[WCUSP] [womeninblack] Help save the Palestinian inhabitants of Susya from eviction!

[yvonne simmons]

> 
> 
> DEAR FRIENDS !  HELP SUSYA !
> 
> Please sign this petition and forward
> 
> www.petitiononline.com/susya67/
> 
> 
> Help save the Palestinian inhabitants of Susya from
> eviction! 
> On June 6, 2007, a final Israeli Supreme Court
> hearing was held on the appeal of the Palestinian
> residents of Susya, in the southern edge of the West
> Bank. The deliberations - carried out since 2001
> (appeal # 7530/01) - was against the destruction of
> the Palestinians' homes. 
> The Court has basically accepted the state's
> argument, that the residents are squatters, even
> though they are the legal owners of the land. This
> is because they have built their homes (after being
> evicted once before) without permit, and therefore
> the homes must be destroyed. Since Palestinian Susya
> is in "area C", the authority to issue permits rests
> with the settler-run Civil Administration bureau,
> situated in a settlement in the northern part of the
> West Bank. 
> There is no end to the cynicism of the settlers, the
> IDF, the Civil Administration, and even the Court
> towards Susya Palestinians. It is well known, that
> the above-mentioned bureau does not give permits to
> Palestinians. Some residents have submitted permits
> in the past - only to be turned down repeatedly. 
> At bottom line, even though the State admits the
> land is private Palestinian land, it prevents
> Palestinians from living on it. At the same time,
> settlement outposts in the same region are
> expanding, many of them also built on private
> Palestinian land. 
> Will the Minister of Security and the Israeli
> government now approve the eviction of 13
> Palestinian families attempting to continue to live
> on their land and tilling their fields - or will it
> cater to the settlers' expansionism and explicit
> wishes to "clear" the area of its original
> residents? 
> It is also up to you. Please act. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Background Information 
> In the southern Hebron hills, in an area called
> Masafer Yatta, a small population of several
> thousand Palestinian farmers and shepherds live in
> shanty-like villages and in caves and tents. This is
> a very traditional population subsisting on
> non-mechanized agriculture and herding. 
> These people, often referred to as 'cave-dwellers,'
> have lived in the area continuously since the early
> nineteenth century (documentation dates back to
> 1830, and aerial photographs from decades ago
> confirm their presence here). Anyone who meets the
> inhabitants of Masafer Yatta can see how deeply
> rooted they are in the land. They are familiar with
> every well and tree, and they know who owns each
> plot of land down to the last clod of earth. 
> It is thus difficult to accept the unrelenting
> attempts by Jewish settlers, aided and abetted by
> the Civil Administration, an arm of the Israeli
> Defence Forces [IDF], to evict the Palestinian
> cave-dwellers from their homes and deprive them of
> their meagre livelihood. It is even more difficult
> to come to terms with the possibility that the
> Supreme Court of Justice might sanction this
> expulsion. 
> The first Jewish settlements in the area of South
> Mount Hebron came into being in the early eighties:
> Carmel and Ma'on in 1981, Susya and Beit Yatir in
> 1983. The local Palestinian inhabitants were
> initially employed in construction and other jobs in
> these settlements. Over the years, however,
> relations deteriorated. What happened in Susya
> exemplifies the process in the region as a whole. 
> The Palestinian inhabitants of Khirbet Susya, who
> now live in huts and tents on the edge of the Jewish
> settlement of Susya originally lived in Susya
> Al-Qadime, a village situated in what is today an
> archaeological site containing an ancient synagogue.
> In the mid 1980's, the site was declared a "National
> Park," and the Palestinian inhabitants were expelled
> by the IDF. Powerless to resist the expulsion, the
> Palestinians continued to cultivate their private
> plots and settled some 500 meters from the Israeli
> settlement of Susya in what is known today as Rujum.
> This was too close for the comfort of the Jewish
> settlers, who instigated a second expulsion. One
> night, the Palestinians were herded into trucks and
> dumped some 15 kilometres to the north, in the area
> of the Zif Crossroads, where they stayed for some
> time. Eventually, unable to return to their real
> homes, the families built small huts and put up
> tents on a hilltop close to their lands on the
> periphery of the Susya settlement. 
> Friction between the Jewish settlers and the
> Palestinians escalated as settlers, together with
> the army, harassed and terrorized the cave-dwellers.
> This concerted, ongoing persecution reflects a
> policy clearly aimed at cleansing the area of its
> Palestinian population. The mid-1990's saw the
> spread of Jewish farms and illegal "outposts" in the
> region, all established in areas previously seized
> by the army. 
