Hundreds of Palestinians Declare Hunger Strike

By DALIA NAMMARI
Associated Press
RAMALLAH, West Bank
April 17, 2012 (AP)

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel launched a hunger strike on Tuesday, officials said, protesting their conditions and demanding an end to detentions without trial as the Palestinians marked their annual day of solidarity with the inmates.

Some 3,500 prisoners refused meals on "Prisoners' Day," and 1,200 of them said they would continue with an open-ended hunger strike, according to Israeli prison service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman.
The hunger strike is one of the largest on record, said Sahar Francis of Addameer, a prisoner rights group.
Although it remained unclear how many will continue with the protest, they join 10 other Palestinian prisoners already on hunger strike, including two who have been hospitalized after refusing food for more than 40 days, she said.

The days' activities, which included protests throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, coincided with the scheduled release of the longest hunger striker in Palestinian history.
Khader Adnan, who didn't eat for 66 days, was set to be freed later Tuesday as part of a deal reached with Israel.

Adnan, a spokesman of the violent Islamic Jihad group, called his strike to protest Israel's policy of "administrative detention," in which Palestinians can be sentenced to months or years behind bars by military courts without being charged. In February, Israel agreed to release him at the end of his detention in exchange for ending the hunger strike.

"He began the first step for the rest of the prisoners," said his wife, Randa, referring to Tuesday's hunger strike.

In his West Bank hometown of Arrabeh, well-wishers decked posters of Adnan on the streets, and the family prepared to slaughter a sheep in his honor.

The fate of the prisoners held by Israel is one of the most emotional issues in Palestinian society. Their crimes range from throwing stones to deadly militant attacks. They are generally seen as heroes — even when their crimes have involved killing Israeli civilians.

In demonstrations in the Palestinian areas, hundreds of people held framed pictures of their loved ones in prison and waved the flags of different Palestinian political factions.

At a military prison near Jerusalem, Palestinian youths hurled rocks at Israeli forces, who fired back rounds of tear gas and pellets. No injuries were reported.

There are some 4,000 Palestinians currently in Israeli jails, said Francis, including some 300 in administrative detention. The striking prisoners are demanding an end to such detentions, solitary confinement and to allow Gaza families to visit prisoners held in Israel.

The largest Palestinian prisoner strike was in 2004, when some 10,000 prisoners refused food, many of them for 17 days, Francis said.
———
Associated Press writers Daniella Cheslow in Jerusalem and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this report.

Bewildered fly-in activist makes it to Bethlehem

Fly-in organizer says those who made it past security did not tell airport passport control why they arrived. Photo: REUTERS

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
The Jerusalem Post
04/16/2012 01:31

By accident Tanya slipped passed 650 police officers at Ben-Gurion Airport – determined to bar her entry to Israel – and made it to the West Bank Palestinian city of Bethlehem.

The young petite woman, with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, seemed surprised to be standing there, let alone talking with a room full of reporters.
Related:

“I do not know why I am here, but I am here,” said Tanya. Although she is a French citizen, she spoke in English and did not give her last name.

She was one of an estimated 12 members of the “Welcome to Palestine” event who actually made it to Bethlehem. Close to 2,000 activists were expected to try to fly into Ben-Gurion and announce that they had come to visit Palestine.

On Sunday, as of press time, only hundreds had participated, and many of them were barred from boarding flights in their home countries after Israel sent the airlines a blacklist with 500 names. Some 60 activists were detained upon arrival.

Tanya, who wore a blue shirt and a gray sweatshirt, described how she had been part of a group of 25 pro- Palestinian French activists who flew from Geneva to Tel Aviv.

“I was one of the last to get off the plane. There were a lot of police officers. I saw a lot of people who were on the flight and who I am friends with,” she said.

After that, she explained, it was very confusing. People spoke with her in Hebrew, but she didn’t understand them. They kept wanting her to move from one place to another and she never was able to explain to them why she had arrived.

“They said, ‘follow this man.’ Then they said, ‘follow this woman.’ So I followed. I ended up outside the building. There were two buses and a lot of people. They were staring at me. Someone said I had to be on a particular bus,” she said.

So she got on that bus and before she knew it, she was outside Terminal 3.

