And the police were just laughing

Some 300 people, both Palestinian and Jews, marched from the Clock Tower square in Jaffa to the Yiftah police office on Salameh Street, protesting against thelatest wave of police violence.

Among the speakers were Jerrias Kobti, who was violently arrested by the police some three weeks ago,  Gabi ElAbed of the AlRabita (the Association of the Arabs of Jaffa), Omar Siksik, municipal council member of the Jaffa List, Yoav Goldring, municipal council member for "A City for All" (Ir lekulanu), MK Dov Khenin and Sheikh Ahmad Abu Agua of the northern Islamic movement, who spoke in Arabic and in Hebrew against police violence as we have been experiencing over the last several weeks. 

The demonstration was  peaceful , people marching together, shouting slogans in Arabic and Hebrew demanding an investigation. a change of policy and a respect for democracy.

Severa l policemen, among them Ohion, the Yiftach commander, were laughing. One wonders why. The recent reports of serious violence towards citizens should worry him deeply.

Jerrias Kobti gave a short report of what had happened to him in the police station after he had been arrested and handcuffed. His testimony is  terrifying. The violence he went through could happen to any of us. And that should worry us all. And it should worry Ohion as well. A police corps that resorts to violence as a regular method, is in deep trouble.

There is little belief in "Mahash" (המחלקה לחיקרת שוטרים the unit that is supposed to investigate crimes committed by policemen) and distinct feelings of anger and despair were expressed by some of the speakers and many in the audience. 

Few of us here have never witnessed or experienced incidents with the police. Many of us feel helpless face a face police violence. Some are so scared of revenge, they will not complain nor testify against abusive police officers.

One wonder why Ohion was laughing so much.

Ajami, ethnic cleansing one step further, unless the high court stops it

Last Wednesday judge Zafet of the Tel Aviv district court heard the case of 28 Jaffa residents (honesty demands to say that i'm one of them) against the Israel Land Administration and the Be'emuna company who won the tender for a piece of land right in the middle of Ajami. Originally Palestinian owned, declared "absentee property" and finally "publicly owned" and sold by the Israel Land Administration by tender to the highest bidder, the Be'emuna company. Until here everything has the appearance of "stinking but kosher" according to Israeli law. We were represented by lawyers Gil Gan Mor and Dan Yakir of the Israel Association for Civil Rights.

Until a few years ago, our market took place on the plot. The market was closed by the municipality for no reason (or so it appeared at the time) and no other plot was offered for the purpose of creating a new market, leaving us, the Jaffa population as well as many people from Bat Yam and Tel Aviv, as well as small farmers from the central area of the country, without a cheap  fresh food market, a true necessity in an impoverished area such as Jaffa. 

Yet the Be'emuna company is NOT just another building company out to make a good profit. They marketed the flats planned on to be constructed by them on the Ajami plot, to the members of one very specific group only: Zionist religious Jews. They put it bluntly on their website, but just to make sure, we also called them, interested in buying a cheap flat on their plot. Not very surprisingly, we were refused. Private companies can sell to whom they like, but NOT when the land was previously publicly owned, as in this case and according to the "Ka'aden" high court ruling.

The company's efforts are part of a well orchestrated and funded, much larger effort to expel the Palestinian population from the shared Palestinian and Jewish towns and cities in Israel. It appears that after the disengagement from Gaza some of the settlers and their colonially minded friends decided settling in the West Bank was no longer an ideological necessity for them. Instead they decided to address Israel's mixed cities with their racist ideology. The process is under its way in Accre, Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Nazareth Elite as well as in Jaffa. And there is nothing friendly or innocent about it.

We are talking about a concentrated effort to "replace" the original Palestinian residents with Jewish ones; Not to live together and share our cultures but to expel the Palestinians from their homes and "Judaize" the area.

During the previous sessions the judge had made remarks which led us to conclude that he is not as impartial as he should be. Therefore we asked him to dismiss himself, which he refused.

