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Securing the ethnic cleansing of Silwan: Settlements in Wadi Hilweh using Pelco security equipment

Pelco cameras system being used by illegal settlements in Silwan
Pelco camera system being used by illegal settlement in Silwan
Corporate Watch | February 10, 2013

The Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan is experiencing harassment and home demolitions at the hands of the Israeli state and settler organisations. This ethnic cleansing is enforced by security companies and surveillance technology and facilitated by revenue from international donors and from tourism. Corporate Watch will be writing a series of articles over the coming months exposing the companies and charities carrying out this ethnic cleansing and those organisations who are funding it and profiting from it.

The communities of Wadi Hilweh and Al Bustan in Silwan in East Jerusalem are watched over by hundreds of Closed Circuit Surveillance (CCTV) cameras installed by settlers and the settler/colonial organisation El Ad.

These cameras watch over the creeping colonisation of the area which has been going on since the 1990s. Much of this has centred around the seizing of Palestinian property by the El Ad organisation and the undermining of the Palestinian community through archaeological excavations  carried out by the same organisation with the complicity of the Israeli National Parks Authority and the Israeli antiquities Authority (read more about El Ad and the excavations here).

During the 1990s the Israeli state and the Jewish National Fund gave one third of the land of Wadi Hilweh to El Ad. Since then settlers have moved in and El Ad has used a series of dirty tricks to acquire more and more properties in Wadi Hilweh. At the same time Palestinian homes are subject to demolitions under planning regulations, such as the demolitions that took place on 2nd February 2013.

On Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th January 2012 Corporate Watch researchers photographed dozens of Pelco security cameras being used by the settlements in Silwan including those at the El Ad compound close to the ‘City of David’ Visitors Centre in Wadi Hilweh.

The cameras included those in use at the Tirah House settlement, a Palestinian home occupied by Israeli settlers.

Pelco is a manufacturer and supplier of security cameras based in Clovis, California. The company has 2,200 employees worldwide and resellers in 130 coutries.

PIC_1096Since 2007 Pelco has been part of Schneider-Electric, a French multinational company headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison. Schneider-Electric has 130,000 employees and 2011 sales totaling 22.4 billion Euros. It operates in 190 countries.

Schneider-Electric is one of the only companies to have shown interest in the joint French-Palestinian Authority (PA) industrial zone in Bethlehem, the Bethlehem Multidisciplinary Industrial Park. It seems the PA have chosen poor partners for its flagship industrial zone.

Schneider-Electrics global operations are listed here

To contact Pelco click here

For more information on Silwan click here.

Photos taken by Corporate Watch researchers
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February 10, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Israeli Occupation seizes land from Bab al-Rahma Cemetery in Jerusalem

Palestine Information Center – 30/09/2012

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian committee in occupied Jerusalem warned against the decision by the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem to confiscate 1,800 meters of the southern land of the Bab al-Rahma Cemetery in Jerusalem, and considered it a new aggression on Waqf and holy sites.

The Committee of Bab al-Rahma Cemetery in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem stated in a press statement that the Israeli occupation is violating the sanctity of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem through attacking mosques, churches and other places of worship, as well as through attacking the dead in their graves.

It said the confiscation of the cemetery’s land is an attempt to Judiaze it and establish tourist pathways and “Talmudic landmarks”, aiming to establish their alleged temple, preventing the Palestinian residents from burying their dead in this historic cemetery.

The committee warned against the danger on the holy city and towns and Al Aqsa Mosque especially after the escalating Israeli Judaization plans that aim to erase its Islamic and Christian Arab character.

The Committee criticized the passive attitude of Arabs and Muslims toward the Israeli Judaization’s systematic plans that could encourage Israeli greed in the area.

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September 30, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Israel to close Shuafat checkpoint and extend Wall

SILWANIC | August 28, 2012
Rad Khamis checkpoint

Silwan, Jerusalem – The Israeli Ministry of Defence has announced its plans to seal off one of two checkpoints through which the 65,000 Palestinian residents of Shuafat refugee camp can pass to enter Jerusalem. The extension of the Separation Wall and closing of the Ras Khamis checkpoint will occur in contravention to a 2008 High Court of Justice ruling that stated Shuafat Camp requires a total of eight pedestrian and four vehicle crossings before the checkpoint could be closed. The decision will affect not only Shuafat itself but three other villages crowded into the camp: Ras Shehada, Dahiyat al-Salaam and Ras Khamis.

Twenty surveillance cameras were removed from the Ras Khamis border on Sunday, 26 August in preparation for its closing, which is expected to take place next Tuesday. The Separation Wall will then be extended to encircle the new border of Shuafat. The construction of the Wall is expected to further carve up the area, forcing locals to drive and walk through narrow streets, causing traffic congestion and impacting on trade.

