Bulldozers repulsed from the Muslim cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh

22 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by freehaifa in Haifa, Palestine 48, Popular Struggle

Tags

Balad a-Sheikh, Haifa Waqf, Kirur Ahzakot, Nesher, Palestinian Flag, Protes Tent, Shabak, Waqf al-Istiqlal

Activists in Haifa prevented a construction crew from beginning to destroy the Muslim cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh, but fears remain the bulldozers may return soon.

(The following report appeared on Feb 16, 2022, in Mondoweiss. You can also read it in Hebrew.)

Last week, heavy machinery arrived to carry out excavation work in the Muslim cemetery in Haifa, but activists who were called to the area managed to reach an understanding with the workers and the contractor, and prevent the attempt to damage the cemetery. The event spurred a protest, and on Friday a demonstration was held at the venue, despite intimidation from Israeli security services.

The story of this recent threat began on Monday, February 7, when the threat to the Muslim cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh in Haifa suddenly became very tangible: some heavy machinery for earthwork arrived at the edge of the cemetery, and their operators began preparations to dig.

In early December 2021, when a protest tent was set up on the outskirts of the cemetery, the situation was not clear. Some of the land was expropriated as early as the 1950s, and even though almost 70 years have passed since then, the cemetery continues to exist on the ground. When I reported here on the struggle for recognition of the cemetery, I cautiously wrote that “new building plans are feared.”

The protest tent – guarding the cemetery day and night – photo courtesy of the Waqf Trustees

The precautionary steps and the continuous guarding in the cemetery were proven necessary. When the heavy vehicles arrived, the activists who were called to the scene made it clear to the staff that it was a cemetery. The workers, all Arabs, immediately refused to carry out any work on the site. Following them, the Jewish contractor announced that when he was hired to work on the site he was not told that it was a cemetery, and that he did not intend to carry out the work.

As the whole matter was closed with an understanding between the activists and the workers, the police force that was sent to secure the job was left with nothing to do.

The cemetery, founded in the 1930s on an area of 44 dunams, was used not only by Balad a-Sheikh itself, but by the Muslim community in Haifa and the surrounding towns and villages. Many families in the area have family members buried there.

Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, who was the imam of the al-Istiqlal Mosque in Haifa and a key leader of the Palestinian community, and was a prominent leader of the resistance to the British occupation of Palestine and to the Zionist colonization, was also buried in this cemetery in 1935. For this reason, it has since been called the “Al-Qassam Cemetery” (as opposed to the old cemetery of Balad a-Sheikh itself, named after Sheikh al-Sahli), and has symbolic significance for Palestinian heritage as a whole.

The cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh has been the subject of expropriation, corrupt deals by state officials, and legal and public struggles for decades since the 1950s.

Demonstrators calling for boycott of Kirur Ahzakot – photo courtesy of Nahed Dirbas

In recent years, the court in the Krayot (suburbs North of Haifa) has heard a lawsuit by a company named “Kirur Ahzakot”, which claims ownership of a large part of the expropriated area, against the trustees of Waqf al-Istiqlal. At the end of the hearing, the court rejected the company’s claim to oblige the trustees to vacate the graves. It ruled that if the company wanted to vacate graves, it must first submit construction plans, and if the construction plans required it – submit a request to vacate the graves to the appropriate authority in the Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, the company is trying to “shorten proceedings” and establish facts on the ground, hiding behind contractors and developers. The police, instead of preventing their actions, unsurprisingly focus their attention on those trying to guard the cemetery.

Calling for boycott of Kirur Ahzakot and Gold Line – photo courtesy of the waqf trustees

The attempted attack on the cemetery was broadcast almost real time on Arab media, and provoked widespread reactions on social media. The Hebrew press, as usual, ignored the incident. On the evening of the day of the attack, in the protest tent, there was a gathering of the Waqf al-Istiqlal trustees, representatives of the families of the buried and the tent committee, along with representatives of protest groups and young people from the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa. They decided to hold a protest demonstration on Friday at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

Prior to the demonstration, several organizers and activists received calls from people who introduced themselves as police or Shabak (GSS) personnel, who tried to dissuade them from demonstrating. I myself was astonished to receive a call from a person who introduced himself as “Amichai from the Shabak”, and tried to persuade me to “use my influence” to “prevent violence” in the demonstration.

Despite the threats, many dozens of activists came to the demonstration on Friday. Police, reinforced by special forces, surrounded the area and blocked some traffic at the intersection ahead of time. Even before the demonstration began, the police demanded that Palestinian flags will not be hoisted near the main road.

Despite police attempts to prevent it – Palestinian flag appeared in the middle of the demonstration. Photo by Nahed Dirbas.

Several young women carrying flags were stopped by police near the police checkpoint, while the rest of the protesters lined up along the main road, across a bridge that was built over the cemetery. Finally, a large Palestinian flag also appeared in the center of the demonstration. The press later stated that this was probably the first time that a Palestinian flag had been hoisted in the town of “Nesher” (as the area is now called) since the original residents of Balad a-Sheikh were expelled in 1948.

The demonstrators carried signs in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, calling for the cemetery to be respected and not to be damaged. Some of the signs directly blamed the companies involved, “Kirur Ahzakot” and “Gold Line”, along with the Israeli establishment, for harming the cemetery, and called for a boycott of their products.

Some of the calls in the demonstration also referred to the attack on cemeteries as one of the hallmarks of the apartheid state. Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement, who was recently released from a lengthy prison sentence, also joined the demonstration and was enthusiastically received by the protesters.

Sheikh raed Salah joined the demonstration and was enthusiastically received – photo by Nahed Dirbas

On the other side of the road, a small counter-demonstration took place, accompanied by photos of ultra-right MK Itamar Ben Gvir and a large poster calling to join his organization, “Jewish Power.”

Meanwhile, the damage to the cemetery was prevented, and the attempt to damage it only provoked and reinforced the call to stop all demolition plans and the demand for recognition of the cemetery and the return of its entire land to the ownership of the Waqf. At the same time, fears intensified of another attempt to mount bulldozers in the cemetery, which might be backed up by the use of massive force, as the police regularly do in forcing demolitions against the Arab Palestinian population.

At the end of the demonstration, activists gathered in a tent to discuss ways to expand the struggle.

The long battle to save the largest Palestinian cemetery in Haifa

08 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by freehaifa in Abna elBalad Movement, Haifa, Israeli Apartheid, Popular Struggle

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Absentees' Property Law, Balad al-Sheikh, Haifa Cemetery, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, Kerur Akhzakot, Protest Tent, Suheil Shukri, Waqf al-Istiqlal

The struggle to save the al-Qassam cemetery is one of the major issues that unites the Palestinian community in Haifa. It is an effort to defend the community’s rights, and reconnect with its pre-Nakba past.

(The following report was published in “Mondoweiss”. You can also read about the struggle to save the cemetery in Free Haifa in Arabic and Hebrew.)

The Muslim cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh reminds us of the days before the 1948 Nakba, when Haifa was a major Palestinian city. Since 1948, the state of Israel and private companies have been trying to destroy the cemetery and convert it to commercial property. The Palestinian community succeeded, so far, to prevent its destruction. Now, facing new plans to build on the cemetery, the struggle is entering a new phase.

The Historic Significance of “Al-Qassam Cemetery”

In the beginning of the twentieth century Haifa was a rising city on the Mediterranean shore, with its port, new rail lines that stretched to Damascus and Amman, and developing industry and commerce. This development accelerated under the British occupation (since 1918) with a deep-water port, an airport and the petrol refineries. People from all over the region were emigrating to Haifa to look for work and opportunities. Haifa developed as a center of Arab cultural and political activities. Many Palestinian trade unions, clubs, associations and parties were established or expanded in the city.

An old picture of the entrance to the Balad a-Sheikh cemetery – before 752 street was built (image from the facebook page of the Istiqlal Waqf trustees)

As the city was full of people, its old cemeteries became overcrowded. So, in the thirties, a new Muslim cemetery was established in Balad a-Sheikh, a few kilometers South-East of the city. It was a big cemetery, spanning over 44 dunam (dunam is a thousand square meters), and it served people from Haifa and the surrounding villages and shanty towns.

A central figure in Haifa’s public life at the time was Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the Imam of the Istiqlal mosque and head of the Young Men’s Muslim Association. In the beginning of the thirties, he tried to organized the Palestinian population to wage a war of liberation against the British occupation and against Zionist colonization. In November 1935 his group of rebels was surrounded by the British army near Jenin, and he fought them back until he fell martyr. His funeral in Haifa is described by some historians as the biggest political protest in Palestine under the British occupation. Al-Qassam and two of his comrades in arms were buried in the new cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh, giving it its popular name as “Al-Qassam Cemetery”.

The cemetery bears evidence to the turbulent historical period. You can find there the graves of the revolutionaries from the great Palestinian revolution of 1936-39, as well as the graves of Palestinians civilians killed by indiscriminate British reprisals. You can also find there the graves of the victims of massacres that were performed by the Zionist settlers’ militias, Hagana, Etzel and Lehi, in the run-up to the 1948 Nakba. Sami Taha, the secretary general of the Association of Arab Palestinian Workers, was also buried there.

Zionist attempts to take control of the cemetery

In 1948 the vast majority of the Arab Palestinian population in Haifa was expelled: more than seventy thousand were expelled, and less than two thousand succeeded to escape the ethnic cleansing. The whole population of Balad a-Sheikh, which suffered two massacres before the final military assault, was forced into exile, like the residents of all the other Arab villages and shanty towns around Haifa. The houses of Balad a-Sheikh were given to new Jewish immigrants and the town was renamed “Tel Hanan” (Hanan’s Hill) after the name of a Hagana officer who was killed there while performing a massacre against civilian population in the town.

Israel’s expropriation of the native Arab Palestinian population was not limited to their houses and personal property, but extended also to holy places like mosques and cemeteries.