The verdict was sent to us yesterday afternoon: not surprisingly the judge decided in favor of the colonialist project.

We will have to appeal our case to the Supreme Court.

Black forces in a not so orange orange grove

When demolished, a home makes an awful sound. Yesterday it went on for hours, the slow demolition process of the second floor of the Dake home. Large yellow machines slowly crunched away at the building. Huge blocks of falling concrete demolishing the garden in the same go.
The people watching on helplessly. Their possessions, clothes, furniture, kids' schoolbooks etc. out in the dust.

Two years ago some 100 people barricaded themselves on the roof of the Dake home in Jaffa's Dake orange grove and prevented its demolition. Yesterday the Dake family were less, much less lucky, when Ron Huldai's municipality goons demolished their home under the "protection" of hundreds of blimp led ninja-style clad special forces policemen.

In the early hours masked policemen entered the Dake home and arrested the men of the family and told the family's women to start packing. Literally hundreds of policemen, special forces and border police blocked off all roads to the Dake grove and the close surroundings.

Whole streets were closed to the public, even to those living there and wishing to go back home. The operations were led from a special command tent where police men kept track of the ground forces by means of a camera studded blimp high up in the air.

To understand the true impact of the demolition of the Dake house is is important to back in history.

The Dake family were the proud owners of a huge orange grove prior to 1948, the Naqbe, just south of Jaffa. 

In the grove were the large family home, storage facilities, guard houses, a pump house etc.

After 1948 the family stayed on. They lived in the grove and over time, as the family expanded, more houses were added. 

The municipality did not bother to make a zoning plan for the grove, although it is on municipal territory. As a result, it is impossible to receive a building permit for anything, not even for repairing your house: as there are no zoning plan definitions for the area, there is no buroicratic procedure possible for getting a building permit.

Yet the Dakes, who own the land, needed homes, so they constructed those without a permit.

The municipality never provided any services in the grove, there are no roads, no waste disposal, no kinder garden (by now there are a few hundred people, including many children, living in the grove). The sewage system is horrid and floods every now and then and until a few years ago every winter the grove was flooded. Only after a young child drowned inside his home, the municipality did something about the flood drains.

The lack of a zoning plan has been going on for some 60 years now. The Dakes cannot build anything on their land and live in poverty. When they try to build the municipality arrives and destroys. The houses  are rebuilt, making use of cheap materials or recycling some of the rubble in the construction of the new house, as all know it is only a matter of time until the next demolition.

After the municipality took out a demolition order on the flat he built for his son, Moussa Dake decided to fight back. He lost in the Tel Aviv peace court, but won an incredible victory in the regional court, where the judge criticised the municipality for 60 years of planning neglect. The Dakes felt victorious and the verdict was f major importance as it had implications for many other areas in the country as well.

But the municipality appealed to the high court of justice and won. The verdict in this case was formalistic and did not even try to deal with the serious criticism and legal concerns of the regional court's verdict.

The Dakes appealed once more, but the municipality decided not to wait for the court's decision and yesterday, in spite of the request to wait until the verdict, the goons went about their ugly business.

Moussa had become a symbol and the legal fight he put up was being followed by many involved in planning and housing rights.

  

Another Jaffa family out in the streets

When R. and her 5 children came home this afternoon, they found all their furniture out in the street, much of it severely damaged and broken. The doorlock had been changed.
The house owner, well known and very wealthy Jaffa property tycoon Walid Aboulafia (of bakery fame), had abused R's absence from the hovel she had been renting from him for some three years, to evict her, illegally, without a court order.
R. asked the police to come, but the sinlge police man did not help her. "There was nothing he could", do he said. R. was under so much pressure by then, that she forgot to take his details.
In fact, it is Mr. Walid Aboulafia who broke the law by evicting her illegally, without a court order.

