Update From The Land #2 – June 19, 2014

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Update From Daoud – June 19, 2014

Dear friends,

Greetings from all of us at the Tent of Nations. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support. We are still receiving Emails, letters and phone calls from friends and people who are concerned about our situation. It is great to see how people all over are backing us and it is an inspiration for us to see how people are committed to the issue of justice.

As many of you know, there’ve been many articles written about the destruction of trees, also in Israeli newspapers like Haaretz. Just recently the story was also published on BBC; about one million people already read it (Note from FOTONNA: Please see the BBC article by Daniel Silas Adamson and the Haaretz Article by Ilene Prusher posted on this website).

On the legal issue, our lawyer appealed and we are now waiting for a response. We are committed to solve this issue in a nonviolent way using legal issues.

On the practical level, it is the time now to do some work on the ground. We are planning to start very soon with rebuilding the terraces again. We will have to work with big machines and equipments to soften the ground, remove all the buried trees, roots and big rocks from it and building the supporting walls. The family cave in the valley will be renovated to be used as a permanent residence. This type of work is scheduled for July, August and September.

Manual labour is needed; international volunteers are welcome to come and join us to do this type of work.

For this October, we will be fencing the area and do the last preparation (cultivation with a tractor) for the planting of hundreds of trees.

After the first rain, hopefully in November, we will start planting. We would like to invite you all to come and plant the trees of hope for justice and peace. All are welcome to join during the months starting December 2014 until March 2015. (Note from FOTONNA: We will be posting a schedule of upcoming volunteer opportunities on our website. Please stay tuned).

Your presence at theTent of Nations will make a difference.

Blessings and Salaam,

Daoud Daoud Nassar
Director Tent of Nations -people building bridges-
Tel:+972-(0)2 274 30 71
Fax: +972-(0)2 276 74 46 Cell: +972-(0)522 975 985 E-mail: dnassar@tentofnations.orgwww.tentofnations.org

 

Legal Basis for Formal Protest of Land Loss – June 19, 2014

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http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/internationallaw/studyguides/sgil3.htm

This was done by the International Law Resource Center in Washington, DC and is provided for information only.

The following was provided by a friend of FOTONNA:

*The Leahy Law prohibits assistance to individuals or units of any > foreign military or police body that commit gross human rights abuses; > > * > >

*The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (Art. 25 (1);

*The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 > (Art. 17);

*The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of > Racial Discrimination of 1969 (Art. 5 (e) (111);

*The Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1990 (Arts. 16, 27); and,

*General Comments 4 (1991) and 7 (1997) of the UN Committee on > Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, that protect the human and > civil rights of all persons, even and especially those persons who > are living under Occupation.

 

The Christian Family Refusing to Give Up Its Bethlehem Hill Farm

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BBC News Magazine Report – June 17, 2014
The Christian Family Refusing to Give Up
its Bethlehem Hill Farm
By Daniel Silas Adamson – Bethlehem

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A Palestinian Christian family that preaches non-violence from a farm in the West Bank is battling to hold on to land it has owned for 98 years. Now surrounded by Israeli settlements, the family is a living example of the idea of peaceful resistance.

On his farm outside Bethlehem, Daher Nassar is picking apples from the ruins of the orchard he planted at least eight years ago. The fruit is scattered across ground freshly opened and imprinted with the tracks of a bulldozer. At the field’s edge, branches reach out from inside a mound of earth, the bark stripped and mangled, unripe almonds still clinging to the trees.

On 19 May a Palestinian shepherd from the village of Nahalin was out at first light and saw the bulldozer at work in the field, guarded by Israeli soldiers. By the time Nassar arrived the whole orchard – the best part of a decade’s work – was gone. His English is far from fluent, but there’s no mistaking the pain in his voice: “Why you broke the trees?”

A spokesperson for the Israeli military authorities in the West Bank said the trees were planted illegally on state land.

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Nassar’s sister, Amal, has a different explanation. The government, together with the Israeli settlers who live around the farm, is “trying to push us to violence or push us to leave,” she says. Amal insists that her family will not move from the land, nor will they abandon their commitment to peaceful resistance.

“Nobody can force us to hate,” she says. “We refuse to be enemies.”
That phrase, which is painted on a stone at the entrance to the farm, was first used by her father, Bishara Nassar. Long before the concept became widely known among Palestinians, he taught his children a theory of non-violence that was rooted in his own Christian beliefs.

Bishara (“Gospel”) Nassar was a child when his father bought this land in 1916. Even at that time, as World War One transformed the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire limped to an end, Palestinian Christians were beginning to emigrate. After the war of 1948 the Christian exodus from the West Bank quickened, and Bishara, who was a gifted preacher and accordionist, began to travel round the nearby villages, singing songs and leading Bible study in family homes. Music and stories, he thought, might deepen the faith and lift the spirits of Bethlehem’s Christian children, encouraging them to stay.

Bishara also came to believe that the Christian community had a special role to play in building a more peaceful future.