> Thus, under the protection of the IDF, Jewish
> settlers managed to grab more and more land
> belonging to the Palestinian inhabitants of Susya.
> Increasingly violent in their actions, settlers
> stopped Palestinian farmers from cultivating their
> plots of land. Palestinian farmers were regularly
> attacked and beaten. In the course of this struggle
> over land, three Palestinian inhabitants and one
> Jewish settler lost their lives. 
> Another eviction took place in July 2001 following
> the murder of a Jewish settler, Ya'ir Har- Sinai.
> The pretext for the eviction was the claim that the
> Palestinians had trespassed the boundaries of the
> Jewish settlement of Susya. Labelled as trespassers
> in their own historic lands, these Palestinian
> families were evicted without notice from the area
> of Susya - Gawawis, between the Yatta-Samu'a road
> and the Green Line. Many were beaten and/or
> arrested, caves were demolished, wells blocked up,
> fields destroyed and livestock killed. The evicted
> families also reported that civilians accompanied
> the security forces during the expulsion. It is
> possible that these civilians were settlers familiar
> with the area. 
> Still undeterred, some of the Susya families
> returned to their lands. Since 1999 Israeli
> activists (particular from the Ta'ayush movement)
> have joined their struggle. With the help of the
> attorney Shlomo Lecker, they obtained a Supreme
> Court interim injunction instructing the army to
> allow the inhabitants to return to their homes. The
> Court pronounced the repeated expulsions illegal.
> Not all of the expelled families returned, however,
> and some of those who did were later evicted yet
> again, for the fourth time. 
> With the support of the army, Jewish settlers have
> perfected the art of 'bypassing' the Supreme Court.
> Large areas of land have been declared 'out of
> bounds' for Palestinians, ostensibly on security
> grounds. Privately owned land that lies fallow for a
> number of years, uncultivated by its rightful owner,
> can be deemed 'Survey Land' - one step removed from
> the category of 'Abandoned Land'. After a decent
> interval, the State may claim such land for public
> use. In fact, quite a few of the Jewish settlements
> in the West Bank were built on such alleged 'Survey
> Lands,' as has been amply documented in the Peace
> Now Report of December 2006. In other words, land
> closure by the army under the pretext of security
> concerns serves the real estate interests of the
> Israeli settlers. 
> By cultivating such Special Security Areas [SSA]
> protected by the army, the settlers are in fact
> staking their claim to the seized lands. The
> rightful owners are now caught in a sort of 'Catch
> 22': if they "trespass" on their own fields, they
> stand a real chance of being shot. The army's orders
> are to open fire on any Palestinian who enters the
> SSA, and at night the order is to 'shoot to kill'.
> Since the Jewish settlers are armed to the teeth,
> the rightful Palestinian owners can only sit and
> watch from afar as settlers cultivate their fields.
> If this goes on long enough, the Palestinians are
> deemed to have relinquished their claim on the area 
> .The Jewish settlement of Susya is built on
> so-called State Land. In 2001 the army established a
> Special Security Area around the settlement
> designed, of course, to keep out the local
> Palestinian inhabitants. The size of the forbidden
> area far exceeds that of the settlement proper. De
> facto, it increases the area of the settlement by
> several orders of magnitude. It extends entirely
> over private lands owned by local Palestinian
> families. The Nawaja, Ar-Reini and Adara families
> have lost well over 50% of their land. The Khalis
> and Shamusta families have lost all their lands. 
> The outrageous treatment of the local Palestinian
> inhabitants is not limited to the fencing off of
> SSA's. Recent years have seen countless violent
> incidents perpetrated by armed settlers. These
> include the destruction of fields, the uprooting of
> trees, the poisoning of wells and fodder, the
> systematic molestation of shepherds and children on
> their way to school, even assaults on families at
> home in the dead of the night. Ta'ayush activists
> and international volunteers have had to evacuate
> the injured to hospitals on a number of occasions. 
> It goes almost without saying that the Israeli
> Police has shown utter impotence when called upon to
> enforce the law against the settlers of Susya and
> Havat Maon (an outpost of Susya). The few arrests,
> almost never leading to trial, which the police did
> carry out have not deterred the settlers, whose aim
> remains to "encourage" the Palestinian inhabitants
> of Susya and other hamlets in the region to abandon
> their lands. And yet the Palestinian inhabitants of
> Susya continue to cling to their land and homes. 
> The threat of eviction hangs over their heads. Susya
> is a test case for the whole region of the south
> Hebron hills. The fate of countless homes hangs in
> the balance. Please act. 
> For further information and support in the Susya
> struggle: 
> southhebron at gmail.com 
> 
> 
> Sincerely, 
> 
> The Undersigned 
> > _______________________________________________
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