaten displaced Palestinian community's return to village

Tents set up on Bir’em lands and the Israel Land Administration’s warning sign

The displaced Maronite community of Bir’em has decided to implement its right of return by resettling its land. Israel has threatened to evict the villagers should they refuse to leave.

Exactly one year ago, the displaced people of Iqrit decided that after 64 years of empty promises, they would wait no longer to return to their lands. Just last week, the villagers of Iqrit celebrated the first anniversary of their outpost built on confiscated lands, and announced plans to go on expanding their presence on the ground. Now it appears that Iqrit is not alone, as another displaced community on the border with Lebanon is also trying to revive its destroyed village.

On Saturday, following their weekly communal prayer in the old church (the last standing structure in the village), the Committee for the Uprooted of Kufr Bir’em erected several dozen tents on lands that once were their own and now serve as a national park, and stated they would not leave again. Since then, they have been holding shifts, with approximately 25 members of the village at the site at any given time, where they organize social, religious and other activities outside the church. The action is taking place about half a year after anti-Christian graffiti was sprayed on the village church.
Tents set up on Bir'em lands and the Land Administration's warning sign (photo: Committee for the Uprooted of Kafar Bir'em)

“We are sick and tired of governments that choose to ignore us, that think that if enough time passes we’ll simply forget and forgo our rights to the land,” says Deeb Maroun, a member of the committee. “We think it’s simply absurd that so many court rulings and official committees have supported our cause, that the majority of Israelis support us, yet we are still not allowed to return. We want to put the story of Bir’em back in the news and in public awareness, and this is the best way we believe we can get it – with a non-violent return.”

On Wednesday, officials from the Israel Land Administration showed up at the scene and posted a notification warning the people of Bir’em that they are trespassing and demanding that they “stop all work being done on the site.” They told villagers that evictions will take place if they do not leave on their own accord within seven days. While the people of Iqrit have been able to hold on to their outpost for a year – only suffering demolitions and uprooting of everything built or planted outside the church area – it seems authorities are going to be harder on the people of Bir’em, perhaps because their lands now serve as a national park with ancient Jewish relics in it. “We are studying the notice we were given and will decide how to respond,” says Maroun. “We are not looking for any confrontations, we do not use violence and we’re not trying to build anything. We’re simply starting to live the life of Bir’em again, and all are invited to visit in peace.”

The background story of both Bir’em and Iqrit is unique in the history of Israel and the Nakba, or 1948 war. After the war was over, IDF forces entered the two Christian villages (Maronite Bir’em and Catholic Iqrit) and ordered the residents (by then citizens in the newly founded State of Israel) to leave their homes for a period of two weeks. The official reason was the military’s fear that their closeness to the Lebanese border would endanger the region’s security. The two weeks soon became a month, then a year, and soon enough, Bir’em was populated by newly arrived Jewish immigrants.

After the villagers’ petition to the High Court led to a ruling that they must be allowed to return, the houses were demolished and the land confiscated. The court’s rulings have not yet led to the villagers’ return, largely because of the fear of successive governments that obeying the court’s ruling would open the gates for much larger claims of return on the part of 1948 refugees and internally displaced people within Israel. Residents of the two villages are still determined to realize their rights, and have maintained links to their lands by visiting the surviving churches and cemeteries for years, as well as holding yearly summer camps to teach the young their own history.

By Haggai Matar
August 22, 2013

West Giving Assad Carte Blanch To Exterminate Syrians As Long As Killing Is Not On A Genocidal Scale

Khalid Amayreh - The latest reports from Damascus speak of a horrific genocidal massacre of civilians on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, reportedly resulting from the use of deadly chemical gases, including the lethal nerve Sarin agent, by the regime forces.

Amateur videos appearing on al-Jazeera Arabic Wednesday showed numerous children and young men sprawled out on hospital beds and tile floors, many of them not moving while others were being treated with band-pump respirators.

In the meanwhile, Muhammed el-Said, a Syrian opposition official, was quoted as saying that at least 1200 men, women and children died when Assad forces fired missiles contained chemical agents from the Qassion hilltop on several villages in the Capital's countryside. Other sources said the death toll may reach or exceed the thousand figure. As many as 5000 were reported injured in the massacre.

Haitham el-Maleh, a prominent political opponent of the Assad regime, who was interviewed by al-Jazeera Arabic, said most of the victims died while sleeping, apparently after inhaling the deadly gases.

If ascertained, the attack would be the deadliest chemical atrocity ever since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution against the Assad regime in 2011.

It is widely believed that more than 120,000 Syrians have died so far in the confrontations between the mostly-Sunni rebels and government forces, controlled to a large extent by the Alawite minority from which Assad hails. The Alawhites, who constitute some 9-12% of Syria's population, are an off-shoot of Shiite Islam. Iran, Hizbullah and Iraqi volunteers are fighting in large numbers alongside the Assad regime.

The Syrian authorities have denied any connection to the latest massacre, which occurred as a UN team investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria was to begin working in Syria.

However, the Syrian government's denials seem to carry little credibility, given the regime's notorious record of mendacity.

It is uncertain what prompted the Assad regime to embark on the latest game-changing atrocity.

Some observers would think that Assad might have been emboldened by the feckless and indecisive western stand toward the Egyptian crisis, especially the death in recent days and weeks of more than a thousand Islamists at the hands of the Egyptian police and army.

"Assad doesn't take the American and western threats seriously. He might have reasoned that the Obama administration, which has stood passive and idle watching the regime murder 100,000 Syrian citizens, wouldn't mind seeing the regime murder a few more thousands, even through the use of chemical weapons," said Muhammed Elqique, a Palestinian journalist and political analyst.

Elqique added that Assad might has got a certain feeling that the West is giving him a sort of carte blanch to exterminate Syrians in the thousands but not in the hundreds of thousands.

"As long as he makes sure that the killing is not on a genocidal scale and doesn't assume a systematic nature, he (Assad) thinks that things would remain within the manageable sphere even if chemical weapons were used on a moderate scale."

Last year, President Obama said that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would be a game-changer and an inviolable redline.

However, it remains to be seen if Obama will be willing to act on his warnings, especially if the Assad regime's involvement in the latest atrocity is established beyond any reasonable doubt.

Khalid Amayreh is an American-educated journalist based in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Yarmouk Activist Describes "Atrocious" Situation In Syria

Only twenty months ago 38-year-old Palestinian refugee Moutawali Abu Nasser gave up his teaching job and put his theater work on hold in order to deploy his intellectual skills to keep Damascus’ Yarmouk camp neutral but sympathetic to the winds of change that started blowing in Syria. Yet eight kilometers away from the center of Damascus, Yarmouk is sinking deeper and deeper into the conflict.

In the past, the return to his first home, Palestine, was Abu Nasser’s preoccupation. As a schoolteacher and a scriptwriter he used his classroom and theater to educate new generations on the history of Palestine, the occupation and advocate the right of return.

His second home, Yarmouk, took several blows from the wave of change and conflict that has swept Syria since 2011. Abu Nasser became involved in local organizing and support for the Syrian people: through media, relief work and community empowerment.

Since Israel’s occupation of Palestine in 1948, many intellectuals, businessmen and craftspeople forced out of their country fled to Syria and established themselves in Yarmouk. The camp was established in 1957 and is today a large urban quarter housing 400,000 residents and the largest population center for Palestinian refugees in Syria.

Palestinians shaped the camp into a vibrant hub for commerce, arts, business and politics. The camp was known as a safe haven for political fugitives and for the organization of underground political movements who had a tense relationship with the Syrian regime. Another specific feature of Yarmouk was the influence of its Palestinian cultural scene that attracted many Syrians into the camp. Yarmouk did not merely remain as a camp or a shanty town but it flourished to become a small city with a vibrant Palestinian scene.

Today, almost two years after Syrians took to the streets in protest against the regime, the camp is caught up in a war between Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel forces and the Syrian government security forces. Of the 135,000 Palestinians who lived inside the camp, only 40,000 now remain, says Abu Nasser.

In an interview with The Electronic Intifada in Beirut, Abu Nasser explains how the camp has changed in the last two years.

The Electronic Intifada: What did you do before the wave of peaceful protests in Syria?

Moutawali Abu Nasser: I am married with two kids; I used to teach philosophy at a high school in Yarmouk. I also worked at a local theater directing plays and writing scripts. In addition I played a role in the camp’s social committees, volunteering some of my time to editing and writing for a local journal that was published and distributed in Palestinian camps within Syria.

That was my life until the protests began. In the past the Syrian regime banned us Palestinians from any form of organization. We were not allowed to have our own teachers and artists’ syndicates or a labor union. In the camp many of us resented the [ruling] Baath party for forcing a freeze on our political activity. This accumulated bitterness towards the only political party I was close to: the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] disappointed me. I felt they were not doing anything to challenge the regime.

At the moment some people say you are Palestinian and Syria is none of your business; to me this is a misleading equation. The difference between us and the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is the fact that in Syria, Palestinians had a role in society, [and] also Syrians treated us as fellow citizens, unlike Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who are marginalized and kept outside the Lebanese system. We are subject to the same treatment by the regime as our Syrian compatriots. To me this meant solidarity as the bare minimum.

EI: Can you explain the relations and sentiments of Yarmouk camp towards the Syrian regime and towards the Syrian uprising?

MAN: Daraa, [the southern city near the Jordanian border] where the revolution officially started, was under military siege and it was Palestinians from Daraa camp who broke the siege by smuggling food and gas to the stranded residents of Daraa.

As a result, seven of them were captured and killed on the spot. Palestinians in Yarmouk were outraged at this news; they called it a massacre. Palestinian camps in Syria were with the revolution before the revolution. We never forgot [the 1976 massacre in] Tel al-Zaatar [refugee camp, when a Syrian invasion of Lebanon allowed right-wing militias to kill thousands of Palestinians]. We never forgot the role of [former Syrian President] Hafez al-Assad in Lebanon against the Palestinian resistance and the camps.

However, Yarmouk remained neutral the first year of the Syrian revolution. I remember at the end of July 2011, we, the local committees of the camp, were organizing a protest but we agreed it should be outside the camp. Later we found out that many young people from the camp had been secretly going to surrounding areas to protest in solidarity with their Syrian friends.

There was public awareness and consensus that the camp should be left out and that was not easy to convey to the angry youth who had lost some of their Syrian friends in protests outside the camp. Then, displaced Syrian families started arriving to take shelter in the camp and that kept us all busy coordinating relief campaigns for the fleeing families.

EI: What did the Yarmouk camp offer by not joining the protests and staying neutral?

MAN: Palestinians, politicized since the day they are born, had experience in organization - in medical, humanitarian relief organization. We also offered our experience in media support, creating the Tanseqyat al-Yarmouk [Local Coordination Committees].

This media coordination was meant to serve as an outlet to surrounding areas that were protesting. Since we were trying to keep the camp away from direct involvement we only focused on media coverage and made sure that the reports we issued were fact-checked and accurate. Later, the task of coordination changed when bombs fell on the camp. After we got bombed the coordination had to expand its role from media only to include medical aid, housing and food distribution units in the camp. The camp’s role was logistical.

EI: Can you talk about the influence of the PFLP-GC and other regime-supported Palestinian factions in Yarmouk? [The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command is an armed Palestinian faction close to to the Syrian government, separate from the PFLP.]

MAN: The straw that broke the regime and its allies in the camp was the [5 June 2011] Naksa commemoration incident that followed the 15 May 2011 Nakba Day commemoration [when Palestinian refugees attempted to walk home over the Lebanese border, with 10 being shot dead by Israeli soldiers].

On Naksa Day, we went to the borders but the regime profited politically from that day. We were wary about the people who were organizing the trip to the border. It was obvious these people were organizing to take young men to the border in a manner that did not feel spontaneous [as] at the Nakba commemoration.

This was a move the regime was going to invest in and send people to die on the border. We urged people in the camp not to go. However when the news came that people were being killed we could not stop people going to check on those at the border.

Things got tense in the camp when people returned and wanted to bury their martyrs: people clashed with the PFLP-GC, who responded by shooting at the funeral, killing more. Subsequently, people took to the streets wanting to cleanse Yarmouk. This was when the camp started its own “spring”: Palestinians against corrupt, opportunistic factions.

This was an incident that drove the camp away from neutrality. Then came indiscriminate shelling from MiGs [Russian made fighter jets] before Free Syrian Army fighters entered the camp. The Free Syrian Army officially entered the camp on 15 December 2012.

The PLFP-GC joined the regime and attacked FSA locations around Yarmouk. At first the PFLP-GC had 2,000 paid Palestinian fighters from the camp but now there are only [approximately] 80 of them left.

The FSA decided to enter the camp to fight the PFLP-GC, who were supported by the regime with six fighting groups who took their orders from the Air Force Intelligence: Syrian militants with few Palestinians. They controlled key entrances to the camp. The six groups were heavily armed with mortars, rocket launchers and infinite ammunition. These six groups besieged neighboring areas (al-Hajar and Tadamon) as Yarmouk was operating as a lifeline to these besieged areas, pumping medical supplies, cooking gas, food and water

EI: Did the FSA coordinate its entry to the camp with the local committee?

MAN: Of course, the FSA organized with the local militant groups whose job was only to protect the camp from regime thugs. And as soon as the FSA entered there was no confrontation with the six groups by the regime or with the PFLP-GC, whose paid members defected right away. The FSA went into the camp because of its strategic location while they were trying to capture Damascus.

EI: How did the residents feel about the FSA entering their camp; did they approve of it

MAN: The residents of the camp were against the FSA stationing in it. I personally rejected the FSA entering the camp. The camp had a humanitarian role; bringing the war to the middle of it was a mistake

In the end we agreed upon the FSA’s entry only as a passage not a location. We told them, pass through to get to your next ambush but don’t stay in the camp.

The situation started deteriorating six days after the FSA entered the camp: there was no bread anymore, [and] a shortage of all the medical supplies needed by the four field hospitals in the camp.

Before the FSA involved the camp in its war the camp was a humanitarian phenomenon: rents stayed cheap, there was plenty of food, and the medical support the camp offered saved many lives. Only the Islamists in the camp were in favor of the FSA stationing in Yarmouk.

The regime’s fighter jets bombed the camp daily and with it the number of martyrs rose: at times 20 died in one day. People must understand that the indiscriminate bombing of the camp by the regime - killing innocent people, children in their playground — made the FSA’s idea more acceptable to Palestinian residents of the camp. The more the MiGs bombed the camp, the more people wanted the FSA to stay.

EI: How is the situation in Yarmouk right now?

MAN: The situation in the camp at the moment is unfit for living; it’s atrocious. There still remain around 40,000 people who can’t escape. Many Palestinians from Yarmouk are scattered around Syria, and at the height of the bombing their numbers soared to 70,000. Many fled to Lebanon, but Lebanon is not a friendly place for Palestinians.

At the moment in Syria there are restrictions and arrests at the entrances of the camp. Food prices are at an all-time high; a bag of bread is being sold for $4 now while before it was less than $1. The Syrian army has imposed strict search orders on the food that enters the camp. They search every bag of bread and every tin of tuna, so substantial amounts get damaged before they reach people inside the camp.

Yarmouk has been transformed from a lifeline to a bullet-riddled, bloodless body.

EI: How do you see your role now that you are in exile in Lebanon? How are you helping from here?

MAN: It’s ironic. While I’m in Lebanon I’m feeling more Palestinian than I felt in Syria. I’m now writing in local Lebanese newspapers trying to shed light on the refugee issue and also dedicating most of my time to relief work in the camps. There is plenty of aid coming to Lebanon to be distributed among Syrian refugees but little to none is being distributed among Palestinians from Syria.

In December the regime gave people in Yarmouk eight hours to leave the camp. Chaos ensued and as we failed to convince people to stay we fled with them to Lebanon. After the humiliations and trials at the border, those who could afford the $17 visa fees finally entered. Luckily I managed to have a friend from Beirut send me $600 to pay for fleeing people who couldn’t afford entry fees to Lebanon.

On that day a depressing reality hit me like a brick to the head: Palestinians are being humiliated in countries where they should feel welcome and at home.



Moe Ali Nayel
The Electronic Intifada

Moe Ali Nayel is a freelance journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon. Follow him on Twitter: @MoeAliNay.

Hezbollah EU Blacklist Impact Questioned

By Kareem Shaheen

BEIRUT -- The blacklisting of Hezbollah’s military wing is a message warning the party over its involvement in Syria and activities in Europe and would only have a limited effect, experts and analysts said Monday. Few saw a distinction between the group’s military and political wings, saying it would be prohibitively difficult to target military cadres and assets, and arguing that the party had few financial resources in Europe that could be subject to sanctions.

But they said the decision to blacklist the military wing would make it easier to carry out investigations in concert with European intelligence agencies into Hezbollah’s fundraising and militant activities.

“They distinguish between the military and political wing when in reality there isn’t much distinction,” said Nadim Shehadi, an associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Programme in Chatham House.

“But it’s a way of creating constructive ambiguity to maintain engagement at the same time as sending a strong message.”

The EU maintains contact with Hezbollah on a variety of issues, including the activities of UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force on the border with Israel, and on joint projects between the EU and Lebanon.

Shehadi argued the distinction made it possible for the EU to continue talking to Hezbollah, likening the measure to the U.K.’s decision to distinguish between the Provisional Irish Republican Army, which fought a protracted insurgency against British rule, and its political wing, Sinn Fein, allowing negotiations to end the fighting.

“The introduction of a separation between the military wing and the political wing gives a way out,” he said.

Hezbollah itself does not distinguish between its two wings.

“This is long overdue,” said Matthew Levitt, a former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department. “Hezbollah has believed that it could mix militancy, terrorism, crime on the one hand, and politics and social welfare on the other.”

“They felt that by virtue of being involved in politics they got a free out-of-jail-card and they could blow up buses of civilians in Bulgaria and try to do so in Cyprus, partner with Iran in Syria, and much more,” said Levitt, who testified recently before the EU Parliament in support of blacklisting all of Hezbollah.

But a senior Arab diplomat in Beirut, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, said this distinction meant the decision would have no impact on the ground.

“You cannot distinguish between the civil and military wing of the party,” he said. “How would you define that this person is a member of the military wing? And does the military wing have any exposed assets that you can restrict or freeze? It is very difficult to implement this decision.”

Levitt said the decision would have no impact on Hezbollah finances in Europe since there are few known assets belonging to the military wing there, but he said it would open up avenues for intelligence operations investigating the party and would send a clear deterrent message.

European countries have been reluctant to carry out “proactive” intelligence investigations into Hezbollah since it was not labeled a military organization, said Levitt, who is a senior fellow and director of the Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He has also written a book on the party called “Hezbollah: The Global Footprints of Lebanon’s Party of God.”

Such investigations will now be carried out if a link can be established to potential Hezbollah militancy, he said: “It is very likely that Hezbollah will curtail the amount of its activities in Europe having to do with militancy or fundraising because they know that these investigations are going to be run.”

Further, he said, Hezbollah could no longer treat Europe as a “near abroad” where it could carry out such activities.

He said Hezbollah was already under enormous pressure due to its involvement in Syria and the accusations against four of its operatives by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon over the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Domestically, the Arab official said the decision was likely to worsen the political deadlock in Lebanon, increasing what he termed “Hezbollah’s siege mentality” and compelling it to hold onto its political positions.

The party is now unlikely, for instance, to allow the government formation to go ahead without it being represented in the Cabinet.

Experts differed on the impetus and timing behind the decision.

Shehadi said the decision was the result of the party’s implicated in the Burgas bombing last year targeting Israeli tourists, and was part of an ongoing process that began after the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh. Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s former military chief, was killed in Damascus in 2008, prompting the party to acknowledge his military role. He is accused of involvement in a number of attacks including the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

The Arab diplomat said the timing of the decision was likely the result of a combination of pressure by the U.S. and Israel to compensate for a recent decision by the EU to boycott products made in West Bank settlements.

He said it appeared to be influenced by Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, rather any potential role for the party in the bombing in Burgas.

“I wouldn’t back something like this if there is no strong evidence that the party is involved in terrorist activity on European territory, and until now I can’t say there is enough evidence for an accusation,” he said.

The diplomat said that Hezbollah officials repeatedly said in meetings they had no assets or financial activity in Europe, so that any such freeze would have no impact on the party.

Legally, the decision will represent a greater challenge to the Lebanese government than to Hezbollah, said Chafic Masri, a professor of international law. He said the Lebanese government would have to help the EU distinguish between military and civilian cadres in the party.

Further, only the EU is legally empowered to add individuals to the list.

“It is challenging because now anyone who may be elected as a parliamentary member or selected as a minister will remain subject to the de facto approval of the EU,” Masri said. “This is not just confusing but embarrassing as well to the Lebanese government.”

Freedom For Youssef Abdelke Facebook Campaign

Facebook campaign demands Syria free jailed artist

The wife of acclaimed Syrian artist Youssef Abdelke, whose works are displayed in museums around the world, appealed for his release on Saturday, after his arrest by regime security forces.

He had been arrested at a security checkpoint in the western port city of Tartus two days previously, along with two fellow members of the Communist Labor Party.

Abdelke, born in 1951, is also a member of the internal opposition National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB).

He has been jailed in the past by the Syrian authorities.

Abdelke's friends and family have rallied around his wife Hala Alabdalla, a prominent film-maker, and launched a campaign on Facebook calling for his release from jail.

"His detention may be a small thing when compared to the bloody violence and destruction [gripping Syria] but it's still unacceptable," Alabdalla told AFP in a telephone interview.

Hours before his detention, Abdelke signed a petition written by artists expressing their commitment to "the principles of the popular revolution launched in March 2011... aimed at establishing a democratic, pluralist political system" in Syria.

Novelists, poets and musicians also signed the petition which, she said, demands the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and the transfer of power to an interim government, under UN supervision.

"Anyone who works peacefully and from inside Syria for the revolution (against Assad) to succeed... is sacred and shouldn't be touched," Alabdalla said.

In a message posted on the Facebook page calling for his release, she wrote: "Freedom for Youssef Abdelke, freedom for all Syria."

Alabdalla said she lost touch with her husband, a Christian, late on Thursday as he arrived at a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Tartus.

With him were Tawfiq Omran and Adnan al-Dibs, both members of the communist party and the NCB, said the opposition group which supports the uprising but rejects foreign intervention in the conflict now in its third year.

Abdelke has spent "half his life in regime's jails and in forced exile", said a statement on the Facebook page set up to demand his release.

He was jailed in the past over his membership of the communist party and in 1981 moved to Paris -- where he had studied fine arts -- until his return to Syria 25 years later.

One of Syria's best known artists, Abdelke has had his paintings on display at the British Museum, in the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and in other galleries around the world.

Alabdalla says that her husband, who was born in the northeastern city of Qamishli, has been banned from travelling since the uprising began.

Rights groups say tens of thousands of people are being held in the Syrian regime's jails.

Join the Facebook campaign now: https://www.facebook.com/freedomforyoussef