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“My father always said, ‘We will never achieve peace in Palestine and Israel just by shaking hands – we need to work on people, to start with the grassroots’,” says Amal Nassar. “So what we do now, as a family, is fulfilling the dream of my father that people can build bridges, for hope, for understanding, reconciliation, dialogue, to achieve peace. This is the idea.”

Guided by that vision, she and her brothers have transformed the farm into a centre for peace-building and non-violent resistance called the Tent of Nations.

For more than 20 years they have held workshops here, welcoming Israeli students, rabbis, and peace activists, as well as groups from across Europe and America. They run summer camps for local schools, teaching Palestinian children about non-violence and encouraging them to develop a love for the land by working and playing on the farm. This is especially important, says Amal Nassar, for a generation that has grown up in the refugee camps and urban sprawl behind Israel’s separation barrier. She also trains Palestinian women in non-violence, while her mother – Bishara’s widow, Milada – cooks traditional food for the day’s guests.

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Amal Nassar (in the white T-shirt) singing with volunteers at the Tent of Nations farm

Milada Nassar says her husband would have been proud of what his children have created. But in the years since his death in 1976, the family’s commitment to non-violence has been tested in ways he could never have imagined.

At that time the West Bank had been under Israeli military rule for almost a decade, and Jewish settlers were just beginning to move into the area south of the farm. For the most part, though, the hills around Bishara’s land were still open countryside, farmed by Palestinian families or used as grazing by shepherds. In the 40 years since, Israeli settlements have been built on every one.

There are five settlements in total, the nearest so close that the settlers’ voices carry across the valley to the farm. The most recent, Netiv Ha’avot, is little more than a strip of houses encircled by coils of razor wire and festooned with Israeli flags. The largest, Beitar Illit, is a town of more than 40,000 people, a blaze of lights on the hillside at night. All of them are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

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As they watched the settlements rise around them in the 1980s, the Nassars began to worry. Their farm was in a prime location, close to the main north-south road through the West Bank and on high ground.

In 1991 their fears were confirmed. The military authorities declared that more than 90% of the farm now belonged to the State of Israel. Gush Etzion, one of the biggest settlement blocks in the West Bank, looked set to expand on to the Nassar farm.
The Nassars, though, refused to leave, or to see the land divided. And virtually alone among Palestinian farmers, they had the documents they needed to launch an appeal in the Israeli courts.

In 1924, realising that the Ottoman Empire was finished and worried by rising tensions between Arabs and Jews, Bishara Nassar’s father had registered his property with Palestine’s new imperial rulers. The British issued land deeds that specified the size and borders of the farm, and Bishara’s father, who was a literate man, held on to the documents. Almost 70 years later, those papers would form the basis of a legal case that has been in front of the Israeli courts for 23 years. It remains unresolved.

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Official copy of the 1924 land deeds

“They know very well that the Palestinians cannot afford to defend the land,” says Amal Nassar, “so they give up hope and leave.” But the family have somehow found the money and determination to keep their appeal alive.

When they were informed, after 10 years in the military courts, that their Palestinian lawyer was not eligible to contest the case in Israel’s supreme court – because he carried West Bank identity papers – they found an Israeli firm willing to take it on. When they were told to provide a land survey, they hired (at a cost of $70,000) an Israeli surveyor, and sent him to consult maps and documents in the imperial archives of London and Istanbul. When they were asked to bring witnesses in support of their claim to have farmed the land for three generations, they hired a bus to take more than 30 Palestinian villagers to the military court near Ramallah. “We had to wait five hours outside the court under the sun,” remembers Amal Nassar. “And then, after five hours, a soldier come out, they say, ‘We don’t want witnesses, go home.’

“Every time they see you are ready to meet their demands, they ask [for something] more and more difficult, [so] that you say ‘I am fed up, I cannot.’ Yes, this [is] always the process. We know it. It’s a game to push us to leave.”

The way Amal sees it, the Israeli military and the settlers, having failed to evict the family by legal means, are now trying to force them out. She remembers the settlers who uprooted 250 young olive trees in 2002, and who permanently closed the road to the farm with rubble. The demolition orders posted on the gate, threatening to destroy the Nassars’ home and water wells. The soldiers who, in 2009, forced her 72-year-old mother out of bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night and made her wait in the cold while they searched the farm.

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Vehicles park where the road to the Tent of Nations farm is blocked

The Israeli authorities in the West Bank insist that by destroying the Nassars’ orchard and posting demolition orders on the Tent of Nations, they are simply enforcing planning regulations. “We are not intimidating the family,” said a spokesperson for CoGAT, the body responsible for implementing Israeli policy in the West Bank. “We are not doing any of those steps in order to make the family leave. We are enforcing the law.”