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September 5, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Israeli settlers move into Silwan home

Ma’an – 02/09/2012

JERUSALEM – Israeli settlers, accompanied by police guards, moved into a section of a Palestinian home in East Jerusalem on Sunday, locals said.

Israeli authorities had informed the Hamdullah family they would have to evacuate part of their home in the Silwan neighborhood of Ras al-Amud after a court ruling said it belonged to settlers, local group the Wadi al-Hilweh information center said.

The family says they have been living on the premises since 1952 after purchasing the land from the al-Ghoul family.

Israeli daily Haaretz said that settler patron Irwin Moskowitz bought the land in 1990 from Orthodox Jewish groups, who claimed they had bought the land before 1948.

In 2005 a Jerusalem court ruled that the family must evacuate all buildings constructed after 1989.

Moskowitz wants to expand Maaleh Hazeitim, the largest settlement in East Jerusalem, on the land.

The Hamdullah home lies in a critical neighborhood near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the site of a number of settlements and controversial Israeli archeological digs, which residents fear are intended to cement Israeli control over the area.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem — regarded as the capital of a future Palestinian state — after a 1967 war, a move never recognized by the international community.

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September 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Israel To Demolish Buildings In East Jerusalem To Build “King David” Park

By Regina Qumsieh | IMEMC & Agencies | May 02, 2012

The Jerusalem City Council has decided to demolish seven buildings in the Silwan neighborhood, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Old City in Occupied East Jerusalem, as part of its plan to build the “King David Park” in this Palestinian area.

The Israeli army has posted eviction and demolition notices on several homes and buildings in Silwan, granting the residents 30 days to file appeals and grievances according to Fakhri Abu Diab, member of the Popular Committee for Defending Silwan, in East Jerusalem,

The “King David Park” Plan was announced by Jerusalem Mayor, Nir Barkat, two years ago after the City Council decided to demolish 22 Arab homes under the pretext that they were built without construction permits.

The Israeli plan led to Palestinian, Arab and international condemnation, but Israel disregarded the outrage and said that the project will serve the city.

The “King David” Park plan is part of ongoing Israeli violations targeting the Palestinians, their property and their lands in Occupied East Jerusalem. These violations include the demolition of dozens of Arab homes, forcing the Palestinians out of their homes to replace them with settlers, and the ongoing construction and expansion of Israeli settlement in and around the city.

In other news, Israeli soldiers destroyed agricultural dwellings, barns and wells southeast of the West Bank city of Hebron at dawn on Wednesday. The Israeli Army claimed that the structures were built without construction permits. A member of the Al-Rajabi family stated that the Army has twice invaded his land and demolished his property in the past three years.

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May 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Municipality creates garbage dump inside Bab Alsbat cemetery next to Lion Gate in the Old City

22 February 2012 | Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan

Large quantities of waste are being piled by the Jerusalem Municipality inside the Islamic cemetery (Bab Alsbat) next to Lions Gate in the old city, in a move that has upset and offended the City’s thousands of Muslim inhabitants. The Lions Gate, which lies close to the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque, is now awash with the overpowering stench of accumulated garbage.

One resident stated that the Jerusalem Municipality “is unashamedly discriminatory in its practices. They not only use a sacred place as a rubbish dump, they even burn the rubbish here, inside a holy place  the Bab Alasbat cemetery. Why has UNESCO not tried to stop the Municipality?”

A resident Christian priest of the Old City told Silwanic that he considered the Municipality’s actions unlawful, and encouraging of racism in Jerusalem.

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February 23, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | 2 Comments

Video shows UK-manufactured JCB equipment destroying Jerusalem playground

By Adri Nieuwhof – The Electronic Intifada – 02/15/2012

On Monday, heavily-guarded Israeli forces demolished a Palestinian community center and a children’s playground in occupied East Jerusalem. The center was the only public space and playground for the Palestinian residents of the Wadi Hilweh area of Silwan, a neighborhood of East Jerusalem adjacent to the Old City. The Israel Nature and Parks Authority executed the demolition with British-manufactured JCB machinery.

Video screenshot shows the Israeli police force protecting the JCB machine that demolished a Palestinian community center and a playground in Silwan on 13 February

The Israeli demolition of Palestinian property in occupied East Jerusalem that is not justified by military necessity is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Conventions. Moreover, by demolishing the only playground in Wadi Hilweh, Israel denies Palestinian children their right to play.

Article 31 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child enshrines the right “to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.” By ratifying the Convention in 1991, Israel is obligated to obey the directives of the Convention.

On 24 November 2011, JCB machines were seen in action demolishing two homes, a mosque and a barn in Umm Fagarah. The village is located in the South Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank. On 20 June 2011, JCB machines were úsed to destroy the village of Bir al-Eid in the South Hebron Hills.

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February 15, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Video | , | 2 Comments

Ethnic Cleansing in a Zionist Fairyland

By Vacy Vlazna | Palestine Chronicle | February 10, 2012

‘De-Arabizing the history of Palestine is another crucial element of the ethnic cleansing. 1500 years of Arab and Muslim rule and culture in Palestine are trivialized, evidence of its existence is being destroyed and all this is done to make the absurd connection between the ancient Hebrew civilization and today’s Israel. The most glaring example of this today is in Silwan, (Wadi Hilwe) a town adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem with some 50,000 residents.  Israel is expelling families from Silwan and destroying their homes because it claims that king David built a city there some 3000 years ago. Thousands of families will be made homeless so that Israel can build a park to commemorate a king that may or may not have lived 3000 years ago. Not a shred of historical evidence exists that can prove King David ever lived yet Palestinian men, women, children and the elderly along with their schools and mosques, churches and ancient cemeteries and any evidence of their existence must be destroyed and then denied so that Zionist claims to exclusive rights to the land may be substantiated.’ — Miko Peled, Israeli dissident.

Indeed, archaeology has become a state apparatus for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Zionist fairyland aka the City of David Archaeological Park located in the Palestinian village of Silwan in East Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem is the proclaimed capital of the proposed Palestine state. It was illegally annexed by Israel in the 1967 war. Prohibiting annexation of territories gained by military conquest is one of the major principles of international law. The international community does not recognise Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem nevertheless over 50,000 illegal premises have been built for 250,000 illegal Israeli colonists.

The goal of the archaeological judaisation of Jerusalem is to transform Jerusalem into the City of David, the capital of Greater Israel by eradicating the mixed ethnic composition of the Palestinian and Jewish population of East Jerusalem to a solely Jewish identity and unifying East and West Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty.

This judaising in Silwan is executed by the Israeli government, the Municipality of Jerusalem, and  the rightwing colonist (settler) organisation, Elad, through the revocation of residency rights, absentee property laws, discriminatory taxation policies, home demolitions, transfer of Palestinian  residents, replacing Arabic place names with Hebrew names and the expansion of settlements which Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, describes ‘as a form of ethnic cleansing ‘ which is defined as a crime against humanity under the statutes of the  International Criminal Court (ICC). Furthermore Article 53 of the Geneva Convention states: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons.is prohibited.”

Financial support for judaising programmes comes from hundreds of moneyed Zionist organisations and foundations worldwide. In 2005, archaeologist Eilat Mazar announced she had discovered the palace of King David circa 10 Century BCE.  The excavations in Silwan were funded by the Shalem Center whose Zionist neocons have invested heavily in the judaisation efforts to give historicity to the David myth. Shalem’s founder, Ron Lauder of the Estee Lauder empire, is an uncompromising Zionist extremist, a Likudnik and a major shareholder in Israeli TV Channel 10 as well as the current Chairman of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and President of the World Jewish Congress (JWC) which normalises the Israeli occupation. Curiously, in January, Abbas and Erekat had a closed meeting with Lauder in London even though the Palestinian team refused to meet with Netanyahu.

The Shalem Center has association with Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire who is a Likud supporter and a key financial backer of the Newt Gingrich campaign and Newt’s ‘Palestinians are an invented people’ idiocy. From  2007-9  the Adelson Institute for Strategic  Studies in the Shalem Center was directed by Natan Sharansky who is now Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a quasi-governmental organisation advancing Jewish immigration to Israel including the illegal colonies. Its 2008 the core budget was $314,760,000. The Jewish Agency was established by the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1929 founded on the commitment to warrant “The unity of the Jewish people, its bond to its historic homeland Eretz Yisrael, and the centrality of the State of Israel and Jerusalem, its capital “It acts as agent of the government in assigning land to Jewish colonists in the Israeli-occupied territories. Its new chairman is religious Zionist Avraham Duvdevani who served as head of the WZO’s Settlement Division, co-chairman of the board of the Jewish National Fund and a member of the Jewish Agency’s Executive. Over a quarter of WZO delegates are from Orthodox Zionists attesting to their sinister rising influence.

The Shalem Centre works closely with Elad the right-wing hardline colonist organization and militia that advocates illegal Jewish colonial settlement in East Jerusalem acquiring, in cahoots with the Jewish National Fund and its subsidiary Hemanuta, Palestinian properties often through threats, false depositions, forged documents, posthumous witness signatures and militant house takeovers.

Elad is mainly funded by the tax-exempt ‘charities’ Ir David Incorporated and the Irving Moskowitz Foundation which illegally funnel monies to Zionist political objectives. Moskowitz, the casino magnate, is a hardcore Zionist and founder of the Friends of Ateret Cohanim which finances Jews to live in East Jerusalem and owns about 70 properties in the Muslim Quarter. Daniel Luria, its chief fund-raiser commented “Our [fund-raising] activity in New York goes solely toward land redemption.” In 2005, Ateret Cohanim instigated, without license, an archaeological project tunneling 20 meters toward the Al-Aqsa compound causing damage to Palestinian homes in violation of the law.

Elad was given, without tender, exclusive control over the City of David Archaeological Park including a tunnel network that is being dug around and under the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Elad’s lucrative tours of the historic sites, although there is no historical evidence of David or Solomon’s existence, spout historical fabrications from the Jewish biblical narrative such as the Byzantine water pit that is falsified as Jeremiah’s pit. The 8000 year old Palestinian-Canaanite narrative is glossed over.

In December 2011, Australian listeners were treated to a fantasy tour of the so-called Palace of David by ABC presenter Rachael Kohn and archaeologist Avner Goren both of whom gushed forth fairytales about the mythical king absurdly comparing him to George Washington and sidestepping his dubious authenticity by urging trust in the Bible.

In archaeological circles there is an ongoing controversy about whether Biblical texts can be equated to history. In the 70s William Dever suggested that rather than Biblical Archaeology, the term Syro-Palestinian Archaeology (note not Syro-Israeli) was more appropriate and is used in academic circles.

Archaeologists who follow the Minimalist or Copenhagen school “conclude that the books of the Hebrew Bible were written during the Persian (or Hellenistic) period. The historical books actually contain made-up stories (that may have exploited some vague, ancient legends) through which the local organized refugee population provided itself with a mythic cover-(hi)story that linked it to the land and to a religion. This conclusion has two important corollaries: (1) Bible narratives about the political, social, and intellectual world of ancient Israel from Abraham to the temple’s destruction lack probative value. (2) Any narrative about what actually happened to the real people living in the central mountain areas of ancient Israel during what archaeologists call the Iron Age must, accordingly, be based on archaeological data alone. No other authentic sources for their history are available.”

It is widely accepted that the Bible originated in the 7th Century BCE, 300 years after David and other historical aberrations encompass the palaces officially ascribed to Solomon in Megiddo which are dated long after Solomon’s time. Cities conquered by Joshua in the 14th century BCE were destroyed well before that era. Daniel Gavron comments  that “The story of Abraham’s journey from Ur of the Chaldees, the Patriarchs, the Exodus, Sinai, and the conquest of Canaan, all these were apparently based on legends…” In 2004, Yuval Goren admitted he examined ” a seemingly endless line of fake biblical texts of various kinds. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of such forgeries referring especially to the time of the First Temple. It will not be an exaggeration to say that the disciplines of biblical history and archaeology have been contaminated to such an extent that no unprovenanced written source seems to be reliable anymore.”

Proof of David’s existence rests on a piece of stone found at Tel Dan in  northern Galilee (not Jerusalem) inscribed with the words ‘Beit David’ which could mean House of ‘David’ or ‘Beloved’  but not King David conclusively as with the sherd found at Tel Safi with  the name ‘Goliath’  which “almost certainly did not belong to David’s Goliath, if it does say “Goliath” then it shows that there was such a personal name used in the region at approximately the correct chronological period.” The first ancient reference to an Israelite king is found in an 8th Century BCE Assyrian document recording “King Ahab of Israel sent 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers.”

Sumud (steadfastness) life and land are synonymous in the Palestinian soul. King David may be a myth but it is the modern indigenous Palestinians, outcasts in their own land, who stand alone with the stone of sumud in their hands daily facing off the militant aliyah hordes backed by the Zionist Goliaths of multi-billion dollar empires, by Christian Zionist offerings, by the servile US Congress, by a depraved UK and EU and by a contemptibly inadequate United Nations.

- Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 and was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.

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February 11, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Israeli police close soccer club, charity fund in Silwan

Ma’an – 30/01/2012

TEL AVIV – Israeli police shut down two organizations in East Jerusalem on Sunday, Israeli media reported.

The soccer club and charity fund in the Silwan neighborhood will be closed for 30 days, Israeli news site Ynet reported.

They are alleged to be connected to Hamas, the report said.

Last week, Israeli forces detained the director and several employees of Wadi Hilweh information center in the same neighborhood.

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January 30, 2012 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a Comment

   

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