COMMENTATOR (COMM.): Previously on Life:
JAMES WOLFENSOHN: The biggest thing that poor people say is that they don't have voice, they don't representation, they don't feel they have any power.
FAITH INNERARITY: Where there are conflicts, this is a concern for the entire world.
JUAN SOMAVIA: Because of the incredible capacity of international communication, people's voice are going to be more and more important. Make your voice heard!
COMM: In 1948, during the war that accompanied the founding of the Israeli State, thousands of Palestinian refugees fled to neighbouring Countries. Some twenty years later in 1967, the Israelis fought what they saw as a defensive war and occupied the West Bank of Jordan and the Gaza Strip. Now 1.3 million Palestinians are refugees living under Israeli control. They are denied many human rights guaranteed to all people under international laws. Laws that Israel herself has signed up to.
Dheisheh is one of the refugee camps in Bethlehem where ten thousand people suffer in cramped conditions wanting to return to their homes, wanting jobs, wanting to lead full lives.
KHALED AL FRARJEH, Dheisheh Refugee Camp: It's the holiest - the holy place in the world but it's the worst now in the human rights. I can't leave, I can't work, I can't er talk even, I can't do anything I want. And it's - er something normal: can't go to Jerusalem, I can't go outside my house without having my ID card, even here in the interview I have it - where is it? I show it to you. Can't do anything without my ID card. And it's the simple thing I can talk about. And er without this ID card I'll be arrested - just like that.
COMM: Ten thousand people travel from Bethlehem to Jerusalem every day to work. They have to pass a checkpoint where they must show their permits to enter the city. Normally only married men with children get permits.
INTERVIEWER (TRANSLATION): Did you try to get a permit?
1ST MAN (TRANSLATION): We tried but we're not listed.
INTERVIEWER: You've no permit?
1ST MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): Can't get one unless you work for an official company.
2ND MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): You have to work somewhere official that can get you a permit.
INTERVIEWER: So what are you going to do now?
2ND MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): We know how to walk round the checkpoint but today we couldn't and now we failed here.
COMM: Those without permits can risk getting caught at the checkpoint like those two, or they walk round the checkpoint in full view of the soldiers only fifty yards away.
3RD MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): First if you go that way, past the checkpoint, without a permit you might get through, but they can pick you up. This way they can't get you. A couple of days ago they stopped someone there. They tied him up and abused him, but there's also danger passing this way. They can pick us up here and mistreat us.
COMM It's not always easy - the soldiers can swoop at any time, stop people; make arrests. The men are sometimes terrorised always frightened. It looks like a game, but these are middle-aged men going to work five days a week. Once they get to work are these men are exploited.
ATEF SA'D: It is a kind of discrimination in wages between the Israeli and Palestinian who are doing the same jobs. As an example: the unskilled worker who work in the construction industry, he received in a day around one hundred twenty Israeli shekels. But the same unskilled workers who is Israeli he cannot accept to work the same job, but not less than four hundred to five hundred shekels. Those who do not have permits have no rights at all. The Israeli employers exploit them one hundred percent. The difference between them . . .
CHARLES STEWART (DIRECTOR): Khaled, your grandparents are from Zachariya - have you been back?
KHALED: The last time I was there was there just for - picnic, let's say - it was before twelve years or thirteen years. I was young - little - young man then. I don't remember it very well but I remember it very - the most beautiful place I ever see. All trees and - a small village, but there's Jewish from Iraq live there. It's my land. I know - I mean my last time was before thirteen or maybe fifteen years ago, but it's my right to go there. We begin this interview in a question about the human rights. Where's the human rights? I back to it Yanny, to have just ID card to live - you haven't your land.
COMM: Four million Palestinians have lost the right to live in their homes. Here, a picnic has been organised by the old people to teach and enthuse their grandchildren.
YACOB (TRANSLATION): Lifta: where your father and mother and grandfather and grandmother were born. We are not going there for fun we are going as returnees to Lifta, our village. The village that we refuse to replace ever. We will not accept any alternative. We will not accept anyone negotiating away our rights over our village. We don't want talking, nor politics. We just want to return to Lifta. Where are we going to return to?
CHILDREN ON COACH: Lifta!
MAN WITH DEEDS (TRANSLATION): This is the Turkish emblem! Until now we've kept the key to our houses. Since 1948 until now. I am 74 years old!
LIFTA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): We were forced to leave. At night we left, while they were shooting at our heads. Honest to God, I had children - they left with me running for their lives. They were shooting from the hills. From here and there!
YACOB: This is our village! Sooner or later we will come back. It's our right - it is our human rights!
COMM: Many Palestinians rarely have mains water. This home in Yatta Town last had water 64 days ago. They spend a third of their income on bad water that is dangerous to drink. Whereas nearby Settlements use water as if there was no shortage at all. In Bethlehem, Aida Refugee camp is little better off.
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): We need a tank every week - it doesn't last more than five days. The price of a tank is one hundred or one hundred and fifty shekels.
INTERPRETER (TRANSLATION): So when did you last get water from the mains?
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): About er, twenty-five days ago?
INTERPRETER (TRANSLATION): And how much does water cost per month?
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): It cost us four hundred and fifty shekels, and my husband's salary is one thousand five hundred a month.
CHARLES STEWART: So that's almost a third of her income on water.
INTERPRETER (TRANSLATION): So you know that the settlements have water enough to water the streets.
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): Yes. I know that the water doesn't cut off in the settlements for a single day, so they pour it on the plants trees and us human beings don't have enough to drink!
WOMAN (TRANSLATION): You're upset?
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): Of course I'm upset! I'm angry. It's our basic right: water, and air. COMM: After the failure of the Camp David peace talks, the Palestinians in Jerusalem call a two-hour strike. There is a heavy police presence. Outside the Damascus Gate there is a disturbance. It is not easy to see what's happening - though it appears to be kids objecting to the Palestinian Man in the Streets selling during the strike. Crisis intervention police move in - in numbers.
MAN AT DAMASCUS GATE: This is the terrorism, this is. They do everything - daily they do like this!
WOMAN (TRANSLATION): They're thieves, thieves! They take everything from us. They steal it. They're thieves, all of them.
MAN AT DAMASCUS GATE: This is the human rights! This is the human rights. They should go there - this is our land!
WOMAN (TRANSLATION): How will we fend for ourselves? How will we live? We need at least bread.
MAN AT DAMASCUS GATE: It lets the Intifada to return back. And it will be more strong than before. We should get our freedom; we should get our identity card; we should get our Passport. We should get our country. We are not in animal zoo! They are crazy! They just want peace in hand. Not more.
PART TWO
KHALED: So, this house is - this is a martyr's house. He was shot in his head - killed during Intifada. He was the first martyr in Dheisheh. He was shot in his head. Settlers shot him.
COMM: The Israeli government have built settlements to house a hundred and seventy-five thousand Israelis in the West Bank behind barbed wire fences for their protection.
YEHUDIT TAYAR YESHA, Council of Jewish Communities: It's a very unequal world, and my children have to live in the danger of being shot at. Why are they shot at? It's not because they're settlers it's only because they are Jews. Did tell you that er recently - we sat with the heads of the army they warned us, no matter what Arafat is given there's going to be violence. It's going to start with your communities - they're going to attack you. We didn't want barbed wire round us. We don't want to live in a Ghetto in our country. This is not right, this is not the direction of peace. It's not: you're going to give them land and they're going to be satisfied. First they have to come to the decision there's a place - and there is a place for both the Arabs and the Jews in this country. You know - they talk about Hebron, they talk about cave of the Patriarchs. Abraham had Ishmahel and he had Itsak he had Isaac and Ishmahel. We don't deny them the fact that Abraham is their father too. They have no right to deny us either.
KHALED, Dheisheh Refugee Camp: We can live together. Er, the world is very small today. Yanni - we must be together, we must thinking about good future. I need my state. I need Jerusalem. I don't need settlers. That's the true peace. What is the peace to bring someone from outside to my country and because he's Jewish - just like that? To bring him and make him settlers and Israelis. Some day we will get it. By peace, by force - who knows? But I think we will get it.
COMM: Fifteen kilometres from Bethlehem the Palestinian village of Bet Skeria is hemmed in by two Jewish settlements. The owners - who have been there for three generations - have been told that two of their fields are state land wanted for military purposes.
IBRAHIM (TRANSLATION): The Israeli government has told us that this is state land - that we're sitting on state land - we have a month. And this is a disgrace; if we were fighters, never mind! If we were killers, never mind! But we are peaceful people. And yet they take our land, saying this is state land and they give it to the Settlers.
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER, Civil Administration, Judea and Samaria: If he plans to plant trees on land, he has to be able to prove that this land is his - like anywhere in the world.
CHARLES STEWART: So you'd say that this land isn't his and he doesn't have title deeds to it.
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER: That's right.
CHARLES STEWART: And if he has he has to show them to you?
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER: He has to bring them forward and show us.
CHARLES STEWART: And if he did?
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER: If did then they will be revised and we will be able to check and if they're, er - they are true deeds then of course as with past issues, the order will be er - will be valid.
COMM: The family have deeds dated 1932, but they don't have much confidence that these documents will save their land - though Israeli government says it will comply with the provisions of international law regarding property in the occupied territories.
IBRAHIM: Well all right then - if this is a matter of justice then let it be! But the problem is that they're not using justice, they are using force: either agree or die! I mean if they want to talk about rights: we have been here a hundred and fifty years! This is the land they want to confiscate we will not go! If they want to knock it down on top of us and kill us, they are welcome.
COMM The family lost this orchard some years ago violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - Ibrahim's son Mohamed explains.
MOHAMMED (TRANSLATION): This land belonged to us until 1982 - they announced a decision that it was needed for military purposes. They announced in the law courts that it was military land we had no say in the matter. So they took the land, pulled out the trees and planted new trees in their place. And as you can see they put this fence round it and made it part of the settlement.
YAEL STEIN, B'Tselem Israeli human rights organisation: In Israel like - unlike many other countries everything is legal. All the human rights violations is legal. It's legal to detain administratively people for years; it's legal to demolish their houses; it's legal to deport them, it's legal to take their land. And until recently it was legal to torture them. So, I think that this is what is unique on human rights violations in Israel, that um all the legal system is er actually engaged in um justifying all this human rights violations.
COMM: Mr Abu Faiz is a Palestinian living in the West Bank. He's in court today because he rebuilt his house after the Civil Administration knocked it down. He is here in a criminal court charged with rebuilding his house. His defence argues that he has a right to make a home for his family. We are allowed to film up until the Military Judge arrives.
COMM The Judge didn't decide the case today.
MAN OUTSIDE COURT: Why wasn't he prepared to make a decision today?
JEFF HALPER: He said he made a decision! Allegra got the decision last night at five o'clock in the evening that, that he wouldn't allow witnesses. So she protested and said she's going to order the Supreme Court appeal. Because she has the right - her thing was you can't, you can't, you know - not allow witnesses because they are not relevant before you hear them.
ABU FAIZ (TRANSLATION): I don't see that I should have to justify being on my land! Why should I have to justify that? This is something that doesn't happen anywhere in the whole world! As a human being I must have the right to live somewhere! In the State of Israel or in Palestine or in America or in Europe I have the right to live!
CHIEF PROSECUTOR (Major Eli Bar-On, Chief Prosecutor, Bet El Court): This Committee announced him that he's, he's not allowed to build over there because er it is contrary to the authorised planning regime. And he still went on with the building - so his house was ruined - so he built it again. So we only deal with the criminal aspect of this.
ALLEGRA PACHECO, Israeli human rights lawyer: It's impossible for any Palestinian - without maybe with some sort of connections - to get a permit. So from a 1941 plan Abu Faiz's land is agricultural and it is not zoned for residential. And therefore he cannot get a permit to build.
CHIEF PROSECUTOR: This goes the same for everyone in this area, in Israel and any civilized country. I mean, you cannot build wherever you want. This is the same law applied equally both on settlers and er, on the local Palestinians - there is no difference between them.
ALLEGRA PACHECO: Palestinians who live here own the land and that's why they have to apply for a permit to build on their land. Jewish settlers who come in here, Israeli citizens, they don't own the land the land is taken - is confiscated by the State and then given to certain organisations who then hire contractors who then build a huge neighbourhood. So er generally Israeli citizens don't have to apply for house permits. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention - which is the law of occupation - the occupier is obligated to respect the rights of, of the civilian population and not to discriminate against them.
CHARLES STEWART: So you categorically tell us there's no difference between the law as applied to Palestinians and Israelis?
CHIEF PROSECUTOR: Most definitely. Absolutely!
CHARLES STEWART: Absolutely?
CHIEF PROSECUTOR: Yeah. CHARLES STEWART: OK.
COMM: On the hillside opposite Abu Faiz's house the Israelis are building a settlement.
COMM: A helicopter buzzed his home within five minutes of his arrival adding force to his complaint that he was being harassed by the civil administration. Badil, a Bethlehem charity, organised a trip taking children from the local refugee camps up to the border with the Lebanon to meet refugees living there. They hope to meet at the fence but an armoured truck bared the way a quarter of a mile from the border. The soldiers refused to let the party pass.
ISRAELI SOLDIER (TRANSLATION): You have exactly five minutes to go! I suggest you take your group away to the bus before the police get involved.
COMM: They have to be content with waving flags at the people they came to see. Many are blood relatives they've never, ever met.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Ask him if he wants peace! Ask him if he wants peace! Ask him - but give him the right translation! Do you want to shoot or do you want to make peace? Shake my hand.
OLDER MAN: Listen, listen - listen, he says no. Why? Because my land in Bejabreen -
YOUNG MAN: You can hear his answer.
OLDER MAN: . . .you, you took it!
AMERICAN WOMAN: You taught him that!
OLDER MAN: Yaar my land in Bejabreen!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Ask him if he likes football!
OLDER MAN: Listen, listen, listen!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Wait, wait - ask him if he likes soccer - you told him what to say!
OLDER BADIL WORKER: Wait a moment
2ND MAN: There's no ground to play soccer in the camp. It's a concentration camp - the same like the concentration camps in Europe.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Oh come on.
2ND MAN: We are settlers in the camps.
OLDER MAN: Listen, listen - ask him.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Have you been to Auschwitz?
2ND MAN: Yes, I am in Dheisheh Camp which is Auschwitz. Another one!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Have you been to Auschwitz?
2ND MAN: It's another one! We know that you suffer a lot in Europe -
AMERICAN WOMAN: You don't know what it is - you've never been there.
OLDER MAN: Listen.
2ND MAN: We know you've suffered a lot in Europe but you are doing the same to us!
2ND MAN: According to United Nations Resolution Number 181 - you took 56% of the land and you want - you want now to give us just 15% because you want all Jerusalem! You want the borders - you want the Settlements, you want everything! And you want us to compromise!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Ask him! If he goes to Camp and he plays soccer and he wins - his team wins - does he take the prize, and take the prize, and give it to the other team? Or does he take the prize for himself? Just ask him that.
YOUNG MAN: OK, I'll ask him that.
AMERICAN WOMAN: What would he do - what would he do if he was the winning team?
BYSTANDER: That's not a very fair question to ask a child - to put a question like that.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Why not? It's a similar situation! It is! You win a war - you win a war you don't give back everything. It's the exact same thing!
2ND MAN: You don't feel with me because you claim that I didn't suffer in the camp. I'm suffering since fifty-two years.
AMERICAN WOMAN: I believe you've suffered!
2ND MAN: If you believe me, just support me!
AMERICAN WOMAN: I'm not Israeli - I'm not Israeli.
YOUNG MAN: Are you afraid - are you afraid of standing here with us? Are you afraid?
AMERICAN WOMAN: You seem like a nice boy.
YOUNG MAN: I invite you to our camp.
BADIL WORKER: Yes, we invite you to Dheisheh Camp. You are American -
END
JAMES WOLFENSOHN: The biggest thing that poor people say is that they don't have voice, they don't representation, they don't feel they have any power.
FAITH INNERARITY: Where there are conflicts, this is a concern for the entire world.
JUAN SOMAVIA: Because of the incredible capacity of international communication, people's voice are going to be more and more important. Make your voice heard!
COMM: In 1948, during the war that accompanied the founding of the Israeli State, thousands of Palestinian refugees fled to neighbouring Countries. Some twenty years later in 1967, the Israelis fought what they saw as a defensive war and occupied the West Bank of Jordan and the Gaza Strip. Now 1.3 million Palestinians are refugees living under Israeli control. They are denied many human rights guaranteed to all people under international laws. Laws that Israel herself has signed up to.
Dheisheh is one of the refugee camps in Bethlehem where ten thousand people suffer in cramped conditions wanting to return to their homes, wanting jobs, wanting to lead full lives.
KHALED AL FRARJEH, Dheisheh Refugee Camp: It's the holiest - the holy place in the world but it's the worst now in the human rights. I can't leave, I can't work, I can't er talk even, I can't do anything I want. And it's - er something normal: can't go to Jerusalem, I can't go outside my house without having my ID card, even here in the interview I have it - where is it? I show it to you. Can't do anything without my ID card. And it's the simple thing I can talk about. And er without this ID card I'll be arrested - just like that.
COMM: Ten thousand people travel from Bethlehem to Jerusalem every day to work. They have to pass a checkpoint where they must show their permits to enter the city. Normally only married men with children get permits.
INTERVIEWER (TRANSLATION): Did you try to get a permit?
1ST MAN (TRANSLATION): We tried but we're not listed.
INTERVIEWER: You've no permit?
1ST MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): Can't get one unless you work for an official company.
2ND MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): You have to work somewhere official that can get you a permit.
INTERVIEWER: So what are you going to do now?
2ND MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): We know how to walk round the checkpoint but today we couldn't and now we failed here.
COMM: Those without permits can risk getting caught at the checkpoint like those two, or they walk round the checkpoint in full view of the soldiers only fifty yards away.
3RD MAN AT CHECKPOINT (TRANSLATION): First if you go that way, past the checkpoint, without a permit you might get through, but they can pick you up. This way they can't get you. A couple of days ago they stopped someone there. They tied him up and abused him, but there's also danger passing this way. They can pick us up here and mistreat us.
COMM It's not always easy - the soldiers can swoop at any time, stop people; make arrests. The men are sometimes terrorised always frightened. It looks like a game, but these are middle-aged men going to work five days a week. Once they get to work are these men are exploited.
ATEF SA'D: It is a kind of discrimination in wages between the Israeli and Palestinian who are doing the same jobs. As an example: the unskilled worker who work in the construction industry, he received in a day around one hundred twenty Israeli shekels. But the same unskilled workers who is Israeli he cannot accept to work the same job, but not less than four hundred to five hundred shekels. Those who do not have permits have no rights at all. The Israeli employers exploit them one hundred percent. The difference between them . . .
CHARLES STEWART (DIRECTOR): Khaled, your grandparents are from Zachariya - have you been back?
KHALED: The last time I was there was there just for - picnic, let's say - it was before twelve years or thirteen years. I was young - little - young man then. I don't remember it very well but I remember it very - the most beautiful place I ever see. All trees and - a small village, but there's Jewish from Iraq live there. It's my land. I know - I mean my last time was before thirteen or maybe fifteen years ago, but it's my right to go there. We begin this interview in a question about the human rights. Where's the human rights? I back to it Yanny, to have just ID card to live - you haven't your land.
COMM: Four million Palestinians have lost the right to live in their homes. Here, a picnic has been organised by the old people to teach and enthuse their grandchildren.
YACOB (TRANSLATION): Lifta: where your father and mother and grandfather and grandmother were born. We are not going there for fun we are going as returnees to Lifta, our village. The village that we refuse to replace ever. We will not accept any alternative. We will not accept anyone negotiating away our rights over our village. We don't want talking, nor politics. We just want to return to Lifta. Where are we going to return to?
CHILDREN ON COACH: Lifta!
MAN WITH DEEDS (TRANSLATION): This is the Turkish emblem! Until now we've kept the key to our houses. Since 1948 until now. I am 74 years old!
LIFTA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): We were forced to leave. At night we left, while they were shooting at our heads. Honest to God, I had children - they left with me running for their lives. They were shooting from the hills. From here and there!
YACOB: This is our village! Sooner or later we will come back. It's our right - it is our human rights!
COMM: Many Palestinians rarely have mains water. This home in Yatta Town last had water 64 days ago. They spend a third of their income on bad water that is dangerous to drink. Whereas nearby Settlements use water as if there was no shortage at all. In Bethlehem, Aida Refugee camp is little better off.
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): We need a tank every week - it doesn't last more than five days. The price of a tank is one hundred or one hundred and fifty shekels.
INTERPRETER (TRANSLATION): So when did you last get water from the mains?
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): About er, twenty-five days ago?
INTERPRETER (TRANSLATION): And how much does water cost per month?
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): It cost us four hundred and fifty shekels, and my husband's salary is one thousand five hundred a month.
CHARLES STEWART: So that's almost a third of her income on water.
INTERPRETER (TRANSLATION): So you know that the settlements have water enough to water the streets.
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): Yes. I know that the water doesn't cut off in the settlements for a single day, so they pour it on the plants trees and us human beings don't have enough to drink!
WOMAN (TRANSLATION): You're upset?
AIDA WOMAN (TRANSLATION): Of course I'm upset! I'm angry. It's our basic right: water, and air. COMM: After the failure of the Camp David peace talks, the Palestinians in Jerusalem call a two-hour strike. There is a heavy police presence. Outside the Damascus Gate there is a disturbance. It is not easy to see what's happening - though it appears to be kids objecting to the Palestinian Man in the Streets selling during the strike. Crisis intervention police move in - in numbers.
MAN AT DAMASCUS GATE: This is the terrorism, this is. They do everything - daily they do like this!
WOMAN (TRANSLATION): They're thieves, thieves! They take everything from us. They steal it. They're thieves, all of them.
MAN AT DAMASCUS GATE: This is the human rights! This is the human rights. They should go there - this is our land!
WOMAN (TRANSLATION): How will we fend for ourselves? How will we live? We need at least bread.
MAN AT DAMASCUS GATE: It lets the Intifada to return back. And it will be more strong than before. We should get our freedom; we should get our identity card; we should get our Passport. We should get our country. We are not in animal zoo! They are crazy! They just want peace in hand. Not more.
PART TWO
KHALED: So, this house is - this is a martyr's house. He was shot in his head - killed during Intifada. He was the first martyr in Dheisheh. He was shot in his head. Settlers shot him.
COMM: The Israeli government have built settlements to house a hundred and seventy-five thousand Israelis in the West Bank behind barbed wire fences for their protection.
YEHUDIT TAYAR YESHA, Council of Jewish Communities: It's a very unequal world, and my children have to live in the danger of being shot at. Why are they shot at? It's not because they're settlers it's only because they are Jews. Did tell you that er recently - we sat with the heads of the army they warned us, no matter what Arafat is given there's going to be violence. It's going to start with your communities - they're going to attack you. We didn't want barbed wire round us. We don't want to live in a Ghetto in our country. This is not right, this is not the direction of peace. It's not: you're going to give them land and they're going to be satisfied. First they have to come to the decision there's a place - and there is a place for both the Arabs and the Jews in this country. You know - they talk about Hebron, they talk about cave of the Patriarchs. Abraham had Ishmahel and he had Itsak he had Isaac and Ishmahel. We don't deny them the fact that Abraham is their father too. They have no right to deny us either.
KHALED, Dheisheh Refugee Camp: We can live together. Er, the world is very small today. Yanni - we must be together, we must thinking about good future. I need my state. I need Jerusalem. I don't need settlers. That's the true peace. What is the peace to bring someone from outside to my country and because he's Jewish - just like that? To bring him and make him settlers and Israelis. Some day we will get it. By peace, by force - who knows? But I think we will get it.
COMM: Fifteen kilometres from Bethlehem the Palestinian village of Bet Skeria is hemmed in by two Jewish settlements. The owners - who have been there for three generations - have been told that two of their fields are state land wanted for military purposes.
IBRAHIM (TRANSLATION): The Israeli government has told us that this is state land - that we're sitting on state land - we have a month. And this is a disgrace; if we were fighters, never mind! If we were killers, never mind! But we are peaceful people. And yet they take our land, saying this is state land and they give it to the Settlers.
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER, Civil Administration, Judea and Samaria: If he plans to plant trees on land, he has to be able to prove that this land is his - like anywhere in the world.
CHARLES STEWART: So you'd say that this land isn't his and he doesn't have title deeds to it.
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER: That's right.
CHARLES STEWART: And if he has he has to show them to you?
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER: He has to bring them forward and show us.
CHARLES STEWART: And if he did?
CAPTAIN PETER LERNER: If did then they will be revised and we will be able to check and if they're, er - they are true deeds then of course as with past issues, the order will be er - will be valid.
COMM: The family have deeds dated 1932, but they don't have much confidence that these documents will save their land - though Israeli government says it will comply with the provisions of international law regarding property in the occupied territories.
IBRAHIM: Well all right then - if this is a matter of justice then let it be! But the problem is that they're not using justice, they are using force: either agree or die! I mean if they want to talk about rights: we have been here a hundred and fifty years! This is the land they want to confiscate we will not go! If they want to knock it down on top of us and kill us, they are welcome.
COMM The family lost this orchard some years ago violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - Ibrahim's son Mohamed explains.
MOHAMMED (TRANSLATION): This land belonged to us until 1982 - they announced a decision that it was needed for military purposes. They announced in the law courts that it was military land we had no say in the matter. So they took the land, pulled out the trees and planted new trees in their place. And as you can see they put this fence round it and made it part of the settlement.
YAEL STEIN, B'Tselem Israeli human rights organisation: In Israel like - unlike many other countries everything is legal. All the human rights violations is legal. It's legal to detain administratively people for years; it's legal to demolish their houses; it's legal to deport them, it's legal to take their land. And until recently it was legal to torture them. So, I think that this is what is unique on human rights violations in Israel, that um all the legal system is er actually engaged in um justifying all this human rights violations.
COMM: Mr Abu Faiz is a Palestinian living in the West Bank. He's in court today because he rebuilt his house after the Civil Administration knocked it down. He is here in a criminal court charged with rebuilding his house. His defence argues that he has a right to make a home for his family. We are allowed to film up until the Military Judge arrives.
COMM The Judge didn't decide the case today.
MAN OUTSIDE COURT: Why wasn't he prepared to make a decision today?
JEFF HALPER: He said he made a decision! Allegra got the decision last night at five o'clock in the evening that, that he wouldn't allow witnesses. So she protested and said she's going to order the Supreme Court appeal. Because she has the right - her thing was you can't, you can't, you know - not allow witnesses because they are not relevant before you hear them.
ABU FAIZ (TRANSLATION): I don't see that I should have to justify being on my land! Why should I have to justify that? This is something that doesn't happen anywhere in the whole world! As a human being I must have the right to live somewhere! In the State of Israel or in Palestine or in America or in Europe I have the right to live!
CHIEF PROSECUTOR (Major Eli Bar-On, Chief Prosecutor, Bet El Court): This Committee announced him that he's, he's not allowed to build over there because er it is contrary to the authorised planning regime. And he still went on with the building - so his house was ruined - so he built it again. So we only deal with the criminal aspect of this.
ALLEGRA PACHECO, Israeli human rights lawyer: It's impossible for any Palestinian - without maybe with some sort of connections - to get a permit. So from a 1941 plan Abu Faiz's land is agricultural and it is not zoned for residential. And therefore he cannot get a permit to build.
CHIEF PROSECUTOR: This goes the same for everyone in this area, in Israel and any civilized country. I mean, you cannot build wherever you want. This is the same law applied equally both on settlers and er, on the local Palestinians - there is no difference between them.
ALLEGRA PACHECO: Palestinians who live here own the land and that's why they have to apply for a permit to build on their land. Jewish settlers who come in here, Israeli citizens, they don't own the land the land is taken - is confiscated by the State and then given to certain organisations who then hire contractors who then build a huge neighbourhood. So er generally Israeli citizens don't have to apply for house permits. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention - which is the law of occupation - the occupier is obligated to respect the rights of, of the civilian population and not to discriminate against them.
CHARLES STEWART: So you categorically tell us there's no difference between the law as applied to Palestinians and Israelis?
CHIEF PROSECUTOR: Most definitely. Absolutely!
CHARLES STEWART: Absolutely?
CHIEF PROSECUTOR: Yeah. CHARLES STEWART: OK.
COMM: On the hillside opposite Abu Faiz's house the Israelis are building a settlement.
COMM: A helicopter buzzed his home within five minutes of his arrival adding force to his complaint that he was being harassed by the civil administration. Badil, a Bethlehem charity, organised a trip taking children from the local refugee camps up to the border with the Lebanon to meet refugees living there. They hope to meet at the fence but an armoured truck bared the way a quarter of a mile from the border. The soldiers refused to let the party pass.
ISRAELI SOLDIER (TRANSLATION): You have exactly five minutes to go! I suggest you take your group away to the bus before the police get involved.
COMM: They have to be content with waving flags at the people they came to see. Many are blood relatives they've never, ever met.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Ask him if he wants peace! Ask him if he wants peace! Ask him - but give him the right translation! Do you want to shoot or do you want to make peace? Shake my hand.
OLDER MAN: Listen, listen - listen, he says no. Why? Because my land in Bejabreen -
YOUNG MAN: You can hear his answer.
OLDER MAN: . . .you, you took it!
AMERICAN WOMAN: You taught him that!
OLDER MAN: Yaar my land in Bejabreen!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Ask him if he likes football!
OLDER MAN: Listen, listen, listen!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Wait, wait - ask him if he likes soccer - you told him what to say!
OLDER BADIL WORKER: Wait a moment
2ND MAN: There's no ground to play soccer in the camp. It's a concentration camp - the same like the concentration camps in Europe.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Oh come on.
2ND MAN: We are settlers in the camps.
OLDER MAN: Listen, listen - ask him.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Have you been to Auschwitz?
2ND MAN: Yes, I am in Dheisheh Camp which is Auschwitz. Another one!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Have you been to Auschwitz?
2ND MAN: It's another one! We know that you suffer a lot in Europe -
AMERICAN WOMAN: You don't know what it is - you've never been there.
OLDER MAN: Listen.
2ND MAN: We know you've suffered a lot in Europe but you are doing the same to us!
2ND MAN: According to United Nations Resolution Number 181 - you took 56% of the land and you want - you want now to give us just 15% because you want all Jerusalem! You want the borders - you want the Settlements, you want everything! And you want us to compromise!
AMERICAN WOMAN: Ask him! If he goes to Camp and he plays soccer and he wins - his team wins - does he take the prize, and take the prize, and give it to the other team? Or does he take the prize for himself? Just ask him that.
YOUNG MAN: OK, I'll ask him that.
AMERICAN WOMAN: What would he do - what would he do if he was the winning team?
BYSTANDER: That's not a very fair question to ask a child - to put a question like that.
AMERICAN WOMAN: Why not? It's a similar situation! It is! You win a war - you win a war you don't give back everything. It's the exact same thing!
2ND MAN: You don't feel with me because you claim that I didn't suffer in the camp. I'm suffering since fifty-two years.
AMERICAN WOMAN: I believe you've suffered!
2ND MAN: If you believe me, just support me!
AMERICAN WOMAN: I'm not Israeli - I'm not Israeli.
YOUNG MAN: Are you afraid - are you afraid of standing here with us? Are you afraid?
AMERICAN WOMAN: You seem like a nice boy.
YOUNG MAN: I invite you to our camp.
BADIL WORKER: Yes, we invite you to Dheisheh Camp. You are American -
END