The Israeli military did not respond to the specific allegations made by the Nassars, but they, too, denied that the family is subject to a campaign of harassment: “The assertion that the IDF seeks to intimidate as a means of eviction is farcical, and an absolute contradiction of the reality on the ground in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]. The reality of Judea and Samaria, in which acts of Palestinian terrorism and extreme violence continue to rise, presents a complex security challenge. Nonetheless, the IDF remains committed to fulfilling its mission of safeguarding security and stability in the region, in a highly professional manner based on the morals and code of ethics that stand as a pillar of all IDF activities.”

Amal Nassar’s younger brother, Daoud, is not impressed by the moral code of the men who uprooted his orchard. But neither is he angry: “We are willing to build up a better future in a non-violent way… without hatred,” he says. “Our response to this injustice will never be with violence, and we will never give up and leave.”

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Palestinians have a word that captures this refusal to be provoked or demoralized: sumud. Sometimes translated as ‘steadfastness’, sumud describes the stubborn, patient determination to stay on the land and to carry on in spite of all the difficulties of living under military occupation.

It is a quality embodied by Daher Nassar, who, even as he walks across a scarred and empty field, is imagining the orchard he’ll harvest 10 years from now.  “I will plant more trees,” he says. “Double trees.”

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The Tree Uprooting Heard Around the World

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The Nassar family had its fruit trees in the West Bank uprooted by the army last month despite a pending legal appeal, which the army now says wasn’t done properly.

By Ilene Prusher | Jun. 12, 2014 | 4:55 AM

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A mural mosaic at the Tent of Nations. Photo by Ilene Prusher

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Daher Nassar points to the place where his fruit trees were uprooted by the IDF, near the village of Nahalin. Photo by Ilene Prusher

Daher Nassar keeps farmer’s hours, rising early to tend his fruit trees. But on one recent morning, one of the villagers overlooking his orchard called him extra early and woke him. His trees, which he says numbered about 1,500, had been bulldozed and removed by the Israel Defense Forces before the sun rose over the West Bank hilltops.

Now, he looks out wistfully at the hard earth of the valley known as Wadi Salem, a few leftover branches jutting out here or there. “I raised those trees like I raised my own children,” he says, standing in the valley just below the Palestinian villages of Nahalin and lying low beneath the high-ground settlement of Neve Daniel. “I had figs, apples, apricots, olives, grape vines. Why would they destroy them?”

The uprooting happened on May 19. A few weeks prior, the IDF’s Civil Administration left a notice under a large rock near the trees, saying that it was state land that must be evacuated. In response, on May 12, the Nassar family filed an appeal through their lawyer, stating that they could prove that the trees were planted on family land. Although no verdict was given and only a week had passed, the trees were uprooted and removed anyway, the land bulldozed.

What has followed since then has been nothing less than an international maelstrom. Various human rights groups — including Jewish American groups who since 2000 have been coming to visit the Nassar family’s “Tent of Nations” up the hill — have expressed outrage at what seems like an inexplicable act, one that violates Israel’s own legal procedures. And as the Nassars are Christians involved in peace activism, running summer camps for Palestinian youth and seminars for local and international adults focused on nonviolence, many American Christian groups and have also taken up the family’s cause, particularly the Presbyterian Church. An article last week in Commentary, a conservative American Jewish magazine, seized on the issue under the headline: “Presbyterians’ Tent of Nations Propaganda,” suggesting that “traditional anti-Semitism” was behind the American church’s interest in the matter. CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, has also jumped on the issue, accusing Christian activists of “passing on anti-Israel propaganda offered to them by Palestinian Christians in the West Bank as the gospel fact.”

CAMERA, which focuses on criticizing the media’s coverage of Israel, quoted Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in defense of the May 19 uprooting of the trees, saying that no appeal on behalf of the Nassar family had ever been filed. This week, however, ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Haaretz that that information was incorrect, following evidence that such an appeal had in fact been made.

“It now seems that the information was partly erroneous, and that an appeal was actually filed by Nassar on May 2014, as he claims. We’re waiting for clarifications from COGAT,” Palmor said in an e-mail response, referring to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a branch of the IDF.

In the latest development, however, the IDF says that the appeal was not done in the proper way, and therefore, it was never discussed in court. The Civil Administration, the branch of part of the IDF that carries out demolitions in the West Bank, thus was not told there was any reason to halt their order to uproot the trees, says Maj. Guy Inbar, the COGAT spokesman.

“We just yesterday talked with the [Ofer Military] court, and the court told me that Mr. Nassar’s appeal was not discussed because it was not made as it should be,” Inbar told Haaretz Tuesday. “First, there’s a tax that you need to pay to make an appeal, and they did not pay that tax. Second, Mr. Nassar’s lawyer gave this appeal without showing that he has power of attorney, and that is necessary to start the appeals process,” said Inbar, referring to Daher Nassar’s younger brother, Daoud, who is the family’s main spokesman but was away in the United States when the trees were uprooted.

“After a court decision that Mr. Nassar has not shown any ownership of the land, on land that the state says is state land, and after Mr. Nassar was given the opportunity to remove those trees himself, after all of that, we enforced the law and removed those trees,” Inbar said.