“It is important to be here because we should all have the right to come to Palestine and to meet Palestinian people. We should fight for what we believe is right,” she said.

Tanya was among the lucky activists. Palestinian organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh said that the dozen who made it to Bethlehem did not tell passport control why they arrived.

In Istanbul, another group of 50 French citizens were not as lucky. They flew Turkish Airlines believing it would not cede to a request by Israel not to board passengers participating in the event, which has been dubbed the fly-in or the flytilla.

Initially, their tactic appeared to work, as they easily left Paris.

But according to French pro-Palestinian activist Olivia Zemore, 63, who heads the delegation, they were stopped in Istanbul, when they tried to board a 12:40 p.m. flight for Tel Aviv.

She spoke with The Jerusalem Post from her cellphone, close to press time, while she was still in the airport, but was hopeful that she had a seat on a flight back to Paris on Monday.

“We have been squatting here to protest and to get our money back. We wanted a piece of paper stating that we were denied boarding, and we finally got it,” she said. “Now we are asking Turkish Airlines to pay our return ticket.” It appeared, she added, that the airline had agreed to do this.

“I think the Israeli government is just crazy because it would have been easy to let us go to Bethlehem,” she said, and explained that among the activities they planned to participate in was to build a school.

Zemor, who heads the Euro Palestine group and who is a member of the BDS movement, had been vocal before the trip about her intention to participate in the flytilla.

She had been hopeful that she would be allowed to enter Israel, even though she attempted to participate in the same event last July and was barred from boarding a plane at the airport in Paris.

Last year Belgian citizen Myriam De Ly, 60, flew to Israel in the July Welcome to Palestine event.

When she landed, she was stopped at passport control, taken to a nearby prison and deported after four days.

On Saturday, the airline and the Belgian Foreign Ministry informed her that her ticket to Israel had been canceled.

Still, she was among 60 Belgian citizens who went to the airport with their luggage at 5:30 a.m. in hopes that they would still be able to board their flights on Lufthansa and Swiss Air.

“One by one they said we could not check in,” she said. None of the group was allowed to board, she explained.

When they refused to leave the airport and protested the police were called.

“They intervened violently, and they tried to take us out, one by one,” she said.

But not everyone on a list of 500 names blacklisted by Israel were activists.

Among those kept from boarding was former banker Jules Troxler, 62, who described himself as pro-Israel. He left his home in Zurich at 6:30 a.m. only to discover that he could not fly to visit an ailing friend because he was blacklisted.

He was startled, he said, but not totally surprised, because his friend had warned him that there might be trouble because of the flytilla.

But the airline never explained to him why his ticket was canceled. Additionally, all of his attempts to reason with Swiss Air, he said, failed. The trip, Troxler said, had been planned for two years.

“We were going to go to the Dead Sea for two days. I especially wanted to come at this time of year because it is not so hot,” he said.

“I guess I booked the wrong day,” he added.

Ben Hartman contributed to this report.

Press Release from the Welcome to Palestine Campaign

[HumanRights] Press Release from WTP2012
From: Mazin Qumsiyeh

We did not have to show our 1500 visitors Israeli racism, arrogance, and
human rights violations; the Israeli government showed them and also showed
the whole world.  Calling itself a democracy, this outlaw state denied the
right of people from around the world to come visit us and see for
themselves the reality of life under occupation.

We the Palestinian people are 11 million normal human beings, 7 million are
refugees or displaced people simply because they are natives to a land that
was wanted for a Jewish state.  Five million of us are living in
increasingly shrinking ghettos on a tiny fraction of our land.  We remain
here despite an illegal and brutal occupation that includes land
confiscation, movement restrictions, home demolitions, illegal imprisonment
of thousands (many now on hunger strike), and countless other inhuman
conditions. We did not expect from this occupation that daily violates
human rights to also allow us as prisoners under its boot to openly and
honestly receive visitors.  These visitors who wanted to come and see what
reality is like here certainly were shocked at the Israeli behavior.  And
those who wanted to welcome our visitors and were brutally assaulted will
remember how the same Israeli police let right wing fanatics sing and
disrupt at the airport.  The whole world is now seeing Israel for what it
is: a police state that fulfills all the requirements of being an apartheid
pariah state per the International Convention on the Suppression and
Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973).

