Diplomats gently intervene to stand against supression of Palestinian cultural event in Jerusalem
Marian Houk
May 30, 2009
Unfortunately, it was predictable.
Israel´s Ministry of the Interior ordered the closure (for Thursday night) of the Palestinian National Theater (Hakawati) in East Jerusalem, where the final event of the PalFest09, the Palestinian Literary Festival, was due to be held. The same thing happened last Saturday, at the opening session.
Armed Israeli Border Police turned up to order the participants away, though the festival organizers denied any connection with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority -- which had, after all, been involved in intensive U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with the Israeli government since the Annapolis Conference in late 2007.
Despite those negotiations – or perhaps because of them -- the Israeli government crack-down on Palestinian activities in East Jerusalem has intensified over the past two years.
The Israeli government argues broadly that because the Olso Accords -- the first of which was signed between the Israeli Government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in a ceremony hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993 -- leaves the issue of Jerusalem unresolved until final status talks, the Palestinian Authority (that was created as a result of those Oslo Accords)is to be prevented from carrying out any activities whatsoever in Jerusalem.
The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state.
East Jerusalem did not become part of Israel when the Jewish state was proclaimed on 14 May 1948. Instead, it fell, together with the West Bank, under Jordanian administration for the next two decades, as a result of fighting that broke out when British troops carried out their announced evacuation and gave up Great Britain's forty-year rule over Palestine. (At the same time, the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egyptian troops.)
In June 1967, Israeli troops seized and occupied East Jerusalem (as well as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Syrian Golan Heights). Soon afterwards, Israel extended its administration over East Jerusalem, and re-drew boundaries of a greatly-expanded "Greater municipal Jerusalem" that extended north to the Atarot/Qalandia airport at the doorstep of Ramallah, and south to the entry of Bethlehem. In 1980, Israel proclaimed Jerusalem as its capital. Successive Israeli governments have vowed that Jerusalem would never again be divided, but the recent expansion of Jewish settlements in and around Jerusalem, and the route of The Wall that has been under construction since 2002 to separate Palestinians and Israelis according to Israeli military decisions is, again, unilaterally re-demarcating Jerusalem's municipal limits.
A number of United Nations resolutions rejecting Israel's unilateral annexation of Jerusalem remain on the books, and almost no country in the world currently recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but Israeli control has been progressively tightened through the creation of "facts on the ground".
Division aside, there have also been continuing problems within the city with the practicalities of sharing Jerusalem, a city that now (as Ir Amim, one of its civic organizations says as its slogan) is home to two peoples, and sacred to three monotheistic religions.
Though Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are taxed as much or sometimes more than the Israeli and largely Jewish residents of West Jerusalem, the Palestinians receive a disproportionately small share of municipal services, including but not limited to what are in Jerusalem obvious problems of garbage collection. There is also a significant lack of primary school classrooms for Palestinian residents (ironically, forcing many families to enroll their children in private schools run by Islamic groups that have ideological affinities with the banned Hamas movement).
Gershon Baskin, Co-Chairman of the Israeli-Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), argued recently that Jerusalem was the most segregated city on the planet. He, and others, including former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisiti, have urged the creation of some sort of "shadow municipality" that would at least try to uphold the civic rights of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have by and large chosen to remain permanent residents of the State of Israel rather than to apply for full Israeli citizenship -- which might not necessarily be granted even if requested. The Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem can vote in Jerusalem municipal elections, but not in Israeli national elections for the Knesset.
However, only a fraction of the potential Palestinian voters in East Jerusalem have so far chosen to participate in the municipal voting, and most have continued to boycott the municipal elections to avoid acquiescing in the occupation.
Making matters worse, in the November 2008 municipal elections, for the first time, ballot boxes were not set up in East Jerusalem areas that have been isolated on the other side of The Wall, further disenfranchising residents who live in constant fear of losing their Jerusalem residency, which also means their access to family, friends, work, school, shops, libraries, parks, health care, as well as spiritually-significant and beloved places of religious worship. In recent months, orders for the eviction or demolition of Palestinian homes have increased, while building permits for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are both extremely costly and nearly impossible to obtain.