Reporters in the Middle East are accustomed to the extreme sport of trying to figure out whose version of the story is closer to the truth, and this one is no exception. While the Nassar family says they had 1,500 trees planted in the valley, Inbar says there were only 300 and that there are aerial photographs to prove it. The Nassars say the trees were there for 10 or more years; Inbar says there was nothing there until 2007.

Moreover, Inbar says that the trees seem to be an attempt to blur the issues. The Tent of Nations, which is located up the hill about a kilometer away, is also a subject of ongoing dispute with the state. Inbar said it is considered an “illegal post,” with some of it on private Palestinian land and some of it on state land. The dispute is awaiting a decision by the High Court of Justice, he said.

“Until we will have a court decision, we won’t take steps to demolish this illegal post,” Inbar said. Even if you’re living on private land, you have to get permits in order to start building.”

The Nassar siblings say they clearly hold the deeds to the land that their grandfather bought in 1916. They’ve been in the area for generations; their families once dwelled primarily in caves. Their father, Bishara Daher Nassar, had a dream of turning the hilltop into a place for peacemaking, and even had a motto: “We refuse to be enemies.” In 2000, several of his nine children established the Tent of Nations, an educational and environmental farm. It’s become a place to welcome peace-oriented groups — including Jewish groups — and host summer camps for Palestinian kids.

One of those groups is Encounter, which brings Jews — mostly Americans but also Israelis — to the West Bank to meet Palestinians, particularly those dedicated to nonviolence. In their trips to meet Palestinians with an eye toward better understanding the conflict, Encounter often stops at the Tent of Nations on their way to or from Bethlehem.

“I met the Nassar family in 2008. They were immediately warm and welcoming of us bringing groups, including Jewish Americans and Jewish Israelis. Their whole mission is to bring groups of people together to increase understanding of what’s happening to Palestinians,” explains Ilana Sumka, the former Jerusalem director of Encounter and now a volunteer consultant to the group living in Belgium.

“It’s in Area C, and that means that it’s a rare place that’s accessible for people with Israeli citizenship to meet Palestinians,” added Sumka, who recently organized a conference call with the Nassar family and 30 Encounter alumni — many of them rabbis and lay leaders in the American Jewish community.

Independent of Encounter, Sumka is organizing a delegation of Jews to come to the site to do a tree-replanting mission. It is planned for next February, the planting season. “I want to let the Nassar family know that the Israeli government’s bulldozers don’t represent my Jewish values,” she explained.

Daoud Nassar said in a phone interview yesterday that he was surprised to hear that the IDF now argues that the appeal against the tree uprooting was somehow not legitimate.

“We appealed on May 12, and that appeal was stamped by the authorities. The lawyer has the documents to prove that. The question is why this happened, after we appealed, which according to the law is not right,” Nasser told Haaretz. “For us, this is about justice. We’re trying to do everything legally. The Supreme Court decided in 2006 that we are able to re-register our land here according to Israeli law, but the authorities are always postponing this process, until today. We keep investing our frustrations in a positive way, and are trying to do something hopeful.”

 

Update from the Land – #1 – May 31, 2014

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And the soldier’s child asked his soldier-father, “What did you do today, daddy?”
His reply, “I drove a bulldozer today.”
“Was it fun, daddy?”
“Oh, yes – it was lots of fun!”
“What did you do with the bulldozer, daddy?”
“I helped dig a big pit in the ground of our enemy – helped knock down almost 2,000 trees – buried them in the rubble of the ruined land.”
“What did you do today, child?”
“Oh, daddy, we had such fun, too!  We planted a lemon tree in our backyard – in our settlement home – overlooking the valley….”

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May 31, 2014

Dear Friends –

Daoud visited the devastated land for the first time mid-week.  The full scope of the destruction left him heartbroken, of course.  He told us that there was one lone fig tree left standing on the side of the hill (on purpose? by accident?) that was the sole witness to the work of the IDF soldiers.  It now stands as a living monument to what was lost – a lone sentinel that will someday have new friends, thanks to you.  The lawyers are still working with the courts – will update you as news comes in.

Please Note:  We know that many people want to organize trips and groups to help re-terrace the land and then re-plant the lost trees.  Daoud will need to have your long-term support for this, as he will be working hard at organizing a schedule of when, who and how this can be most productively done.  Please be patient with the process; this will take a long time, and there will be work enough for everyone over the next year or two – or maybe even three!

Please make note of the corrections/updates listed below; we had a bit of outdated contact information that made it into our Timeline and Petition Letter (my apologies):

  • Samantha Power is the current US Ambassador to the United Nations;
  • Email that will get notices forwarded to Daniel Shapiro, Ambassador of the US to Israel, is:  JerusalemACS@state.gov;
  • Replace the Israeli Foreign Service Desk (under US Department of State contact info) with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), headed by Assistant Secretary Anne Patterson.
  • Add to your US Department of State contact info:  Christopher P. Henzel, Director of Israel and Palestinian Affairs (met with Daoud in February 2014).