Countries that once supported Apartheid in South Africa had people who
mobilized against it.  Now people of conscience mobilize to challenge this
apartheid that is now so explicitly expressed.

Those airlines and governments that acted as subcontractors for the Israeli
apartheid regime are being challenged by their own people.  In denying
boarding to a passenger by Air France, the airline documented that she
cannot board because she is neither Jewish or Israeli! (see in french
http://wtp2france.palestinejn.org, English:
http://palestinianspring.palestinejn.org)

In claiming in writing that we called for disruptions and for challenging
"security" of Israel, the Israeli government was exposed as lying.  In
forcing a Swedish passenger (unrelated to our campaign) to sign that he was
not going to meet with any "pro-Palestinian" individuals or groups, the
Israeli government was shown to be racist.  Imagine if a similar
requirement was posted to visitors to any other country about visiting or
meeting with "pro-black" individuals or organizations.  In sending a letter
to that claims activists should worry about Iran and Syria before worrying
about this system of apartheid, the Israeli government showed the
bankruptcy of its arguments.  In denying us the right to visit, the Israeli
government showed the world that it has a lot to hide.

For examples of participant profiles of those denied their right to visit
us in Palestine, visit
http://www.welcometopalestine.info/index.php/participant-profiles-uk-us

At the end of our press conference in Bethlehem, we passed out Easter
colored eggs.  We Palestinian Christian and Muslims are grateful to all who
act on their conscience, Internationals, Israelis, and Palestinian
volunteers.  Thousands of us say loud and clear: we will not be silenced,
we will continue to organize campaigns until we have freedom and until
Israel complies with all relevant International and Humanitarian laws.

Contact email: media@palestinejn.org
Contact phone numbers in languages: Arabic, English. French, Spanish, Hebrew
0599255573 (A, E, F)
0568347074 (A, E, S)
0598939532 ((A, E)
0505633044 (A, E, H)

Welcome to Palestine 2012 Campaign websites
http://bienvenuepalestine.com
http://palestinianspring.palestinejn.org
http://www.righttoenter.ps
http://welcometopalestine.info
http://bienvenidosapalestina.jimdo.com/
http://bienvenuepalestine.ca/

English: http://palestinianspring.palestinejn.org
Arabic: http://wtp2arabic.palestinejn.org
Spanish: http://wtp2spain.palestinejn.org
French: http://wtp2spain.palestinejn.org
Swedish: http://wtp2sweden.palestinejn.org
Norwegian: http://wtp2norway.palestinejn.org

Israeli police arrest fly-in activists

Israeli police officers are deployed at the Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, April 15, 2012. Israel deployed hundreds of police Sunday at its main airport to detain activists flying in to protest the country's occupation of Palestinian areas, defying vigorous Israeli government efforts to block their arrival. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

  
By AMY TEIBEL
The Associated Press
 April 15, 2012 08:26 AM EDT

JERUSALEM — Israel deployed hundreds of police Sunday at its main airport to detain activists flying in to protest the country's occupation of Palestinian areas in defiance of vigorous Israeli government efforts to block their arrival.

At mid-afternoon, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a total of 27 activists had landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport. All were denied entry and were to be placed on return flights, he said. Hundreds more were expected throughout the day.

Four Israeli supporters of the fly-in were arrested for causing a disturbance at the main airport terminal after unfurling a banner bearing the protest's theme, "Welcome to Palestine," Rosenfeld said.

Israel is jittery about the prospect of large numbers of protesters arriving because of deadly confrontations with pro-Palestinian activists in the past, notably a naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in May 2010. The activists participating in the fly-in say all planned activities, such as planting trees in the West Bank, are non-violent and accuse Israel of being unnecessarily heavyhanded.

The effect of the protest was diluted by airlines that canceled the reservations of at least 100 known activists, and perhaps hundreds more, under pressure from Israel.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said Israel had sent a list of suspected activists to international airlines, asking the carriers to block them from boarding Israel-bound flights. It warned the airlines they would have to cover the cost of the activists' return flights, and threatened unspecified sanctions on airlines if they did not comply, she said.