The flat R. rented was a 2 1/2 room affair in Jaffa's Al Ajami neighborhood. Damp, it's walls blackened by fungi. In the winter the rain entered through the cracked walls. The kitchen sink was not connected to the sewage, so R. used a bucket instead.
For over a year she and her kids had their daily shower at R's mother's tiny house, as the shower in R.'s house didn't function and the owner, rich Walid Aboulafia, refused to repair it.

R. who paid a very high rent relative to the ugly state of the house she lived in, stopped paying the rent. The owner cut off her water and electricity supply. It was easy for him to do so, because in the past, the flat had been larger and he subdevided it, one assumes without a permit. As a result R. shared the electricity and water bill with her neighbors, so it was very easy to punish her.

R. started looking for a new place, but the rents in Jaffa have gone up and all she has is her social security payments. Also many houseowners want all kinds of guarantees, which when you live on social security, you cannot easily get.

The beds were literally broken, as if they had been thrown from the second floor where she lived. Maybe they were.

Due to the Ramadan, Jaffa's streets are very quiet, so we have no witnesses to the method of furniture removal. The broken aquarium says it all, i will not ask questions about the fish. Volunteers from the Islamic movement helped R. to move her stuff (or rather that part worth salvaging) to Esther's house. Esther who's always there to help each and everyone. But the damage has been done. Five children out in the streets. Next week the schoolyear starts. I wonder how R.'s children will cope. We could not find their new schoolbooks in the mess.

Ramadan, Jaffa 2009

Chasing humans on the garbage-mountain, oops, in the Jaffa "Midron" park

Lately i have been taking early morning and late evening walks and runs in our brand new "midron park", usually topped of by a serious work-out in the open air free gym and a water drinking pause at the very end of the deck, above the huge evening waves crashing just below (and sometimes all over me, allowing for a salty cooling shower). During the cool eveing hours the northern, almost finished part of the park (which isn't open ye, but trust Jaffans to find a way in) many hang around, with fresh grapes, watermelon, drinks, surrounded by their kids running wild on the green grass ans sandy slopes. Thus, on my way back, there is always someone offering me a drink or sweet cool fruit.

Although not yet finished, the park is a true blessing, inspite of its sorry story, as it is also the grave of Palestinian Jaffa: When the Palestinian homes of Jaffa were demolished, their rubble was thrown on the Ajami beach, just south of the Jaffa harbour. Soon all kinds of junk followed the rubble. The underworld also quite loved the location for getting rid of suspicious "materials" of all kinds from cars used in robberies to body parts and drug stashes, weapons, explosives, you name it.

Thus, a huge rubble mountain was created, called "the garbage mountain". Only a very small part of the original beach was left; the "Jabaliyah beach, not known to most Tel Avivians.

The municipality intended to create an artifical piece of land and construct villas and other housing for the very well to do, in order to "uplift the level of the local population".

The Jaffa community, united for the first , them to court and won. The rest is history. A park was to be created, and a small part of the beach was restored as well.

And, the truth, the park is great. OK, there is a lot of water-using soft green grass (irrigated with de-salienated sea water, i have been told) but that makes for great picknicks and games. The open air gym is already popular, so for once, thanks, municipality, thanks mishlama. What started out as destruction , turned into some sort of a blessing.

But blessings is not what this story is all about.

The new homes of the ultra rich in Ajami, are being constructed by "illegal" workers, mostly from the territories. Low pay and horrid labor conditions are all part of the ugly game of labor relations in construction. Nothing new there. On large construction projects you'll mostly find Chinese and Romanian labor migrants. But when constructing oriental style villas, you need stone masons for the creation of arches and arabesques: Palestinians from the occupied territories. They work hard and receive low pay, the risk is mostly on them. The conditions in the occupied territories are so difficult, many of tem have no choice, but to come to Israel and work here in order to provide for their poor families.

Yesterday the border police carried out a manhunt for "illegal" construction workers. Some of them gt away, quickly running to wherever they could hide. In some cases, sympathetic locals, both Palestinians and Jews, helped to hide them, feeling uncomfortable and perhaps guilty with the man hunt going no in their now quite fancy neighborhood. after all, the police are not chasing criminals, but people whose only crime is wanting to provide for their families through hard physsical labour few Israelis are willing to do.