We have been told that the State Department needs to hear from Congress before taking any real stance on this issue.  If you haven’t already contacted your Senators and Representatives, please take time to do so now.  Here is an easy link for you to use (just one of many that have gone out):

Congressional action alert:
http://www.maryknollogc.org/alerts/tent-nations-trees-terraces-destroyed-israeli-military

Scroll down in the body of the text and click on Write your senators and representative…, fill in the information and Submit.  If you haven’t signed our FOTONNA Petition Letter yet, you can do so through this link, also.

There has been an overwhelmingly supportive response from around the globe from friends of the Nassar family and the work carried out at Tent of Nations.  Individuals and organizations have put together their own petition letters, written to political leaders, called influential leaders at all levels of government, written oped pieces for their papers, and carried out demonstrations in front of the Israeli Embassy in NYC.  Peace groups from all persuasions are standing in solidarity with this remarkable family.  FOTONNA alone had 2,500+ signatures on its petition as of May 28, 2014, and the list is growing.

Over the last week, with your help, we were able to accomplish the following:

  1. sent out our Timeline and Petition Letter to over 1,780 email address and 360+ snail mail addresses for FOTONNA;
  2. spoke to many groups in Washington state on the 2014 Tour during the time of the crisis – news hot off the press!;
  3. contacted religious leaders, US State Department officials, Consulate officials in Jerusalem, and have emailed letters to the White House and other politicians with whom Daoud had just spent time in early May;
  4. responded to literally hundreds of emails and phone calls over the last week;
  5. had interviews with several radio station hosts and journalists, including an interview with Melinda Tuhus – can read about it on www.btlonline.org or on her blog post:  http://www.melindatuhus.net/blog;
  6. participated in a national conference call through Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) with Daoud as the featured speaker – had 134 ‘listeners’ sign on;
  7. received over 80,000+ hits on Daoud’s facebook page within the first couple of days of the word spreading like wildfire over the air waves;
  8. had a huge spike in number of ‘likes’ on the FOTONNA facebook page during May 20-27:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-the-Nassar-Family-FarmTent-of-Nations-Demolition/107340499312794;
  9. on May 29, had all of the FOTONNA Petition Letter signatures (2,500+) and CMEP Petition Letter signatures (1,760+) (as of May 28) delivered by former Ambassador Warren Clark (Executive Director of CMEP) and Russell Testa (JPIC Animator for the Holy Name Province Franciscans) to John Kerry’s office through intermediaries US Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Martin Indyk, and Dr. Shaun Casey (both men acknowledge that they were aware of the situation on the land);
  10. received questions and advice from other organizations and individuals as to next steps to take so we present a united front and a consistent message from the Nassar family;
  11. received a videotape of Daoud’s May 18th presentation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, Washington – will be posted on the FOTONNA website; You can view the video here. and
  12. videotaped* a conversation with Daoud while in Arlington, VA on May 27 before he flew home; on Tuesday, June 3, a friend will be visiting with Daoud on the land and will be videotaping footage from the valley on the farm so you can see the true scope of the damage – should be available sometime during the end of the first week of June (please see the click-on Videos on the website).

*This video was done by ******** who flew in to Arlington from Austin, Texas on May 24th to add to the ongoing documentary on the Nassar family he will be producing over the next 2-3 years; he also traveled with Daoud and Bill Plitt on the first half of the Spring 2014 Tour in Washington, taping parts of the various presentations there.  You can help support this project by:

Please check out a 2012 blog post by Pastor Fred Strickert.  He and his wife Gloria served from July 2010 to December 2012 as ELCA Global Mission personnel in Jerusalem where Fred was Pastor of the English-speaking Congregation at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the heart of the Old City and also Special Assistant to Bishop Munib Younan of the ELCJHL.  They got to know the Nassars very well during their stay there.

http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/2012/12/we-refuse-to-be-enemies.html

We will not be sending any more email updates to you directly at this point.  Please keep in touch at www.fotonna.org and www.tentofnations.org with our ongoing updates as they are sent from Daoud.  FOTONNA and Tent of Nations will post them as often as needed, and we will be making specific “ASKS” from you when the political and legal picture becomes clearer over the next few days and weeks.  At this point, we are going to:

  1. prevent any more destruction on the land;
  2. keep up the pressure on the courts to finally re-register the land in the Nassar family name; and
  3. support the Nassar family as they seek financial recompense from the Israeli Military for their illegal actions and for the incredible loss of twelve years of hard work, 1,500-2,000 lost trees and grape vines, lost revenue from the sale and/or use of the fruit, etc.

We cannot thank all of you enough for the wonderful responses you made to our appeals for support.  It is also nearly impossible to capture the breadth, depth and width of this movement worldwide.  We are just a small piece in this whirlwind of action – small, but fierce – and there will be justice in the end.

