Nachfolgend eine
dringende Bitte um Unterstützung. Es geht um die zwangsweise Räumung
von 3 Häusern (3 Familien mit insgesamt 27 Personen) in Aquaba, einem
palästinensischen Dorf in der Westbank am Rande des Jordangrabens, für
dessen Annexion es in Israel seit Jahren und gerade wieder unter
Sharon deutliche Bestrebungen gibt. Es ist vielleicht etwas mühsam,
aber vielleicht kann trotzdem die eine oder der andere das
unterstützen. Ich selbst habe ein Fax außer an die Militärregierung
Westbank an Sharon und die Israelische Botschaft in Berlin
(030-8904 5555) geschickt.
Ingrid Rumpf
West Bank villagers threatened with
imminent expulsion
International action alert
After the background information
follows a request for sending your protest letter (sample letter given) to
an also given list of email and fax addresses.
Included is the address of a website from where you can send faxes all
over the world as a free internet-based service.
Tel Aviv, April 19, 2005
Yesterday morning (April. 18) the tiny
Palestinian village of Aqaba, south-east of Jenin, received a new
visitation from Asher, the local boss of the Israeli army's "Civil
Administration".
Aqaba villagers have long come to dread Asher's visits. On one past
occasion, he had come to decree that the village's mosque and
kindergarten were "illegally built" and had to be pulled down - a
threat removed only after half a year of struggle. This time around,
Asher came with expulsion orders for people. Three Aqaba families -
twenty seven adults and children in all - were handed orders stating:
"You are staying illegally in a closed zone, proclaimed according to
article 70 of the Judea and Samaria security ordinance 378 of 1970.
You are hereby ordered to vacate said closed zone within 72 hours.
Failure to heed this order may result in your removal by force and the
confiscation of your livestock, and you may be held accountable to
refund the army's expenses for said removal."
Nobody knows with certainty how long the
village of Aqaba had been declared "a closed zone" according to
occupation law. Aqaba has the bad fortune to be on the edge of the
Jordan Valley, an area earmarked for annexation to Israel as far back
as the Alon Plan of the early 1970's which still very much guides the
policies of the present government. The intended annexation of the
Jordan Valley appeared in a map published just last Friday (April 15,
2005) on the front page of Yediot Aharonot, reportedly reflecting the
territorial ambitions of the Sharon Government. Over the decades, its
inhabitants endured numerous acts of harassment by the Israeli
military, evidently aimed at making them go away "voluntarily".
The people of Aqaba have little recourse
except appealing to the help and support of people of good will,
inside Israel and internationally. In the past, such support proved
effective, and with your help it can prove so again. We ask you to
send, either the sample letter following or a text of your own, to the
addresses provided, and in addition try to get your newspaper and/or
radio or TV station interested in the issue.
---sample letter----
Dear Sir or Madam
I was shocked to hear that on the morning
of April 18, the "Civil Administration" of the Israeli military
government issued deportation orders to three families, altogether
comprising 27 adults and children, ordering them to leave within
seventy-two hours their village - the village of Aqaba, south-east of
Jenin on the West Bank. Let me note that Aqaba is a tiny village
numbering no more than a few hundred people. No violent incidents had
ever been marked there even at the height of the fighting of the past
four years. No charges were made against the people marked for
deportation other than "being illegally present in a closed zone".
This kind of behaviour by the military authorities would be
unacceptable at any time - all the more at what is supposed to be a
period of rapprochement and a renewed hope for peace. I ask you to do
all in your power to get this inhuman decree annulled forthwith, and
also to remove the classification of Aqaba village as "a closed zone"
under occupation law, which gives a "legal" base for such expulsion
orders.
[your name and address]
-----end sample letter-----
Hereafter follow the addresses to which we
hope you will send your complaint; the best is to send where possible
NOT ONLY an email but ALSO a fax, and therefore the first information
which follows is about a website from which faxes can be sent - NB, it
is a free advertiser based service:
Send your complaint to the following
addresses
To: the Civil Administration of the West
Bank military government: Fax 972-2 9977326
+ copies
To:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Street, P O Box 187
Jerusalem 91919, Israel
Fax: +972 2 6705475
E-mail:
pm_eng(at)pmo.gov.il
To:
Minister of Justice Tzippi Livni
Ministry of Justice
29 Salah al-Din Street
Jerusalem 91010, Israel
Fax: +972 2 6285438
E-mail:
sar(at)justice.gov.il
To: the nearest Israeli Embassy:
To:
President George W. Bush,
Fax: +1-202-456-2461;
To:
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice,
Fax: (+1)-202-261-8577;
To: the office of the special middle east
coordinator fax: (+1) 202 647 4808
To: Tony Blair, Prime Minister, Britain
(Fax +44-207-925-0918)
And last but not least:
________________________________
For further details:
Haj Sami Sadek, Mayor of Aqaba Ph. +972-9-2572201 Fax +972-9-2572201
Mobile +972-55-795286
Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Spokesperson +972-3-5565804, +972-50-6709603
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