From Khalid Amayreh in Hebron
Palestinian leaders and Christian peace activists as
well as representatives of human rights organizations
operating in the occupied Palestinian territories on
Thursday made an impassioned appeal to
“all men and women of conscience all over the world”
to help stop Israeli army plans to close down and take
over several orphanages and boarding schools sheltering
thousands of orphans and impoverished students. Many
of the orphans’ parents had been killed by the Israeli
army and paramilitary Jewish terrorists, also known
as “settlers.”
The appeal was made during a press conference at the
main Girl Orphanage in downtown Hebron. The Israeli
army has repeatedly raided the orphanages, boarding
schools and affiliated institutions, vandalizing property,
seizing food, cloths and shoes and confiscating several
buses and cars.
The Israeli army accuses the Islamic Charitable Society,
the largest and oldest in occupied Palestine, of teaching
school children “radical ideas.”
However, the Charity lawyer Muhammed Farrah
dismisses the charges as “a big canard and a blatant lie.”
“We have challenged them to produce a shred of evidence
proving their claims. And so far they have failed to prove
any of their allegations.”
Art Arbor, a Christian Peace-maker Team (CPT) member
spoke at the beginning of the press conference, saying he
was pretty sure that Israeli charges against the Hebron
Charity were “baseless.”
“As a former headmaster in Canada, I can say I have seen here
some of the finest students and teachers anywhere, I have seen
good teachers and good students fully engaged. Last week I
attended an English class where teachers and students were
having fun, I saw teachers who produce students who will act
to make the world a better place.
“But all this is threatened now. And I want to tell you that
what the Israeli army is doing is not an assault on terror
but an assault on innocent people who take care of each other.
“ In fact, it is the IDF that is engaging in terror and
we are here to try to stop it.”
Taking the floor after Arbor was Nisreen Shawar, a local
English teacher. She accused the Israeli state of waging “an
all-out vindictive onslaught of smear, hate and vengeance
against innocent Palestinians whose sole crime is their
insistence on living and surviving.”
“We have been wrongfully accused of being terrorists and
promoting terror. We are not terrorists, and we don’t teach
terror. We are actually doing what school teachers all over
the world do, namely making children better people for a
better future. We teach kids to be kind, to tell the truth, to
be mentally alert, physical sound and morally straight. We
teach kids the same subjects taught anywhere in the world.”
Shawar compared the “terror canard against the Palestinians
with the blood libel against Jews in Europe during the Middle ages.”
“The only difference is that these canards are now made by
Jews in order to justify Israel’s slow-motion genocide against
our people.”
Nago Humbert, Head of the Swiss Medecins du Mond Agency,
lashed out at the immense brutality and savagery being
inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state and army.
“Closure of schools, storming orphanages in the dead of night,
destroying bakeries, confiscating food and clothes, throwing
orphan kids onto the street…What is happening here? What is
the lasting image Israel is going to leave in the minds of these
kids when they grow up?”
Humbert, who spoke in French, said he couldn’t really
understand what the Israeli army’s ultimate goal by
acting in this manner.”
“How can we teach Palestinian children non-violence when
Israel is doing to them all this, when Israeli soldiers are throwing
kids from their orphanages onto the streets. Israel is destroying
all our efforts.”
Paul Rehm, an American Christian peace activist from New York
described the callousness inherent in the Israeli army’s assault on
Hebron’s orphanages and other charitable institutions.
“How can we really relate to these callous acts, confiscating school
buses, raiding orphanages and terrorizing innocent children?,”
Rehm quoted Martin Niemoller, the famous Nazi-era German
priest, who lamented the German people’s silence in the face of
the enormous atrocities the Third Reich committed in the
course of the Second World War.
“When the Nazis came for the Communists, I remained silent;
after all I was not a Communist. When they locked up the
social democrats, I remained silent; after all I was not a
social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out; after all I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I didn’t speak out;
after all I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”
Two representatives from President Jimmy “Carter’s Center”
in Ramallah also showed up at the press conference and one of
them delivered a statement from the former US President.
The statement urged the Israeli government to rescind
military orders to shut down and expropriate school buildings,
orphanages and supporting businesses.
Far from being fazed by nonviolent protests against its draconian
measures in Hebron, the Israeli army last week stormed a bakery
owned by the Islamic Charitable Society, seizing ovens and other
equipments used to provide bread for thousands of orphans and
needy students.
The occupation army also raided and weld-sealed a cloth-making
facility employing grown-up orphan girls. Israeli soldiers reportedly
warned the girls that they would be jailed for up to six years if they
didn’t heed orders to leave the small cloth factory.
Palestinian leaders in Hebron have accused the Israeli state of
“resorting to a dirty game whereby all they have to do to wreck
a given Palestinian institution is to invoke the name of Hamas.”
“It is enough to claim that a given institution is associated with
Hamas to destroy that institution. This is very much like Nazi
Germany behaved toward political opponents prior to the Second
World War,” said Muhammed Hirbawi, a Hebron civic leader.
Hirbawi said the Israeli occupation army was acting as a
policeman, a plaintiff, a General Prosecutor and a judge
combined.
“This shows that non-Jews can’t really obtain justice under
the Israeli justice system. This is why the Palestinians need
a third party to protect them from Israel’s wanton criminality.”
The Israeli army has not given really convincing reasons for
its brutal onslaught against the Hebron charities. However,
Israeli officials are saying privately at least that Israel is doing
what the Western-backed Palestinian Authority wants.
Last month, an Israeli government official was quoted by the
Israeli radio as saying that “what we are doing in Hebron is in
the interest of (PA Chairman Mahmoud) Abbas.”
The PA denies any connivance with Israel against
the Hebron charities.
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