In solidarity and with deep gratitude for all of you –

The FOTONNA Steering Committee:
Bill Plitt, Executive Director
Daoud Nassar, Director of Operations
Bill Mims, Secretary
Nadia Itraish, Outreach and Advisory Council Liaison
Michael Phillips, Fundraising and Business Advisor
Beth Moore, Tour Coordinator
Kay Plitt, Finance/Communications
Mark Braverman, Senior Consultant

FOTONNA Emergency Response Plans Petition Letter Included

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May 20, 2014

The Tent of Nations Peace Project came under an unwarranted, illegal and unannounced attack on May 19, 2014 by the Israeli Military.  They brought in bulldozers and destroyed between 1,500 and 2,000 mature, fruit-bearing apricot and apple trees and grape vines in the lower valley on the farm.  In addition, they reduced the terraced land to rubble in order to prevent any future planting from taking place any time soon.  We would like to have you sign the petition letter, and if you are inclined, add your own personal note of protest and request for action/inquiry on behalf of the Nassar family.  We encourage you to forward this letter far and wide.  There is a time when you have to say, “Enough is Enough!”

Sign The Petition

 

Petition Letter: Download Printable Version – Word Doc | PDF

 

Thanks for taking the time to help the Nassars at this time; we will forward your responses to the following:

This petition letter is being written in protest of the actions by the Israeli Military Courts against the Nassar family and their Tent of Nations Peace Project.  This family has documentation of ownership for their 100-acre farm, located just six miles southwest of Bethlehem in the West Bank, dating back to the Ottoman Empire.  They have been working through the Israeli Military/Civil Courts and the Israeli Supreme court since 1991, defending their ownership rights to this land called Daher’s Vineyard.  So far, they have been able to hold back serious threats with legal challenges/appeals through the courts.  In December 2012, new demolition orders were issued for 10 structures on the farm (including animal pens, compost toilets, temporary tent structures, cisterns, etc.) and three more structures were added in January 2013.  None of these structures poses a security threat to neighboring Israeli settlements.

The family protested these actions through their lawyer; they applied for new building permits for all 13 structures.  In addition, they submitted the following information by February 24, 2013:

  • Additional land survey maps:  one topographical map which shows the farm location in the region; two technical maps, one at 1/250 scale and the other 1/50,000 scale, which show the new structures and their locations and dimensions;
  • Plans for sources of providing electricity and water to the land from the village and for provisions for gray water and filtration systems;
  • Approval/signature of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, certifying that the land is agricultural land.

As of mid-April 2014, there had been no word from the Military Court as to their decisions regarding these matters; the family never knows what to expect or when to expect it.  In late April/early May 2014, however, the Military Authorities placed a warning on the land declaring that the trees were planted on “State Land” and, therefore, constituted a trespass and should be “evacuated”!  On May 5, the Nassar family filed an appeal with the Military Court against this order and clarified that the land was not “State Land” and that the trees were planted on the family land.  Furthermore, they clarified that the Supreme Court had declared that the Nassar family should continue with the “re-registration” process of their land.

According to the law, no demolition or evacuation is allowed once an appeal is filed and until a final verdict has been delivered.  In spite of this fact, however, they rushed to destroy the land and uproot the trees.  On May 19, 2014, the Israeli Military brought in bulldozers and, unannounced, illegally destroyed between 1,500 and 2,000 mature, fruit-bearing apricot and apple trees and grape vines in the lower valley on the land as well as reducing the terraced land to rubble.  We would like you to look into this situation as soon as possible and help us prevent any additional destructive action on the part of the Israeli Military from taking place.  This family lives by the motto “We Refuse to be Enemies” and is committed to solving issues in a non-violent manner.  This 22-year struggle must come to an end in a just and legal manner and we urge you to use your influence to ensure that justice does prevail in this case.

Sincerely,

Friends of Tent of Nations North America – Steering Committee:
Bill Plitt, Executive Director
Daoud Nassar, Operations Director
Bill Mims, Secretary
Nadia Itraish, Outreach/Advisory Council Liaison
Michael Phillips, Fundraising/Business Advisor
Beth Moore, Tour Planning
Kay Plitt, Finance/Communications
Mark Braverman, Senior Consultant

May 20, 2014 – Timeline of Events

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Timeline of Events

Dear Friends – The last time we called for action on the part of supporters of Tent of Nations, you all rallied within hours to write letters of personal concern and support for the Nassar Family.  Those letters helped stop what could have been very destructive action on the farm by the Israeli Military.  Every comment was deeply appreciated, and we need your support one more time in light of the latest action by the Israeli Military.  We will be sending you a Petition Letter to sign and forward, but your own personal note or letter carries much more power.  We encourage you to do both!

