Palestinian Refugees Act to Save Jerusalem’s Lifta Village from Destruction


Tuesday, 29 March 2011 16:35 Shadi Rohana, Alternative Information Center (AIC)



“This is not just a construction plan- they want to erase our memory,” architect and Lifta refugee Nasser Abu-Lel told local and international media today [29 March] in East Jerusalem regarding the Israel Land Administration’s plan to build a luxurious residential and commercial zone on the remains of his village in West Jerusalem.

“The Israeli plan targets what remains of the houses we were forced to leave in the Nakba of 1948; the stones and walls that echo the daily life of our own parents, before the Zionist gangs forced them to leave.”

The proposed decade-long project, which the Israeli Land Administration now wishes to implement (plan number 6036), was issued following Jerusalem Municipal approval of the construction of 268 housing units, one hotel and a number of community institutions on the site of the Palestinian village of Lifta. Following the court petition to save Lifta that was submitted by various organizations Lifta refugees on 6 March, the Israeli court issued a temporary injunction on selling lots on the site.

The press conference this morning to protest the plan was organized by the Sons of Lifta Society, an organization that gathers refugees from Lifta and their descendents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Speakers at the conference included the Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Hussein, Fatah’s Jerusalem Affairs Liaison Hatim abd al-Qader, representatives from the Sons of Lifta Society and refugees from the village, as well as Attorney Sami Arshid, who represented Lifta refugees and other organizations at court.

Arshid told reporters that his petition to the court was the culmination of work done on the ground by various Palestinian and Israeli organizations, architects, planners and other individuals since approval of the plan by the Jerusalem Municipality. “Our goal was modest and simple,” Arshid said, “we claimed in court that these lands and house have owners and they are still alive, whether in East Jerusalem and the West Bank or in exile, and that if Israeli law prevents them from fulfilling their property rights at this moment, this should not mean that the law is to consider their property rights as gone forever.”

Regarding the decision to go to an Israeli court to prevent the demolition of Lifta, Arshid said: “the decision was not easy. The Israeli law regards Lifta’s lands and buildings as ‘absentee property,’ something Palestinian refugees everywhere cannot accept. However, we managed to overcome this challenge by basing our demands on historic property rights.”

Yacoub Odeh from the Land Research Center and himself a refugee from Lifta, spoke about the measures already taken to save his village. According to Odeh, Lifta refugees in Palestine and exile are already contacting international bodies, including UNESCO, the EU and UNRWA, calling on them to protect Lifta’s land and houses. “It is our right to return to our land, rebuild our village and plant trees for the next generations, not those who wish to come here from abroad to build villas and hotels on our land. We will continue to hold on to our right as people of Lifta and as Palestinians; we are an integral part of the Palestinian people and Lifta is an integral part of Palestine.”

The Lifta society is organizing a press conference on Tuesday 29th about the current situation on Lifta. As well as a march to Lifta on the 1st of April.


Press Conference:
Date: Tuesday 29/03/2011
Location: Ambassador Hotel - Sheikh Jarrah


24 March 2011

A court case is pending concerning the future of Lifta, a Palestinian village which is located both in West and East Jerusalem. Lifta has been targeted by the Israeli Land Authority for the development of a Jewish luxury residential/commercial neighbourhood. The plan will lead to the destruction of the place. The court ruling will decide whether the refugees of Lifta, who were forced to the leave the village in 1948, can keep their property, heritage, culture and memory. The people of Lifta have obtained a freeze on the processing the call for tender, through a petition, to the central court.

On the 6th March, Attorney Sami Arshid submitted a petition on behalf of Lifta Society and Jerusalem activists and Urban planners to object to the unlawful sale of the property of the Lifta refugees to the private sector. On Monday the 7th, Israeli Judge Yigal Marzel issued a temporary injunction ordering the Israeli Land Administration to freeze publication of the results of the tender to sell off plots of land. If these plots do get sold off new construction begins it will be impossible to preserve the history, heritage and culture of the people which will be lost forever under a wave of new construction.

A whole village is running the risk of losing its property and the people of Lifta need as much support as possible in order to save the village and raise the profile of their case and prevent the loss of their village forever.

Lifta Society
Cell phone no: 0522 872840

Erasing Palestine from Lifta

Sophie O’Brien reports on the judaization of Lifta, the last remaining Palestinian village inside the Green Line - Palestine Monitor,19 March 2011


The Israel Land Administration (ILA) has put a plan in place which would see land in the village of Lifta, a former Palestinian village situated on the north-west edge of Jerusalem sold to private developers. A plan which would see Palestinian history completely stripped from the village.

The ILA plan calls for amongst other things, the building of 212 housing units exclusively for Jews, a luxury hotel, a shopping mall and a museum. In objection to these building plans, a large petition has been signed by various activists, NGO’s and descendents of Lifta and submitted by Attorney Sami Arshid. As a result of this petition a temporary injunction was issued by Judge Yigal Marzel on the 7th of March ordering the ILA to freeze publication of results for tender which would see plots of land sold off to these private developers.

Over 500 Arab villages were depopulated or demolished during the 1948 war by the ruthless colonial Zionist forces. Lifta is an exception in this respect as it is ‘The only village which remains as it was before 1948,’ Daphna Golan asserts, a Professor of Law at the Hebrew University and organiser of the petition to save Lifta. Whilst on the surface the plan is sold as a rejuvenation project bringing life to an otherwise ‘abandoned’ village, Golan is adamant that it is primarily a political venture. ‘It is a building plan geared towards erasing the past,’ she asserts. In other words, serving to continue the process of judaization of the land, a policy which aims to eradicate Palestinian history, memory and presence.

Most of the original buildings and houses still remain somewhat intact in Lifta, a village which dates back to biblical times. For Yacoub Odeh, a former Lifta resident, a human rights activist and a central figure in the Save Lifta campaign, this is bitter sweet. He speaks of his memories of living in Lifta with great fondness. It is tainted however with the reality that he no longer has any right to live in the village from which he was forcefully removed by the pre-state Zionist terrorist gangs working under the auspices of the Zionist movement. ‘I remember the bakery where I went with my mother to eat bread with olive oil and zatar, it was delicious…I will never forgive those who stole our history and our memory,’ he says.

Lifta was one of the first villages occupied before the 1948 war and the creation of the Israeli state. Its proximity to Jerusalem meant that it was of great strategic importance to the Zionist movement; Yacoub explain, ‘Whoever controlled Lifta controlled Jerusalem.’ In refutation of Zionist claims that depict the pre-state Zionist movement as a heroic, pioneering enterprise, Yacoub describes how the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of Lifta were evicted from their homes through the use of brutal, racist tactics. ‘They bombed the homes of twenty people…but the Jews were allowed to stay.’ The terrorising of the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of the village ‘achieved the Zionist goal of ethnic cleansing,’ Yacoub continued. After 1967, Jewish immigrants were moved into the houses of those who had been forcefully removed. It is the descendents of these families who remain the sole inhabitants of Lifta today.

The ILA plan to redevelop the village of Lifta is symbolic for the reason that it nullifies the possibility of the Palestinian refugees who once lived there of ever returning to their homes. For Yacoub, this is the greatest injustice. The Israeli Law of return grants Jews from around the world the possibility to ‘return’ to their ‘homeland’ and gain citizenship. The original inhabitants of Lifta are, however, not awarded with this option, ‘I was evicted from my house 63 years ago and I don’t have the right to return,’ Yacoub said.

Successive Israeli governments have to date managed to maintain an unstable status quo whereby all the so-called ‘final status’ issues have been left up in the air. Yacoub asserts that the right of return is prerequisite for peace, ‘Without the right of return, there will be more killing and more blood.’

Further evidence that the ILA plans are aimed at seizing the identity and completing the Judaization process of the last remaining Palestinian village can be seen in the details. There are plans to build a museum which Yacoub asserts will showcase a purely Jewish recollection of the history of Lifta, ‘Surely it will not mention the Palestinian people; they see with one eye only.’