The hunt went on for many hours. Until sunset, or so we thought.

On may way back from my run, quite late, almost midnight, i saw them, again, border police and soldiers carefully going through the park. Searching.

When going out running i only carry water, no id. But they weren't looking for me and the likes of me. The man hunt was still on.

Help Ezra Nawi

Ezra Nawi, an Israeli human rights activist, may go to jail in 30 days, for having tried to prevent a bulldozer from destroying a Palestinian family's home in the occupied territories.

I met Ezra when, as a young student, demonstrating every Friday with "women in black" against the occupation.
He used to come over and hand out water to all women.
At the end of every demo, week after week, year after year, he would turn up with a huge number of red roses, handing out one to every participating woman.

Ezra is a kind, gentle hearted man, sensitive to others' needs and always trying to help in his way: finding hard to get by medicine for this family, food for that.

More information on Ezra can be found here:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/t/9462/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27357

Please assist him.

Fighting for Jaffa, together

The settlers who wish to turn Jaffa into a Jewish only city, have in essence caused a complete coalition of many Jaffa organizations who prior to this threat never cooperated.
The call was for a joint struggle of Palestinians and Jews against the settlers, who actively threaten the good relationship in the neighbourhood. And to do so by peaceful and democratic means.
At 17.00 all met close to the area where the yeshiva guys bought a plot of land, where there used to be a market serving all of Jaffa's population.
Among the speakers were Omar Siksek, member of the municipal council, Sheikh Anwar Dake of the southern section of the Islamic movement, lawyer Haled of the Muslim Council, SheIkh Abu Ajwe of the northern section of the Islamic movement, Gabi of the Christian club, Knesset member Dov Khenin, Hana Amoury of the popular committee, municipal council member Ahmad Mashrawi, Ilan and Noga of Ofek Hadash, who carried out a research on the ways of functioning of so called "Garinim Toraniim" and several other settler organizations.
The Israel Land Administration is a public body, managing land owned by the public. When they sell lands, they cannot do so to an exclusive group, as per high court decision (Bagatz Ka'aden).
In Jaffa, the sale of public land is sensitive, for two main reasons:
Originally this land belonged to Palestinians. In 1948-1949 it was declared "absentee" property and handed over to the state.
Some 13 years ago a contract was made (and authorized in the Tel Aviv district court) between the housing ministry and Jaffa's Palestinian community according to which the housing ministry undertook it to create 400 housing units for the community, which suffers from a severe housing crisis.
So far 27 flats have been constructed out of 400.....
The "Etrog" plot is one of the last large publicly owned plots on which a large number of flats can be constructed. Most other pubic plots are smaller which makes it less easy for public housing or affordable housing for the poor Palestinian community.
The Israel Land Administration sold the Etrog Plot to a Bemuna, a company owned by a Hebron settle , who explicitly state "they will sell flats only to religious nationalist Jews".
Were-checked this by registering and calling, interesting in buying a housing unit in the new project. "We" being 2 activists, a muslim social worker and a secular Jewish researcher. They met with blunt refusal. In other cou ntries this would be called blunt racism.

The Settlers have arrived – the struggle is just beginning

What?

Protest tent against the new housing project for the national-religious public in the heart of Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa.

When?05/06/09, at 17:00,

Where?

At the site of the Jabaliye Market, HaEtrog st. corner of Mendes France st.

Why?

