i dont want to hijack the other thread
basically after 48 when iosrael was formed all of the arabs in what was then israel got citizenship. after the 67 occupation, the arabs that live in the ocupied territories only got permanent resident status. this differs from the jewish settlers that live in the occupied territories that have full israeli rights if not more than that. the settlements are all build on arab land 9as is most of legal isreal but that is a different story). the arabs are having their land taken away by new settlements and outposts. for if an israeli decides to put up a tent on palestinian farmland and call it a settlement, although it is illegal, he can get the army to protect him and thus the palestinian will not be able to go onto his land, and can risk being arrested if he gets too close. i was at a few activities where we were invited by palestinians onto their land, we would go near the outposts that were on a plaestinianss private property and try to build out own tents there and the army would immediatly tear it down, use violence against us, claiming that it was a closed military zone and then use stun grenades (they make a lot on noise and smoke). that is while the settlers are still in their tent on stolen land...
for the past two months almost there have been weekly protests in the east jerusaelm arab neighborhood of sheikh jarrah. the story is that the palestinians there were kicked out of west jerusalem in 48 and their houses and propert stolen. they moved to east jerusaelm and legally bought houses from the jordanians who then ruled the area. in the last year or so there have surrfaced documents that say that some jews owned some of the land in SJ from the time of the ottoman empire. the owners have transfered ownership to right wing settler organizations who have been getting aprroval from the courts to kick the palestinians onto the streets and "reclaim" the jewish land.
but the problem is first of all that these people now own the land, and bought it legally (the palestinians)
second of all, if israel is letting jews get back property that was theirs before 48(even though it didnt belong to the actual settlers moving in ) why cant the arabs get their homes back, which the courts have denied.
in addition this move is a government funded ethnic cleansing of east jerusalem so that there will be enough settlements in order to make it iompossible for east jerusalem to be the palestinian capital.
so every week a bunch of jewish activists, have been marching to east jerusalem and protesting, the first week we started as 20 people, last week which was the 6th week, we were 300. so that is good.
but the police and army are trying to stop us any way they can. over the last two weeks they have resorted to violence and mass arrests in order to stop our legal peacful protests.
two weeks they waited for any form of provocation and when it happened they jumped us and started dragging random people into the police cars. they peppered sprayed one activist straight in the eyes while he was just talking to them. they even brought in masked mistarvim, who are masked police officers that look like arabs that can be more violent towards us, and they can even attack the police to make it look liek leftists or arabs did it so that then the police can hit us even harder.
last week the police didnt give us a permit for our democratic right- to protest. so in order to be under to be under 50 people which would constitute an illegal protest we split into 5 groups for our march. the police arrested nine people for simply walking down the street, and claimed it was an "attempt to demonstrate." they arrested all of our drummers who drum every week, for that reason, simply walking down the street adn drumming.
then once we got to the demonstration area they arrested another 20 people for absolutely nothing, except for protesting.
this is just a tiny bit of what goes on to the arab population here- even the palestinian citizens have fewer rights than us jews do.
its fucked up. and we are the minority.
herre are some videos ffrom the last few weeks in east jerusalem
here are the drummers being arrested for no reason
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfXDzyzkUVA
here is from last week as well. it starts by seeing protesters trying to find a way to get to the neighborhood since the police blocked all entrances.
then them arrsting people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhB8PwBdrvQ
when they do the mass arrests they keep the protesters locked in the settlers yard until their arresting vans arrive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhB8PwBdrvQ
here is another one of them arresting people randomly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIsvt4W4nGU
police pepperspraying an activist for not doing anytrhing (at 29 seconds- and at 1:30 you can see his face covered with pepper spray)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ICzX...eature=related
some articles on what happened there
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135709.html
i skimmed this article and she says everything that i did, but a bit better
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_a...s.php?id=15624
thats it for now, i have to leave in a bit for this weeks protest