International release, Tel-Aviv June 12

[] Azawiya joint struggle against the Wall
Palestinian farmers, Israelis, Internationals
+ link to video footage

[] HAWK IN DOVE'S FEATHERS - Gush' Friday ad


~~~

[] Azawiya joint struggle against the Wall
Palestinian farmers, Israelis, Internationals
+ link to video footage

bixq` araxiz zylg lti awyd / Hebrew version at request

June 11 - "What the army used here yesterday was not tear gas. We know
what tear gas is, what it feels like. That was something totally
different." We are being briefed by A., a middle-aged villager
speaking Hebrew in a calm and unemotional way, while standing under the
scorching sun in the fields of Zawiya Village, on Friday morning. "When
we were still a long way off from where the bulldozers were working, they
started shooting things like this one"
(holding up a dark green metal tube with the inscription "Hand and rifle
grenade no.400" - in English). "Black smoke came out. Anyone who
breathed it lost consciousness immediately, more than a hundred
people. They remained unconscious for nearly 24 hours. One is still
unconscious, at Rapidiya Hospital in Nablus. They had high fever and
their muscles became rigid. Some needed urgent blood transfusion.
Now, is this a way of dispersing a demonstration, or is it chemical
warfare?" "But if they think this will stop us, they should think again!"
burst in a younger man standing behind - F., one of the organizers of
today's march. "Without our land, what are we? Seven thousand
people with no livelihood. Five kilometres it is from here to the Green
Line, five kilometres all our fields and olive groves. The fence will come
right up the village houses, it will leave us nothing. What will we eat?
Better to die on our land, we will not give up!"

While we were talking, more and more villagers were arriving, from
Zawiya itself and its neighbours Rafat and Dir Balut - the three of which
are bound, once the Fence/Wall is complete, to become an almost
completely enclosed enclave. There were also more Israelis and
internationals arriving,several dozen in all - the anarchists who had
already been here on the previous days, and also members of Gush
Shalom and Ta'ayush and the ISM and the IWPS women (the latter
who are based in nearby Hares had made the rest of us aware).
Some had come all the way in their private cars, dodging the army and
police road-blocks. Others had used the settler bus line from Tel-Aviv
and then the yellow Palestinian taxis nimbly plying the labyrinth of
blocked West Bank roads.

Close to noon, the march set out. At the head an enormous
Palestinian national flag was carried, and the youths burst out with
"Long live Palestine" and "National Unity - Fatah, Hamas, Popular
Front!". Whatever their party affiliation, they were invariably kind and
welcoming to the Israelis marching at their side. Boys were going
around,offering icicles and firmly refusing payment. An elderly woman
in traditional clothes, a megaphone in one hand and gas mask in the
other, was directing the chanting. Behind her walked two young
Icelanders, who had come from Reykjavik to work as volunteers for the
Palestinian Medical Relief Committees. Many Palestinians had gas
masks, as did the international TV crews accompanying the march.
Those who did not have them made do with a kind of shallow carton
cups with a string to keep them over mouth and nose, or with cloth tied
over the face. Tension rose as the march wound though the fields,
passing the broken olive trees destroyed in earlier days, and up to the
point where yesterday's confrontation took place. And then a feeling of
relief - the soldiers and bulldozers had gone away, during the hour
before we got to the spot. There remained only a single jeep, observing
from a distance. Finished for the weekend or avoiding another
confrontation?

Right on the spot from which the soldiers shot yesterday, strewn with
empty cartridges, the Palestinian flag went upon the pole. A young
man planted a green Islamic flag beside it, getting some frowns from
members of other factions. Under the pole, speakers took up the
megaphone and made fiery addresses: "Listen, Sharon! Listen, Bush!
Zawiya is steadfast! We hold on to our land, to our olive trees!" Then
the Friday prayers, thousands of villagers kneeling in unison in the
direction of distant Mecca.

The rally and prayer over, the column was about to set out back. But
many of the youngsters were not yet done. They ran ahead, to the
recently-carved track by which soldiers and bulldozers have come, and
started piling rocks along it. Israelis and internationals joined them in
shifting and rolling huge rocks, some needing the work of twelve people
to move. "I know this will not stop the bulldozers by itself, but we will
sure make life difficult for them every way we can" said a youth.

Video footage of the protests of Thursday and Friday
 http://www.iwps-pal.org/ftpiwps/videos/azzawiya_6-10-11.wmv

[Gush Shalom contacted Israeli human rights organizations about the
strange gas used Thursday, June 10, in Zawiya village.]