On May 7th 2009, the Bemuna Company won the bid to purchase land for the building of 20 housing units dedicated to the Jewish national-religious public in Ajami neighborhood – the heart of Arab Jaffa.
Bemuna also declared that “this was only the beginning” and that its efforts for the Judaization of Jaffa would include the further construction of 200 housing units. This project can be added to the already active ‘garin torani’ and ‘yeshivat hesder’ which, under the banner of ‘strengthening’ the Jewish communities in mixed cities and retaining the city’s Jewish sanctity, have already begun to envelop its streets.
Research gathered displays a worrying number of people fresh from the settlement and Greater Israel movements, who are active in a scheme aimed at ‘Judaizing the mixed cities of Israel’ with the simultaneous displacement of Arab residents – a project which has already had some ‘success’ in Acca, Lud and Ramle. These groups are funded by external financiers but are also supported by the state of Israel itself and by the municipality of Tel Aviv. They have adopted the same ‘setting facts on the ground’ approach used so extensively by the settler movement based in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In light of this danger, and under the slogan “Jaffa is in Danger! Our strength is our Unity”, all the groups and committees active in Jaffa have come together in order to build a common strategy to fight this phenomenon. This coalition will be active on the community, the public and the media in order to recruit supporters, both from within Jaffa and outside, in the struggle to prevent the ‘expansion of the settlement’ in our city.
We will not be silent! We will not accept the Judaization of Jaffa!
Partners in the coalition:
The Popular Committee for Land and Housing Rights in Jaffa, the Rabita, the Jaffa List, the Southern and Northern Islamic Movements, the Islamic Council, the Orthodox Society, the Ajami Neighborhood Committee, the Jaffa municipal council members and other public figures.
For further details: Hana - 054-4486667

About to be thrown out on the streets: mum & 5 young kids

I recall watching a TV program based on a story by Dickens when i was a child. Some years ago i read a book "Angela's Ashes". In both cases i recall having a sort of feeling of appreciation, that at least "these things no longer happen that way today". Ahem, well, they actually do happen today.

R. is a divorced mother of 5 young children, living in Jaffa. Her husband married twice since leaving her and left both other women with children as well. He refuses to pay alimony and R and her kids are dependent on social security payments, which add up to about 2.700 NIS a month. (about 600$ for her and her 5 kids)
Her rent is 2.300 NIS. This is the monthly rent for a tiny living room and 1 bedroom, both heavily stained by fungi growing on the wall and ceilings due to humidity problems. The roof and walls leak badly when it rains. R. has NO shower (it is blocked up so badly that it cannot be used, the owner refuses to carry out the necessary repairs) and the kitchen has no drain. So buckets are used for that purpose. Showers are taken daily at friends' and neighbors' place.
The house owner belongs to a very wealthy family who own many flats in Jaffa. They love money. For them every hovel is "an investment". For their renters it's "home". But a home that doesn't look like nor feel like a real home.

R. receives rental aid of about 600 NIS monthly. Which leaves her unable to provide for her and her kids. She is behind with the rent and the house-owner has informed her he will evict her this week, as he wants his money.
Riki is desperate to find a flat, but there is nothing she can actually afford. Her kids go to a nearby school, so the area (Ajami) is of some importance.
If any of you know about something available, please let me know.

But R. is just one case.
There are many like her. There is a big request for small rental flats, as many families cannot afford to buy. This has left the flat owners with the option to make money. And they do. Disgusting hovels that do not earn the name "flat", go for amazing rental prizes. Some people have gone to live back home with their parents, but for many one parent families dependent on welfare (and not only for them, also many families living on a minimum wage cannot afford the rent) this option does not exist.
The right to a roof above ones head is a basic human right and Israel has signed different international agreements concerning this right, yet that is as far as it goes.
We are quickly heading towards a housing disaster and no one seems to be caring a great deal.

The Tel Aviv municipality committee on affordable housing caters to the 7nth percentile, couples who earn some 11.0000 NIS monthly. For them the municipality wants to build rental housing in which they can live for 5 years, for a monthly rent of 2.800 NIS.
Weird, as after all these families can afford to rent good flats on the private market with their income. Also they can get a mortgage to buy. Whereas lower income families (and that includes employed many poor whose salaries are simply too low) find themselves living in substandard conditions (i personally know a family with 8 kids to live in 1 room) , unsafe housing for which they pay very high rents.
They same municipal committee for affordable housing assumes the ministry of housing provides adequate solutions for people making less by subsidizing rent and providing public housing to the very poor. Do these guys live on the moon?
Or is it official policy: providing incentives for the well to do to live in Tel Aviv and actively kicking out the less well to do and poor?

Tell R. about their ideas. And perhaps tell her also where these presumes solutions are. After all the waiting list for Halamish public housing is 12 years....

R. will be out on the streets any day now. Her houseowner cannot but be defined as just another leach. We tried to talk to him, but all he is interested in, is money. He claims he can get $ 1000 monthly for his disgusting hovel. And he is probably right, as people are desperate.

Barricade successful, (for the time being)

From the early morning hours Manar Haj and her three young children (13, 9 and 3 years old) as well as many of the neighbours and local activists prevented the police from carrying out another eviction in Jaffa.
After several hours of being barricaded inside the small home, a lawyer managed to get a weeks time, in order to try and find a solution.

Manar is the divorced mum of three young children. When she married, some 14 years ago, she moved into the house of her husband's parents, as is common in Jaffa. His parents were public housing residents (Halamish), after they had been made to give up their large home in Ajami, years earlier, by the Israel land authority.
Over time the parents moved out and their son, his wife and the children stayed in the house. By law, as second generation they were entitled to.
Manar and her husband divorced and she stayed in the house with the kids. That's when trouble started. the housing company decided to move her out, insisting she was a squatter. Manar took a lawyer, not knowing this lawyer had been disbarred. she gave him all the money she had and would call him every few weeks to get an update as to how her case was coming along. He promised her all was going to be fine and no one would move her out of her home. Until the day she got the court order with the eviction notice - for the next day. Only then did she learn her lawyer had been disbarred, but she had no money left for a legal defence.
She called the housng company who told her to come over.
There she was made a "grand offer". She was to choose between either being moved out forcefully the next day or stay another 2 months for 3500 NIS a month (her total income stands at about 3000 NIS monthly) and then mve out on her own. Feeling she had no choice, she "agreed". It was eioher the street or some more time in her home.
Although she tried, she was not able to find a home she could afford.

So this morning the goonteam (police, including special forces- yasam) came over. Manar and her children as well as the neighbours and activists barricaded inside the home and gathered in the street, while a lawyer went to court.
We gained another week....

Alert for miriam's home - barricading NOW

Hi,

All of those in Jaffa, please go to Miriam's home at the corner of Jerusalem Boulevard 37, NOW
She has not been able to find a flat and they will evict her and her 6 children out into the streets TODAY.
We can and must prevent it.
We need you all over there

Keeping the organizers under arrest

There were some 30 of us, standing at the entrance of the Jalame prison in the ice cold rain, shouting slogans for the release of all political prisoners.
Jalame is an old English (implying constructed during the British mandate) prison somewhere quite in the middle of nowhere in the north of the country. Rain, ice-cold winds at at some point a dramatic rainbow formed the drizzled backdrop for our demo.
The public: some 15 prison guards and some visitors on their way to visit their loved ones, also imprisoned inside. It's reportedly an ancient prison with very bad conditions, like many of the country's "establishments".
Since the onset of the the war on Gaza, several demonstrations have taken place against that war and against the continued blockade of the Gaza strip since the violence stopped.
Many of the organizers have been arrested and interrogated. Almost all of those arrested have been Palestinians. Samih Jabareen, a Jaffa based theatre student, is still under arrest on some cooked up charges of "participation in an illegal demonstration and attacking a policeman". Sandard charges faces by many of us at one time or another. Bullshit charges, made to threaten us and "keep us under control". Until now files have always been closed. The police knowing we are not criminals abnd they have nothing to go by, nor was a crime committed.
But Samih has been in prison for almost two weeks now. The prosecution want to keep him under arrest until the end of the procedures against him, which may take months. And that is new. From a legal point of view they have nothing to stand on. Yet for some reason the judge is going on with it.

This is a very new development. Until now that kind of "treatment" has been "reserved" for Palestinians from the occupied territories, no longer so.
The cooked up charges against Samih have all the looks of the fake trial Tali Fahima went through. It looks as if we are at the beginning of a more sinister era. Is the l;aw being abused to limit the right to protest and to criticize?
All Samih did was protesting, shouting, screaming in Um El Fahm (his town of birth) on election day. Democracy or farce?

Samih Jabareen still under arrest, demo on saturday

Samih Jabareen's arrest was prolonged yesterday.
Samih, a theatre student living in Jaffa, but originally from Um El Fahm, was arrested on February 10th during a demo in Um El Fahm, against the arrival of right wing extremists who, intent on provoking for the sake of winning another few votes for their cause came to Um Al Fahm.

Samih is outspoken, witty and sharp, charismait, if you like, able to inspire others.
I do not always agree with his views, but i very much respect his freedom to epxress what he believes in.
His arrest should worry us all.

A demo will be held outside the "Jalameh" prisn this saturday (February the 21st) at 12.00

Tiny victory for Itidal

The emergency judge postponed the planned demolition of Itidal's home until 14.00 o'clock this Sunday, so we can appeal the case in court (once again) early Sunday morning.
So, no demolition yet.
But those of you willing to assist: don't go to sleep, the real fight has not yet been won, keep in touch. We may need you on Monday.

Itidal's home: waiting for the court desicion

Lawyer Rasha Asaf of the Popular Committee Against Home Demolitions has appealed to the emergency judge to make a temporary ruling against the demolition of Itidal's home this coming sunday.
Although an appeal has been filed some days ago, to ask the judge responsible for the case, for more time, this judge selected not to make a decision.
As the demolition is planned for Sunday, making no decision is in fact, making a decision and telling the demolishers to go along and carry out their ugly job: destroying the home of a gravely ill mother and her two school age children, who have nowhere else to go.

Rasha is doing all she can to prevent the demolition of the home. We hope the emergency judge will make a favourable decision, which will at lest buy Itidal and her kids some time.
Yet, if necessary, we may have to barricade. Those of you in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, stay in touch.

The background story:
Karmeh Dalek is the site of an ancient orange grove in Jaffa, owned by the Dalek family. The ownership of the land is private today, although complicated as a result of all kinds of actions carried out by various entities to whom the different members of the Dalek family own money or do not own money. (imagine a plate of legal spaghetti). There is no actual municipal building plan for the area. The general idea is to demolish and rebuild, yet the municipality never bothered to carry out an actual city plan. As a result, it is impossible to obtain a building permit. The city's building department has no organised file for the various buildings on the site and their documentation is less than sparse. Over time, rooms have been added, porches closed off and who knows what else.
The place looks like a refugee camp consisting of hovels and temporary buildings added to older existing structures, but no one exactly knows when what was constructed. An no one includes the municipality. They cannot actually prove which building exists since when. the buildings have no actual addresses, nor home numbers. This burocratic disregard should actually buy Itidal some time, as it is unclear the demolition order really relates to her home. The technical details could well relate any other house in the area.
Why they selected her is not clear. Legally speaking the municipal case is weak, as they have little actual proof.
The people living in the Dalek grove are poor. They cannot buy or rent housing elsewhere. And as they "have housing", they are not eligible for public housing or rent assistance in quite a few cases.
So people added rooms, made doors or windows where there were none, added a roof here or there. By the city books these are "crimes".
By those same city books, terminally ill Itidal is a criminal, who "needs to be punished" for illegally providing a home to herself and her kids.

Yet the true criminal is the municipality, whose negligence and disregard for Jaffa's poor population has created a situation in which they CANNOT get building permits to build on their own land, because that very same municipality has not bothered to make a housing plan for the area, thereby creating a burocratic cycle from which escape is impossible.

Home demolition this coming sunday

Although we're still fighting it in court, this Sunday (February 8) they may try to demolish Itidal's home in the "Dalek" orange grove in Jaffa.

We'll need you all there, in order to save the home of Itidal and her two school-age children.
The one parent family has nowhere to go. Itidal is seriously ill (just back from the hospital) and has no help from anywhere.

Those of you living in the area, please stay tuned in and ready for action!

Anti-war demo in Jaffa: observing a minute of silence for the victims

Several hundreds, both Jews and Palestinians, attended an anti war demonstration today in Jaffa.Yes, yet another one. I've almost started to loose count. New faces, people i never expected to see in a demo. Eldery women, mothers of some of the "regulars", who always warned us not to demonstrate, suddenly they are there, Sara, Aysha and Mary (although it's Christmas for Jaffa's orthodox Christian community today, who use a different calendar) were there. Many young mothers with their small children. The news on AlJazeera, which is what most of us watch, as there are no other news sources inside the Gaza strip except for well, the IDF spokesperson, and there is rather a discripancy between the spokes person's version and what is going on.
People lighted candles and observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims, especially the 45 people killed today by the IDF, mostly children and women who took refuge in an UNWRA school, after their homes had been destroyed or after it had become impossible to sat in them any longer.
"Stop the killing of children" read many of the placards carried by the participants.
The police had constructed an enormous double-fenced cage for the demonstrators to stand any, caged like animals.
Many people in Jaffa have family in Gaza. Many have not been able to talk to each other since the war started, but some of the news has reached us. One neighbour lost her sister and the sister's 17 year old son. A younger daughter has been wounded.
The conditions in Gaza's "Shifa" hospital, after yesterday's bombing are terrible: There is a lack of everything and too many wounded for the exhausted staff. The failing electricity, the lack of drugs and surgical gloves as well as the lack of anesthetics make professional medical care close to impossible. Ambulances have been shot at, their staff killed or badly wounded.

This stupid violence will not lead to anything except more hate. If i were religious i guess i would pray for it to end. But i'm not, and all i can do is tell our story. And show you some of what is going on. And i want to scream it out:

Stop killing the children
PLEASE, stop killing the children

Israel is such a lovely and true democracy....

Since last night several Jaffa activists (all of them Palestinians) have been taken into the Salameh Police Station where they were interrogated by the internal security services, the Shabak, who behaved in an insulting and threatening way (in some cases using the good-bad guy technique) .

Amongst those interrogated was Omar Siksik, member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council and Sami AbouShade as well as Rolla and Shirin Agbariye and many others,
Rolla and Shirin have been released into three days of house arrest. Sami has been released and
Omar was released this morning but then requested to go for more interrogation, this time by the police. As of now he is still in the police station.
So much for Israeli "democracy". Arrest and intimidation are efficient ways of stopping legitimate protest.
Oh but i forget, in Israel; true protest is not legitimate, or only in a very limited way.

There is more information elsewhere

Accessability - the opening tonight!

Artists for social change, a group of people from different disciplines, put together an exhibition dedicated to accessibility
The exhibition, which opens today at 27 Shocken street in south Tel Aviv (floor 10 -but accessible) deals with limitations put on people with different challenges by society.


Welcome!

Hate Graffiti in Jaffa

As we are nearing the municipal elections, hateful graffiti against Jaffa's Palestinian population has started sprouting up at different locations all around.
From "Kahana was right" through "Death to the Arabs" and "F* Islam" to "Arabs Should not be allowed to Vote" sprayed on walls of homes and public buildings in Ajami, Jabaliya ("Givat Aliyah", as it is called by some) and central Jaffa.
I feel like buying a can of white paint and wiping it out and hope Jaffa's Palestinian population will come to vote for change. A complaint has been filed at the police.
As this happens in the same week Barack Obama is elected as the next president of the USA, it seems all the more symbolic.

For those Hebrew challenged: the graffiti reads "Kahana was Right" .