The Right to Stop the Wall

Palestinian civil society organizations address Baroness Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, during her first visit to Palestine in an open letter, requesting her to:

• Issue a presidential statement condemning the repression of HRD by Israel;
• Ensure that, in line with the EU Guidelines for the Protection of HRDs, current EU action in Palestine continues, is institutionalized and is expanded, including public statements;
• Raise the repression of HRDs with your Israeli counterparts;
• Raise the continued, illegal construction of the Wall with your Israeli counterparts; and,
• Refuse to negotiate a new Action Plan with Israel, as this would contradict the stipulations within the previous plan as well as Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and instead push for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

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Jamal Juma’, Huffington Post, 28 October 2009

My friend and fellow organizer Mohammad Othman, a 34-year-old Palestinian human rights advocate, was detained by Israel on September 22 while returning home from meetings with Norwegian government officials. I suspect he was not surprised. A few months earlier, Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank had taken him aside and threatened him with arrest. “We’re going to arrest you,” one said, “but it’s difficult with you because all you do is talk.”

As a grassroots leader, this chills me to the bone. Like Mohammad, my colleagues and I spend a great deal of time talking – talking and thinking about how nonviolent peace activists can halt Israel’s relentless expansion into our agricultural land. If talking is a crime, if urging the international community to hold Israel accountable for theft of our land is a crime, then we all are vulnerable.

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Open Letter, The Guardian, 13 January 2010

In recent months Palestinians campaigning against the wall in the occupied West Bank have been targeted as part of a vicious crackdown on their freedom of expression and association. Residential areas affected by the wall – for instance, villages such as Ni’lin, Bil’in and Jayyous – have been subjected to raids by Israeli soldiers, who have broken into homes, fired teargas and arbitrarily arrested and detained numerous Palestinians, including children.

Prominent human rights defender Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Palestinian Stop the Wall campaign, has been arrested and remains detained without charge. This follows the detention of Abdallah Abu Rahmeh and Mohammad Othman, both leading anti-wall figures.

The British government’s unwillingness to back the Goldstone report into Operation Cast Lead sent a message to Israel that it need not be held to account for its crimes in Gaza (Israel to pay compensation to UN, 8 January). This has predictably encouraged Israel to act as it wishes, knowing it will be accorded total impunity. On this question at least, the British government should press for the immediate release of these three Palestinian prisoners of conscience.

John Hilary, Executive director, War on Want

Daniel Machover, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights

Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK

Martin Linton MP Labour Friends of Palestine

Chris Doyle, Council for Arab-British Understanding

Betty Hunter, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

William Bell, Advocacy officer, Christian Aid

On Tuesday, January 5, I attended the trial of my husband Abdallah Abu Rahmah in an Israeli military detention camp. Ofer Military Base is a dark and dehumanizing place, but I was happy to go there because it meant that I would finally see my husband.

I joined my friend Fatima, wife of Adib Abu Rahmah in the crowd of families waiting outside the gates of the base hoping to be admitted. Fatima’s husband is another committed nonviolent activist from Bil’in who, like my husband, is being accused of incitement, that is, of encouraging demonstrations against the Wall. Adib and Fatima have nine children. He has been in detention for over six months now. Read the rest of this entry »