PERHAPS the Palestinian folk singer Mohammad Barghouti, 23, did not know that he is going to end up in an Israeli jail because of his popular folk songs. But he did along with two others from his band.
Israeli soldiers raided Barghouti’s home in the village of Kufr Ein to the north of Ramallah and arrested him early on Wednesday. They also raided the home of his organ player Naji Rimawi and the owner of a local music studio and artist, Nazzal Barghouti, and arrested them as well.
All this came after Barghouti wrote and sang a folk song glorifying Palestinians who resist the Israeli occupation of their homeland and its oppression of millions of Palestinians.
His latest song that got him in trouble was dedicated to Omar al-Abed, from the neighbouring village of Kobar, who recently stabbed and killed three Israeli settlers in the illegal settlement of Halamish, built on expropriated Palestinian land that belongs to his ancestors. Al-Abed was shot and injured and is now facing charges for the killings.
Israel has decided to wage a war against any Palestinian who glorifies in any way those whom the Palestinians refer to as martyrs if they were killed by Israelis, or freedom fighters, if they got captured. For the Palestinians these are national heroes and they deserve to be honoured with songs and other means, regardless of what Israel or the rest of the world might think about their act.
The Israeli soldiers, who have been terrorising the village of Kobar and its 3,000 residents since the incident in a revenge act, were not satisfied with only arresting the three musicians, but also seized hard discs and CDs of Barghouti’s songs that he normally sings in weddings or other local events. They also beat his father, who had to be transferred to hospital for treatment.
• Palestinian Orthodox Christians on Wednesday lodged a criminal complaint against Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III over the sale and lease of church property to Jewish settler groups. The complainants, the Arab Orthodox Cultural Club and Beit Sahour Society, among others, lodged the complaint against Theophilos III ‘in his private and official capacity’ over the sale and lease of landmark church property to Jewish settler groups and developers in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Nazareth among other locations.
They accused the church primate of ‘treason’, ‘selling property to the enemy’, ‘breaking promises of safeguarding church property’ and ‘contributing to Israeli plans to Judaise Jerusalem’ by selling or leasing off large tracts of land to Israeli authorities and investors, betraying the church’s responsibility to protect Palestinian lands that were placed under its care during the Ottoman period.
This came as representatives of Palestinian Orthodox Christians held a sit-in called for by the Arab Orthodox Central Council in Palestine and Jordan in front of the Palestinian Attorney General’s office in Ramallah. Speaking at the sit-in protest, Deputy President of the Palestinian Bar Association Nael al-Houh slammed the sale and lease of Orthodox Church property to Israeli investors as an ‘imminent serious threat’ to East Jerusalem, the capital of the future Palestinian state.
He called upon the Palestinian government to immediately withdraw recognition from Theophilos III, ‘who has committed criminal acts that are tantamount to national treason’, and to raise the Palestinian flag over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem instead of the Greek flag normally hoisted over Greek Orthodox churches in Palestine.
He also called upon Palestinian judiciary to exert all efforts to nullify the deals that were struck between Orthodox Church primates and Israeli Jewish investors. Deputy Head of the Arab Orthodox Central Council in Palestine and Jordan, attorney Nabil Mashhour, noted the complaint was signed by a total of 309 prominent Palestinian figures and called on the attorney general to initiate legal proceedings against Theophilos III.
Orthodox Christians consider the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem to be the mother Church and the first Church in history. The current patriarch is Theophilos III, the 141st Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Patriarchate includes nationals in Jordan, Israel and Palestine and serves nearly half a million Christians, the majority of whom live in Jordan.
• Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Secretary General Saeb Erekat said on Wednesday that he had raised in his meeting on Tuesday in Ramallah with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres the importance of preserving Item 7 of the Human Rights Council (HRC) on the impact of Israeli violations on the human rights situation in Palestine as an important tool to hold Israel accountable for its systematic violations of International Humanitarian Law and UN resolutions.
Erekat described his meeting with Guterres as positive, saying that he briefed the UN Secretary General ‘on the latest political developments, our position for a just and lasting peace in the region, as well as on the daily Israeli crimes and violations, including its colonial-settlement enterprise that is not only an obstacle but destroys every possibility for peace’.
He said in a statement that he emphasised the importance of implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2334, approved last December, on the illegality of the Israeli settlement enterprise in Occupied Palestine. This visit took place in the context of 50 years since Israel’s occupation of Palestine, as well as 70 years since the United Nations decided to divide the land of historic Palestine. It is the obligation of the international community, represented by the United Nations, to fulfil the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination, by implementing the resolutions approved by the organisation,’ said the PLO official.
‘For a just and lasting peace to be achieved, Israel, the occupying power, must end its occupation of the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. And it’s the obligation of the international community to stop treating Israel as a state above the law. There should be no attempts to equate an occupying power and a people under occupation.’
Issa Qaraqe, the head of the PLO Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, along with a group of relatives of Palestinian political prisoners later joined the meeting and submitted a letter asking for the Secretary General’s intervention for the freedom of their relatives from Israeli jails.