One of the protest's organizers, Amira Mussalam, said that as of midday, no activists had managed to get out of the airport and make their way to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the government "will make sure that everyone who wants to provoke is returned home and the rest will be allowed to enter Israel."

Activists who had been barred from flying to Tel Aviv from airports in Paris and Brussels staged impromptu protests, and Israel Radio reported that activists in Geneva had their passports confiscated.

The protest is meant to draw attention to how Israel controls access into Palestinian areas. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, all captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for their future state.

Visitors can only reach the West Bank through Israeli-controlled land crossings or Israeli airports, though at any given time, hundreds of foreigners, including activists, are in the territory, which Israel captured in 1967.

Travelers headed for Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank often report being detained and questioned, sometimes for hours, by Israeli border authorities.

As a result, some lie about their intended destination within the West Bank, where 300,000 Jews live in more than 120 settlements alongside 2.4 million Palestinians.

Mussalam, the organizer, said participants were told not to hide their intentions. "The aim of 'Welcome to Palestine' is when we have guests coming to Palestine — to Ramallah, Hebron, to Bethlehem, they should be able to say we are going to Palestine and not to lie," Mussalam said.

Israel restricts access to the border crossing with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers. Some 1.6 million Palestinians live there.

Last July, Israel blocked a similar fly-in effort by preventing dozens from boarding Tel Aviv-bound flights in Europe and denying entry to 69.

Asked why Israeli authorities consider this particular group of activists a threat, police spokesman Rosenfeld replied that they have "security backgrounds" or were "involved previously in different activities," including "security issues concerning Israel."

He would not elaborate.

Some Israelis accused the government of overreacting to the activists' campaign.

"Instead of waiting to present the crackpot activists with flowers, putting them on buses and leading them directly to their destination in Bethlehem, the heads of the defense establishment and security forces have once again lost their minds," columnist Eitan Haber wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper. "We are only goading the plotters into planning actions that the state of Israel has no response to."

German writer Guenter Grass barred from entering Israel

BBC News
8 April 2012
Last updated at 10:07 ET

Guenter Grass' poem has infuriated the Israeli government and has been condemned in Germany

Israel has declared the German author Guenter Grass "persona non grata" and barred him from entering the country.

Grass, a Nobel laureate, recently criticised Israel in a poem.
In it, Grass condemned German arms sales to Israel, and said the Jewish state must not be allowed to launch military strikes against Iran.

Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai says Grass is not welcome because he has tried "to inflame hatred against the State and people of Israel."

Yishai, the leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party in Israel's coalition government, suggested that Grass should go to Iran, "where he would find a sympathetic audience should he want to continue disseminating his warped and mendacious work."
'What Must Be Said'

In one section of the poem, published in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and called "What Must be Said", Grass attacks Israel's nuclear programme.

"Why do I say only now... that the nuclear power Israel endangers an already fragile world peace? Because that must be said which may already be too late to say tomorrow," Grass wrote in the German-language poem, "Also because we - as Germans burdened enough - may become a subcontractor to a crime that is foreseeable."

The poem has already been condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Grass's most recent work has also been widely criticised in Germany, which is extremely sensitive about attacks on Israeli policy because of its role in the Holocaust.
The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Bild newspaper that "putting Israel and Iran on the same moral level is not ingenious but absurd".

The author told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that, in retrospect, he should have phrased his poem differently to "make it clearer that I am primarily talking about the (Netanyahu) government.

"I have often supported Israel, I have often been in the country and want the country to exist and at last find peace with its neighbours," he said.

Some of Grass's critics have referred to the fact that the 84-year-old writer served in the Nazi Waffen SS during the Second World War, something he did not admit until 2006.

But he has been defended by some sections of Israeli opinion.

Writing in the Haaretz newspaper, columnist Gideon Levy criticised the ban on Grass.

"A situation in which any German who dares criticise Israel is instantly accused of anti-Semitism is intolerable", he said, "after we denounce the exaggeration, after we shake off the unjustified part of the charge, we must listen."

Happy Easter, everyone!

As the sun rises each new day so too will our souls be resurrected into a glorious World to Come

Red Cross delivers fuel to Gaza hospitals

BBC News
2 April 2012
Last updated at 12:36 ET

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has begun distributing emergency fuel supplies to hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

The 150,000 litres (33,000 gallons) of diesel would help 13 public hospitals maintain essential health services for the next 10 days, the ICRC said.

