U.S. Warns of Harsh Reaction If Israel Demolishes Sussia

[Little Tich]

Source: Haaretz

EU, Britain join diplomatic push to spare Hebron Hills village, though Israel maintains that the fate of Sussia will be decided in court decision.

The United States has warned it will respond harshly if Israel demolishes the Palestinian village of Sussia in the southern Hebron Hills.

Israeli and American officials, who asked not to be named, said Tuesday that over the past two weeks U.S. administration officials have informed officials in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Defense Ministry that a severe American reaction would result if Israel destroys the houses in the village.

The Israeli officials said similar messages were conveyed over the past two weeks by the European Union, the British government and other international bodies. For example, British diplomats conveyed messages to the PMO and the Foreign Ministry that the British Foreign Office in London would find it difficult to continue assisting Israel in international forums in the event Sussia were demolished.

The Israeli officials said international pressure over the matter came after the Palestinian Authority turned to the United States and a number of other Western countries, claiming that Israel intends to destroy the village in a few weeks.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.736107

Note: Haaretz Premium article - Google title for access.

[Little Tich]

1. US ‘troubled’ by demolitions of EU-funded Palestinian homes

Source: Times of Israel

State Department says ‘provocative’ razing of West Bank structures ‘part of an ongoing process of land seizures’ and ‘denial of Palestinian development’

The US State Department on Tuesday said it was “troubled” by Israel’s “provocative” razing of three European Union-funded shelters in the West Bank earlier in the day, saying it “raises serious questions” about the Jewish state’s commitment to peace.

“We remain concerned about the increased demolition of Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which reportedly have left dozens of Palestinians homeless, including children,” said spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau during a press briefing.

“We believe that this is part of an ongoing process of land seizures, settlement expansions, legalization of outpost, denial of Palestinian development,” she said. “We remain troubled that Israel continues this pattern of provocative and counterproductive action, which raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.”

The demolitions of the three shelters and two other structures took place in the Palestinian village of Umm el-Kheir, a small Bedouin village near the Israeli settlement of Carmel in the South Hebron Hills. It is in Area C of the West Bank, which is entirely under Israeli military control.

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-troubled-by-demolitions-of-eu-funded-palestinian-homes/

[brush]

2. Netanyahu and his extreme rightists will probably go through with it . . .

just to thumb their noses at the US and Europe.

What's going on? Are the Palestinians villages and homes not allowed to stand anymore?

And some wonder why there is a BDS movement.

[Israeli]

3. Tisha B'Av Pilgrimage to Endangered Villages

Sunday, August 14 at 2:30 PM

This Tisha B'Av, after the Minkha prayers, please join Rabbi Arik Ascherman on a pilgrimage between endangered villages on both sides of the Green Line, villages that have experienced, or are in immanant danger of destruction. We will pray for and renew our committment to the end of destructions. Together with the young people who will spend Shabbat Hazon in Susya and in front of Israeli Embassies and Consulates around the world, we will open the "Four Villages Campaign" dedicated to saving the same villages we will be visiting: El Araqib (That has been demolishced 101 times); Umm Al HIran (Where the bulldozers are preparing the first stage of Jewish "Hiran" that will eventually expand over the rubble of Bedouin Umm Al Hiran); Susya; Umm Al Khir (The forces of the Jewish State demolished 5 houses this week, as "Regavim" (Acting as judge, jury and executioner) looked on.

Source : https://www.facebook.com/events/1639950766227291

[Israeli]

4. Sussia Means Israel Must End Its Policy of Relocating Palestinians

The residents of the West Bank village are awaiting whether Israel’s hard-line defense minister gives them a chance not to be uprooted.

Haaretz Editorial Aug 14, 2016

On Sunday Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman is due to announce his decision on whether to let the Civil Administration continue negotiating with the residents of the West Bank village of Sussia over their fate. The talks began a year ago after the High Court of Justice received a petition from the Palestinian village favoring the alternatives it had submitted for the master plan at its current location. The Civil Administration proposed uprooting the village and relocating it to a site next to the town of Yatta near Hebron.

The fight, being waged with the assistance of Israeli groups such as Rabbis for Human Rights, Ta’ayush, B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence, aims to head off the village’s destruction and relocation. It has stirred international interest, so one can understand the Civil Administration’s willingness for out-of-court talks.

Over the past year, the parties have met four times. Villagers have mentioned that they moved to their privately-owned agricultural land only in 1986 after the army expelled them from their original ancient village, which was declared an archaeological site. In 1991, the army expelled them again, and they relocated to another part of their land, living in tents and caves. When they returned and were expelled a third time, in 2001, they petitioned the High Court of Justice.

The court permitted their return but didn’t order the authorities to let them build houses or give them access to electricity, water and roads. They therefore have been living in makeshift structures without running water and with a solar-power system that doesn’t meet all their needs. The Civil Administration therefore deems every structure in the village illegal and subject to demolition, with the group Regavim and the Jewish settlement of Susya eager to have the demolition orders carried out.

Continued @: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.736731

[shira]

5. So called 'ancient Palestinian city of Sussiya' never existed

The anti-Israel cause is an Industry of Lies.

Photo evidence was released showing that the so-called “ancient Palestinian city of Sussiya” in the West Bank never really existed, according to a reports by the Tazpit News Agency.

By Aryeh Savir

The saga began fifteen years ago, when an Arab family erected a tent, illegally, near the archeological site of the ancient town of Sussiya in the Hebron area. As time passed the tent became a makeshift structure, which expanded into several structures. To give this illegal settlement character, and with the supports of extreme left-wing activists, the 'ancient' town of 'Palestinian Sussiya' was invented.

The town's alleged plight of persecution by the Israeli authorities has been widely covered by the international press, who have been told of an ancient Arab town, whose residents have been unjustifiably driven out by the hostile Zionist entity.

This makes for a great human interest story, but for one setback – the 'ancient Palestinian Sussiya' never existed. It shows up on no records. The British Mandate held a survey of the villages in Israel in 1945. Palestinian Sussiya is not on the list. Aerial photos of the area from 1992 and 1999 reveal exposed terrain with no structures in sight.

Aerial photos from 2012 show some 30 structures and tents. The 'residents' of 'Palestinian Sussiya' come from the nearby Arab town of Yatta, all members of the Nuwaj'a clan. There may have been some minor Arab-owned agriculture in the area, and the farmers may have lived by their fields in the adjacent caves during some of the seasons as is the custom in the region, but this was only temporary dwellings for a few months during the year.

more...
http://www.worldwideweirdnews.com/2013/06/n27920.html

[Little Tich]

6. B'Tselem: A Chronicle of Dispossession: Facts about Susiya

Source: B'Tselem, 29 Jul 2015

The Palestinian village of Khirbet Susiya has existed for at least a century. It appears on maps as far back as 1917 – decades before Israel began occupying the West Bank. Aerial photographs from 1980 show cultivated farmland and livestock pens, indicating the presence of an active community there. In his book Expansion and Desertion: The Arab Village and Its Offshoots in Ottoman Palestine [in Hebrew], geographer David Grossman wrote that some 25 Palestinian families were living in caves in the village in 1986.

An internal opinion written in 1982 by Att. Plia Albeck, head of the Civil Division in the State Attorney’s Office, recognized the Palestinian village of Susiya and acknowledged that its residents own the land on which the village was built. According to the opinion: “The synagogue is located in a place called the lands of Khirbet Susiya, and it is surrounded by an Arab village that lies amid ancient ruins. The land of Khirbet Susiya is listed in the Land Registry as an area of some 3,000 dunams [300 hectares] in the private possession of many Arab owners”.

In 1986 Israel expropriated the land on which the historic village of Susiya was located, expelled its residents, declared the area an archaeological site, and appointed settlers from Susiya – an Israeli settlement established nearby in 1983 – to manage the site. Archeological excavations found remains in the area that have been identified as part of a synagogue in use on that site until the eighth century. Subsequently, a mosque was constructed atop the ruins of the synagogue. Some of the expropriated land was incorporated into the jurisdictional area of the settlement. Later, an illegal outpost was established on the original site of the village and is now home to settler families.

After they were expelled from their village, the residents moved into caves or tents on their privately-owned farmland, in an area called Rujum al-Hamri, close to the settlement of Susiya and the original site of the village. In 1991, the Israeli military expelled them from this area as well. The military had no official warrant for this action nor did it provide the residents with any explanation to as to why they were being uprooted a second time.

After the second expulsion, the residents went to live elsewhere on their cultivated farmland, in a location further away from the settlement of Susiya and the original site of the village. They still live there today. They lived in caves and tents, as aerial photographs taken in 1999 clearly show. In 2001, the Israeli authorities tried to expel them a third time, as “penalty” for the killing of settler Yair Har Sinai by Palestinians (who were not residents of the village of Susiya). Over the course of several days, the Israeli military, the Civil Administration (CA), and settlers from the area sealed off the residents’ caves and wells and demolished their tents and livestock pens. On 26 January 2001, leading Israeli news website Ynet quoted the IDF Spokesperson as saying that the OC Central Command had ordered an internal inquiry into the evacuation of the residents, which had been carried out in breach of regulation.

Read more: http://www.btselem.org/south_hebron_hills/201507_facts_on_susiya

[shira]

7. That doesn't refute the article in #5. n/t