PS: Aside from Zawiya, a major confrontation is developing at A-
Ram,the Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem where work on the Wall
kicked off with the sudden destruction of a major artery, in complete
disregard of the hundreds of thousands who use it every day. And
today's radio news announced that in the coming week work is to
begin on the Wall section linking the settlement of Ariel to those of
Kdumim and Karney Shomron - which would have the effect of both
seizing the land of a dozen hitherto unaffected villages and of driving a
wedge deep into the West Bank as a whole, so as to preclude creation
of a viable Palestinian state.

[] HAWK IN DOVE'S FEATHERS - Gush' Friday ad

[English after Hebrew]

==============
pu apevez iepd
==============

`eli itexwe ddzpgleiez arfd arec ypd, e`eli bm l` .

znexz dahgd feld fe wpd lrvne yxeo afil dfel zcniz iepiz .

`al dyaer

- de` dbaix `z wva apiiz dgend rl `cnd tlqhipiz

- de` rwx n`ez rvi fiz peqtim

- de` dxq `z dkaiy dx`yi nwlpcid l`-x`m dnyxz n`ez `ltim

- de` pezo lapez azim gcyim adzpgleiez

l` gyea nd yxeo nahig. gyea `j exw nd de` reyd


03-5221732
rfxe lpe anineo dtrelez ednecrez
av'wim lbey ylem, z"c 3322
zl-`aia 61033 .
www.gush-shalom.org
walz nicr yehs :
 info@gush-shalom.org

A HAWK IN DOVE'S FEATHERS

Perhaps the settlements in the Gaza Strip will be dismantled in a year.
And perhaps not.

So cheap it is for Sharon to buy himself a dovish image.

But this week:

- He stepped up the building of the wall on Palestinian farm land,

- He uprooted many more olive trees,

- He destroyed the main road from Qalandia
to A-Ram which serves hundreds of thousands,

- He let the settlers build new houses.

Don't listen to what Sharon promises - look at what he does!

Gush Shalom,
Donations to help us advertise
P.O.Box 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033
www.gush-shalom.org
 info@gush-shalom.org


[] In short: struggle news, reminders and links

# Former US Marine and initiator of the Human Shield Action to Iraq,
Ken O'Keefe, was jailed Thursday attempting to enter the Gaza Strip
via the beach Israeli lawyers Yael Barda and Gabi Laski are making
efforts to get injunction against his deportation

More information
 http://www.p10k.net/UpdateItems.asp?ID=49

# Enormous interest in reenactment trial of The Five

On Thursday evening, the Tzavta Hall in central Tel-Aviv was packed to
the point of bursting where was reenacted the court martial of Haggai
Matar, Matan Kaminer, Shimri Tzameret, Adam Maor and Noam Bahat
- the five young men imprisoned for refusing to enlist . The actors on
the stage played the moving testimonies of the accused and their
penetrating condemnation of the occupation; the ranting of the
prosecutor and the defence lawyer's appeal to constitutional and moral
arguments; and finally, the harsh sentence - a year behind bars.
(Misha Hadar, the young actor playing Noam Bahat, is himself a
refuser bound for a prison term in the near future).

 http://www.refuz.org.il/


# Arna's Children June schedule at:
 http://www.arna.info/Arna/movie.php?lang=heb

# Truth against Truth - opposite views on the history of the conflict
in 101 steps:

Hebrew / raxiz
 http://www.gush-shalom.org/Docs/Truth_Heb.pdf

English
 http://www.gush-shalom.org/Docs/Truth_Eng.pdf

# Boycott List of Settlement Products (newly updated)

Hebrew / raxiz
 http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boycheb.htm

English
 http://gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boyceng.htm


# Eye-witness reports from the Occupied Territories:

 http://www.machsomwatch.org
(Israeli women monitoring the checkpoints)
 http://www.palsolidarity.org/pressreleases/pressreleases.php
(internationals throughout OT)

--
 http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (raxiz/Hebrew)
 http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html (English)
 http://www.gush-shalom.org/arabic/index.html (selected articles in Arabic)

with
\\photos of recent actions
\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad
\\the columns of Uri Avnery
\\Gush Shalom's history & action chronicle
\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
\\and a lot more

N.B.:
On the Gush Shalom website links for
Articles and documents in German, French and Spanish

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