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have been able to vote in Palestinian Authority elections (both Presidential and Legislative Council) -- though only with difficulty, and with intervention from the United States and European countries -- and though the Palestinian Authority is in fact currently forbidden to function in East Jerusalem.
As a result, the Palestinians of East Jerusalem have been denied the ability to exercise their capacity for self-governance. And, as things stand now, they are increasingly denied the ability to express, develop, and practice their culture freely in Jerusalem.
These are serious infringements of their rights, including to self-determination.
Apparently, an Israeli court order was issued on Thursday to seal off the Hakawati Theatre in order to prevent the closing session of the ninth annual Palestinian Literary Festival (PalFest09) from taking place.
The court order was posted on the door of the Hakawati Theater in English and in Hebrew before the event was due to start, and Israeli Border Police with weapons were in place to wave the participants away.
But, the British Consul-General stepped in, and invited the participants to relocate to the garden of the British Council in East Jerusalem, where the event went ahead. It was a small but significant show of support, and a small gesture of defiance of the current suppression of Palestinian activities in Jerusalem.
Thursday´s drama was captured on a video now posted on Youtube, here , which is also available on the PalFest09 official website, here.
In the video, a markedly polite Israeli Border Police officer tells a strawberry-blond European in a suit that "There is a court order [to close the theatre] ... I have the Hebrew one in my pocket ... You can see the court order in English hanging on the door of the Hakawati Theater".
The man in the suit replies: "Well, my name is Richard Makepeace, I'm the British Consul-General here in Jerusalem. This is a literary festival attended by many great distinguished British writers -- it seems a strange decision."
The British Consul-General then goes, followed by the camera, to read the court order.
He then turns to face the camera, and says: "I've just been informed by the police that this closing event of the literary festival is not to be permitted here. I'm glad to say that it will take place on the premises of the British Council here. I don't recognize the law referred to in the statement behind me [the court order in English], but I think all lovers of literature will regard this as a very regrettable moment, and a regrettable decision".
And, as noted by a PalFest09 Twitter [tweet?], the show went on. One of the PalFest09 participants (Ahdaf Soueif) wrote in a post on the PalFest09 Author's Blogs pages: "our mission: to confront the culture of power with the power of culture".
At the opening session a week ago (on Saturday), Israeli Border Police entered the Hakawati Theater, surprising the participants and shutting down the opening session that was getting underway. That time, it was French diplomats who stepped in, and made an impromptu offer to use the premises at the French Cultural Center a couple of hundred meters away, on Salah ed-Din Street, East Jerusalem's main street, not far from East Jerusalem´s Old City walls.
Ma'an News Agency reported at the time that "Audience members crowded on the lawn outside the building [at the French Cultural Center] as book readings and discussions on the theme of displacement in world literature were interrupted by power cuts and police sirens. The spectators and litterateurs were greeted at the new event by five Israeli police vehicles stationed outside the garden wall. According to Ma'an's Jerusalem correspondent the initial decision to close down the performance at the National Theater was made at the request of the Israeli Interior Ministry". This report can be read in full here.
In a feature article recounting the shut-down in greater detail, Ma'an reported that local organizer Omar Hamilton said: "The PA has nothing to do with PalFest". According to Ma´an, PalFest09 was sponsored by the British Council, UNRWA, the AM Qattan Foundation and the Sigrid Rausing Charitable Fund, and is hosting 20 authors, 17 from abroad, in a six-day traveling literary workshop. The authors are a diverse group, including Kenya born, Tanzaniya-raised Canadian immigrant and winner of the Giller Prize, M.G. Vassanji, and British writer and actor Michael Palin, best known for his work on the Monty Python films and his latest novel, Hemmingway´s Chair. Most have never been to Palestine before, and are meant to discuss literature and literary themes to groups of literati and university students across the West Bank and East Jerusalem".
Also according to this Ma'an report, "Suheir Hammad, who was also set to be interviewed before the opening events, was too harrowed from her five-hour interrogation at the Allenby Bridge to sit down and discuss literature".
The situation is actually reminiscent of the pre-Oslo period, during the first Palestinian intifada (uprising), when showing the Palestinian flag, or even its colors (red, green, black and white) was an offense that was punishable by beatings, arrest and imprisonment -- or sometimes worse.
A month after it was signed, as the Oslo Accords´ Declaration of Principles was about to enter into effect, Israel's then-Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, who is now Israel's State President, wrote to the Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst -- whose country had hosted the previously-secret track of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations -- in a letter dated 11 October 1993, promising that Israel would not "hamper", but rather would "encourage", the activity of "all the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem".
The text of the letter is still posted on the website of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (though, strangely, the MFA says it took the letter from the Jerusalem Post, where it was published on 7 June 1994, some eight months later), and in it Peres wrote: "I wish to confirm that the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem and the interests and well-being of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem are of great importance and will be preserved. Therefore, all the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem, including the economic, social, educational, cultural, and the holy Christian and Moslem places, are performing an essential task for the Palestinian population. Needless to say, we will not hamper their activity; on the contrary, the fulfilment of this important mission is to be encouraged."
So, what has happened since then?
According to lawyer Jawad Bulous, the Israeli Knesset later passed an "implementation" law (to "implement" subsequent "Oslo process" agreements) -- and he said it is this "implementation" law that prohibits Palestinian Authority activity in East Jerusalem -- despite Shimon Peres´ promise. Bulous explained the matter when he was called in again recently to represent Palestinian interests after a banquet room of the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem was ordered closed for four days to prevent a Palestinian media center from holding press conferences during Pope Benedict XIV´s recent visit to the Holy Land.
A Jerusalem Post article dated 6 June 1996 reported that "since the passing in December 1994 of special legislation explicitly forbidding Palestinian Authority activity in the capital, Orient House officials have largely stopped work directly connected with the PA. Faisal Husseini, the senior PLO official in Jerusalem who runs Orient House, also personally promised Internal Security Minister Moshe Shahal the PA activity would stop"...
Faisal Husseini died in Kuwait on 31 May 2001, and his Orient House was finally shut down completely by Israel authorities in August 2001, following a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizza restaurant.
Last year, for the first time, Israeli police and special services prevented the holding of the seventh annual memorial meeting in honor of Faisal Husseini. Although all previous six annual Faisal Husseini memorial meetings went ahead without interference, the 2008 event was not allowed to take place. The 2008 memorial event was scheduled to take place at East Jerusalem´s Hakawati Theatre.
When they came to prevent the memorial meeting at the Hakawati Theater in 2008, "The Israeli police brought with them ´the brass´, and they had special forces ready on the side", according to Adnan Abdelrazek, a former UN official who later worked with Faisal Husseini in the Orient House, and who had gone to attend the memorial meeting. "But they did not even have a court order – which would have meant they would have had to go to the court and explain why they wanted to prevent the memorial, and we would have had the opportunity to explain why we wanted to hold it. No, in Jerusalem, in this supposedly ´united Jerusalem´, the Israeli police relied on the British Military Regulations of 1947", Abdelrazek explained.
"They told us to leave, and then they started chasing people. We decided to regroup in front of Orient House. They were brutal – and they were more than brutal, they were nasty. They hit some people. Then they detained Abdel-Qader Husseini, the son of Faisal, who was the sponsor of the memorial meeting. We have 40 witnesses who say that Abdel-Qader did not do anything to provoke this detention ... Fifteen minutes later Abdel-Qader was released", Abdelrazek said. "Then, the officer said that he would not allow even two people to gather together. We know the law, and we argued with him, saying that the exact stipulation in the military regulation prevents three people (not two) assembling. So, eventually, the officer said that three people could not gather together, but then he changed it back to two".
Since last year, the Israeli authorities have made a slight change in tactics. Now, they are not invoking the British Military regulations against assembly of more than three persons. Instead, they are simply ordering the shut-down of places where certain meetings are to be held.
As the Israeli pressure on East Jerusalem increases, European diplomats now appear to be starting, ever so gently, to help resist the suppression of Palestinian events in Jerusalem.
Israel´s Ministry of the Interior ordered the closure (for Thursday night) of the Palestinian National Theater (Hakawati) in East Jerusalem, where the final event of the PalFest09, the Palestinian Literary Festival, was due to be held. The same thing happened last Saturday, at the opening session.
Armed Israeli Border Police turned up to order the participants away, though the festival organizers denied any connection with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority -- which had, after all, been involved in intensive U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with the Israeli government since the Annapolis Conference in late 2007.
Despite those negotiations – or perhaps because of them -- the Israeli government crack-down on Palestinian activities in East Jerusalem has intensified over the past two years.
The Israeli government argues broadly that because the Olso Accords -- the first of which was signed between the Israeli Government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in a ceremony hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993 -- leaves the issue of Jerusalem unresolved until final status talks, the Palestinian Authority (that was created as a result of those Oslo Accords)is to be prevented from carrying out any activities whatsoever in Jerusalem.
The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state.
East Jerusalem did not become part of Israel when the Jewish state was proclaimed on 14 May 1948. Instead, it fell, together with the West Bank, under Jordanian administration for the next two decades, as a result of fighting that broke out when British troops carried out their announced evacuation and gave up Great Britain's forty-year rule over Palestine. (At the same time, the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egyptian troops.)
In June 1967, Israeli troops seized and occupied East Jerusalem (as well as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Syrian Golan Heights). Soon afterwards, Israel extended its administration over East Jerusalem, and re-drew boundaries of a greatly-expanded "Greater municipal Jerusalem" that extended north to the Atarot/Qalandia airport at the doorstep of Ramallah, and south to the entry of Bethlehem. In 1980, Israel proclaimed Jerusalem as its capital. Successive Israeli governments have vowed that Jerusalem would never again be divided, but the recent expansion of Jewish settlements in and around Jerusalem, and the route of The Wall that has been under construction since 2002 to separate Palestinians and Israelis according to Israeli military decisions is, again, unilaterally re-demarcating Jerusalem's municipal limits.
A number of United Nations resolutions rejecting Israel's unilateral annexation of Jerusalem remain on the books, and almost no country in the world currently recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but Israeli control has been progressively tightened through the creation of "facts on the ground".
Division aside, there have also been continuing problems within the city with the practicalities of sharing Jerusalem, a city that now (as Ir Amim, one of its civic organizations says as its slogan) is home to two peoples, and sacred to three monotheistic religions.
Though Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are taxed as much or sometimes more than the Israeli and largely Jewish residents of West Jerusalem, the Palestinians receive a disproportionately small share of municipal services, including but not limited to what are in Jerusalem obvious problems of garbage collection. There is also a significant lack of primary school classrooms for Palestinian residents (ironically, forcing many families to enroll their children in private schools run by Islamic groups that have ideological affinities with the banned Hamas movement).
Gershon Baskin, Co-Chairman of the Israeli-Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), argued recently that Jerusalem was the most segregated city on the planet. He, and others, including former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisiti, have urged the creation of some sort of "shadow municipality" that would at least try to uphold the civic rights of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have by and large chosen to remain permanent residents of the State of Israel rather than to apply for full Israeli citizenship -- which might not necessarily be granted even if requested. The Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem can vote in Jerusalem municipal elections, but not in Israeli national elections for the Knesset.
However, only a fraction of the potential Palestinian voters in East Jerusalem have so far chosen to participate in the municipal voting, and most have continued to boycott the municipal elections to avoid acquiescing in the occupation.
Making matters worse, in the November 2008 municipal elections, for the first time, ballot boxes were not set up in East Jerusalem areas that have been isolated on the other side of The Wall, further disenfranchising residents who live in constant fear of losing their Jerusalem residency, which also means their access to family, friends, work, school, shops, libraries, parks, health care, as well as spiritually-significant and beloved places of religious worship. In recent months, orders for the eviction or demolition of Palestinian homes have increased, while building permits for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are both extremely costly and nearly impossible to obtain.
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have been able to vote in Palestinian Authority elections (both Presidential and Legislative Council) -- though only with difficulty, and with intervention from the United States and European countries -- and though the Palestinian Authority is in fact currently forbidden to function in East Jerusalem.
As a result, the Palestinians of East Jerusalem have been denied the ability to exercise their capacity for self-governance. And, as things stand now, they are increasingly denied the ability to express, develop, and practice their culture freely in Jerusalem.
These are serious infringements of their rights, including to self-determination.
Apparently, an Israeli court order was issued on Thursday to seal off the Hakawati Theatre in order to prevent the closing session of the ninth annual Palestinian Literary Festival (PalFest09) from taking place.
The court order was posted on the door of the Hakawati Theater in English and in Hebrew before the event was due to start, and Israeli Border Police with weapons were in place to wave the participants away.
But, the British Consul-General stepped in, and invited the participants to relocate to the garden of the British Council in East Jerusalem, where the event went ahead. It was a small but significant show of support, and a small gesture of defiance of the current suppression of Palestinian activities in Jerusalem.
Thursday´s drama was captured on a video now posted on Youtube, here , which is also available on the PalFest09 official website, here.
In the video, a markedly polite Israeli Border Police officer tells a strawberry-blond European in a suit that "There is a court order [to close the theatre] ... I have the Hebrew one in my pocket ... You can see the court order in English hanging on the door of the Hakawati Theater".
The man in the suit replies: "Well, my name is Richard Makepeace, I'm the British Consul-General here in Jerusalem. This is a literary festival attended by many great distinguished British writers -- it seems a strange decision."
The British Consul-General then goes, followed by the camera, to read the court order.
He then turns to face the camera, and says: "I've just been informed by the police that this closing event of the literary festival is not to be permitted here. I'm glad to say that it will take place on the premises of the British Council here. I don't recognize the law referred to in the statement behind me [the court order in English], but I think all lovers of literature will regard this as a very regrettable moment, and a regrettable decision".
And, as noted by a PalFest09 Twitter [tweet?], the show went on. One of the PalFest09 participants (Ahdaf Soueif) wrote in a post on the PalFest09 Author's Blogs pages: "our mission: to confront the culture of power with the power of culture".
At the opening session a week ago (on Saturday), Israeli Border Police entered the Hakawati Theater, surprising the participants and shutting down the opening session that was getting underway. That time, it was French diplomats who stepped in, and made an impromptu offer to use the premises at the French Cultural Center a couple of hundred meters away, on Salah ed-Din Street, East Jerusalem's main street, not far from East Jerusalem´s Old City walls.
Ma'an News Agency reported at the time that "Audience members crowded on the lawn outside the building [at the French Cultural Center] as book readings and discussions on the theme of displacement in world literature were interrupted by power cuts and police sirens. The spectators and litterateurs were greeted at the new event by five Israeli police vehicles stationed outside the garden wall. According to Ma'an's Jerusalem correspondent the initial decision to close down the performance at the National Theater was made at the request of the Israeli Interior Ministry". This report can be read in full here.
In a feature article recounting the shut-down in greater detail, Ma'an reported that local organizer Omar Hamilton said: "The PA has nothing to do with PalFest". According to Ma´an, PalFest09 was sponsored by the British Council, UNRWA, the AM Qattan Foundation and the Sigrid Rausing Charitable Fund, and is hosting 20 authors, 17 from abroad, in a six-day traveling literary workshop. The authors are a diverse group, including Kenya born, Tanzaniya-raised Canadian immigrant and winner of the Giller Prize, M.G. Vassanji, and British writer and actor Michael Palin, best known for his work on the Monty Python films and his latest novel, Hemmingway´s Chair. Most have never been to Palestine before, and are meant to discuss literature and literary themes to groups of literati and university students across the West Bank and East Jerusalem".
Also according to this Ma'an report, "Suheir Hammad, who was also set to be interviewed before the opening events, was too harrowed from her five-hour interrogation at the Allenby Bridge to sit down and discuss literature".
The situation is actually reminiscent of the pre-Oslo period, during the first Palestinian intifada (uprising), when showing the Palestinian flag, or even its colors (red, green, black and white) was an offense that was punishable by beatings, arrest and imprisonment -- or sometimes worse.
A month after it was signed, as the Oslo Accords´ Declaration of Principles was about to enter into effect, Israel's then-Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, who is now Israel's State President, wrote to the Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst -- whose country had hosted the previously-secret track of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations -- in a letter dated 11 October 1993, promising that Israel would not "hamper", but rather would "encourage", the activity of "all the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem".
The text of the letter is still posted on the website of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (though, strangely, the MFA says it took the letter from the Jerusalem Post, where it was published on 7 June 1994, some eight months later), and in it Peres wrote: "I wish to confirm that the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem and the interests and well-being of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem are of great importance and will be preserved. Therefore, all the Palestinian institutions of East Jerusalem, including the economic, social, educational, cultural, and the holy Christian and Moslem places, are performing an essential task for the Palestinian population. Needless to say, we will not hamper their activity; on the contrary, the fulfilment of this important mission is to be encouraged."
So, what has happened since then?
According to lawyer Jawad Bulous, the Israeli Knesset later passed an "implementation" law (to "implement" subsequent "Oslo process" agreements) -- and he said it is this "implementation" law that prohibits Palestinian Authority activity in East Jerusalem -- despite Shimon Peres´ promise. Bulous explained the matter when he was called in again recently to represent Palestinian interests after a banquet room of the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem was ordered closed for four days to prevent a Palestinian media center from holding press conferences during Pope Benedict XIV´s recent visit to the Holy Land.
A Jerusalem Post article dated 6 June 1996 reported that "since the passing in December 1994 of special legislation explicitly forbidding Palestinian Authority activity in the capital, Orient House officials have largely stopped work directly connected with the PA. Faisal Husseini, the senior PLO official in Jerusalem who runs Orient House, also personally promised Internal Security Minister Moshe Shahal the PA activity would stop"...
Faisal Husseini died in Kuwait on 31 May 2001, and his Orient House was finally shut down completely by Israel authorities in August 2001, following a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizza restaurant.
Last year, for the first time, Israeli police and special services prevented the holding of the seventh annual memorial meeting in honor of Faisal Husseini. Although all previous six annual Faisal Husseini memorial meetings went ahead without interference, the 2008 event was not allowed to take place. The 2008 memorial event was scheduled to take place at East Jerusalem´s Hakawati Theatre.
When they came to prevent the memorial meeting at the Hakawati Theater in 2008, "The Israeli police brought with them ´the brass´, and they had special forces ready on the side", according to Adnan Abdelrazek, a former UN official who later worked with Faisal Husseini in the Orient House, and who had gone to attend the memorial meeting. "But they did not even have a court order – which would have meant they would have had to go to the court and explain why they wanted to prevent the memorial, and we would have had the opportunity to explain why we wanted to hold it. No, in Jerusalem, in this supposedly ´united Jerusalem´, the Israeli police relied on the British Military Regulations of 1947", Abdelrazek explained.
"They told us to leave, and then they started chasing people. We decided to regroup in front of Orient House. They were brutal – and they were more than brutal, they were nasty. They hit some people. Then they detained Abdel-Qader Husseini, the son of Faisal, who was the sponsor of the memorial meeting. We have 40 witnesses who say that Abdel-Qader did not do anything to provoke this detention ... Fifteen minutes later Abdel-Qader was released", Abdelrazek said. "Then, the officer said that he would not allow even two people to gather together. We know the law, and we argued with him, saying that the exact stipulation in the military regulation prevents three people (not two) assembling. So, eventually, the officer said that three people could not gather together, but then he changed it back to two".
Since last year, the Israeli authorities have made a slight change in tactics. Now, they are not invoking the British Military regulations against assembly of more than three persons. Instead, they are simply ordering the shut-down of places where certain meetings are to be held.
As the Israeli pressure on East Jerusalem increases, European diplomats now appear to be starting, ever so gently, to help resist the suppression of Palestinian events in Jerusalem.
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