Furthermore, the cemetery where many former Palestinian residents of Lifta have been buried has been designated as public land in the plan, thus creating the possibility that it may in the future be removed for the purposes of further building.

The village of Lifta is significant for the reason that it reminds us of a time when Muslims, Christians and Jews lived harmoniously on the land. In this sense, Golan asserts that ‘It should be used as a place where Jews and Arabs can meet to acknowledge their shared history.’ If the ILA plans are approved, it will therefore be removing a powerful symbol of reconciliation. More ominously, the ILA plans which are portrayed as being devoid of any political significance are in fact a painful reminder that the colonial Zionist enterprise is still thriving.

Protest on the 18th March by the Lifta descendants is reported on Press Tv

Desendants of Lifta visit their ancentral home in protest to the impending crisis facing this place



On Friday 18th March, a large group of descendants of Lifta, consisting of three generations - young and old, made their way to their ancentral home. A visit, that cannot have been easy to make for many of them who now reside in east Jerusalem and beyond, was a stand of defiance by the descendants against the decision by the Israeli Land Administation to sell of the remaining lands of Lifta to private developers and proceed with the new development plan 6036. A development plan that will ultimately erase the connection between these people and the landscape that is still a visible and formidable sign of their connection to these lands. The occasion of the protest, as shown through these pictures, can only have been monumental for these people as well as a moving occasion - to be able to recount the memories of one's house or of the village way of life, showing respect to the ancestors by clearing the cemetry of wild-overgrown weeds and bushes; experiences that will remain treasured and eternally remembered. Nevertheless a stand of defiance that will continue on throughout this current on-going situation.

Plans for Lifta luxury housing project temporarily halted

By Melanie Lidman - Jeusalem Post 03/09/2011

Activists want to finish historical surveys before developers buy land.


A planned luxury housing complex in the historic Arab village of Lifta at the entrance to Jerusalem was temporarily halted on Monday after the Jerusalem District Court ordered the Israel Lands Authority ordered to freeze the published tenders.

A coalition of architects, activists, and former Lifta residents petitioned the courts to halt the project until archeological surveys are finished.


The project, which was approved by the Jerusalem Municipality and the Interior Ministry’s planning committees, calls for 212 luxury apartment villas, a hotel, and a network of roads and infrastructure to support the new neighborhood.

In January, the ILA published a tender for the project, which allows private contractors to bid.

The scenic area is famous for the old stone buildings that are visible from the western entrance to Jerusalem, which were built into the steep hillside by Arab residents in the 19th century.

The petition, filed by former Lifta residents, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Jafra, a Palestinian heritage organization, calls for the courts to freeze the bidding process and the transfer of the public assets into private hands. The court granted a temporary freeze until the project goes to trial to determine if the ILA can go ahead with the bidding process.

“The problem is that the contractors are supposed to be responsible for documentation, and preservation is something that’s very far away from their interests,” said architect Shmuel Groag, a professor of architecture at Bezalel who focuses on building preservation.

Groag was part of a group of architects that had started creating a plan for the Lifta area, which has been under consideration for development for the past 20 years.

Groag added that the process of documenting the village for historical and planning purposes was never completed, though the Israel Antiquities Authority offered to document the area. The state was reluctant to pay, said Groag, and mandated that the contractor that won the bid be required to do the documentation.

“If one of the contractors destroys something inside, no one will know, because no one knows what’s inside of them,” said Groag.

“To try and take shortcuts in the planning processes in a place that’s so sensitive and emotional will no doubt damage the preservation of Lifta,” he added.

The Society for the Protection of Nature and the Society for Preservation of Israeli Heritage Sites, however, said they had no opposition to the project, a popular hiking destination for Jerusalem residents.

“What’s happening now is the houses are getting destroyed by the passage of time,” said Isaac Schweky, the head of the Society for the Preservation of Israeli Heritage Sites.

“[The petitioners] asked us to join but I told them I’m not going to join them. If we don’t build there, won’t be anything left,” he said.

Schweky pointed out that since the area became a haven for drug dealers and prostitutes, the houses have deteriorated faster than ever. Some of the stones have been stolen, causing the buildings to crumble.

The only way to save Lifta, he believes, is to develop it.

But the petitioners claim that in addition to the environmental and historical problems the development project could create, there are political problems as well. Lifta was abandoned by its Arab residents in 1948, and is one of the only such Arab villages that was not destroyed or inhabited by Jews after the War of Independence.

“It’s an issue of how do we see our future. Do we see our future erasing the Arab side, or a future of reconciliation?” asked Daphna Golan, a lecturer at Hebrew University in human rights, who organized the various groups to file the petition.

“We should discuss these issues as opposed to erasing them. It’s part of our history, it’s part of our present. Rather than build housing for rich people, let’s keep it for future discussion for compensation.

We have to keep the past alive in order to have a dialogue.”

Attorney Sami Ershied, who filed the petition on behalf of the coalition of activists and residents, said he was “optimistic” that the courts would honor their request to halt the plan.

Saturday, 12 March 2011, beginning at 10:00, in the Lifta parking lot in the city entrance, Ramot Road.

For detailed directions:
Rimmon Lavi 0548020576
Daphna Golan 0548820698
...
We will meet in order to clean and preserve the village for future generations.

The village of Lifta is the last surviving Arab village of its kind, the rest having been destroyed after 1948. It is the only village that can be preserved as a witness to traditional forms of architecture and argiculture that have otherwise almost completely disappeared.

Like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who left their homes during the war of 1948, and who have never been allowed to return to their villages, the original inhabitants of Lifta have never been allowed to return to their village. Many of them live today in East Jerusalem, but are not included, like most of us – inhabitants of Jerusalem, experts in preservation, and others – in the process of planning intended for the village.

Stop the destruction of Lifta! Stop the construction of yet another memory-effacing site of luxury and leisure!

Come with broom and trash bag, and join the cleaning and preservation of Lifta, together with the original inhabitants – today refugees – of Lifta.

For more information about the event, contact Daphna Golan 0548820698

For support, action, and donations – Ilan Shtayer, 0545-69-20-89, ilan@makinghistory.co.il

نحافظ على لفتا

يوم السبت 12 مارس آذار 2011, في تمام الساعة العاشرة صباحاً
نلتقي لكي ننظف القرية ونحفظها للأجيال القادمة

قرية لفتا هي آخر شاهد على القرى العربية التي هدمت ما بعد ال 1948 , وهي القرية الوحيدة التي يمكن الحفاظ على ما تبقى منها كشاهد على أسلوب البناء والزراعة التقليدية التي تكاد تكون امّحت

على غرار آلاف الفلسطينيين الذين تركوا منازلهم خلال حرب ال- 1948 ولم يسمح لهم بالعودة إليها, هكذا سكان لفتا, لم بسمح لهم بالعودة إلى قريتهم, ويسكن العديد منهم اليوم في القدس الشرقية دون أن يكون لهم رأي أو قول في عملية إعادة التخطيط لبلدتهم, شأنهم في ذلك شأن العديد من سكان القدس وخبراء الترميم وغيرهم.

أوقفوا عملية البناء – لفتا لن تكون "هوليلاند" الثانية

تعالوا مع مكانسكم وأكياس النفايات وانضموا الينا لتنظيف القرية وترميمها والحفاظ عليها, جنباً إلى جنب مع أهل لفتا ولاجئيها

للدعم أو النشاطات أو التبرعات – أيلان شطاير, 0545-69-20-89 , ialan@makinghistory.co.il

للمزيد من المعلومات:

عطاء دائرة أراضي إسرائيل ים/405/2010 بموجب תב"ע 6036 للفتا

رَ تقارير مهنية: נספח ארכיאולוגי - רשות העתיקות -סקר אורבאני ראשוני של מינהל השימור ברשות.

من الصحافة: רגע לפני שהשקדיות ייעלמו (دفنا جولان, هآرتس)


שומרים על ליפתא

ביום שבת 12 מארס 2011 מהשעה 10.00

נפגש כדי לנקות ולשמר את הכפר למען הדורות הבאים

הכפר ליפתא הוא העדות האחרונה לכפרים הערבים שנהרסו אחרי 1948, והוא הכפר היחיד שניתן לשמר כעדות לבנייה וחקלאות מסורתית שכמעט נעלמה.

כמו מאות אלפי פלסטינים שעזבו את בתיהם במהלך המלחמה ב 1948 ומעולם לא הורשו לחזור, גם תושבי ליפתא מעולם לא הורשו לחזור לכפרם - ורבים מהם חיים היום בירושלים המזרחית אך לא שותפים כמו רובנו תושבי ירושלים, מומחי שימור ואחרים בתהליך התכנון המחודש של הכפר.

עצרו את הבנייה -ליפתא לא תהייה הולילנד שנייה.

בואו עם מטאטא ועם שקית לאשפה והצטרפו לפעילות לניקיון ושימור הכפר ליפתא יחד עם ילידי ופליטי ליפתא

לתמיכה, לפעולה ולתרומות – אילן שטייר, 0545-69-20-89, ilan@makinghistory.co.il

למידע נוסף:

מכרז מינהל מקרקעי ישראל ים/405/2010 על פי תב"ע 6036 לליפתא.

דוחות מקצועיים עיינו: נספח ארכיאולוגי - רשות העתיקות -סקר אורבאני ראשוני של מינהל השימור ברשות.

מן העיתונות: רגע לפני שהשקדיות ייעלמו (דפנה גולן, הארץ)

לפרטים והרשמה

דפנה 0548820698
רימון לביא 0548020576

7 March 2011

Press Release

Temporary Injunction Issued against Tender for Building Plots in Lifta Village Coalition to Save Lifta

Administrative Petition: 8661-03-11

Following a petition submitted yesterday (6 March), Judge Yigal Marzel issued a temporary injunction today ordering the Israel Land Administration to freeze publication of the results of a tender to lease plots for building in the village of Lifta. The petition was submitted by Attorney Sami Arshid on behalf of Jerusalem activists, including descendents of Lifta, the Bnei Lifta Association, Rabbis for Human Rights and the Jafra Association.
In their petition against the Israel Land Administration, the petitioners requested court intervention to prevent the transfer of assets and property in Lifta to private hands for the establishment of an exclusive real estate project and to halt destruction of the village, which represents a final testimony to the Arab villages and culture of scenery that were widespread in Israel throughout history until the early 20th century.

According to the petitioners, “in the given situation and according to which the village of Lifta is an abandoned village and its original inhabitants live as refugees at a distance of only a few hundred metres from their village, it would have been befitting to abstain from all construction in the area and certainly to prevent building that would result in destruction of the village and the complete dispossession of the rights of the original inhabitants of the place”. The petitioners further write that the “marketing of plots for building in the village of Lifta and furthermore the construction of new buildings on the village lands and in place of the existing village could thwart the ability to preserve the existing village and foil any possibility of reconstructing the historic structure of the village, and everything that is derived from this.”

The petitioners requested that the court order an annulment of the tender to sell plots in Lifta and order the Israel Land Administration to desist from any action that would damage the physical and cultural heritage of the place, until an inclusive planning process is completed that includes the area of Lifta, and which will include planning for preservation of the site in accordance with professional standards and with public participation.
A professional opinion of five senior architects and preservation and planning professionals in Israel was attached to the petition, concerning serious preservation defects in the tender. In the opinion it was determined that the ILA tender does not meet the preservation criteria accepted in Israel and throughout the world, and that full data does not exist that would permit the marketing of the plots and issuance of building permits. Authors of the opinion determine that the tender process must be frozen until completion of the detailed documentation of Lifta, preparation of a building and development plan and conclusion of a development agreement between the ILA and the Jerusalem Municipality.


For additional details:

Petitioners:
Dapha Golan: 054 8820698;
Yaacoub Odeh (from Lifta): 052 287 2840
Attorney Sami Arshid: 02 6231244
Professional opinion: Architect Shmuel Groag: 050 5922428

Before the almond trees disappear


We do not have to continue to obliterate the past of the Arabs who lived in this land. It would be better to acknowledge the pain of their loss and offer them peaceful coexistence.

By Daphna Golan, 27/02/11 - Haaretz.


In the abandoned village of Lifta, at the entrance to Jerusalem, the almond trees are blossoming, perhaps for the last time. The 50 or so abandoned stone homes, between the green terraces and the fruit trees, are about to be replaced by houses for wealthy foreigners that will be closed up for most of the year.

The Israel Lands Administration has begun marketing Lifta to private developers, without having first prepared a comprehensive preservation plan in accordance with the urban planning program approved for the site and without accounting for the reservations that were accepted by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee.

The marketing campaign violates the Israel Antiquities Authority request to postpone construction until the completion of a comprehensive survey of the village's buildings, "in order to document this disappearing construction culture and pass it down to future generations." It also runs counter to the municipality's adoption last June of a policy designed to curb the flight of young people from the capital by providing affordable housing. The plans for the new development call for homes of from 190 to 300 square meters and development costs alone - not including the building plot - of NIS 500,000 to NIS 1 million.

Lifta is a small link in Jerusalem's shrinking green necklace, its extraordinarily beautiful terrace agriculture a reminder of an extinct cultural landscape. Its land is being divided up and marketed even though no caretaker has yet been assigned to see to the preservation of its springs and green spaces. Jerusalem's treasures are being privatized and given to well-connected developers, who become rich at the expense of the public and future generations.

The village could have symbolized the hope of reconciliation. Many former residents who fled and were driven out in 1948 live in East Jerusalem. The State of Israel obliterated over 400 Arab communities to built Jews-only kibbutzim, moshavim and cities. We do not have to continue to obliterate the past of the Arabs who lived in this land. It would be better to acknowledge the pain of their loss and offer them peaceful coexistence. Lifta allows us to ask the refugees how they see the future of their village. Lifta once had thousands of dunams, on which the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the Kiryat government complex, the central bus station and Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus were built. Now, with only 55 houses, a cemetery, a spring and a few dozen almond trees left, maybe it is time to ask what kind of neighborly relations we are building between Jews and Arabs. What is Israel offering to Yaqub and Sumaya and Zakariya, born and raised in Lifta? What are we, the Israelis who were raised on the denial of the Arab existence on this land, offering our own children?

Five minutes by foot from the Chorda Bridge, dozens of almond trees and hundreds of wildflowers bloom for perhaps the last time. Lifta, which did not become an exclusive artists village like Ein Karem or Ein Hod, stands in its unique desolation, with homes whose roofs were blasted off by the army.

Perhaps it is precisely at the feet of this giant Tower of Babel, that sparkles day and night, that the anemones will continue to blossom as they did last week. A small village, where Jews and Arabs will sit together in the cafe. One place where Israelis can acknowledge the misfortune of the Palestinian people, apologize and explore paths to future coexistence. Until peace is achieved we could ask the people of Lifta, many of whom are civil engineers, architects and contractors, to preserve the village and carry out minimal reinforcement of its homes while drawing up a blueprint for the future.

So long as there is no dialogue between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem over the city's future, every new building plan is the destruction of hope. From the local zoning committee's recommendation on new construction in Sheikh Jarrah-Umm Haroun earlier this month to the Lifta plan, the trend of building on Palestinian land must stop. Jerusalemites protected Gazelle Valley; perhaps we can also preserve Lifta, in its present, green and beautiful state, for future generations?

Reclaiming Lifta

The fate of a desolate Arab village hangs in the balance.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN - 17/02/11 The Jerusalem Post

For six years a proposal has been lying dormant in the planning department at Kikar Safra.

Plan 6036 was approved in 2005 to develop the land in Lifta, a deserted Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The planning maps and documents are kept in a large gray cardboard box.

There are a dozen of them printed on laminated poster-size sheets, detailing all aspects of the 212 luxury homes that the architects envision being built at the site. The plans incorporate the vestiges of the village, which include 55 historic buildings, preserving their facades and incorporating them into the new homes that will all be perched on the hillside overlooking the spring and stream below. The famous spring will be left intact.

Lifta is an exceptional environment, an entire ruined Arab village being reclaimed, slowly, by nature. For years Lifta was an oddity, clinging precariously to the hillsides near Route 1 that leads to Jerusalem. It became a hiking spot, a mikve for haredi youth and a hangout for drug users who sometimes squatted in the abandoned buildings.

The latest plans for Lifta were drawn up by architects Shlomo Aronson, Kobi Kartes and Shmuel Groag. Aronson was born in Haifa in 1936 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard. An influential landscape architect, he has designed projects such as the new American Consulate and portions of Beit Guvrin archeological park, and he is the author of Making Peace with Land: Designing Israel’s Landscape.

Itzik Schweky, director of the Jerusalem district of the Council for the Preservation of Historic Sites, contends that the plan is a good one. “The plan now is better than what was… Without active preservation, the rocks will continue to be stolen, the building slowly degraded and ruined by visitors.”

But not everyone is so upbeat. Eitan Bronstein, spokesman for Zochrot, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Arab villages in Israel, is up in arms. “It looks like they mean business this time.

Soon they will destroy Lifta… The destruction plan – it shouldn’t be called a preservation or development plan – will not only ruin the landscape but also the memory of the place.”

Bronstein believes that the plan is not an innocent isolated case but part of a larger drama. “This is a message to the world that Israel has no interest in reconciliation… It is destroying relations with the Palestinians.”
He argues that the village should be redesigned along the lines of what has been called a “symbol of a shared future.” This would include cooperation with the descendants of the Palestinian families who once lived there, building a museum about them and transforming the site into a place with boutique hotels and where “Jewish and Arab high school and university students visit as part of their civics courses, studying the Palestinian narrative in local history.”

Bronstein adds, “We suggest [for now] not to touch it. We think it could be rebuilt for the refugees.”

Yacoub Odeh, a Palestinian human rights activist involved in the struggle for land and housing, recalls growing up in Lifta. “I remember exactly my classroom in the school. You entered from the west, and there was a big olive garden and rocks, and we used to play on them all the way home.”

Odeh was born in 1940 in Lifta, in the house closest to the spring. In 1947, after several villagers were killed in the initial stages of the war, he fled with the rest of the villagers. He worked in Kuwait for several years, and in east Jerusalem he was a teacher before 1967. “There were more than 3,000 of us in 1948; now we are more than 35,000 and we have charitable organizations in Jerusalem and Amman. Just in Jerusalem there are at least 5,000 of us living here with blue ID [Israeli] cards.”

Odeh is determined in his efforts to preserve the memory of his village and return to it. He visits as often as he can, sometimes two or three times a month. He is insistent on pointing out the injustice and ironies of the situation.

“The village that was not destroyed in the time of war should not be destroyed in a time of peace… To build on it means to destroy it. No one has the authority to sell its land nor to demolish, not to build on it. Leave it for the time being until the goal of return is realized.”

But what if the people from Lifta got together and bought the plots currently being sold under the plan, like Basher al-Masri wanted to do at Nof Zion? Odeh says that he would not consider purchasing his own house back.

Avi Margolin, a licensed tour guide, has frequented the site for seven years and is passionate about Lifta.

Sporting an Australian bush hat, he surveys Lifta from the pedestrian walkway that crosses Route 1. “It is a nice place to go, except that it attracts a very haredi crowd, unlike the other springs in the Jerusalem area. In terms of its natural beauty, it is hard to beat.

If they develop it as an Ein Kerem type place, the character of the spring will change. It won’t be a relaxing place to go, to bathe and barbecue.”

He says, “The city should focus its energy on keeping the place clean and enforcing the law there to make it a more family-friendly environment. They should develop the trails around it and encourage people to go there. The last thing they need to do is put luxury houses there. It is better to develop it like a nature reserve like at Ein Yael [near the Jerusalem Zoo].”

Architecture researcher Michal Moshe did her MA thesis, entitled “Pattern of the Arab Village in the Judean Hills: Lifta Case Study,” at the Hebrew University in 2000. Her main concern with the project is the depth of the preservation. “There is no way to preserve something without understanding how it was used. Architects look at the details; but if they don’t investigate the how, it won’t be authentic but only an artificial preservation.”

For instance, “There are some buildings there that are ruined but were constructed in the 18th century.

They should try to reconstruct and use the older stones of these buildings so the preservation also shows the village in its stages,” not merely the most well-preserved newer homes.

Lifta is a story that reminds one of Mark Twain’s witticism: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” A March 2000 report by the pro- Palestinian Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem claimed, “Israel destroys Lifta artifacts to build a resort for wealthy Jewish immigrants.” The latest plan is not the first one to develop Lifta. The question is whether it will be the last.

Zochrot will have a tour of Lifta. Please attend if your are in the region.


The tour was postponed in one week exactly (all the other details stays the same), due to the weather. We apologize for any inconvenient that was caused. Please register to receive notification in case the tour will have to be postpone again: send your name and cellphone number to Efrat: efrat.even-tzur@mail.huji.ac.il

Transportation from Paris Square (Terra Sancta), next to the Kings Hotel in Jerusalem at 8:30 AM, is available for those registering by Wednesday, February 16.



When: 18/02/2011 09:00-12:00
Where: Start at the Upper entrance of Lifta
The village of Lifta, at the entrance to Jerusalem, was attacked a number of times during the Nakba in 1948 and was emptied of its inhabitants. They were not allowed to return even though they continued to live in the area. Some still live today in nearby Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Lifta is one of the few Palestinian villages in which many buildings remained standing. About two weeks ago the Israel Lands Administration published a tender offering lots for sale in the village. If the plan is implemented, Lifta will be demolished and an expensive neighborhood established in its place.

As part of the Jerusalem Nakba study group, we will conduct a tour of Lifta on Friday, 11 February 2011, led by Yaqub Ouda, a resident of Jerusalem who was born in the village. He’ll describe life in the village, its forced abandonment, and what the village’s refugees think about the construction plans.

The tour will be conducted in English, and is open to the public.

Here’s a link to recent article in Hebrew about the plan

The tour will begin at 9AM at the upper entrance to Lifta, and will end approximately at 12 noon.

By car: Take Begin Boulevard past the Golda Meir interchange. Pass the Electric Company’s facility. Turn right before the Giv’at Shaul interchange. There’s a small sign to “Mei Naftoah.”

Transportation from Paris Square (Terra Sancta), next to the Kings Hotel in Jerusalem at 8:30 AM, is available for those registering by Wednesday, February 9.

To register send your name and cellphone number to Efrat:
efrat.even-tzur@mail.huji.ac.il
Or by phone: 052/612-3965

The Lifta that never will be

Instead of building luxury homes over the abandoned village, Israel could use the hillside ruins to preserve Arab memory and heal a rift. Don't hold your breath

By Esther Zandberg, Haaretz - 3/02/11

The first Arab residents have begun to enter their new homes in the village of Lifta at the western approach to Jerusalem. Many of them are descendants of Palestinian families who lived there until the eve of the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. When they left the village, it remained abandoned for decades and its ruins became a symbol of the destruction of the Palestinian community in Israel.

The village has been reconstructed according to a building plan advanced by the Israel Lands Administration in cooperation with residents' families. The streets teem with life and tourism and commerce are flourishing; boutique hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, souvenir shops and a colorful market have opened.

The old mosque has been rebuilt. Fifty-five historical buildings have been restored and converted to new uses. One of them serves as a historical museum.

Jewish and Arab high school and university students visit as part of their civics courses, studying the Palestinian narrative in local history. The newer buildings are constructed in a blend of the many different styles characteristic of Arab communities, and more than a little of their traditional character was lost. But even the strictest adherents of preservation admit that the historical justice carried out here was worth the price. On second thought, it is a kind of authenticity in itself and a thread that connects history to our time.

None of this ever happened nor will it ever; it does not jibe with current Israeli reality.

The Israel Lands Administration has in fact advanced a new building plan for the decade, and has just issued a tender for the acquisition of plots of land in Lifta. But this plan is light years away from the vision above, and chances that descendants of refugees from Lifta will ever step foot there are nil.

The plan calls for 212 apartments and a commercial and tourist center; it will turn into a luxury complex in the style of David's Village in Mamilla or the Yemin Moshe artists colony.

Although it is termed a preservation effort, it is in effect, paradoxically, an erasure of all memory of the original village. And there is also no chance that a Palestinian museum will be erected there.

Urban building plan number 6036 for the ruins of the village was authorized about five years ago after opposition by a number of non-profit groups, including Zochrot and Bimkom, was rejected. They called on the village to be developed as a preserve of Palestinian memory and in this way contribute to reconciliation between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. In its opposition to the plan, Bimkom emphasized every nation's right to memory, and wrote that the issues of preservation and memory "should be the basis of common cultural knowledge for every element of the population in Israel."

But all of this is a distant dream. Unlike the designers' fantasies, the voices of village refugees and their families were not heard at the discussion of the plan, which was not meant for them from the beginning. Many of them live in East Jerusalem, not far from the homes they were not allowed to return to, and where they are to this day not allowed to build homes.

Frozen memory

Lifta is a place frozen in time. It is unpopulated and has not turned into an artists' colony, like Ein Hod or Old Jaffa. The core of the village remains almost in its entirety, with dozens of original buildings and a landscape which has not been covered with JNF forests, and not styled by landscape architects - the fate now expected to befall the village according to the new plan.

Behind all this beauty lies all the elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the refugee problem, the demand for the right of return, denial of memory and so on.

The building plan for Lifta cannot be considered innocent. There is no reason to slaughter this beautiful piece of land for 200 homes for the rich; it answers no vital need and does not solve any of the housing problems in Jerusalem, and it will not contribute to reconciliation, but rather deepen the conflict and erase more proof that someone was here before us.

The only justification for the development of Lifta, and it too sounds like a fantasy today, is building that will serve Palestinian refugees and create a kind of historical justice with a symbol, a tribute.

This kind of effort would also be political and perhaps lack planning logic, but justice and ethics and the chance to turn the village from a memorial to destruction into a symbol of a shared future stand in its favor.

Because such an alternative is out of the question, there is nothing left to do but act to stop the plan, and raise funds to do the necessary work to strengthen existing buildings until a suitable solution is found.

It is to be hoped that such funds will be sufficient for an investigatory commission. This is the place to repeat the conclusions of the Or Commission on the events of September 2000, quoted by Bimkom in its opposition to the building plan and more relevant now than ever.

"The establishment of the state of Israel, which the Jewish people celebrated as the realization of the dream of generations, is connected to [the Palestinians'] historic memory, the most difficult trauma in their history, the Nakba," the Or Commission report said. "The programs and symbols of the state are also anchored in law that praises the victory in the conflict ... which is seen by the Arab minority as a defeat. It is appropriate to find ways to strengthen Arab citizens' feeling of belonging to the nation without hurting their connection to their culture and community."

Israel moves to turn deserted Palestinian village into luxury housing project


Israelis and Palestinians dedicated to the village Lifta's preservation have called the plan to build 212 luxury units and a small hotel the end for the last Arab village of its kind.

By Nir Hasson, Haaretz 21.01.11


Yakub Odeh, 67, walks among the ruins of the Arab village of Lifta at the entrance to Jerusalem and is oblivious to the new neighborhoods and freeways that surround it. He doesn't see the train tunnel being dug above it or the secret escape route for the country's leaders being dug below.

Odeh doesn't see the "Death to the Arabs" graffiti at the entrance to the village or the Arabic version of the name that someone blotted out on the sign there. He sees a village and an area as it existed until March 1948, before it was abandoned by its Palestinian residents.

"Ali Badr's family lives here, and here's Salah Mohammed's house," he says on a walk through Lifta. The village for him is not limited to the houses left standing around the well-known village spring. For him, it is also the remnants of houses in the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem. the land on which new housing in Ramot was built. It is also the village school, which now serves as an ultra-Orthodox educational institution, at the entrance to Jerusalem.

"My roots are here. My whole mentality is from here. I will never be able to forget," he says.

Now, the remains of the village are threatened by changes to the special character of the
place. Two weeks ago, the Israel Land Administration published a public tender for
construction in Lifta, which is to transform an abandoned Palestinian village on the edge of Jerusalem and a popular location for hiking into a luxury residential neighborhood. The developers have committed to preserve the houses and meticulously restore them. Plans call for the houses to become restaurants and galleries.

Odeh calls the redevelopment plan a second Nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe" and the word the Palestinians use to speak of the events surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Architect Gabriel Kertesz, who designed the new development in Lifta, together with Shmuel Groag and Shlomo Aronson, said the redevelopment is the best thing that could happen to Lifta.

"There is one approach that nothing should be done, which means the disappearance of the village. Our approach is one involving preservation and revival. The plan requires the most meticulous preservation rules and permits construction only after the historic buildings are preserved and everything is done under the supervision of the Antiquities Authority and a conservation architect," he said.

Odeh is now involved in human rights work, but he is a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who served a lengthy prison term. He was eight when his family fled Lifta. His former house overlooks the spring in the center of the village.

Lifta is an anomaly. Among the hundreds of Palestinian villages abandoned in 1948, it is the only one that was neither destroyed nor reinhabited. The villages of Ein Karem and Ein Hod, for example, remained standing but were inhabited by Jews.

Odeh and others see the remaining 55 homes in Lifta and the surrounding terraces as a kind of memorial to Palestinian society before Israel's War of Independence. After the village was abandoned, the ceilings in the buildings were deliberately destroyed to deter intruders, however the homeless and others on the margins of society took up residence there.

One of the buildings houses a successful program for young drug addicts, which has been operating there for 20 years. The program's director said yesterday that he doesn't know what will become of the program once the redevelopment of the village begins.

In open areas around the existing homes in the village, plans call for 212 luxury housing units and a small hotel. Israelis and Palestinians dedicated to Lifta's preservation have called the plan the end for the last Arab village of its kind.

Odeh said: "Our dream is that there be peace, and that we be able to return to our village.

There is enough room in Palestine for everyone. These are our homes. We were born here. We breathed the air here, and we are entitled to return here."

Not all of the opponents of the proposed development share Odeh's aspiration that he and descendents of other villagers return to live in Lifta. Architect Gadi Iron envisions Lifta as a world heritage site that should be preserved. He called it a "Garden of Eden" of streams and fruit trees and beautiful landscapes and a site containing important Palestinian architecture.

Iron said: "Lifta is more important than the Taj Mahal, from the standpoint of its beauty and for its Mediterranean heritage. The Taj Mahal is kitsch. In Lifta, there's no kitsch." He proposed the village be preserved as an architectural museum.

This short video extract conveys a vivid account of how changes brought about by the 1948 Palestinian Nakba catastrophe also severed the reality for the minority native arab Jewish occupants of Palestine.

Having to come to terms with the tumultuous effect of forced seperations within their culture, dividing a longstanding socio-ethnic coexistence shared with the Arab Muslims and Christians of their society. A new reality depicting what is acceptable to acknowledge in their new homeland - and what should be erased from memory - somehow did not fit comfortably with some.

The landscape's scars of a forced forgetfulness have remained, profoundly and poignantly comforting to those who accept the fact that here lies, in this land now defined as Israel, a neurosis of forbidden truth - of what had been shaped and the discord that has followed, what has been oppressed and the existence that it denies.


(...thanks Abe for the video)

Anil Korotane, Belonging

Saving Lifta Event





BELONGING have posted the first part of the brief for an event we are arranging in Lifta (the timetable for the event will be announced at a later date); it will form the first encouraging advance of activism for the Saving Lifta project-campaign in the Jerusalem region.

The first part of the brief will focuss on Lifta as a 'Space for Conciliatory Dialogue'. Although explained in a very short, simple, clear and straightforward way, the brief is highly sensitive as it will involve issues and necessary actions that will be very challenging - it will require the involvement of both Palestinians and Israelis to focus on the issue of the Nakba in Lifta, but also to focus on the wider issue of displacement that occurred around that particular time in history.

The ideas and issues presented in the brief have been very carefully articulated and the strategy presented has been mainly derived from the continuation of a discourse based on principles and values of Lifta's significance as a place that can be found in the 2007 entries of posts on this blog. Ultimately the agenda for the Saving Lifta project-campaign is that by presenting Lifta's historical truth and narratives as a place, it will enable us to show the potential of her value for the wider region. Inevitably, through the activism for alternative planning we are maintaining a real case for her protection.

Although the first part of the brief was articulated a few months prior to the knowledge of a bill just recently approved by the Knesset that undermines the commemoration of the Nakba inside Israel, the strategy for activism not only sets itself against the bill but also proposes a challenge that counter-acts its by endeavouring to show what is possible through preserving places such as Lifta.

The brief is derived to show the potential of Lifta becoming both a space of encounter as well as a space of the possible - where not only is it possible to preserve a memory that portrays the catastrophe of the Palestinian people which requires justice and recognition of its truth, but also to have a tangible place in the region that can allows Israelis to address the narrative of the 'other' whilst also allowing them to reach out and across to the Palestinians through the narratives of displacement.

Lifta can be in part preserved as a place to recognise, share and deal with the intricate task of confronting existential narratives, histories and identities for the purposes of conciliation. The brief for the first event pushes the boundaries on this task only so it can show the potential of possible opportunities in cultural-production by preserving memory of places such as Lifta. Both representatives of Zochrot and the regional Ramallah Lifta Commitee recognize that the brief is potentially a 'one day scenario' for civil-building using both the regional community and resources. The first event therefore begins to set out a 'proto-type' of a place and process towards healing for an imagined-future for this region.

In due time we will post the second part of the brief - it will focuss on Lifta as a 'Space for Habitation'. The brief will draw upon holding an event (at the same time and in concession to the first event) for a site investigation to gather the necessary contextual information to redetermine Lifta of how she once was as a place, and then to portray Lifta in the present and future context as a space for habitation in justice of recultivating her memory, the international law of the 'right of return', and equal living.



Saving Lifta Event (Brief - Part 1)

Announcement of the first stage of the Saving Lifta project-campaign in the Jerusalem region.


To begin the first stage of the project-campaign in the region, our first objective will be to hold a series of events in Lifta. The purpose of the events is to demonstrate why the heritage of Lifta is potentially invaluable and necessary for future peace in the region. And we will convey this possibility by orchestrating a series of events that engage into the potential of Lifta’s spaces and demonstrate what can be possible.

The aim of holding an event will be to demonstrate the potential of Lifta’s space as a place for conciliatory dialogue, followed by assessing and re-imagining her space for the purposes of habitation. All stages of the events will be loosely based around exercises capable of reconstructing the memory of Lifta. All work conducted in the events will be creatively and critically devised to ascertain the necessary information needed for the 2nd stage - to derive with the design of a master-plan for Lifta. The 3rd stage will be to lobby the master-plan, both regionally within the Jerusalem municipality and internationally, in a case aimed to protect Lifta.


Working towards a new narrative, a new history, and a new space.

The overall objective of the project-campaign will be to try and save Lifta by engaging her upon a theme that demonstrates her potential to become an innovative ‘space of reconciliation’. As a space of reconciliation Lifta has the potential to transform into a place for the purposes of conciliatory dialogue and habitation. A potential gateway to a space seeking a goal to confront and reconcile narratives of histories, otherness and conflict whilst, demonstrating possibilities of a place that promotes healing, pluralism and inclusiveness.


Task 1 of the event - A space for conciliatory dialogue:

The first task will focus on Lifta as an ‘origin’ to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The aim is to convey the memory of the Nakba catastrophe through eye witness accounts from the displaced people of Lifta. We aim to demonstrate and document that an encounter between an intangible memory and a tangible place allows a displaced people and community to confront their trauma and their tragedy. A poignant encounter nevertheless vital because firstly it establishes an authentic relationship of a bond existing between a people and a land; and secondly, it can play a vital role towards the healing of a people and the larger regional community.

Through observance of the memories of the displaced people, during this encounter, we aim to record and document the individual memories creating a mapping of a narrative of the Nakba catastrophe in Lifta. This information will be later used (in stages 2 & 3 of the project-campaign) as evidence demonstrating that this village has the potential to convey, in part as a memorial, a story of the origins of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The next task of the event will continue to focus on observing Lifta as an ‘origin’ of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Again, during the observance of the memories of the displaced people that unfold the narrative of the Nakba in Lifta, we will use these observations to demonstrate that Lifta has the potential to become a place for the creation of dialogue between the uprooted people of Lifta, as well as all Palestinians in general, with the Israeli public.

Engaging into the memory of the Nakba, in this instance from a place that has remained virtually desolate and un-appropriated since her uprooting in 1948, provides the backdrop for a real space within the Palestine/Israel region that has the capacity to make accessible an open dialogue and encounter a sense of shared-values through the issues of ‘displacement’, ‘victimhood’ and ‘tragedy’. Themes that not only resonates throughout the Palestinian narrative since 1948, but are historically preserved and ever-present within the narrative of the Israeli ‘other’; for instance the Holocaust, and the displacement of Arab Jews in the North African and Middle East region. Sharing and building upon multiple common themes, reaching beyond rivalry, and consoling upon the seeds of despair.

Lifta is also accessible to the ‘other’ because she allows us to re-imagine communities. Although her community consisted of an ethnic-religious majority of Muslims, the community still shared a religious diversity that consisted also of Christians and Jews. The uprooting of Lifta was a tragedy for the Palestinian community of the village however, the Nakba in Lifta was a catastrophe for the Palestinian Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Jewish Hilo tribe, who were part of one of the five main tribes in Lifta, apparently were given the option by the pervading force to remain in the village, decided to share the same fate with their community and vacated the village.

And now 60 years have gone by, enabling enough time to take a step back and reflect at histories. Histories, that are usually referred to in their own unique set of circumstances and disparate narratives, can be engaged together in one space. In this task of the event, we will orchestrate an encounter between the Israeli public and the people from Lifta, engaging into the real memories of displacement set against the tangible backdrop of the valley landscape of Lifta. We will demonstrate that Lifta can become a space of encounter; a necessary place where both Palestinians and Israelis can come together and share a dialogue and speak of their narratives of tragedy, victimhood and displacement. An encounter made admissible because there still stands and exists a place in the region that is virtually desolate; where memory concealing a narrative of displacement can be reconstructed and sustained from a bond between a people, who can recount and relive their tragedy, and this place. A place that can challenge and defuse narratives that translate into a language of opposition or even hostility by presenting and addressing common themes shared in the tragic histories by both peoples.

The narratives of displacement shared together at Lifta can create this place into a necessary common-ground for the purposes of healing and conciliation. During the event, we will demonstrate and document these encounters on the space of Lifta, drawing upon the potential of this place for the purposes of invaluable capacity-building for the regional civil society. And the information gathered and collected will be used to inform and towards the case for the alternative master-plan.

Anil Korotane, director - BELONGING

Saving Lifta in the current political context







Whilst we make steps forward with the Saving Lifta project-campaign it is also important to keep you informed with the political context that is concurrent and has bearing on the cause. In light of the fact that the village of Lifta is located in West Jerusalem, and within Israeli territory, the following three articles address the current political nature of the Israeli government and measures setout by this government that ultimately challenge the project-campaign.

The first and third articles discuss a bill approved by the Knesset created potentially to obstruct Israeli Arabs the right to commemorating the Nakba whilst making them place allegiance to a polarized Jewish Democratic State of Israel, the implications of which are utterly devasting for those whose seek a reality of a democracy for 'all its people' within Israel. If the bill is approved, it potentially has the ability to obstruct future potentialities of conciliatory processes inside Israel. Looking further a field and bearing in context the Lifta, the bill can hinder any protection of the Palestinian cultural heritage inside Israel - especially if the heritage bears any connection to the palestinian collective narrative of 1948, again obstructing the potential of places of historical interest that have recognition to the 'other' playing part of any future concilatory role between identities and equal living.

Already the early ramifications of the bill is challenging the work of peace activists and educational organisations. The second article concerns an educational kit on the Nakba that is is being disseminated among teachers throughout Israel. It was developed by Zochrot, a non-government organization, and is meant to serve the Jewish educational system for pupils aged 15 and above, and includes history plus literary and personal views on the Nakba, as well as discussion of the ways the issue has been sidelined in public discourse. (The education kit can be found on the Zochrot website - http://www.nakbainhebrew.org) In light of the newly approved bill, also supported by the Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar the Education Ministry, a compromise bill is also being prepared, which would ban government bodies or any organization benefiting from state funding, from organizing or funding activities related to the Nakba.

Very shortly, FAST will post the first part of a brief highlighting the next phase of activism of an event that will take place in Lifta. Although articulated through the gradual build up of a inquiry setout by FAST well in advance of these new revelations of the approved bill, on the contrary, the strategy for activism not only sets itself against this bill but also proposes a challenge that counter-acts its necessity by endeavouring to show what is possible. Hopefully once we illuminate this strategy of activism we can, with your support, deliver something to the particular needs of this region and period that is totally relevant and essential.

Anil Korotane, FAST




As Israel Prepares Laws to Deepen its Discrimination, the World Must hold Israeli Racism to Account


4 June 2009, Bethlehem, Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights - For decades Israel has practiced discrimination and forced displacement against its Palestinian citizenry with impunity. But now it seeks to impose consent for its crimes upon its Palestinian victims.

Three bills currently making rounds in the Israeli Knesset reveal an obscene and dangerous targeting of the individual and collective rights of Palestinian citizens.

One bill seeks to prohibit marking the day Israel declared its independence as a day of mourning. A second prohibits negating the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The third requires Israeli citizens to sign oaths of loyalty to the state, its flag and national anthem, and to perform military or civil service. Though still at an early stage, if the bills pass, violators could face harsh sentences including imprisonment and revocation of citizenship.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are part of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine who were made a minority in their homeland through the expulsion of two thirds of their people in 1948 by Zionist militias during Israel's establishment – events Palestinians commemorate as the Nakba (Arabic for Catastrophe.)

Their leaders have likened the potential approval of the bills to a declaration of war. The bills "require the Arab minority to deny its history and Arab-Palestinian identity on one hand and to identify with Zionist values that negate its national identity on the other," in the words of Mohammed Zeidan, head of the Higher Arab Follow-Up Committee, an informal collective leadership body of Palestinian citizens.

Attempts to force compliance with the Zionist narrative, character and practice of the state is equivalent to demanding that Palestinians sanction their own historical dispossession while rubber stamping their contemporary second-class citizenship as "non-Jews" in the Jewish state.

Moreover these attempts come in the context of an escalating campaign against this community that seeks to paint it as a "demographic time bomb" and a "fifth column." Yuval Diskin, Director of the General Security Service has described Palestinian citizens' demands for equality as constituting "a strategic danger to the state", that must be thwarted "even if their activity is conducted through democratic means”; Israeli politicians and "peace proposals" speak openly of "population exchanges" between Palestinian citizens and Israeli settlers in the West Bank; and the Hebrew press has even made recent revelations that the Israeli army is engaged in training special units to occupy Palestinian towns and villages inside Israel in the event of a regional war, to prevent protests and access to highways.

A broader campaign of incitement is at play here. These laws aim to polarize the situation between Jewish and Palestinian citizens, while justifying the quashing of legitimate Palestinian demands. Israel also appears intent to extend elements of its military practices against Palestinians in the OPT to those who are its citizens.

Given Israel's historical record of repeatedly dispossessing Palestinians – be it beneath the 'fog of war' or through incremental bureaucratic means - the initiation of these laws can only be seen as strengthening Israel's de jure policies of apartheid to compliment its de facto apartheid practices on both sides of the Green Line.

In this context, instead of trying to engage the new Israeli government, it is time for the world to boycott, divest and sanction the Israeli regime until it abandons all racist policies and practices and implements international law.




Are teachers introducing Nakba to students against state's wishes?
By Or Kashti - Haaretz 04/06/2009


An educational kit on the Nakba [catastrophe] - the Palestinian term for what happened to them after 1948 - is being disseminated among teachers throughout the country. It was developed by Zochrot, a non-government organization, and is meant to serve the Jewish educational system for pupils aged 15 and above, and includes history plus literary and personal views on the Nakba, as well as discussion of the ways the issue has been sidelined in public discourse.

Some teachers have reportedly been making use of the kit, even though it has not been approved by the Education Ministry. A meeting next week in Jerusalem aims to introduce the kit to educators. The kit's materials were developed over three years and involved school teachers as well as lecturers at teachers' colleges. Its 13 units deal with the Palestinian communities before and after 1948, a historical probe of the period's events, personal stories of Palestinians, a discussion on the "right of return" and a tour "of a destroyed Palestinian village with a refugee as a guide."

The kit's fourth unit offers an "initial introduction to the history of the Nakba" with numerical data about "how Palestine was prior to the Nakba" and "a historical study presenting the main reasons for the departure and expulsion of the Palestinians, incorporating testimonies and quotations [from sources]." There is also a discussion on the "methods used to prevent the return of the refugees."

The kit is modular and designed so teachers of different subjects may use it in classes on history, literature, civil studies, social studies, etc.

Amia Galili of Zochrot says nearly 100 teachers have been introduced to the kit, and it has been sent to 160 other educators.

"The purpose of our work is to include the Nakba in the educational system, from a viewpoint that the minute the pupils study about it, it will be possible to begin talking about a process of reconciliation," Galili said. In the Jewish educational system many teachers are hesitant to teach the subject of the Nakba. In upper-level secondary school history reference is made to the "cease-fire agreements and the creation of a Palestinian refugee problem," said Galili, but in practice the subject is taught in a very limited way, if at all.

Many subjects in the curriculum are inevitably left behind for lack of time, but there is also an element of "too few teachers who are willing to enter this minefield of a subject," as one history teacher put it.

Two years ago, former education minister Yuli Tamir was criticized when a geography book meant for the Arab schools referred to the Nakba. The Education Ministry at the time said the book had been based on curriculum materials that had been approved during the tenure of Limor Livnat and Ronit Tirosh at the ministry.

Ten days ago, the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved a bill proposed by MK Alex Miller of Yisrael Beiteinu, "forbidding by law the commemoration of Independence Day or the establishment of the state as a day of mourning." The bill was supported by Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar. As a result of the ruckus that resulted from the proposal, a compromise bill is being prepared, which would ban government bodies or any organization benefiting from state funding, from organizing or funding activities related to the Nakba.

One of the teachers who began using the kit, Avital Spivak, says that "the Palestinian side of the story is missing completely from the educational system." She teaches civics to 11th and 12th graders at the Reali School in Haifa, and says "there is a complete blind spot, which leads to ignorance and racism and blocks the possibility of understanding and dialog. There is no need to agree to the right of return to talk about the Nakba, and there is no contradiction between being a Zionist and refusing to be blind and deaf to the pain and the story of the other side."

Spivak says initially "the pupils express all the usual opposition such as denial, justification of the Jewish side and sometimes even calls to kill the messenger - in this case the teacher. The pupils find it very difficult to accept there is no one truth to the story. Spivak says there is no 180-degree change in the pupils' views but "I can see that there is the start of questioning."

The Education Ministry responded: "The education kit was not approved by the ministry. Teachers using materials not approved by the ministry are acting against ministry procedure and policy." The ministry also said it would conduct "an immediate investigation, including into this case."




“Racists for Democracy” - Uri Averni's Weekly 30/05/09


HOW LUCKY we are to have the extreme Right standing guard over our democracy.

This week, the Knesset voted by a large majority (47 to 34) for a law that threatens imprisonment for anyone who dares to deny that Israel is a Jewish and Democratic State.

The private member’s bill, proposed by MK Zevulun Orlev of the “Jewish Home” party, which sailed through its preliminary hearing, promises one year in prison to anyone who publishes “a call that negates the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State”, if the contents of the call might cause “actions of hate, contempt or disloyalty against the state or the institutions of government or the courts”.

One can foresee the next steps. A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic. And, in addition, there are also Jews who do not want Israel to be defined as a Jewish State in which non-Jews have the status, at best, of tolerated outsiders.

The consequences are inevitable. The prisons will not be able to hold all those convicted of this crime. There will be a need for concentration camps all over the country to house all the deniers of Israeli democracy.

The police will be unable to deal with so many criminals. It will be necessary to set up a new unit. This may be called “Special Security”, or, in short, SS.

Hopefully, these measures will suffice to preserve our democracy. If not, more stringent steps will have to be taken, such as revoking the citizenship of the democracy-deniers and deporting them from the country, together with the Jewish leftists and all the other enemies of the Jewish democracy.

After the preliminary reading of the bill, it now goes to the Legal Committee of the Knesset, which will prepare it for the first, and soon thereafter for the second and third readings. Within a few weeks or months, it will be the law of the land.

By the way, the bill does not single out Arabs explicitly – even if this is its clear intention, and all those who voted for it understood this. It also prohibits Jews from advocating a change in the state’s definition, or the creation of a bi-national state in all of historic Palestine or spreading any other such unconventional ideas. One can only imagine what would happen in the US if a senator proposed a law to imprison anyone who suggests an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

THE BILL does not stand out at all in our new political landscape.This government has already adopted a bill to imprison for three years anyone who mourns the Palestinian Naqba – the 1948 uprooting of more than half the Palestinian people from their homes and lands.The sponsors expect Arab citizens to be happy about that event. True, the Palestinians were caused a certain unpleasantness, but that was only a by-product of the foundation of our state. The Independence Day of the Jewish and Democratic State must fill us all with joy. Anyone who does not express this joy should be locked up, and three years may not be enough.This bill has been confirmed by the Ministerial Commission for Legal Matters, prior to being submitted to the Knesset. Since the rightist government commands a majority in the Knesset, it will be adopted almost automatically. (In the meantime, a slight delay has been caused by one minister, who appealed the decision, so the Ministerial Commission will have to confirm it again.)

The sponsors of the law hope, perhaps, that on Naqba Day the Arabs will dance in the streets, plant Israeli flags on the ruins of some 600 Arab villages that were wiped off the map and offer up their thanks to Allah in the mosques for the miraculous good fortune that was bestowed on them.

THIS TAKES me back to the 60s, when the weekly magazine I edited, Haolam Hazeh, published an Arabic edition. One of its employees was a young man called Rashed Hussein from the village of Musmus. Already as a youth he was a gifted poet with a promising future.

He told me that some years earlier the military governor of his area had summoned him to his office. At the time, all the Arabs in Israel were subject to a military government which controlled their lives in all matters big and small. Without a permit, an Arab citizen could not leave his village or town even for a few hours, nor get a job as a teacher, nor acquire a tractor or dig a well.
The governor received Rashed cordially, offered him coffee and paid lavish compliments to his poetry. Then he came to the point: in a month’s time, Independence Day was due, and the governor was going to hold a big reception for the Arab “notables”; he asked Rashed to write a special poem for the occasion.

Rashed was a proud youngster, nationalist to the core, and not lacking in courage. He explained to the governor that Independence Day was no joyful day for him, since his relatives had been driven from their homes and most of the Musmus village’s land had also been expropriated.

When Rashed arrived back at his village some hours later, he could not help noticing that his neighbors were looking at him in a peculiar way. When he entered his home, he was shocked. All the members of his family were sitting on the floor, the women lamenting at the top of their voices, the children huddling fearfully in a corner. His first thought was that somebody had died.

“What have you done to us!” one of the women cried, “What did we do to you?”

“You have destroyed the family,” another shouted, “You have finished us!”

It appeared that the governor had called the family and told them that Rashed had refused to fulfill his duty to the state. The threat was clear: from now on, the extended family, one of the largest in the village, would be on the black list of the military government. The consequences were clear to everyone.

Rashed could not stand up against the lamentation of his family. He gave in and wrote the poem, as requested. But something inside him was broken. Some years later he emigrated to the US, got a job there at the PLO office and died tragically: he was burned alive in his bed after going to sleep, it appears, while smoking a cigarette.

THESE DAYS are gone forever. We took part in many stormy demonstrations against the military government until it was finally abolished in 1966. As a newly elected Member of Parliament, I had the privilege of voting for its abolition.

The fearful and subservient Arab minority, then amounting to some 200 thousand souls, has recovered its self-esteem. A second and third generation has grown up, its downtrodden national pride has raised its head again, and today they are a large and self-confident community of 1.5 million. But the attitude of the Jewish Right has not changed for the better. On the contrary.

In the Knesset bakery (the Hebrew word for bakery is Mafia) some new pastries are being baked. One of them is a bill that stipulates that anyone applying for Israeli citizenship must declare their loyalty to “the Jewish, Zionist and Democratic State”, and also undertake to serve in the army or its civilian alternative. Its sponsor is MK David Rotem of the “Israel is Our Home” party, who also happens to be the chairman of the Knesset Law Committee.

A declaration of loyalty to the state and its laws – a framework designed to safeguard the wellbeing and the rights of its citizens – is reasonable. But loyalty to the “Zionist” state? Zionism is an ideology, and in a democratic state the ideology can change from time to time. It would be like declaring loyalty to a “capitalist” USA, a “rightist Italy”, a ”leftist” Spain, a “Catholic Poland” or a “nationalist” Russia.

This would not be a problem for the tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews in Israel who reject Zionism, since Jews will not be touched by this law. They obtain citizenship automatically the moment they arrive in Israel.

Another bill waiting for its turn before the Ministerial Committee proposes changing the declaration that every new Knesset Member has to make before assuming office. Instead of loyalty “to the State of Israel and its laws”, as now, he or she will be required to declare their loyalty “to the Jewish, Zionist and Democratic State of Israel, its symbols and its values”. That would exclude almost automatically all the elected Arabs, since declaring loyalty to the “Zionist” state would mean that no Arab would ever vote for them again.

It would also be a problem for the Orthodox members of the Knesset, who cannot declare loyalty to Zionism. According to Orthodox doctrine, the Zionists are depraved sinners and the Zionist flag is unclean. God exiled the Jews from this country because of their wickedness, and only God can permit them to return. Zionism, by preempting the job of the Messiah, has committed an unpardonable sin, and many Orthodox Rabbis chose to remain in Europe and be murdered by the Nazis rather than committing the Zionist sin of going to Palestine.

THE FACTORY of racist laws with a distinct fascist odor is now working at full steam. That is built into the new coalition.

At its center is the Likud party, a good part of which is pure racist (sorry for the oxymoron). To its right there is the ultra-racist Shas party, to the right of which is Lieberman’s ultra-ultra racist “Israel is our Home” party, the ultra-ultra-ultra racist “Jewish Home” party, and to its right the even more racist “National Union” party, which includes outright Kahanists and stands with one foot in the coalition and the other on the moon.

All these factions are trying to outdo each other. When one proposes a crazy bill, the next is compelled to propose an even crazier one, and so on.

All this is possible because Israel has no constitution. The ability of the Supreme Court to annul laws that contradict the “basic laws” is not anchored anywhere, and the Rightist parties are trying to abolish it. Not for nothing did Avigdor Lieberman demand – and get – the Justice and Police ministries.

Just now, when the governments of the US and Israel are clearly on a collision course over the settlements, this racist fever may infect all parts of the coalition.

If one goes to sleep with a dog, one should not be surprised to wake up with fleas (may the dogs among my readers pardon me). Those who elected such a government, and even more so those who joined it, should not be surprised by its laws, which ostensibly safeguard Jewish democracy.

The most appropriate name for these holy warriors would be “Racists for Democracy”.