Immediate action had to be taken to prevent further deterioration of the fuel and electricity crisis, it added.

Gaza's only power plant closed eight days ago because of a lack of fuel.

Hamas, which governs the coastal territory, decided more than a year ago to fire the plant with fuel smuggled from Egypt, rather than pay for fuel from Israel, which is more expensive and subject to restrictions.
'Specialist units hardest hit'

But in February, Egypt began to crack down on the smuggling of fuel, because it was suffering shortages itself and wanted imports to Gaza to pass through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.

Hamas has also blamed Israel's continuing blockade of the territory, from which it withdrew in 2005 but nearly all whose land crossings it still controls. But Israeli officials have accused the Islamist group of manufacturing the crisis and of rejecting offers of supplies from Israel.

The head of the ICRC delegation for Israel and the Occupied Territories, Juan-Pedro Schaerer, said on Friday when announcing the shipment: "The current failure to ensure delivery of fuel and electricity could rapidly lead to interruptions in vital public services such as hospital care and water supply, putting the lives of thousands of patients in danger."

"We have already warned that in the event of any such disruption, hospital operating theatres and specialist units, such as those providing intensive care, neonatal care and haemodialysis, would be especially hard hit," he added.

The prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said on Monday that his foreign minister was in Cairo for "intensive consultations" with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority on the issue.

The ICRC gave another 150,000 litres of fuel to the hospitals in February

Aung San Suu Kyi: "We hope that this will be the beginning of a new era"

 Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi says she hopes Sunday's by-elections marked the start of a new era in Burma.

BBC News
2 April 2012 Last updated at 04:35 ET

Burma poll: Aung San Suu Kyi hopes for 'new era'

Calling the polls a "triumph of the people", she said the goal now was reconciliation with other parties.

Official results for the polls that saw 45 seats contested are expected later this week.

But Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) said she easily won in her Kawhmu constituency, and that the party expects to win multiple seats.

Aung San Suu Kyi's comments came as she addressed a crowd of supporters outside NLD headquarters in Rangoon, Burma's commercial capital.

"It is not so much our triumph as a triumph of the people who have decided that they have to be involved in the political process in this country," she said. "We hope this is the beginning of a new era."

"We hope that all other parties that took part in the elections will be in a position to co-operate with us to create a genuinely democratic atmosphere in our nation."

Sunday's vote was seen as a key test of political reforms, though the army and its allies dominate the 664-seat parliament.

The by-elections were being held to fill parliamentary seats left vacant by the appointment of ministers after the polls that formally ended military rule in November 2010.

The NLD was competing in its first elections since 1990, after boycotting the 2010 polls. It was one of 17 opposition parties that took part.

Apart from winning her own seat, Ms Suu Kyi appears to have helped a number of her colleagues to victory, correspondents say.

NLD officials say they believe the party has won almost all of the 44 seats it contested, including some in the remote capital, Nay Pyi Taw. There has been no formal word yet from the Election Commission.

But even if the NLD wins most of the seats, the army and its proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) will still hold about 80% of seats in parliament.

Ms Suu Kyi - who spent years under house arrest after her party won polls in 1990 but was not allowed to take power - has promised to use her voice to continue to push for further reform.
'Step forward'

Speaking in Cambodia ahead of an Asean summit, Burma's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said the polls had been "free, fair and transparent".

During the campaign, foreign journalists and international observers were given the widest access to the former military-ruled nation for years.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton congratulated Burma on holding the vote and said that the US was ''committed to supporting these reform efforts".

The European Union hinted that it could ease some sanctions if the vote went smoothly.

US lawmakers who drafted sanctions against Burma remained cautiously optimistic.

"While much remains to be done in Burma, Suu Kyi's apparent election to parliament, like that of the apparent election of large numbers of her NLD colleagues, is an important step forward for the country," said Senator Mitch McConnell.

Representative Joe Crowley said ''now is not the time'' to rush towards lifting the sanctions.

"Far too many political prisoners are still locked behind bars, violence continues against ethnic minorities and the military dominates not only the composition but the structure of the government," he added.