Confiscation order for 15 dunam of the cemetery’s land, signed in 1954 by Eshkol

In 1954, Israel’s then finance minister, Levi Eshkol, issued an order confiscating 15 dunam of the new Balad a-Sheikh cemetery. The order decreed that, as these lands “were not held by their rightful owners as of April 1, 1952”, and as they “were allocated to vital needs of settlement and development”, they will be passed to the ownership of “the development authority”. The only truthful phrase here is “April 1”, as this is the day for telling lies. The rightful inhabitants of the cemetery didn’t leave it for a single day. And the “needs” for the place were so urgent that today, almost 70 years on, the usurpers, which prevent the cemetery’s guardians from maintaining it properly, haven’t even presented a plan for any other usage.

Soon after confiscating the land, the state’s representative sold 13 dunam out of the confiscated land to a big commercial firm, named “Kerur Akhzakot”. Later on, this firm will play a central role in the attempts to demolish the cemetery.

Dubious deals

The main tool of the Israeli government to expropriate Arab homes and lands is the “Absentees’ Property Law” from 1950. By this law the property of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced people was confiscated. Concerning the holy places, most of them are defined as belonging to some “waqf” (endowment). After some legal wriggling and a new law from 1965, the Israeli “legal” robbery system verified that “god is also an absentee” (or at least the Palestinian Muslim Waqf), and hence took control of most holy places.

The Balad a-Sheikh cemetery was different, as it officially belongs to a local Haifa Waqf named “Waqf al-Istiqlal” – or “Independence Waqf” – after The Istiqlal Mosque whose imam was al-Qassam. As there continued to exist a diminished Muslim community in Haifa, in spite of the Nakba, they could not claim its local waqf was absentee, like they did in hundred of villages and towns that were completely destroyed or ethnically cleansed. So, they had to invent other ways to take control of the cemetery’s land. They did it by appointing a “waqf trustee”, named Suhail Shukri, who was doing his master’s dirty work by betraying the waqf and its community.

The 1970 agreement to exchange 31 dunam of the cemetery’s land – signe on behalf of the waqf by “Oved Yom Tov” from the Israeli land authority

In 1970 the Israeli lands’ authority signed an agreement to “exchange” 31 dunam of the Balad a-Sheikh cemetery (including the 15 dunam that were confiscated before), giving the waqf in their stead a section for Muslim burial in the new Kafr Samir cemetery to the South-West of Haifa. The first question raised by this “exchange” is why should the Muslim community “pay” by giving up land in an existing cemetery for their right for a section in the new cemetery, while all other religious communities in Haifa received their (much bigger) sections free of charge?

The “exchange deal” itself was not signed by Shukri himself. The person that signed in Shukri’s name (in accordance with a power of attorney on behalf of Shukri from 1968) was one named “Oved Yom Tov”, who happened to negotiate the deal (with himself) in the name of the Israeli lands’ authority. The same Shukri also received the sum of 4,000 lira as payment for his effort to transfer 25 graves (an insignificant part of the graves in the cemetery) to the new cemetery – an action that he apparently didn’t bother to perform.

Shukri’s masters knew that, as a “trustee”, he is not empowered to sell, exchange or demolish the cemetery. In order to get more legal pretense to their dubious deal, they appealed for the Muslim Shari’a court in Akka (Acre), which is also subordinated to the state’s authority. The verdict from the court decreed that land from the cemetery can be exchanged, but only land that have no graves in it. The agreement between the authorities and Shukri to transfer graves from the cemetery proves that they knew well enough that the land contained graves, and, by implication, the endorsement of the Shari’a court to the agreement is void.

Suheil Shukri asked for 6150 lira to transfer 25 graves. Finaly he received 4000.

The struggle for recognition of the cemetery

After the “deal” about al-Qassam cemetery, and other similar dubious deals, were exposed, Shukri had to leave the country. After a long struggle by the Haifa Muslim community, new, faithful, trustees were appointed to take care of the “Istiqlal Waqf”, and they have taken on themselves to save what may be saved of the Waqf’s mosques, cemeteries and property. Meanwhile, Haifa is resuming gradually its natural role as a central city for the Arab Palestinian community. The struggle to save the al-Qassam cemetery is one of the major issues that unite the community in defending its rights and reconnecting with its pre-Nakba past.

View of the cemetery and the protest tent – December 2021 (Photo: Rashad Omari, al-Madina)

In 1989, the Abna al-Balad movement organized a volunteer work-day to clean the cemetery, which was hidden in a tangle of tall thorns, and for the re-marking of the graves. In the beginning of the 2000s, there was a big struggle against the intention to path a multi-lane street through the cemetery’s land. For several months there was a protest tent in the cemetery and local youth from the Islamic Movement stayed guarding the ground day and night. Finally, this struggle culminated in a symbolic victory, when a massive bridge was built to allow the street pass above the cemetery without affecting the graves.

In 2014, the “Kerur Akhzakot” company (which claims ownership of the 13 dunam confiscated in the fifties) filed a civil lawsuit in the Krayot magistrate’s court against the trustees of the “Istiqlal Waqf”. The company asked the court to declare that the plot on which it claims ownership has no graves. Alternatively, it sought to oblige the Waqf trustees to vacate any graves. The demand for the evacuation of the graves provoked public protest. Contact was made with many families whose loved ones are buried in the cemetery. At all court hearings there was a mass presence in the courtroom and there were demonstrations and protest vigils around the building, with participants carrying pictures of their buried family members. At the end of the hearings, Judge Shlomo Ardman ruled that there are graves in the plot that is the subject of the lawsuit. He refused to issue an order to evacuate the graves on the grounds that it is “too early at this stage”, until a specific construction plan is submitted that requires evacuation.

A delegation from Herak Haifa visiting the protest tent on Decemebr 17, 2021 (Photo: Rashad Omari, al-Madina)

As the families of the buried organized, they decided to apply together to the Supreme Court to re-recognize the cemetery in its entirety. But in a preliminary hearing the Supreme Court judges proposed to the plaintiffs to withdraw their petition, while threatening them in a judgment that would have serious consequences to their detriment. Some of the plaintiffs concluded their impressions from the hearing by saying that “the judges refused to dig in old papers, and think it is better to dig even older graves.”

Meanwhile, news is gathering of new plans for commercial construction on the cemetery grounds and of a new developer entering the picture. In early December 2021, the Waqf trustees, in collaboration with the families of the buried and under the auspices of the High Follow Up Committee of the Arab Public, erected a protest tent in the cemetery’s area. The frustration with the “legal route” has brought back to the center the public struggle to repel the plans for expropriation and destruction. The demands are simple: recognize the cemetery and allow the dead to rest in peace.

Haifa Intifada Diary: The General Strike

22 Saturday May 2021

Posted by freehaifa in Herak Haifa, Palestine 48, Popular Struggle

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

General Strike, Haifa Demonstrations, Haifa Palestine, Halisa, May 2021, Mondoweiss, Sheikh Jarrah Intifada, Social Media, Tal3at, The third intifada, Wadi Nisnas

The General Strike in Haifa was a defiant display of unity across all sectors of the Palestinian community, even as ongoing governmental repression intensifies.

(The following is the 3^rd dispatch from the Intifada in Haifa that was published in Mondoweiss)

While many around the world are aware of Israel’s ethnic cleansing in al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the massacre of innocents in Gaza, little is known about the fate of Palestinians in the areas that were occupied by Israel since 1948. Yet, for the Palestinian struggle, the uprising in what is called for short “48” is one of the most important developments over the past two weeks. In this third dispatch from Haifa for Mondoweiss, I try to describe the events as they developed day by day (you can find the previous reports here).

Events in Haifa took a sharp turn on Sunday, May 9, when police attacked a Palestinian demonstration in the German Colony in solidarity with Sheikh Jarrah. The Palestinian protests and clashes with the police in the German Colony continued for three days. On Tuesday there was a fascist mobilization to confront the Palestinian protest, and they were encouraged by the police to attack Palestinian in the neighborhood. The same day Palestinian youth took control of many streets far beyond the original center of the clashes.

The fascist attacks continued for three consecutive days, until Thursday. They were looking mostly for Arab residents that live outside the Arab neighborhoods. At the same time Palestinians all over the city were urgently organizing self-defense. The fascist didn’t dare attack the Arab neighborhoods, but the police, reinforced by the military “border guards”, launched a campaign of terror against the population at large: roadblocks, detentions, beatings, throwing stun grenades and teargas at homes and bystanders, and patrolling the streets in a provocative way.

The call for a general strike

The daily bombing in Gaza and the images from al-Quds aroused strong feelings in the local Palestinian population, but it was the need to mobilize a defense against fascist attacks that moved many people to action who would normally sympathize with the struggle but choose not to take part.

One sign of the deep impact of this threat was the news that many Arab soldiers and policemen (30 of them, according to some commentators) announced their resignation from the army and the police. One of them, in an interview (here, in Hebrew), described how he passed by our demonstration in Haifa and heard the slogan “Why are we quiet about Arabs serving in the army?”, before hearing the voice of his conscience and quitting the service.

POSTERS ALERTING PEOPLE TO THE STRIKE FILLED THE WALLS

By the end of the week, the question among the activists was how we go on from here. How do we utilize mass mobilization not only for self-defense, but also to stop the daily massacre in Gaza? The idea of a general strike started circulating in the networks. On Sunday, The High Follow-Up Committee, the united leadership of the ‘48 Palestinian population, declared a general strike for Tuesday, May 18. In the same meeting they also issued an unprecedented call for the international community to take responsibility for the protection of the Palestinian population, including in the ‘48 territories. (The committee’s announcement is here in Arabic.)

The activists are used to distrusting the leadership of the Follow-Up Committee, and some thought that a one-day general strike was not enough. But, soon, in the spirit of unity and empowerment that enabled the current uprising, all energies were united for the success of the strike. Politically, the strike was a great opportunity to involve many more people in the struggle and show that Palestinian society is united beyond a common goal.

Organizing

During the last couple of weeks, we witnessed the almost total disappearance of the traditional political parties and a surge of new initiatives organized by the youth through social networks. There are multiple groups in WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal where people connect, share information, discuss and organize. From time to time there were last-minute calls for face-to-face meetings that were held in the street or in friendly spaces. After the activists decided what the next activity would be, the news was spread through Facebook and through personal, family, neighborhood and professional chat groups.

All of this frenzied organizational network was working throughout Monday to mobilize for the success of the strike. We thought that it would be necessary to stand by the entrance of local schools in order to ask the parents and pupils to strike, but soon we were informed that the parents and pupils were organizing the strike themselves! We were leafleting around the neighborhoods and everywhere we met shopkeepers that told us “yes, this time we will be on strike!”

After all the fear from fascist attacks and the terrorizing of the people by the police, it was important to revive the self-confidence of the people in the neighborhoods and to reclaim the public space. For this purpose, the activists organized cultural activities in six neighborhoods, including lectures, activities for children, musical programs and more.

Reclaiming the public space

On Tuesday morning all the networks were sharing images of closed shops from all around Arab Haifa, even areas that never participated in strikes before. But it was not only Arab shops and businesses that closed. Many people that work for Israeli companies and organizations were on strike also. So, there were also other types of images that were shared around: threats from managers to their workers, a picture of a chat where an Arab engineer told her boss that she would not come to work this day and his answer was “wishing her success” in finding new work, etc. There were also announcements from big Israeli companies telling their customers that because of the strike they would not be able to provide the expected services. Sharing all these gave a sense of the power of Palestinian workers to make an impact on the Israeli economy.

The activities in the neighborhoods were a great success. In ordinary days, Arab Haifa is pretty much a divided city, mostly along class lines, between marginalized workers and their families who live in poor neighborhoods and the middle class. The struggle, and especially the general strike, created a sense of unity. In my neighborhood, Halisa, the committee that organized the strike was half from local youth and half from volunteers from the activist community. At the designated hour people began to gather in the small commercial center, mostly women and children. Neighbors brought with them food and water and invited everybody.

I didn’t want to bring the Palestinian flag with me – I thought that if it should be raised over the activity it should come from the “ordinary” people and not from the “political”. But the first round of activities for the children included “free painting”, so soon we had plenty of Palestinian flags drying in the sun as well as images of Sheikh Jarrakh, al-Aqsa, and the bombing of Gaza.

In the middle of the activities, a heavily armed patrol of border guards stopped their car near us and came to check what we were doing. Seeing all the children around they went back to their car. They made some calls and apparently were told to leave us alone.

As we were gathering in the commercial center, we heard that there are police harassing the residents in Hussein St, just 200 meters away. I went there and found about a dozen policemen in civil, with completely unmarked cars, searching some homes. They also brought with them police dogs. I started filming them with my phone and they were very unhappy about it.

Back in the commercial center, there was a group of musicians that came to raise our spirits. Some of them fill concert halls in ordinary days, but now they were sitting on the bare ground with Halisa’s children and were singing and playing their instruments. In many songs the whole crowd was singing together. They even prepared a special satirical song for the event that criticized the Palestinian leadership for complacency and praised the unity of the masses all over Palestine in the general strike. (A video from the activity may be seen here).

Similar activities took part with mass participation in other neighborhoods, big and small.

Another demonstration

As I described in previous dispatches, after the attacks on the Herak demonstrations during the previous week, there was some fear of holding a new demonstration. On Saturday there were two demonstrations, one in Wadi Nisnas and the other near the court, but the numbers were smaller, about a hundred participants in each demonstration, and no streets were closed. Now, as the momentum started to accumulate again on our side, Tal’at (the feminist Palestinian movement) called for a new demonstration at 18:00 on Tuesday. It was labeled “The march of the dignity strike”, after the name of the general strike. The march had to start near “al-Midan Theater” – on the border between Wadi Nisnas (the center of Arab Haifa) and Hadar (the old commercial center with mixed population). There was at least one mindful consideration in this selection: if there was to be mayhem again, it wouldn’t hurt the same businesses that suffered with us the previous week.

At the designated hour hundreds of Palestinians, mostly youth, gathered with Palestinian flags on both sides of Khuri St., about the same number that was in the Herak demonstration a week ago. Spirits were high again and everybody was chanting slogans and singing freedom songs. The police also brought a big force for the event, but didn’t try to prevent us from gathering.

The Demonstration in Khuri St on the day of the General Strike

After about half an hour, the demonstrators started to march toward Wadi Nisnas. Because the police were concentrating in Khuri St. the demonstrators tried to reach the Wadi through a side-street, but soon their way was blocked by a cordon of mounted police. After standing for some time face-to-face in front of the police, the demonstrators returned to Khuri street, but now they occupied the street itself, blocking the main passage from the Wadi to Hadar.

While the previous Tuesday the police closed the whole area more than an hour before our demonstration, clearing the space for a battle, now they didn’t close the street for cars even as it was already closed by the demonstration. Some cars were stuck between us and the police and had to move slowly to cross through the crowd. During the event, all the people in those cars were making “V” signs and chanting with us to show their support for the demonstration…

Apparently, the Haifa police put in their mind that their task is to prevent the demonstrators from marching. So, while if we would have held a march in the small streets of Wadi Nisnas the “disturbance” to the city’s routine would be minimal, they actually let us occupy and block a central route in a much more visible location. The demonstration lasted for almost two hours and we left feeling that the message of our protest was heard loud and clear.

* * *

As I write these lines the clock is showing 2:00 am and the ceasefire is expected to take hold. I hope the current bloodshed will stop, but I know that the killing of Palestinians on a daily basis by the racist army and police, in the West Bank and “48”, is not going to stop. And the siege of Gaza, preventing medical supplies, electricity, clean water and all economic development is killing more people and causing more suffering than the bombing itself. In “48”, due to poverty and long social neglect, organized crime, encouraged by the Israeli police, became an epidemic that daunted Palestinian society. During the last two weeks violent crime fell sharply. We have a long struggle ahead until people here would be able to live safely in freedom, but the Palestinian people are now more united and self-confident than they have been for many years.

To my American audience I must say that even the Israeli leadership wanted the ceasefire for at least a week, as Netanyahu achieved his political goal to prevent the “pseudo-opposition” from creating a government without him. Netanyahu said he would continue the attacks until “the goals would be achieved”, but he couldn’t say what those goals are… The bloodshed continued just because Israeli leaders couldn’t let themselves seem soft on the Palestinians while the USA president avoided calling for a ceasefire and actually pushed them to continue bombing Gaza.

Intifada Diary, Haifa, Palestine

20 Thursday May 2021

Posted by freehaifa in Herak Haifa, Palestine 48, Popular Struggle, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Haifa Court, Haifa Demonstrations, Herak Haifa, Police Violence, Tal3at

The uprising in Haifa is drawing from all sectors of the Palestinian community, as the Israeli government brings in the Shin Bet to help smash the protests.

(The second report about the Intifada in Haifa, as appeared in Mondoweiss)

On Saturday it seemed that Haifa is somewhat calmer. But that is only relatively to the last stormy six days. But the Israeli massacre of Gaza’s children continues in all its ferocity.

After the first days of fear, shock, and rage at the attacks on isolated Arab homes in mixed neighborhoods by the fascists, and at the attacks on the Arab population at large by the police and the army, people are now closely following all the developments in the struggle. Almost all Palestinians in Haifa are involved in the struggle in this way or that. Wherever you go you meet more people that were attacked by fascists or by the police, and hear more stories about friends and relatives who have been injured or detained (or both).

In this short dispatch I will try to convey some of the events from the 7^th and 8^th days of the intifada in Haifa.

Saturday, May 15

This was the 7^th day since the current intifada reached Haifa. The fascist mobs were not on the streets. But the police, reinforced by heavily armed “border guards”, patrolled the Arab neighborhoods with a clear intention to “take revenge” on the people. It is not only against Gaza that the Zionists want to “restore deterrence”. On the other side, the activists wanted to restore the self-confidence of the people by developing mutual solidarity and social activity, sometimes avoiding direct confrontation.

I went with a group of activists to check the situation in Halisa, where we heard of a campaign of detentions overnight. We climbed our way to an old crumbling house just a hundred meters from the massive buildings of the Haifa police headquarters. In the house we found a mother and her daughters, as the family’s father and three sons were all arrested in a police raid on their house. They show us videos how the police attacked the house, broke in and beat them cruelly in their own home, even after they were laying flat on the ground. They tell us that the police accused them of attacking their religious Jewish neighbors. They told us that they are on very good relations with those neighbors. Actually, the neighbors themselves came to the court to testify with them in the remand hearing! The neighbors waited with them for hours, but the court refused to hear them and remanded the detention of all four of the detainees. (They were later released on Sunday, after the judge finally agreed to witness the videos and was shocked by the police’s violence).

The evidence of harsh treatment was evident on the bodies of the released detainees in Halisa

We climbed the hill to Hussein St. where we met a group of youths sitting on the pavement. They told us how on Friday night, at about 1:00 am, as they were sitting near their houses, the police fired tear gas into the street without any provocation. After the tear gas came the border guards and started beating people randomly and detaining some of them. As we were trying to check with our volunteer lawyers what happened with the detainees, some of them came walking from the police headquarters. Some of them spent the night in the hospital after the beating. Now they were released on the condition that they stay out of Haifa (where they live and work) for the next 15 days. The bloodstained signs of the beating could be clearly seen on their bodies.

The breadth of the protests

We hardly know what happens in other towns around Haifa and beyond. We are very busy with the events, the Israeli media hardly write anything about Palestinians suffering from Israeli oppression or resisting it, and the Arab media can hardly catch up with the events. In normal days when there is a demonstration or a clash with the police you can expect to read an article about it in Arab48. Now there are dozens of demonstrations and clashes every day. The daily report only gives a list of seven or eight places where they happened, and mention that it is only a partial list. At best you can find a few lines about some of the events.

Luckily, the police are obliged by the law to bring detainees to court within 24 hours of their detention (more or less). It means that people that were detained on Friday are brought to court on Saturday night. As most courts are closed, detainees from many Arab towns around Haifa are brought to Haifa, and it is an opportunity for us to meet families of the detainees and some of the activists, and hear some news about other fronts in the battle. Everybody that we talk with is in high spirits. We hear of daily demonstrations and clashes with the police in every location. Everybody agrees that all the attempts to wipe out Palestinian identity and make the people, especially the youth, care only for their personal fate completely failed. The youth are leading the struggle and have their own network of organizations, outside the influence of all the traditional frameworks.

We hear of one town where the municipality begged the police to prevent the selling of dangerous fireworks toward Eid al-Fitr. The police did nothing of the sort. Now there is no Eid and all the fireworks are directed at the police.

The same story repeats itself on Sunday morning, as it is the eve of the Jewish Shavuot holiday, and on Monday night after all courts were closed for the holiday.

Demonstrations again

Long before the current uprising, Herak Haifa planned to commemorate the Palestinian Nakba, in coordination with other Palestinian movements all over Palestine and the diaspora, with a special event with lighting the torch of return. The activity was planned to take place in Prisoner’s Square, in the German Colony, where the clashes started in the first three days of last week. Now, as Palestinians in Haifa are under attack, the German Colony is not regarded a safe place. The fascists issued calls for attacking the Herak activity, and we know very well that the police would be more than happy to take part in such an attack. The youth in the Arab neighborhoods are mobilized for self-defense of the population, but the Herak didn’t want to farther strain their efforts and cancelled the activity.

Tal’at demo in Habibi Circle, Wadi Nisnas

Meanwhile, many women activists felt that they were sidelined while the main forms of activity are clashes with the police or physically confronting attackers. In the last few years, we have witnessed several very significant struggles led by “Tal’at”, a feminist Palestinian initiative that unites Palestinian women in all different localities. Now Tal’at called for a 15^th of May Nakba demonstration in Emil Habibi Circle in the middle of Wadi Nisnas. Many were afraid, after the experience of the last days, that any demonstration would be attacked by the police. But more than a hundred activists, around 80% of them women, came anyway to the demonstration. The police were watching from the other side of the circle and the demonstration took place without being interrupted.

At the end of the demonstration, most of the participants walked through downtown Haifa to the court, and held another lively demonstration there. As we arrived near the court, we found that the police and border guards concentrated heavy forces in front of the building. There was a big gathering of the families of detainees from all the towns in the Haifa district, and the police kept the demonstrators separated from the families. There were even police dogs ready to bite us. Later we learned that the police mobilization was probably due to the fact that Sheikh Kamal Hatib, the deputy leader of the banned Islamic Movement, was also brought for remand. He was arrested the previous night from his home in Kafr Kanna (Cana of Galilee) near Nazareth in a very violent way, which included firing live munition at protesters, wounding many, several of them dangerously.

Nightly demonstration in front of the Haifa court, Saturday, May 15

Sunday, May 16

In the morning we went to the court again, to see who was arrested the previous night, to support the families of the detainees, and to encourage the volunteer lawyers. There are many Arab lawyers that are volunteering to defend the detainees from the protests. Their presence is a very strong message to the detainees and their families: you are not alone; you are part of a society that is under attack and stays strong by caring for each other. We, in Haifa, are lucky to have a special team of young female lawyers that organized prior to the current crisis in order to defend Palestinian political prisoners. Now they work day and night, giving consultations to detainees before they are interrogated and representing them in the remand hearings.

The journalist

Rashad Omari is clearly the bravest Palestinian journalist in Haifa. He is the owner and editor of “Al-Madina”, a local weekly that is freely distributed in Haifa and surrounding towns. He personally covers all of the Palestinian demonstrations in Haifa, as well as many social issues. On Friday he was arrested from his home in Haifa and was accused of “incitement”. They did not say what this supposed incitement consisted of, or where and when it was published. He spent the night in prison and later the police suggested to release him on condition that he keep out of the city for the next 15 days. He refused, and as a reprisal the police brought him to court on Saturday night and requested to remand his detention. The judge didn’t find any evidence of any offense and he was released without conditions. He was the last person to walk out of the court at 2:00 am.

On Sunday morning he was already in front of the court again, covering the remand hearings of other detainees, interviewing families and laughing with friends.

Police dogs in front of the Haifa court, May 15, 2021

The lecturer

As we were waiting in front of the court, we saw a man approaching with a sense of urgency. It was Ashraf Kortam, a well known local public figure, a lecturer on life skills. He was looking for the offices of Mahash, the special unit in Israel’s “Justice Ministry” that is responsible for investigating complaints against the police. He shows us a video, filmed by his neighbors, of how a policeman came to his house in a police car and hit him with a police baton again and again without any apparent reason. Unlike in most such cases, he knows the officer’s name. We find that Mahash is in “the missile building”, just on the other side of the avenue. He hurried there but found that the “justice ministry” is on holiday in Shavuot’s eve. He will go there after the holiday. I didn’t like telling him that the main role of Mahash is to hide evidence and close files.

Enter the Shin Bet

It was reported in the Israeli papers that the Shabak, or Shin Bet, was requested by the Israeli government to help the police in suppressing the mass protest. We have started to feel the heat. Before the police would only attack us only after we started to demonstrate in the street, now they sit tightly on our communications and arrest people that try to plan a demonstration. On Saturday they arrested two of the Herak activists just as we were discussing the proper way to commemorate the Nakba.

On Sunday morning one of the activists from Wadi Nisnas called his friends near the court to ask how many people were gathering there. He told them that he planned to bring manakish to the hungry masses. Before he had time to get out of his home, the police were there and took him with them. He was accused of an unclear charge of taking part in organizing the protests. After a few hours he finally joined the crown near the court, as a released detainee and, of course, without manakish. The cooperation between the police and the Shabak proved itself again as an efficient way to prevent “threats to Israel’s security”.

Today, Monday, (17.5.2021), we were all preparing for the general strike that was declared for tomorrow. The general strike is an opportunity for the society as a whole to stand out and prove that the protest is not only the matter of the youth activists. I hope to cover the preparations with the report about the strike itself in the next dispatch.

Six unprecedented days of resistance and oppression in Haifa

15 Saturday May 2021

Posted by freehaifa in Haifa, Herak Haifa, Palestine 48, Popular Struggle, Zionist Fascists

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Haifa Police, Haifa Protest, May 2021, Popular Resistance, Racist Police, Sheikh Jarrakh, Solidarity with Gaza, Tal3at

Israeli police joined fascist mobs in attacking Palestinian neighborhoods, but this didn’t stop Palestinians in Haifa from joining the uprising taking place across Palestine

(This article was initially published in Mondoweiss)

Since Sunday, May 9, events in Haifa are moving so fast that I couldn’t write fast enough to describe them. Every night there are mass detention of Palestinians – activists and other residents that happened to pass in the police’s trail. Every morning dozens of relatives, friends and comrades gather in front of the Haifa court, hoping to see their dear ones released, or at least to know what is going to happen with them. Every night local hospitals accept groups of detainees and other citizens that were hurt by stun grenades, tear gas, police beatings or attacks by fascist Zionist mobs. Every evening everybody is tuning to social media or patrolling the streets to find where the next attack may come from.

I wanted to write a learned article, explaining the background and giving a political perspective, but I’m exhausted. We spent the day before the courthouse, where we heard that, in addition to 38 people that were arrested in Haifa’s streets last night, there are at list 7 more that were arrested in raids on their homes in the early morning. But there were also more than 50 political detainees from the nearby Palestinian towns that were brought for remand before the Haifa court, and the hearing of the Haifa detainees didn’t start until 3pm, even though it is Friday and the court was supposed to close by 2pm. We were sitting on the pavement before the court house, which we were not allowed to enter (only one from each detainee’s family was allowed in), discussing the next steps in the struggle. Luckily, in the best of Arab tradition, some good people brought us water, cold drinks and Falafel, so we didn’t all starve.

Families, friends and comrades gather daily before the occupation court in Haifa (here May 14, 2021)

As we came back to our poor Arab neighborhood, we went to check what happened last night in Hussein St., where the police shot tear gas at residential buildings. In these days the neighbors were supposed to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, at the end of the month-long Ramadan. But the neighborhood is quiet and there is no Eid. We find the house of the Bushkar family, and they tell us how a police unit that were stationed in the main street, on the other side of the garden, shoot without any provocation tear gas canisters toward the row of four-story residential buildings. One canister exploded in the stairway just in front of their door and another entered a room from the window. It is illegal to shoot teargas at people at closed spaces, as it becomes even more dangerous, but the police wanted to take revenge from the neighborhood at large after a police car was burned in the main street in the previous night. Everybody in the house has suffocated and the pregnant mother lost consciousness. They called an ambulance, but the police stopped it and didn’t let it enter the neighborhood. Only after a log delay, when more neighbors intervened and shouted at the police, they let a neighbor escort the ambulance in and the women was taken to the hospital. The neighbors, in the spirit of crowd-media, filmed their argument with the police and published it on Facebook.

The two gas canisters that were shot into the Bushkar family house in Halisa – Photo by Amir Bushkar, FB

Later we walked around the neighborhood to see what was going on. There was one group of police on the main entrance to the neighborhood. People told us that a patrol of the border guards just entered our street. There was hardly anyone braving to get out.

So, in short, what happened this week in Haifa?

Sunday, May 9

Five Palestinian movements called for a demonstration against ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrakh. The invitation included Herak Haifa, Tal’at (Palestinian Feminist initiative), The Student’s National Democratic Alliance (Tajamou), The Haifa Youth Movement and The Alternative Palestinian Path. A few hundred people, mostly youth, gathered in “Prisoners Square” in the German Colony, Haifa’s touristic center. The police didn’t wait long before it attacked the participants with a barrage of stun grenades and started to chase protesters and detain them.

Monday, May 10

Some un-organized youth called on Facebook for another demonstration in Prisoner’s Square. I was not there but heard different estimations of the number of participants, between a few dozens and the hundreds. Police wanted to disperse them and there were clashes all over the area.

Tuesday, May 11

The five movements that organized Sunday’s demonstration called for a new protest at 20:30 in Prisoner’s Square, now also against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. More Palestinian movements promise to join. Women in Black (which organize vigils against the occupation) called for a protest in the Bahai (UNESCO) Circle for 7:30, with big participation, and some of them join the Palestinian protesters. Some fascists organize a counter-demo in the German Colony, which is attended by only a few dozens, under heavy police protection.

As the Palestinian protest start, not even moving from the original gathering site, mounted police ride into the crowd, followed by a barrage of stun grenades. There are more protesters now and they hold their ground, disperse and gather again all along the main section of the German Colony. Clashes with sporadic detention continue in the main street for some two hours as the side streets are blocked with burning barricades.

Extremist Zionist groups were openly calling for violent attacks on the Arab population

The presence of the fascists, which chant “Death to the Arabs” and cheer the police when they attack the demonstrators is heating the atmosphere farther. After long time a big police force that was chasing the Palestinian protesters turn to the junction where they were located. To say the truth, I thought they might instruct them to disperse, to lower the tension. But, instead, the police organized the fascist in a small column and marched them through the main street of the German Colony, all with their Israeli Flags and their enthusiastic “Death to the Arab” chants. Some of them threw stones at Arab passers-by from behind the thick police wall defending them. If any Arab try to oppose them, he was chased by the police, like you can see in this video.

So, if I initially thought that the police came to prevent demonstrations or limit the freedom of expression, I proved wrong. They came to promote the right kind of un-licensed demonstrations. In fact, the police proved itself in the most open way to be the uniformed and armed vanguard of the fascist mob.

After their demonstration the fascist mob went on to attack random Arab civilians in the area. The police were defending them but at the same time there was an unprecedented popular uprising as hundreds or even thousands of Arab Palestinian youths took control of the streets, raised barricades and defended their homes and neighborhoods.

Wednesday, May 12

There was another Palestinian demonstration planned, this one by The Democratic Front, but it was abolished due to the tension. All the day we followed new in social media about a planned fascist attack on Arab neighborhoods. Toward the evening the youths took control of the streets again.

The fascists gathered in “Kiryat Eliezer” – a mostly Jewish neighborhood to the West of the German Colony (on its East is Wadi Nisnas, the center of the Palestinian population in Haifa). The police attacked the youth gathering in Wadi Nisnas and at the same time allowed the fascists to attack isolated Arab families and Arab businesses in Kiryat Eliezer and the German Colony. They chased and arrested any Arab that tried to come to the help of the attacked.

Luay shouted at the police as they were attacking his sister in the May 11 demo. He was detained and badly beaten. This image was taken on May 12, as he was released.

The Catholic Sun reports that “about 30 Jewish men attacked the three daughters of Wadie Abunassar, honorary Spanish consul and spokesman for the Assembly of Catholic Bishops in the Holy Land. The men beat the young adults with flag poles flying the Israeli flag and threw stones at their cars.”

The fascists didn’t come close to the Arab concentrations, but the police attacked there, also with violence and detentions.

Thursday, May 13

After last night’s events the Arab population was more tense than ever, everybody discussing what to do to defend against fascist attacks. At 17:00 there was an open-air meeting in the middle of the Wadi Nisnas market, with activists from the Arab parties and some maybe a hundred of the youth that were leading the action. They felt that the Arab neighborhoods are more or less safe, but the problem was how to defend Arab homes where Arabs are a minority in mixed neighborhoods. It was decided to gather in Kiryat Eliezer before the fascists come again, not in a demonstration, just stand quietly on the street side, in order to defend the residents.

The peaceful defensive gathering was promptly attacked with extra force by the police, which brought big reinforcement from the military “border guards”, trained on brutal oppression in the West Bank. Hundreds of youths dispersed all the way East to Wadi Nisnas and Hadar, and clashes erupted in many streets and alleys.

Throughout the evening the police and the soldiers were actively terrorizing the civilian population in their neighborhoods, streets and homes. Many soldiers were moving in the streets in civilian cars just to suddenly stop in the middle of the street, stopping the traffic, pointing their guns at the drivers and bystanders, pulling people out of their cars and searching them and the cars and performing random detentions. Walking patrols entered the streets, seeking violent “contact” and shooting teargas randomly at residents. You can see one such patrol, which I succeeded to film just as they shoot gas randomly in Wadi Nisnas, in this video. Later I heard how someone that was filming the soldiers nearby was shot by a rubber bullet in the chest and had three ribs broken.

Police and burning barricades in the German Colony, May 11

This night the fascist continued their rioting in Kiryat Eliezer. Later they went to another neighborhood, Wadi Jamal, and shot live bullets at Arab homes.

Friday, May 14

The police and the army still concentrate forces to terrorize the Arab population. Now they invade houses and arrest people, day and night. The fascists are planning for a new demonstration in the German Colony for tomorrow

Occupied Haifa

When I was in Barcelona in 2019, I’ve seen a writing on the wall: “When you don’t move, you don’t feel the chains”. Now that Palestinian Arabs in Haifa moved, the real nature of the Zionist state is crystal clear. Palestinian Haifa is an occupied city and its police is basically a hateful Jewish supremacist militia. The situation in other “mixed” occupied cities, al-Lid, Ramlah, Yaffa and Akka, is even much worse than in Haifa.

But when you struggle for your rights, for your freedom, you are also full of pride, solidarity, love and hope. These are historic moments and the people of Haifa moved like never before since the Nakba of 1948. And, more than ever since 1948, they are part of a united Palestinian struggle against their oppressors.

It is already 3am and I finish this report for now.

Images from Herak Umm al-Fahm Demonstration

07 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by freehaifa in Popular Struggle

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

al-Herak al-Fahmawi, Demonstration, Herak, Organized Crime, Police Violence, Umm al-Fahm

(The following article was published in Mondoweiss)

The combined problem of hostile racist government and the growing prevalence of organized crime are haunting the Palestinian Arab society within the 48 occupied Palestine. The lack of personal security is multiplied by the feeling that there is no one to turn to for protection when your life is in danger. In the last years there were many struggles against organized crime and against the Israeli’s police giving free hand to the criminal gangs to terrorize the Arab population while the same police acts with excessive violence against people that struggle for their rights or even against ordinary Arab citizens.

The masses of demonstrators closing the main Wadi ‘Ara highway on the entrance to Umm al-Fahm – March 5, 2021

Today, Friday, March 5, I took part in one of the biggest demonstrations of this kind. It was held in Umm al-Fahm, the main Palestinian town in the northern Triangle area. It was a high point in a long struggle of the people of the region, led by “al-Herak al-Fahmawi al-Muwahad” – “The United Fahmawi Movement” – after regular shooting at local citizens by armed gangs, and a murder attempt against Dr. Suleiman Aghbaria, a former mayor and one of the leaders of the Islamic Movement, arose tension and anger.

The previous Friday, February 26, Herak demonstrators tried to block the main road and were violently attacked by the police. One was dangerously wounded. The city’s mayor Dr. Samir Sobhi Mahamid and Knesset member Dr. Yousef Jabareen (also Fahmawi), that were trying to cool down the confrontation, were physically attacked by the police in front of the cameras. Four of the demonstrators were arrested. As a response, “The High Follow Up Committee”, the united leadership of the 1948 Palestinians, gathered in Umm al-Fahm and declared a national demonstration for this Friday.

Palestinian and Black Flags were raised on the traffic lights

Hours before the time of the demonstration, the police already closed the main highway leading to Umm al-Fahm, several kilometers away, on both sides. We, like thousands of others that were coming from out of the town, had to make our way on unmapped mountain roads through neighboring townships. When the crowd, that was estimated to be between ten and twenty thousand, finally marched to the main street it was already closed and deserted. Palestinian and black flags were hung on the traffic lights and the masses freely poured into the central junction, the same junction from which they were chased violently the other week.

The wall speaks: The latest poster against the killing of innocent victims with the key of return to villages destroyed in 1948

Al-Herak

Officially the demonstration was called by the follow-up committee, which is composed of all the 48-Palestinians’ parties and movements. But on the ground, it was clear that the demonstration was organized and led by al-Herak. On a central wall in the first circle of the town, in front of the municipality, a big billboard signed by the Herak waited the demonstrators. It declared “I will not wait until my son will be the next one… Umm al-Fahm started on the road”. It added a short cry in English and Hebrew: “Who’s next?”. Herak activist with specially printed yellow vests took control of the streets, turned away traffic and organized everything, including distributing water and halvah to the demonstrators.

Herak activists with special yellow vests took control of Umm al-Fahm’s streets, organizing everything

The role of women in the demonstration very significant. Many of them marched in a special block, but most sections of the demonstration were mixed. Women carried Palestinian flags, led and chanted slogans and closed streets.

Women played a major role in the demonstration

Young demonstrators: We don’t negotiate with the police, the police is the problem

Al-Herak distributed to the participants a special, elegantly edited, 8-pages pamphlet explaining the background for the struggle. Its title was “The Police is The Problem”. It starts with the demonstrations of the second intifada in the year 2000 and the killing of three demonstrators in Umm al-Fahm by police fire. They relate to the colonialist approach of the Israeli government toward Arab Palestinian citizens and the government’s “justification” that internal violence is part of “the Arab culture”. They contrast the prevalence of violent organized crime in 48 Palestine to the relatively lower level of internal violent in the West Bank society. They show in graphs, numbers and details of police activities how the police systematically fail, or, rather, doesn’t even try, to defend Arab crime victims.

The Herak’s pamphlet ends with a slogan that was also repeated many times in the demonstration: “Revolutionaries, free people, we will march on”.

Internal political conflict

The demonstration was held two and a half weeks before the Knesset elections – the fourth election within two years. This time there is very little interest in the Palestinian society in the elections. The reasons for this lack of interest stems from two-way disappointment: On one side, the Israeli society looks like becoming ever more right-wing and anti-Palestinian, and almost nobody has an illusion that anything good can come from another elections. On the other side, the traditional Palestinian leadership that participates in the Knesset elections disappointed their voters first by supporting Gantz to head the Israeli government (and getting nothing for it) and then by splitting “The Common List”.

United Arab List election advertisement on the entrance to Umm al-Fahm: “Realistic, Influential and Conservative Voice”

Near the entrance to Umm al-Fahm, this junction that was flooded with demonstrators, stands a big board with green election advertisement. It said: “The United Arab List – A realistic, influential and conservative voice”. The “united” list is the conservative alternative to the “common” list – led by Knesset member Dr. Mansur Abbas from the “Southern” (legal) branch of the Islamic Movement. Its slogans about “realism” and “influence” are understood as pointing to the group’s readiness to support Netanyahu, in his effort to remain in government spite of his indictment for corruption, in return for some material benefits. The reference to “conservative” might imply the attempt to use homophobic prejudice to discredit the other, relatively progressive, Arab parties.

In the demonstration, Dr. Abbas “realistic” politics were not welcomed. He was surrounded by angry demonstrators that called on him to go home. Activist from the Herak and other parties helped to drag him out safely in order to prevent farther embarrassment.

Hundreds of demonstrators massed in a side street leading to the police station

Despite Police brutality, the Demonstrations in Haifa continue

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by freehaifa in Gaza, Herak Haifa, Palestine 48, Popular Struggle, Right of Return

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Gaza, Haifa Demonstration, Herak Shababi, palestine, Press Release, Right of Return

Palestinian political youth activists in Haifa call for a new demonstration under the title “From Haifa to Gaza” on Friday (1.6.2018) at 9:00 pm in the German Colony in Haifa. This demonstration calls for the end of the Israeli siege over the Gaza strip and for the implementation of the right of return for the Palestinian refugees to their houses, villages and cities. This demonstration will be held on the same day as a protest which will take place in Gaza under the slogan “From Gaza to Haifa.”

The slogans of the demonstration:

Break the Israeli siege over the Gaza Strip.
The right of return for Palestinian refugees.
End the fragmentation of the Palestinian people.

“In Haifa and Gaza, one struggle and one hope for liberation.”

Press Release

1 June 2018

In Haifa and Gaza, one struggle and one hope for liberation

Following the calls to demonstrate in Gaza on Friday, 1.6.2018, under the slogan “From Gaza to Haifa,” Palestinian political youth activists announced a demonstration in Haifa on the same day (at 21:00, in the German Colony). In their announcement, the organizers in Haifa emphasized the unity of the Palestinian hope and struggle for breaking the ongoing Israeli siege over the Gaza Strip and for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their houses, villages and cities.

In the call to demonstrate, the organizers highlighted the fact that Palestinians have faced Israeli crimes for decades in all parts of historic Palestine yet even so the Israeli regime has still managed to divide the aspirations of the Palestinian struggle and it’s battle against this regime. They also stated that the planned demonstration aims to break the Israeli regime attempts to separate them as Palestinian citizens of Israel from their Palestinian people in the West Bank, Gaza and the diaspora: “They tried to rob us as people of our right to live in the future in unity with freedom and dignity… this demonstration is a step in the path of a united struggle and a united hope for liberation.”

The organizers explained that the need for a unified struggle is essential in light of the fact that all Palestinians are subject to the Israeli policies whether as citizens of Israel or residents of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967. They added that these policies that include home demolitions, forced displacement and destruction of villages, confiscation of water and resources, restrictions on freedom of movement, extra judicial killings, and political repression, are all deeply rooted in the Nakba (Palestinian catastrophe) of 1948. They stated: “If we know that Israeli crimes are united against all of us, why do we accept a fragmented resistance against them?”

Violent attack on the Haifa demo 18 May 2018

The Herak Gaza solidarity demonstration in downtown Haifa on Friday, May 18, was brutally suppressed

The planned demonstration in Haifa is one of a series of peaceful demonstrations that took place in the city in the last few weeks following the Israeli massacre of demonstrators in Gaza. In the last demonstration in Haifa (Friday – 18.5.2018) the Israeli police responded with excessive violence and brutal assaults toward the demonstrators and arrested 21 of them. The detainees were subjected to physical and psychological violence during their arrest and in the police station, and seven among them received medical treatments in nearby hospitals.

Dareen Tatour and the Right of Return

02 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by freehaifa in Dareen Tatour, Palestine 48, Popular Struggle, Right of Return

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dareen Tatour, Internally Displaced, March of Return, National Committee of Internally Displaced Palestinians, Palestinian Nakba, Right of Return, Safsaf Massacre

(The following article was first published in Mondowiess)

We were visiting poet Dareen Tatour in her house arrest in Reineh on April 17^th, which is known here as “The Palestinian Prisoner’s Day”. Two and a half years after she was arrested for publishing a poem, Tatour is still under house arrest, waiting the verdict in her trial that is now set to be announced on May 3^rd.

Dareen Tatour in the Annual Return March

In these days Palestinians are protesting 70 years of ongoing Nakba. For Palestinians inside the “green line”, those that succeeded to stay on their land or near it after the 1948 ethnic cleansing, “The March of Return”, held at the same day that Israel celebrates its establishment, became over the last two decades the central yearly gathering to express their national identity and their aspirations for freedom and equality. This year we also witness a new initiative for mass non-violent struggle in the besieged Gaza Strip under the title of “the great march of return”. On every Friday since Land Day (March 30^th), tens of thousands of Palestinians march toward the prison-walls that Israel had built all around them. Israeli army snipers shoot at them in cold blood, killing dozens and wounding thousands. Through these marches the Right of Return regained its natural place at the center of the Palestinian liberation struggle.

To see how Tatour’s story fits within the context of these contemporary events, I decided to interview her about her personal experiences with the Nakba and the struggle for “Al-‘Awda” – the return.

Dareen’s Granma and the Nakba in Safsaf

Are you a refugee yourself? I asked her. “No”, she said, “the Tatour family lived in Reineh long before the Zionists came to Palestine.”

So how did you become aware to the ethnic cleansing of 1948? I continued to ask. “Well, it all started with my grandmother.” She said. “She told me how they were expelled from Safsaf”.

Dareen and her Grandmother – remembering Safsaf

Safsaf was a Palestinian village northwest of Safed. On October 29, 1948, it was occupied by the Israeli army. After the villagers surrendered, the soldiers performed a massacre, shooting more than fifty bound villagers and throwing their bodies into a pit. Young women were raped and killed, including a 14 years old girl. The story of the massacre in Safsaf is recognized not only by Palestinian historians but also by Israeli sources. The Israeli army held an internal investigation but its results are still a state secret.

Dareen’s grandmother was 16 years old at the time of the occupation and was already married to a man from Al-Jesh, a nearby village. At the day of the occupation she was in Safsaf and witnessed the horrors of the massacre. She told Dareen how, before the mass shooting, when the soldiers were instructing people to gather in the middle of the village, she saw how they found two young women and a young men hiding in a cave. They shoot the three of them dead before her terrified eyes.

Most of the people of Safsaf, including the grandmother’s brothers and sisters, ended up as refugees in Lebanon and Syria, thrown into an ordeal of statelessness and suffering to which, after 70 years, there is still no end in sight. The grandmother joined her husband in Al-Jesh and stayed there, where Tatour’s mother was later born. Most of the people from Al-Jesh, after hearing about the massacre in Safsaf, also fled, so more relatives, also from the grandfather’s family, became refugees. Some of them, as a result of Israeli and/or Arab massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps, later found refuge in different European countries, but most of them are still in Syria and Lebanon.

Tatour never met her grandfather, who died when her mother was still a girl. But she is proud of what she heard about him from her grandmother. He was a revolutionary and took part in the organization of the great Palestinian general strike against the British occupation and against the Zionist colonization of Palestine, back in 1936. Later he took part in the revolution that lasted from 1936 till 1939, until it was bloodily repressed by the British army.

She felt very close to her grandmother, who was telling her about life in the lost paradise in Safsaf, as well as about the Nakba and the fate of the refugees. From here came her urge to write down the stories, to photograph whatever was left from people, memories and homes, and to devote her life to the Palestinian struggle for restoring lost rights.

Photographing, Oral History and Activism

Just as she finished high school, Tatour started documenting Palestinian life before the Nakba, interviewing old people, filming on video and writing down stories. She started by interviewing her own grandmother, but soon widened her effort and started looking for displaced people from any of the more than 500 villages and towns that were destroyed by Israel in 1948. She would accompany them to their destroyed villages, or go there herself to take pictures.

She published some of her documentary evidence in the “Palestine Remembered” site, as well as her own Youtube channel, Facebook, a blog and a dedicated site she established for this purpose, “ynbu3.com” (yanbu’a in Arabic means “water spring”). During her detention and later house arrest, prevented from any access to the internet, she lost contact with the service providers of the ynbu3 site and now the site is not accessible. She is afraid that the precious materials in it might have been lost, as well as many documentary evidence that she kept on her computer that was confiscated by the police.

In 1995, a few years before Tatour began her documentation effort, representatives from groups of displaced Palestinians from different towns and villages united to form “the national committee for the defense of the rights of the internally displaced Palestinians in Israel”. In 1998, on the 50^th anniversary of the Nakba, they started the new tradition of “The Annual March of Return”. In the year 2000 the national committee established itself as an officially registered association.

Dareen organizing a visit to a destroyed Palestinian village – and taking videos

The activist of the internally displaced association discovered Tatour’s documentary efforts in Palestine Remembered and invited her to take part in a “guides’ course” that they held in order to expand their activities. Tatour joined the association and found another platform for her effort to perpetuate Palestinian memories. She combined the guidance of groups of visitors to the destroyed villages with documentary work – bringing old refugees to tell their memories to the visitors – and taking videos with their stories.

As the March of Return events evolved to draw tens of thousands participants, they now also include tents with special exhibitions. In the last marches before her arrest Tatour maintained her own tent, with an exhibition of more than 500 photos from the destroyed villages and towns, under the title “tell me about my village”.

She gave new dimension to the struggle to save the memories by using the Ynbu3 site to build connections between the internally displaced and refugees beyond the borders. Each side gave what the other missed. The people that stayed in Palestine could visit the sites of destroyed villages and send pictures. Refugees were contacting the site to request from local activists to find what remained of their houses or to send photos of the locations of endeared memories. The people in the refugee camps conveyed a treasure of precious memories and Tatour interviewed them by Skype and wrote their stories. She also helped to coordinate visits of refugees that now hold European passports to their destroyed villages. She produced three films about such “return visits” to the villages of Al-Damun, Al-Birweh and Tirat Haifa.

Wounded in Saffuriyya

While I was looking in Tatour Facebook page, which she is not allowed to do but everybody else can, I found her image lying in a hospital bed, visited by Knesset Member Jamal Zakhalka. She told me how she was wounded during the 2008 March of Return.

It was the 60^th anniversary of the Nakba. On that year there was a surge of right-extremists’ and settlers’ incitement against the March of Return, which was held on the lands of the destroyed town of Saffuriyya, northwest of Nazareth. There was a very big Palestinian presence, with many families bringing kids of all ages to take part in the educational event. As the marchers were returning from the site of the gathering toward the parking, the police allowed a group of settlers to come close and throw stones at them. As some Palestinian youth tried to confront the settlers, a big police force, including special mass-oppression (“anti-riot”) units, some of them mounted on mighty horses, attacked the whole Palestinian public with tear gas, shock grenades and batons. The police weapons caused a wild fire in the dry vegetation, which put the participants in extra danger.

Dareen in hospital – after being injured in Saffuriyya in the March of Return in 2008

There was havoc. Many people that didn’t expect such violence were confused and tried run away in all directions. Children were crying and many people lost contact with their relatives or friends. Tatour, armed with her professional camera, tried to stay calm and document the events. She still remembers the scenes of policemen beating whoever they could catch, sometimes stumping with their boots on their victims. She also vividly describes how people were wounded when the mounted police rode their horses into the crowd.

Suddenly she saw three children that lost contact with their parents and were stuck between two lines of the police, not knowing where to hide. She stopped filming and went there to help them. She succeeded to guide the children out of danger, but was caught herself between the police lines, and became direct target for their fury. Officially gas canisters and shock grenades should be shot in the air, but she remembers how the policemen were shooting them directly at her from close range.

She especially remembers one direct hit at her leg, and another shock grenade that hit her chest. She felt the burning heat of the iron and the force of the blow left her unable to breath. She fell on the ground. She remembers herself calling for help before she fainted and was evacuated by an ambulance to a hospital in Nazareth. She was hospitalized for one day before her situation stabilized.

Exactly 10 years later, on Friday, April 20, some twenty thousand Palestinians attended the 21^st March of Return on the site of the destroyed village of Atlit, just south of Haifa. It was the third march in a row that Tatour missed due to her house arrest. Some Israeli politicians and Facebook racist activists demanded to abolish the march and threatened havoc if it will take place. They didn’t show up. I just hoped that on the next year Tatour will be marching with us again.

Kafr Qasem Martyr Muhammad Taha Fell in the Struggle against Crime

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by freehaifa in Palestine 48, Popular Struggle, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Fighting Crime, General Strike, Israeli Police, Kafr Qasem, Martyr Muhammad Mahmoud Taha, Muhammad Taha, Palestine 1948, Palestinian lives matter, Police killing, The follow up committee

The same tragic scene that we see over and over again throughout occupied Palestine was repeated in Kafr Qasem on the evening of Monday, June 5, 2017. Angry

Shahid Muhammad Taha’s Funeral

protesters were surrounding the police station. A guard came toward them and shot Muhammad Taha with live bullets in his face and his chest. Muhammad, newly-wed 27 years old, was taken to the hospital but soon died.

Cold Blood Murder

A local lawyer that was present at the scene of the killing, Adel Bder, testified (here in Arabic) that the policemen at the place were in no danger, and that he was arguing with them and trying to calm them down before the shooting, but they insisted on opening fire on the protesters in cold blood.

Thousands of mourners attended Mr. Taha’s funeral on Tuesday, including

The funeral entering Martyrs’ Cemetery

delegations and public leaders of the Arab Palestinian population from all over the 48 occupied territories, from the Galilee to the Naqab. They raised Palestinian flags and chanted “The martyr is loved by god”. The body was laid to rest in “the martyrs’ cemetery”, where the 49 victims of the 1956 Kafr Qasem massacre were buried.

Shooting of Palestinians by racist Israeli army and police, for any reason or no reason, is a daily event in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. Inside the 1948 occupied territories, where the Palestinians are formally citizens of Israel, there were more than 50 cases of fatal shooting since human rights organizations started to keep records beginning with the October 2000 intifada.

As always, the racist Israeli government, political establishment, media, police and courts all unite to blame the victims and assure the impunity of the murderers.

Struggling against Crime

What is special about the murder of martyr Muhammad Taha is how it raises the question of the struggle of the Arab Palestinian society against criminality.

All the organs of the Israeli state are operating within the concept of building a Jewish state, which means that they serve the interests of the Jewish population while striving to make the lives of the Arab population unbearable. The police, doing its most to carry this mission, is specializing in issuing fines and securing house demolition and land confiscation in Arab towns and villages, but is doing nothing to fight crime as long as the victims are Arab.

Martyr Muhammad Taha - with Arabic writing

Martyr Muhammad Mahmoud Taha

With no effective policing, under-funded education system, few public services and limited access to proper work, there is a wide class of hopeless youth that are easy to mobilize to serve criminal gangs, as the only way out of idleness and misery. Social alienation and the absence of the rule of law also cause many petty disputes to escalate to violence between family members, neighbors or commercial rivals.

The surge in violence within the Arab society, especial the growing number of murders, became a major concern over the last years. Many times there are conflicting positions about the right answer. Should we demand solutions from the racist Israeli police? Should we support more police patrols and the building of police stations inside Arab towns? Will such presence reduce criminality or intensify oppression and harassment of the population at large?

The Self Defense Alternative

Kafr Qasem witnessed the murder of 7 of its people from the beginning of the year before the racist police, which have its station placed in the middle of the town, added Mr. Taha to this long sad list. Reading the papers you just learn about the horror that fell upon the people there, but no details about the background to these murders. The police, of course, didn’t solve any of these murder cases and didn’t

emergency meeting of Arab leadership in Kafr Qasem

Emergency meeting of the Palestinian Arab leadership in 48

detain suspects.

Only after the murder of Mr. Taha caused public uproar we could read in the papers about a very special experience taken by the Kafr Qasem municipality to defend its people. They established a local guard composed of a nucleus of few municipality workers and many volunteers in order to fend off criminals. The last surge in the violence happened as criminal gangs started to kill citizens that opposed their terror and extortion activities.

Locals complain that the police did nothing to stop the murderers or arrest them after the crime, even as they testify that they gave the police names of those behind some of the crimes. In fact the people of Kafr Qasem held a general strike on Sunday,

General Strike on June 7

June 4, against the free hand that the police was giving to the criminal gangs to terrorize them. In this strike there was a strong demand that if the police is doing nothing to enforce the law and protect the citizens it should get out of the town. A protest tent was placed in front of the police station.

The response of the police was to attack the defenders of the city and take revenge on the population at large, humiliating people in provocative road-blocks. On Monday the police arrested one of the leaders of the local guards, what caused a new wave of protests and the gathering in which Mr. Taha, who was also active in the guards committees, was killed.

Widening Protest and Solidarity

If the police thought to frighten the people of Kafr Qasem and make them abandon their attempts to defend themselves against the criminals, the killing of Mr. Taha may have the opposite effect. On Monday’s night there was a surge in violent

Burning police vehicle – Monday June 5

protests against the police, stones were thrown at the station building and some police vehicles were burned. On Tuesday the funeral united the whole town in protest at the police murderers but also in support of the brave guards, some of them still under police detention.

The leadership of the Palestinian Arab population in the 48 territories gathered in Kafr Qasem just as the news came in on Monday’s night. In a pre-dawn emergency meeting they condemned the police murderers, blamed the ex-Shabak head of the police Alsheikh and the racist political leadership, and called for several protest actions, including a general strike of all the Arab population on Wednesday, June 7.

The need to resist criminality and violence is a crucial issue all over the local Arab society. The behavior of the police in Kafr Qasem gave a strong argument for all those that oppose the presence of the racist police in Arab towns. Kafr Qasem’s experiment with self defense is an important example how a population that is not receiving basic services from the state, including the maintenance of personal safety, can work to improve the situation by its independent efforts.

Crazy Zionism and Capitalism

Haaretz, June 7, 2017: “Battle between the Islamic movement and crime families”

In some of the Israeli media, the efforts of the Kafr Qasem municipality and citizens to guard their city against criminals were reported as an organization of “a Muslim Militia”!