  • In 2009, on two separate occasions, Israeli soldiers forced their way onto the property, conducting searches of family members and internationals and threatening to return with eviction papers.  They never followed through on that particular threat.
  • In May of 2010, they did issue nine demolition orders to remove buildings, tents, animal sheds and restrooms which they claimed the family had no permission to build.  The Nassars went to court to stop the demolitions, and no action was taken on the part of the Military courts.
  • In April 2011, a court decision was made, without the family’s lawyer present, to follow through on the demolition orders because of a plan to build an Israeli-only road nearby.  The lawyer intervened and, to date, no action has taken place.
  • On February 14, 2012,  as the family was working in the ‘Trees of Life’ orchard, volunteers found, in three different places (under rocks and tacked onto trees), papers with maps signed by the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria (which is the Israeli Military Government) giving them 45 days to appeal their claim to the land or the land would become State Land.  This order covered one-third of the existing 100-acre farm.  The family lawyer filed an appeal immediately.  Many other Palestinian farmers discovered similar notices under rocks on their land.  To date, there has been no decision on the appeal.
  • On Monday, May 19, 2012, demolition orders were posted on a portion of the farm in the valley in the same manner as the earlier notices.  This time the authorities identified a cistern which has been in use for ten years that was scheduled to be demolished within three days.  While the order was contested, the Court ruled in favor of the military, but no action has been taken.
  • Other acts of harassment have occurred on a regular basis.  On May 5, 2012, civil authorities came and removed the barricade on the road that connects both the farm and the village of Nahalin to Route 60, the main north/south highway in the area.  The next day, the bulldozer came and re-barricaded the road, thereby preventing any movement by local residents.  Palestinians now, in order to travel between Bethlehem and the Nassar family farm, must travel through the villages of Nahalin and Husan.  This is a burdensome detour for them as well as for the 20,000 villagers affected by these new regulations.
  • On December 13, 2012, military trucks and large jeeps entered the west side of the village of Nahalin and destroyed olive trees that grow between the village and the settlement of Beitar Elit in the west.  Immediately after doing so, they drove to the east side of the village, near Daher’s Vineyard (the family property) and uprooted several fruit trees belonging to village farmers in addition to trees on the Vineyard.
  • On December 16, 2012, the Nassar family received notice that their appeal to the Military Court had been denied.  The Nassars were given 45 days (January 30 deadline) to demolish the structures themselves or reapply for permits which will cost them $1,500 per structure.  Under the ‘New Rules’ they will also need to submit a zoning plan and sign an agreement that, if the permits are denied, they will pay for the costs of demolishing the structures.  The Nassars are trying to determine the intentions of the Israelis in the hope that access to the farm can be preserved.  They have reapplied again for permanent registration of their land.  As always, the family wishes to proceed calmly, constructively and legally.

On January 31, 2013, the family lawyer was told the following:

The family must reapply for all previous permits (13) including the more recent structures, such as:  big tent, cistern near home, a cistern in the valley, and the office trailer.  They must do this with the understanding that for those structures denied a permit, the Nassars must demolish them at their own expense.

  • They must submit additional land survey maps:  one topographical map which shows the farm location in the region; two technical maps, one at 1/250 scale and the other 1/50,000 scale, which show the new structures and their locations and dimensions.
  • They must submit plans for sources of providing electricity and water to the land from the village and for provisions for gray water and filtration systems.
  • They must apply for approval/signature of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, certifying that the land is agricultural land.

All submissions were due by February 24, 2013;
the family was able to meet each of the criteria set out for them.
The courts have not as yet responded to the Nassars appeals
or requests for building permits.

  • In January 2014, three “stop cultivation” orders were found on the land.  The Nassars had their lawyers look into the situation, but the courts have not responded to these appeals, either.
  • In early May 2014, 1,000 dunums (250 acres) of land bordering the road leading to the farm and south of the nearby village of Nahalin were declared as State Land; this was land owned by other Palestinian farmers.  The old blockade to the road leading to the farm was enlarged with additional piles of rubble and boulders, making it even more difficult to walk from the road to the Tent of Nations Peace Project site.
  • In late April, the Israeli Military authorities placed a warning on the land declaring that the trees were planted on “State Land” and, therefore, constituted a trespass and should be “evacuated”!
  • On May 5, 2014, the Nassar family filed an appeal with the Military Court against the order.  According to the law, no demolition or evacuation is allowed once an appeal is filed and until a final verdict has been forthcoming.
  • On May 19, 2014, the Israeli Military bulldozed between 1,500 and 2,000 mature, fruit-bearing apricot and apple trees and grape vines growing in the lower valley of the farm and destroyed the terraced land that had been cleared for planting.  There was no forewarning given, and this was an illegal act on the part of the IDF.

As you know, the Nassar Family Farm/Tent of Nations Peace Project has a long history of modeling peaceful co-existence with its neighbors through teaching courses and providing workshops and conferences for women and youth.  It also provides opportunities for internationals, Israelis and Palestinians to unite in solidarity around a common dream of a just peace.  You have been a part of that journey through your support.  For some of you, a visit to the farm itself has made it even more personal.  In 2013, 7,000 international visitors were welcomed to the land by the Nassar family.  Some were volunteers who worked the land and others were volunteers who taught a variety of workshops in the Women’s Education Center in Nahalin or helped with the Summer Youth Camps.  Others included church groups, religious leaders from all faiths, and interfaith peace delegations.  We are hoping that all of you will take time to stand with the Nassar family and place as much pressure as possible on your church leaders, political representatives, State Department, and even the White House to ensure that no more unwarranted destruction takes.

We will continue to keep you updated on our website at:  www.fotonna.org.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions.

With deep gratitude for your support – Bill Plitt, Executive Director – FOTONNA Steering Committee

Sample appeal letter: Download Printable Version – Word Doc | PDF

Dear (church/community leader, etc.),

I/we are writing this letter to call for action against acts of injustice by the Israeli Military towards a Palestinian Christian family (the Nassar family) that has registration papers for their 100-acre farm dating back to the Ottoman Empire.  The family has been working through the Israeli Military/Civil Courts and the Israeli Supreme Court since 1991 to defend their rights to the land on a vineyard just six miles southwest of Bethlehem in the Occupied Territories of Palestine (the West Bank).  A Peace Project was established on the land in 2001 called Tent of Nations.  Thousands of international visitors have visited the farm, worked as volunteers, held workshops and conferences in the facilities there, worked in the Summer Youth Camps, and have taught in the Women’s Education Center they established in the nearby village of Nahalin.

On May 19, 2014, the Israeli Military took unwarranted and illegal action and destroyed between 1,500 and 2,000 mature, fruit-bearing apricot and apple trees and grape vines growing in the lower valley of the farm.  We are appealing to you to contact appropriate congressional committees and members of Congress regarding this issue.  In addition, we ask that you contact the White House, the State Department, the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, our Ambassador in Tel Aviv, and the Consulate General in East Jerusalem (see the attached contact list).

In the past, (December 2012), Israeli Military/Civil Courts threatened to demolish 13 structures on the land (pens for animals, tents for volunteers, compost toilets, etc.) and denied the family’s appeal against these 13 demolitions.  By appealing these orders through the family lawyers, however, the deadline for action was moved to February 24, 2013.  At the same time, the family also requested (again) that the land be re-registered in their name (having all the papers legally required to prove ownership).  The family provided all additional information requested by the Military Court by that date, and they submitted and paid for requests for building permits for the existing 13 structures placed under the demolishing orders.

In late April 2014, the Israeli Military placed a warning on the land declaring that the trees were planted on “State Land” and, therefore, constituted a trespass and should be “evacuated”!  The family filed an appeal on May 5; they were waiting for a court decision on these issues, and that is what makes the destruction of these trees illegal.

We would like you to inquire about this issue and why this vendetta against the Daher’s Vineyard is taking place.  Israel needs to be held accountable for its actions against a family that lives by the motto ‘We Refuse to be Enemies’ and that believes in non-violence as a solution to the problems there.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at _______________________________.

Regards,

(individual or organization)

May 19, 2014 – Message from FOTONNA

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FOTONNA Emergency Response Plans
Information Letter, Timeline of Events
and Sample Appeal Letter

Dear Friends of Tent of Nations,

We are writing this letter to call for action against acts of injustice by the Israeli Military towards the Nassar family farm and theirTent of Nations Peace Project.  This farm (known as Daher’s Vineyard) is located just six miles southwest of Bethlehem in the Occupied Territories of Palestine (the West Bank).  As you know, this family has registration papers for their 100-acre farm dating back to the Ottoman Empire, and they are now in a situation where the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) brought in bulldozers on May 19, 2014 and destroyed between 1,500 and 2,000 mature, fruit-bearing apricot and apple trees and grape vines, all in the lower valley of the farm.  This move was totally unexpected as their latest case for proving ownership has been in the Israeli Military/Civil Courts since February 2013.  An appeal was also made on May 5 to protest a warning placed on the land in late April 2014 that declared the land as “State Land” and should be “evacuated”. There was no warning ahead of time about the impending destruction, however (as is the usual case), so the Nassars were caught off guard with the wanton destruction that took place.  In addition to the destruction of the trees, the terraced land on which the trees were planted was also destroyed, left in a state of rubble that cannot currently be re-planted.

 

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We are appealing to you to contact appropriate congressional committee members, members of Congress, and others you know who may have some influence in this kind of situation; this can include your church leaders as well and an article in your local newspaper would be more than welcome.  We are including a short letter and a timeline of past events you can use to educate people about the details of this farm’s history as well as a sample letter you can use to send out if you’d like.  In particular, we ask that you contact the U.S. Department of State, the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the U.S. Ambassador in Tel Aviv, and the Consulate General in Jerusalem and ask them to investigate the circumstances surrounding this travesty.
We urge you to contact the authorities referenced below immediately as well as others you know personally.  You have our permission to use information from this letter in your appeals. We would like to have you act on this information as soon as you can in the hopes that we can prevent any more destruction from taking place on Daher’s Vineyard.

Sincerely,

Bill Plitt – Executive Director – on behalf of the FOTONNA Steering Committee

Authorities to Contact: