Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | A six per cent democracy: "Hind Khoury | Thursday January 26, 2006 | The Guardian

The hollowness of Israel's commitment to free, fair elections was exposed in East Jerusalem yesterday

Yesterday just over 6% of the Palestinian electorate in occupied East Jerusalem were granted the opportunity to vote in their city in the second Palestinian parliamentary elections - a total of 6,300 out of a population of nearly a quarter of a million (including children). Yet even the lucky 6,300 - the number permitted by Israel to vote is entirely arbitrary - faced a campaign of intimidation to discourage voting.

Israel tried to score points internationally by allowing elections in East Jerusalem, while trying to choke the life out of them. As well as severely restricting the number of Palestinians allowed to vote, Israel photocopied registration lists. A refusal to give a previously issued letter of assurances that voting would not affect residency and other rights added to the atmosphere of fear. ...
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The 94% of Palestinian Jerusalemites barred from voting in their city have to travel to the other side of Israel's wall to vote, passing barbed-wire fences and the nervous teenagers armed to the teeth at Israeli checkpoints. Israel knew few Palestinian Jerusalemites would choose to spend an entire day on this arduous journey, and was thereby trying to deprive almost the entire Jerusalem electorate of its democratic right to vote. ...
- posted by Editor @ 6:41 AM

Israeli Government Destroys more Houses in the Unrecognized Villages of the Naqab :: The Right of Return is a Basic Human Right of All Refugees!: " Israeli Government Destroys more Houses in the Unrecognized Villages of the Naqab | Posted by: hazem on Jan 22, 2006 - 01:06 AM

Released by The Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages

On Tuesday, January 17, 2006 in the early morning about 200 Israeli soldiers came with two bulldozers to demolish several houses of Bedouin families living in the Naqab.

At 7 o'clock they started demolishing the house of Khaled al Nasasra living in the unrecognized village of Abu Solub, leaving him, his wife and his seven children with no dwelling. Right afterwards the soldiers moved on to another unrecognized village called Tlal Rashed where they pulled down the home of Khaleel Al-Hauashla. Another house of Al-Ataiga has been demolished in an unrecognized village just behind Rahat.

All those families are left with nothing but despair. They have no alternative accommodation for the night, making the situation worse is the fact that it is winter and very cold and rainy outside.

Residents of the unrecognized villages - Israeli citizens - cannot build their houses legally, lacking any government planning policy in their villages and the government even acknowledges that this "illegal" building is done out of necessity. ...
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This is a shamefully racist policy that is destroying the lives of entire families whose homes have been destroyed. Furthermore, this policy is clearly in violation of Israel's Basic Laws.

Before houses are demolished the state does not investigate a family's living alternatives and all those families of Tuesday's demolitions are left with no accommodation. What is making the situation worse is the way that demolitions are carried out - in a very brutal and cruel way. A large group of soldiers with their riffles in their arms, entering a family's home in the early morning and chasing everybody out, irrespective of the women and little children. Those women and children were left alone, crying out of fear and desperation, with no psychologist or anyone else to take care of them.

It is known that there are another 10.000 houses that the government wants to demolish because they were built without building permits. At the same time there are 1000 houses in Jewish settlements that were also built without permit, but not even one of them is subjected to demolition order.

Arabs are citizens of Israel - same as Jews - and should be treated equally. The government has to support those citizens and not destroy their homes. ...
- posted by Editor @ 6:08 PM

title: "13/01/2006 | IDF cantonizes W. Bank, sealing in Palestinians | By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent

For a month now, since the second week of December 2005, the Israel Defense Forces has severed the northern part of the West Bank from other sections, and prohibited residents from traveling toward Ramallah and points southward.

The ban applies to some 800,000 people, residents of the Tul Karm, Nablus and Jenin provinces. Until January 2, the ban applied just to residents of Jenin and Tul Karm. Since then it has been extended to Nablus area residents."
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The IDF calls this prevention of movement from the northern West Bank to other areas "differentiation." It was implemented several times last year, for varying durations. Sometimes the separation is in both directions.

The "differentiation" can be felt in the small number of Palestinian vehicles on the roads, as well as in the very lengthy wait cars and people have to endure in exiting the Hawara checkpoint, south of Nablus, and at the flash checkpoints set up at exits from side roads used by Palestinians. However, according to activists from MachsomWatch, the human rights organization that is documenting the policy of restricting Palestinian freedom of movement, the "differentiation" is lasting longer this time and is being enforced more strictly. ...
- posted by Editor @ 6:33 AM