Also, notice the following paradox. Some proponent of “the rule of law” tried to defend the actions of the police by claiming that in an orderly state only the police has the permission to use violence to fight crime. On the other side, after the shooting of Mr. Taha the police defended itself saying that the person that shoot him was not a police officer but a private guard that was hired to stand in the entrance of the police station to guard the building. So, the police don’t even protect its own building in Kafr Qasem, but they arrest local people for organizing guards to defend themselves… just as the police were doing!

Commemorating Kafr Qasim Massacre at its 60th Anniversary

29 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by freehaifa in Palestine 48, Popular Struggle, Zionism

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

60th anniversary, Commemoration, Kafr Qasim, Kafr Qasim Massacre, Museum, Shadmi

The 29^th of October 1956 started as a quiet day in the village of Kafr Qasim, then under military rule since it was transferred to Israeli occupation by the Jordanian king in 1949. The villagers, hard-working peasants and workers, went out early to work in the fields and in near-by stone quarries. In the afternoon a unit of the Israeli army came in and informed the village head that they are coming to impose a curfew. They told him to warn the villagers not to get out of their homes. “But what about the people that will come from work, I can’t warn them of the curfew?” he asked. “Don’t worry, I will let them in” answered the soldiers.

Panorama: The Massacre

Eventually, as farmers came back from their fields and workers from the workshops, the soldiers gathered them in small groups on the entrance to the village. Then the officer ordered to “mow them down” and they were shot dead, their bodies piled in heaps at the side of the road. 49 people were killed in cold blood without any provocation, for violating a curfew order that they was not aware of. 12 of the martyrs were women and girls, 17 children, the youngest of them only 7 years old.

The massacre of Kafr Qasim was not an isolated incident. It was intentionally planned by elements in the Israeli army command as part of a much bigger plan to complete the ethnic cleansing of 1948. The massacre was carried in the first day of October 1956 Tripartite Aggression of Britain, France and Israel against Egypt. Israel hoped that, under the cover of the fog of war, new massacres will cause the Arab Palestinian population to seek refuge and safety beyond the Jordanian border.

Commemorating the Massacre

The people of Kafr Qasim were not even allowed to bury their dead. The army kidnapped at gun-point some men from the nearby village of Jaljulia and forced them to bury the massacre’s victims in Kafr Qasim’s cemetery, while the curfew over the village was extended to 3 whole days. Israeli military censorship prevented any mention of the crime in the press. It required a prolonged struggle, mostly led by the Communist Party, just to publish the shocking facts about what the army did.

Pictures of the martyrs in Kafr Qasim’s museum

In the coming years the military government continued to terrorize the population and prevent the commemoration of the massacre. As we visited Kafr Qasim today, our hosts told us how the army used to force a siege of the village on the anniversary of the massacre. It was even searching homes and confiscating any piece of black cloth in order to prevent any sign of mourning.

Only in 1966, at the 10^th anniversary, as the military rule in the 1948 and 49 occupied territories was abolished, could the people of Kafr Qasim for the first time openly and more or less freely commemorate their martyrs, with solidarity delegations coming from all over the country.

60 Years On

I must confess that this year was the first time that I attended the Kafr Qasim massacre commemoration. The local tradition is to start the commemoration march at 8:30 in the morning, an unconventional timing for a public event and a real challenge if you come from far away. As we entered Kafr Qasim this morning it was suspiciously quiet and we almost thought that the event will not really start so early. But when we approached the designated gathering place at 8:40 thousands of people were already marching and we quickly joined them.

We marched to the location of the massacre, at what was once the western entrance of the village but is now at the center of what has become a poverty stricken township. There, near the massacres’ memorial, a mass meeting was held. I was mostly impressed at the way that the whole population is now involved with the commemoration. Men and women of all ages attended, most of them wearing special black T-shirts with the symbol of the 60^th anniversary.

Another extraordinary feature of the date was the simultaneous translation of the whole event to the signs language for the deaf. Soon we also understood why the march started so early, as the sun climbed up the sky and the heat became hard to bear.

We heard Kafr Qasim’s Mayor Adel Bdeir, the representative of the grandchildren of the victims, an Islamic Sheikh and Muhammad Barake, the head of the “follow up committee” that represents the whole Palestinian Arab population in the 48 territories. At the end a group of children release to the air 49 green and black helium balloons.

Then there was another march, following the last journey of the martyrs, from the location of the massacre to the cemetery in the East of the village, just near where the Jordanian border used to be. When we went back many people were still coming in all along the main street of the town.

The morning events were just one part of the wider 60^th anniversary commemoration. Over the last month there were educational programs about the massacre that involved every pupil in Kafr Qasim’s schools. There were more marches before today and another central mass meeting was set for tonight, with more speakers from out of the town. It was said that in the next anniversaries the commemoration should not be restricted to Kafr Qasim itself.

Open Wounds

We met sisters Rim and Roz Amer, friends from the old days in “Ta’ayush” movement and activists in the Kafr Qasim commemoration popular committee. They were collecting evidence from some of the old people that survived the massacre…

They told us about their grandmother, Khamisa Amer, which was with a group of women that went out to pick olives in that fatal day. As they came back in the pickup car the army stopped them. First they took out the three men that were in the car and shoot them. Then they shoot at the group of women inside the car.

When we met Roz and Rim they were interviewing Hana’a Amer, which was 14 years at the time of the massacre and came to help in the olives harvest under the supervision of their grandmother. Hana’a was shot and wounded in her leg and head, her skull was broken, but she stayed alive lying in the pile of corpses. She didn’t understand what was going on, not grasping that all the other women around her were dead. It was her rare luck that the soldiers didn’t notice that she was not dead like the others.

Much later, when the murderers went and other soldiers came to carry the dead, one soldier tried to carry what he thought was Hana’a’s dead body by dragging her from her hand. She cried with pain and eventually was taken to the hospital. I think it was the first time, only after 60 years, that Rim and Roz heard a first-hand report about the conditions in which their grandmother was martyred.

They told us about another interview with a man that was likewise wounded but survived after staying the night under a pile of corpses. He told of his pain as he heard his neighbors approaching one after the other the army checkpoint and being shot dead, and his great agony at not being able to warn them. He told how the soldiers would shoot at any victim that was still not dead. The officer told them to shoot one bullet at each head, not to waste precious ammunition.

The Massacre is Not Over

We visited the museum for the commemoration of the massacre. For the 60^th anniversary, the people of Kafr Qasim opened a stunning new section of the museum called “panorama”, where you go through a dark cave and pass by several scenes that represents the stages of the massacre. You can hear the full story there in Arabic, Hebrew or English. It starts with the quiet village life before the massacre and ends with the government’s attempts to cover for the crime.

Shadmi’s one cent

The people of Kafr Qasim see a special insult in the supposedly “traditional reconciliation treaty” (Sulha in Arabic) that was organized after the massacre. They say it was designed to wash the hands of those responsible to the massacre and forced on the villagers by the coercion of the military government.

Another insult is the trial of the officers and soldiers that initiated and perpetrated the massacre. The highest officer that was sentenced, Colonel Shadmi, was fined a symbolic one cent! Eight lower ranking officers and soldiers were sentenced to prison terms but pardoned after a short period. The responsible officers were all promoted to more important jobs.

Panorama: The Trial

In today’s commemoration all speakers drew a straight line from the refusal of the Israeli government to take responsibility for the crime to the continued policy of discrimination against the Arab population, including the continuing confiscation of Kafr Qasim’s land, the inability to get building licenses and the systematic house demolition.

But not only discrimination is continuing, the massacre itself is going on with the intentional killing of Arab citizens of Israel taking part in protest actions in Land Day (1976) and October 2000, and the killing with impunity of dozens of others over the years for all or no reason. And, of course, Israel’s continuing massacre of Arab Palestinians continues on a much wider scale in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza under the deadly siege. It is all one and the same struggle for liberty from the same murderous racist regime.

Activists in Haifa prevented a construction crew from beginning to destroy the Muslim cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh, but fears remain the bulldozers may return soon.

Share this:

Like this:

The struggle to save the al-Qassam cemetery is one of the major issues that unites the Palestinian community in Haifa. It is an effort to defend the community’s rights, and reconnect with its pre-Nakba past.

The Historic Significance of “Al-Qassam Cemetery”

Zionist attempts to take control of the cemetery

Dubious deals

The struggle for recognition of the cemetery

Share this:

Like this:

The General Strike in Haifa was a defiant display of unity across all sectors of the Palestinian community, even as ongoing governmental repression intensifies.

The call for a general strike

Organizing

Reclaiming the public space

Another demonstration

Share this:

Like this:

The uprising in Haifa is drawing from all sectors of the Palestinian community, as the Israeli government brings in the Shin Bet to help smash the protests.

Saturday, May 15

The breadth of the protests

Demonstrations again

Sunday, May 16

The journalist

The lecturer

Enter the Shin Bet

Share this:

Like this:

Israeli police joined fascist mobs in attacking Palestinian neighborhoods, but this didn’t stop Palestinians in Haifa from joining the uprising taking place across Palestine

Sunday, May 9

Monday, May 10

Tuesday, May 11

Wednesday, May 12

Thursday, May 13

Friday, May 14

Occupied Haifa

Share this:

Like this:

Al-Herak

Internal political conflict

Share this:

Like this:

Press Release

In Haifa and Gaza, one struggle and one hope for liberation

Share this:

Like this:

Dareen’s Granma and the Nakba in Safsaf

Photographing, Oral History and Activism

Wounded in Saffuriyya

Share this:

Like this:

Cold Blood Murder

Struggling against Crime

The Self Defense Alternative

Widening Protest and Solidarity

Crazy Zionism and Capitalism

Share this:

Like this:

Commemorating the Massacre

60 Years On

Open Wounds

The Massacre is Not Over

Share this:

Like this: