“We want to start an honest conversation that can also raise…limitations and tough questions,” explained Haneen Maikey, director of the Jerusalem-based Al Qaws Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian society. “It’s not to be accepted, but rather to bring the society to a safe place that we can discuss these issues.”

Al Qaws is behind a new project called Singing Sexuality, or “ghanni a’an taa’rif” in Arabic, launching May 25 in Haifa after nearly two years of preparation and the work of about 80 volunteers.

Combining photographs, videos, music and written testimonials and information, the project aims to educate young Palestinians about gender diversity, sexuality, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. The goal is to initiate conversations between friends, family members and society in general throughout all of historic Palestine.

Activists launched an interactive website with information about these issues earlier this week, while three short videos and an entire music album, featuring the work of local Palestinian musicians and writers, were also posted online.

“This project was able to push [the artists] even farther, to touch more taboo questions and to play on sexuality, sexual minorities and gender in a new way,” Maikey explained, about the creative process.

By including different genres of music, from rock to traditional Arabic songs, and using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to share material, the project also has the potential to reach Palestinian youth directly.

“This project in my opinion is unique because it uses music to reach out to people, and I don’t think that we could reach out to them before,” explained Alaa, an Al Qaws volunteer from Haifa who has worked on the Singing Sexuality project from the very beginning and gave IPS only his first name.

“That’s why this project is very, very important; it’s on the Internet [and] everyone can see it,” he explained. “If we made some people think about it and rethink about it, I think we reached [the goal of] this project. We are not aiming to change peoples’ minds; we just want to make a dialogue. We just want to say that this issue is here.”

Safa Tamish is director of Muntada, the Arab Forum for Sexuality, Education and Health. She explained that while sexuality in general and LGBT rights in particular and are not openly talked about, Palestinian society has seen an increased willingness to discuss these issues in recent years.

“I think there has been a shift in peoples’ perception. I’m not saying that Palestinian society is so pro-gay rights. I cannot say that, but I can say that it is more and more acceptable. The fact is that we know of many, many families that accepted their children,” Tamish told IPS.

“Within Palestinian society, I see that there is a real transformation in the last four or five years.”

She explained that the evolution of the LGBT and queer struggles in Palestine is similar to what has happened in other countries, insomuch as these movements are more visible in modern Palestinian cities, like Ramallah or Haifa, than in smaller towns or villages, where society is generally more conservative.

“Sexual liberation is part of our national liberation. It has to be in parallel,” Tranish said. “My struggle is to contribute to the building of the civil society in Palestine, and part of that building is working on sexual rights.”

Al Qaws’ Haneen Maikey also sees the Singing Sexuality project as part of the larger Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation, colonialism and discrimination, both inside Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territories.

“Part of how I see and understand resistance is that when we decolonise Palestine, I will have a society that I can rely on, a society that is ready to [respond to] different social and political processes, that can respect the Other, [and] have openness about different sexuality and behaviour,” she explained.

“Our contribution to building a more open Palestinian society is part of an anti-colonial struggle.”

Israeli's blockade of Gaza is crippling the territory. Above, selling yoghurt in Gaza in an attempt to make some sort of living. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS

Israel’s crippling blockade of the coastal territory of Gaza is pushing desperate young Palestinians to ever more extreme measures in the search for livelihoods, despite an agreement granting Gazans greater access to their agricultural land.

In search of work, some Gazans try to enter Israel by jumping the fence that separates it from Gaza. Others continue to be shot dead or are seriously injured by Israeli soldiers as they try to farm land bordering the fence, and still others who choose an underground path die when tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt collapse.

Yet an agreement between Hamas and Israel’s COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) following a ceasefire in November stated that Gazans would be able to access most of their agricultural land in Israel’s self-declared 300-metre buffer zone, which runs along the border, by reducing the zone to 100 metres.

The buffer zone is comprised of some of Gaza’s most fertile land in a territory desperately lacking space. Gaza is one of the most densely populated territories in the world, with more than 1.5 million people squashed into an area 41 kilometres long and six to 12 kilometres wide.

Despite the Hamas-COGAT agreement, “the situation remains volatile and unpredictable, and the farmers are extremely vulnerable,” Muhammad Suliman, from the Gaza-based human rights organisation Al Mezan, told IPS. “Palestinians continue to be shot and killed in and near the buffer zone at certain times, while at other times nothing happens.”

Meanwhile, fishermen at work within the Israeli-imposed fishing zone, which was three nautical miles until Israel announced on May 21 that it would extend the zone to six nautical miles, are also being shot at and arrested.

Forced to rely on aid

A bitter paradox is unfolding in that while Gaza’s economic desperation has been somewhat buffered by a rise in international aid and work by non-governmental organisations in the strip, unemployment has skyrocketed, and Gaza is now one of the world’s most aid-dependent territories.

“More than 85 percent of Gazans are dependent on aid to survive, while youth unemployment stands at over 55 percent,” Suliman said.

“The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is going around begging the international community for donations to help Gazans survive economically,” a spokesperson for UNRWA, Chris Gunness, told IPS. “Wouldn’t it be better for Israel to lift its blockade and allow Gazans to be self-sufficient?”

“Unless the blockade is lifted and some of the world’s most entrepreneurial and business-minded people are allowed to leave Gaza in pursuit of business ventures, Gaza will remain increasingly desperate and dependent on international aid,” Gunness added.

Increasing attacks

According to Al Mezan, Israeli naval attacks on Gazan fishermen have escalated since the November ceasefire, including the sinking of six Palestinian fishing boats and damage to nine power generators and 41 lamplights used by fishermen at night during the first week of May. The Israeli navy also shot at Palestinian fishing boats in 13 separate incidents.

Al Mezan stated that last week Israelis shot with machine guns at a group of fishing boats off the coast of Beit Lahiya in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Israeli military boats arrested two men, Mahmoud Zayid, 27, and his brother Khalid, 25, from a small fishing boat, which was about 400 meters off the coast and approximately 1.5 nautical miles south of the Northern Israeli restricted zone.

In another attack on May 19, Israeli naval vessels opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Deir Al-Balah in the Middle Gaza district. The boats were also within the Israeli-sanctioned fishing zone, about three nautical miles from shore, when they were attacked.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) states that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinian fishermen were permitted to go 20 nautical miles out to sea. Since Israel imposed the blockade in 2006, the area has been reduced to 6 nautical miles, to devastating effect. In 2006, 2,500 tonnes of sardine were caught, in comparison to 234 tonnes in 2012.

According to the international aid organisation Oxfam, such economic restrictions by Israel are pushing young Gazans to risk their lives by jumping the fence into Israel to seek employment or entering the tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

Working in conjunction with Oxfam, Al Mezan reported that in the last year 101 people attempted to climb the perimeter fence, with 53 of those younger than 18. And according to Al Mezan’s Suliman, 18 Palestinians were also killed and 26 injured in the tunnels.

In one case last year, a young man, Mahmoud, and two of his friends tried to climb the fence. Mahmoud’s two friends were shot dead by Israeli soldiers while Mahmoud escaped with a bullet injury to his leg. The young man had lost his previous part-time job at a café, where he earned 4 dollars a day. Desperate to help support his large family, Mahmoud had taken the risk of entering Israel.

90 Palestinians, including 11 children and three women, were killed in the buffer zone in the last three years, and as Suliman pointed out, “while some of these were fighters killed during Israel’s military assault on Gaza last November, most of those killed were civilians.”

The ceasefire line in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

Israel is being drawn into Syria’s quagmire as it threatens to act further on transfers of “game-changing” weapons to hostile protagonists involved in Syria’s civil war, be they Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, Jihadist Sunni rebels, or loyalist forces of President Bashar al Assad.

The country does so reluctantly while knowing full well the consequences of such actions. Within weeks, Israel has expanded its list of “tie-breaking”, “game-changing” and “deterrence-diminishing” weapons defined as a “red line” to its security.

Initially, a red line was drawn on any foe gaining control over Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. These weapons, while being used increasingly in the war, are for the time being still secured by Assad’s forces.

But on Jan. 30, when Israeli warplanes destroyed a convoy carrying surface-to-air S-17 missiles supplied by Iran and bound for Hezbollah, it became clear that another type of red line was being crossed, from Israel’s standpoint.

Though it didn’t formally take responsibility for the airstrike, Israel declared it would not tolerate the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah, with whom it fought an indecisive war in 2006.

Meanwhile, Iran hopes that greater Hezbollah firepower will deter Israel from striking Iran’s nuclear sites, should it decide to do so.

On May 4 and May 5, Israel followed up by bombing shipments of Iran-made Fateh-110 missiles destined for Hezbollah.

Unlike rockets currently in Hezbollah’s arsenal, the more accurate surface-to-surface Fateh-110 missile is capable of reaching strategic targets south of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in Israel.

In the last decade, Syria has chosen to ignore Israeli attacks on its territory, including one against its nuclear reactor (Deir ez-Zour, 2007) and another on Hezbollah’s chief of operations, Imad Mughniyeh (Damascus, 2008).

Yet in the wake of the latest airstrike – perhaps because the U.S. Pentagon confirmed Israel’s responsibility and thus, Syria couldn’t possibly keep mute – this time, Syria threatened to retaliate.

To add credibility to Damascus’ threat, Hezbollah also threatens to open a new front on the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967.

Following the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement signed by Israel and Syria, the Golan Heights have largely been quiet, aside from occasional and unintentional mortar fire in the past six months leaking from battles in Syria through the ceasefire line and resulting in Israel’s responding with artillery fire.

Israeli security analysts believe that Assad won’t dare risking engaging a far more formidable enemy than the rebels, even by proxy, while fighting for his own survival. But they won’t say it out loud.

Ten days after the last bombing, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, flew to Sochi for an urgent meeting with Vladimir Putin to try to persuade the Russian president to freeze his country’s commitment to supply anti-aircraft S-300 batteries to the Syrian army.

S-300 anti-aircraft missiles can threaten Israel’s airspace, as they’re capable of intercepting Israeli jets upon takeoff.

The provision of S-300 batteries is a long-standing issue between Israel and Russia, and it’s still unclear as to whether Russia will honour the arms deal with Syria.

Netanyahu’s office says the meetingwth Putin was at the Israeli prime minister’s request, perhaps because other sources indicate that Putin summoned the Israeli leader to warn him of the perils of further interference in Syria.

After all, no one wants Syria to implode – let alone explode and destabilise the entire region. And it’s no secret that Russia is determined to keep Assad in power.

Evidence of such determination are the recent leaks to U.S. newspapers of Russian warships patrolling the Mediterranean Sea near Tartus, Russia’s naval base in Syria, and of new shipments of Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria.

These shipments serve as another “game-changer” that could target Israel’s offshore natural gas drilling rigs, at a time when Russia has agreed with the United States to host an international conference on Syria next month.

To complicate matters further, it’s now becoming patently obvious that Israel’s ever-evolving red lines, if taken to their logical conclusion, could lead to targeting not only shipments of advanced weapons systems and their recipient – Assad’s army – but also, albeit indirectly, the supplier itself: Russia.

Israel’s decision-makers are engaged in a balancing act between their preference for “Israel’s man in Damascus” (as a former Mossad Intelligence chief, Efraim Halevy, recently called Assad in Foreign Affairs) and Israel’s red lines.

Responding to Syria’s threats by words of an “official” in the New York Times, Israel threatened Assad with impending demise.

Correlatively, another “official” in the Times of London declared, “Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos.”

When asked which side he favoured in the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1989), then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir quipped, “We want them both to win.” Similarly, Syria’s civil war seems to serve Israel’s interests, as long as it’s a tie.

How Israel can enforce its red lines – by neutralising missiles shipments as they’re being delivered to, or assembled in, Syria? How would Moscow react? How would Damascus react? – is no longer so simple.

After all, if Israel and Russia both want Assad to stay in power, then why try to dissuade Russia from boosting the embattled Syrian leader’s loyal forces? The answer comes almost inadvertently from the “official” in the Times of London: Israel “underestimated Assad’s staying power”.

Meanwhile, the United States still grapples with how to react to the use of chemical weapons in Syria – a “game-changer” as far as President Barack Obama is concerned, yet not one that changes their Israeli ally’s hands-off approach to the civil war.

Caught in a miniature cold war between Russia and the United States, Israel risks sinking into the civil war’s quagmire and allowing Iran to evade further scrutiny on its nuclear programme while the international community is preoccupied with the situation on the ground in Syria.

Soldiers in Bashiqa, Iraq, an area where Iraqi Christians are seeking autonomy. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

Luis Shabi nostalgically recalls his nine years of novitiate in Rome and a “fantastic road trip through Europe” before returning to Iraq in 1969. “Those were the good times,” sighs the Chaldean Archbishop of Baghdad from a bunker in the heart of the Iraqi capital.

His office, in the basement of the church of Saint Mary of the Rosary, east of the city, is a humble temple. Yet it is protected today by high concrete walls, barbed wire and soldiers on guard next to an armoured vehicle at the entrance.s

“We have always been a peaceful and hardworking people, with a reputation for contributing to Iraqi culture with many writers, poets, philosophers,” the priest, wearing an immaculate black cassock and a pink bonnet, says of Iraqi Christians.

“But since the invasion in 2003, the extremists have reinforced the idea of us being ‘newcomers’, something like an ‘extension of the West’ in the Middle East,” laments Shabi, stressing that the fact that there were some Christian ministers during the years of Saddam Hussein “makes things even worse”.

“What has Europe done to help us? What about Rome? Neither civil authorities nor the religious ones in Europe have moved a single finger to assist us in one of the worst moments of our history.”

Targeting Christians

With Iraqi Mandaeans quite literally decimated – nine out of 10 have either died or fled since 2003 – the local Christian community has suffered significantly over the last decade. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reports that about half of that population has left the country since 2003.

The Assyrian Council of Europe, an independent non-governmental organisation, goes further, pointing to the Iraqi Constitution as one of the culprits of marginalisation faced by minorities in Iraq.

“Islam is the state religion and a basic foundation for the country’s law,” states Article 2.1 of Iraq’s 2005 Carta Magna.

“We are not Arabs but Semitic,” Shabi proclaims. “We’ve been speaking Aramaic in Mesopotamia since the times of Hammurabi. We are the grandsons of Abraham and of Nebuchadnezzar, but our future in Iraq does not go any further than tomorrow.”

From his underground bunker, it’s just a ten-minute walk to the modern and majestic white facade of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The church was renovated last year, but here no one has forgotten what happened here less than two years ago.

“They were five. They jumped over the concrete walls and entered the church yelling ‘God is great’,” remembers Aysur Said, the current pastor of the church. “They said they belonged to the Islamic State of Iraq – a Sunni group linked to al-Qaeda. It was Oct. 31, 2011. We were attending mass.”

Said’s predecessor, Father Waseem, was one of 50 killed in the most severe attack against this community since 2003. “Some died by gunfire and others by suffocation. A number of them were locked in a room that we use to dress up. There are no windows and the air ran out right away,” Said told IPS.

A place in Eden

Immediately after the brutal attack, the Christians of Iraq demanded their own autonomous region in the plains of Nineveh region, in the northwest of the country, bordering the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq.

In those plains, where the Bible places the Garden of Eden, is a compact Christian population. Today the area is disputed by Kurds and Arabs. Its administrative capital is the former Baathist stronghold of Mosul, a place shaken by sectarian clashes since mass protests began taking place last December.

Bashiqa, 30 kilometres from Mosul, is one of the places that many Christians claim as part of their would-be autonomous region. From the Orthodox church of Mart Shmouni, 23-year-old Father Daniel underscores “the importance of unity among Iraqis”, though he admits that unity is not easy.

“This is chaos. The new authorities in Baghdad are unable to protect us, so our people continue to flee in the thousands,” Father Daniel told IPS. “However, in recent months we have also welcomed many Christian families arriving from Syria and knocking the doors of our monasteries and churches. Many of them [come] with virtually nothing.”

Despite its proximity to volatile Mosul, Bashiqa enjoys relative stability, something that Father Daniel attributes to the deployment of Kurdish soldiers in the area. “For many, Bashiqa is just a stop along their way to the Kurdish Autonomous Region, where security is complete,” explains the pastor.

Kirkuk, 230 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, also languishes in a legal limbo between Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government.

Imad Yokhana Yago, a member of parliament in Baghdad for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, denounces “genocide at the hands of Islamists” and the “continuous mass flight” of his people since 2003. At the same time, he advocates for a project tailored to his dwindling community.

“We fear there will be a new war in the country due to the tensions between Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Arabs,” Yago tells IPS from Kirkuk, calling for Christian autonomy in Nineveh region that would “protect our community and also work as a ‘buffer zone’ between the warring sides”.

The project, however, is a controversial one, as many fear that such region could turn into a ghetto into which Christians from all the country would be displaced.

“The repression we are suffering does not come exclusively from the Iraqi Arabs,” asid Yousif Eisho, executive of the Assyrian Christian Movement. “Iran, Saudi Arabia… there are too many foreign agents involved in the ethnic cleansing of our people.”

“The said ghetto will eventually turn real if the constant interference from the outside remains,” Eisho warned.

Despite the staggering human cost of the war, however, the international community is very close to failing these refugees, warns Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR regional coordinator for Syrian refugees.

Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR regional coordinator for Syrian refugees. Photo courtesy of UNHCR.

All sides “appear to be committed only to military means for resolving the conflict”, Moumtzis told IPS, a decision that is leading to what he called “a massive exodus of people”.

Moumtzis has extensive experience in crisis management, having worked in Gaza, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo, and other countries with humanitarian emergencies. He describes the Syrian crisis as one of the most acute crises he has ever seen.

IPS correspondent Apostolis Fotiadis spoke with Moumtzis about the situation in and surrounding Syria and the role of the international community in this crisis.

Q: What are the characteristics of the Syrian refugee population?

A: Most of the refugees are Sunni Muslim. Three quarters of those crossing the border are women and children. More than half are children. A large percentage of the men you see in Iraq are mainly Kurdish and wanted to escape conscription, which is a concern of many Syrians as well.

The father in one family I met told me, “In a few months my son will be 18, so we decided to take him out of school and leave the country, before it is too late and he is called to serve.”

Tens of thousands of soldiers have also left the Syrian army. A camp in Jordan, specially assigned for them, holds 20 to 30 thousand of them. But these are not refugees. Anyone who crosses the border with a gun needs to pass a period of six months without a gun or uniform before we accept him as a refugee.

Q: How many people have moved out of Syria so far, and what is the size of your regional operation?

A: Out of approximately 1.25 million refugees, 25 percent of them are in camps. This means another 75 percent is in cities and villages.

There are 17 camps in Turkey with 196,000 people, with three more being built now. Each of those is to host another 10 to 20,000. There, UNHCR advises the government, and we also try to monitor legal issues that occur for refugees and monitor registration in order to keep track of people’s special needs.

We also try to ensure that no recruitment of guerillas takes place in the camp or any kind of military activity happens there.

We run two camps in Iraq and another three in Jordan. Turkey provides things we are unable to offer in our camps, like hot water, three meals per day, and whoever gets married goes on a month holiday. It is very important that camps strictly maintain a civilian character.

Q: How fluid is population movement? Do people return to Syria while others escape the country?

A: We have had spontaneous returns in the last three months. Very often people want to go back and see their houses. Men bring the family out of Syria and then return to check on their property.

Q: If the situation in Syria calms down, how easy would be for refugees to return there?

A: We would suggest that people stay outside Syria for some time until we know an agreement or deal is implemented.

The ones close to the borders whose houses have not been destroyed would return first, whereas people living in Baba Amr at Homs would be the last to return, since the area is devastated.

We are interested in that returns are voluntary, that no one pressures people to return, and that people know what they will face when they return.

Still, in every conflict there are people that cannot return. If the regime changes, for instance, we would see Sunnis going back and ethnic minorities leaving the country.

Q: Has the international community stood up to the task of dealing with the humanitarian disaster in Syria?

A: U.N. agencies estimate that meeting these refugees’ needs requires 1 billion dollars for surrounding countries and another 500 million for those inside Syria. We now have 30 percent of this budget, so we must assess the most urgent needs.

One should also consider the failure of the international community to give a political solution to the Syrian civil war.

Q: Has the international community failed Syria because of the many different geopolitical interests involved in this crisis?

A: It is better to say that the international community has failed politically until now. Humanitarian assistance is an alternative, so we can say they are offering something for this failure.

But there are so many forces inside Syria right now that make the resolution of this conflict a very complicated task. The uprising against a family regime has turned into a war that increasingly resembles a fight between Sunni and Shia, a fight of Hezbollah and Iran against Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States, as well as a war in which Al Qaeda has intervened.

Q: Many voices warn about a domino effect, with the war spreading into Lebanon. Are these warnings valid?

A: This is not a theoretical danger. It’s a real threat. Overall, Lebanon seems very unstable at the moment, and the bad economic situation in the country does not help. Many times we have to ask our personnel not to do certain things because of the uncertainty.

In Tripoli, people have been killed in armed incidents. A bomb was placed in Beirut three months ago. There is also tension at Sirte, in the south, due to the Hezbollah presence there and in the Beqaa valley as well.

Mandeep Tiwana, policy and advocacy manager of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. Credit: Mandeep Tiwana

Despite the tall talk at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid and Development Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, today NGOs, trade unions, faith based groups, social movements and community based organisations working to expose rights violations and corruption remain in a state of siege in many parts of the world.

Reports by U.N. officials and respected civil society organisations show that false prosecutions and murderous attacks on activists are rife and threatening to derail international development objectives even as we debate a new framework to replace the Millennium Development Goals, which expire in 2015.

In fact, moves are being championed by some governments to limit civil society participation at high-level meetings of the U.N. General Assembly through a process whereby states can issue politically motivated objections to the inclusion of particular NGOs in key discussions.

Unfortunately, legal restrictions on free speech, formation of civic organisations and the right to protest peacefully appear to be on the rise despite the rhetoric of engaging civil society in global decision making forums.

In many countries civil society groups are being prevented from accessing funding from international sources, as highlighted by the U.N.’s special expert on freedom of assembly and association in his latest report.

In Russia, non-profit advocacy groups receiving international funding are being subjected to intrusive inspections to ensure compliance with a controversial law that requires NGOs to register under the highly offensive nomenclature of “foreign agents”, or face sanctions.

A draft law currently pending in Bangladesh seeks to implement a cumbersome approval process for civil society organisations receiving foreign funding, in an attempt to discourage criticism of the government.

Egypt is mulling over a new law that would allow intelligence and security agencies to exert control over independent civil society groups.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s most prolific blogger is serving an 18-year sentence for writing about the implications of the Arab Spring for his country. A respected Laotian activist is missing after he criticised state-sponsored displacement of local communities.

In Saudi Arabia, founders of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights have been handed 10 and 11-year sentences for “breaking allegiance to the King.” China continues to incarcerate dissident writers calling for democratic reform, including Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiobo.

The situation is alarming in fragile and conflict-affected states. As the civil war rages on in Syria, a number of peaceful civil society activists and journalists are being imprisoned and persecuted in violation of international human rights law.

The actions of Colombian right-wing paramilitary groups have become so murderous that the country is now the deadliest place in the world for trade unionists.

Women’s rights activists challenging patriarchy and religious fundamentalism in Pakistan are gunned down with frightening regularity, while activists from Sri Lanka and Bahrain voicing concerns at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva often face reprisals upon return to their home countries.

In Cameroon and Uganda activists seeking to advance gay rights are not only socially ostracised but also subjected to death threats on a regular basis to prevent them from carrying out their work.

Even in so-called mature democracies, expressing dissent remains an activity fraught with negative consequences. A section of the environmental group Forest Ethics Canada decided to give up its charitable status, including tax advantages, in order to protect itself from intrusive inspections after being blamed by the conservative government of “obstructing” the country’s economic development.

Julian Assange, founder of the activist website WikiLeaks, continues to be hounded for his exposé of U.S. diplomatic cables and, arguably, doing what most investigative journalists do.

In the United Kingdom, the practice of police spies penetrating the environmental movement has prompted a sharp rebuke from the U.N., whose expert on freedom of assembly and association, Maina Kiai, expressed “deep concern” in January about police officers infiltrating non-violent groups who were not engaged in any criminal activities.

As evidence from CIVICUS’ State of Civil Society Report 2013 shows, promises made in Busan about creating an “enabling” environment for CSOs were ignored as soon as the proverbial ink had dried.

With discussions on the post 2015 development agenda well underway, influential civil society groups are urging the U.N.’s High Level Panel to explicitly recognise the centrality of an enabling environment for civil society in any new formulation of internationally agreed development goals.

While politicians are currently preoccupied with kick-starting or maintaining economic growth, there is a real danger that civil society’s right and ability to engage decision makers in various forums will be further limited.

If global development goals are to succeed, civil society needs to be able to operate free from fear of reprisals for advancing legitimate if uncomfortable concerns. After all, civil society groups contribute substantially to development strategies and help find innovative solutions to complex developmental challenges.

More importantly, they help ensure the representation of a wide range of voices, in particular those of the vulnerable and marginalised in development debates. Perhaps this is why they are being persecuted.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

The view from the Al-Qatrawani shrine, a stop along the Sufi Trail in the village of 'Atara in the West Bank. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

A reddish-brown dome sits atop an ancient stone house, used hundreds of years ago for prayer. It peeks out from the surrounding trees as the rolling green valleys and hills of the central West Bank stretch out into the distance.

This shrine, known as the Al-Khawass shrine, sits 540 metres above sea level in the Palestinian village of Deir Ghassaneh. It is one of several stops along the Sufi trail, which begins in the valley below and takes visitors and locals alike back in time to when Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, was widespread in the area.

“I want foreigners to know Palestinian culture, our culture. And I want Palestinians to take [steadfastness] from it. This is your home. Be proud of the land, of the homeland,” explained Rafat Jamil, director of tours and a guide at the Rozana Association.

Based in the West Bank town of Birzeit, near Ramallah, Rozana works to restore and refurbish historical Palestinian buildings and strengthen Palestinian cultural heritage. The organisation also established three Sufi trails in the central and northern West Bank.

Participants on the one-day hikes along these trails see half a dozen shrines along the way and take in the distinct landscape of the area. Markers painted every 30 to 40 metres in the colours of the Palestinian flag – red, green, white – tell hikers they’re on the right path.

The West Bank has about 600 Sufi shrines, including some that date back over 800 years, according to Jamil. Many were built during periods of Mamluk and Ottoman rule over historic Palestine.

“There is a struggle over history. For the Israelis, nothing is Palestinian, just Jewish and Israeli. The idea is to get people to talk about the history of Palestine, and want to see shrines or old homes from the Roman and Byzantine and Ottoman periods,” Jamil told IPS.

“Israelis say that all the culture here is theirs. But when people come, they see something else.”

Alternative tourism in Palestine is not a new phenomenon. Dozens of organisations lead tours in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including political day trips, homestays with Palestinian families, olive harvesting, and arts and cultural heritage festivals.

But the gradual expansion and development of walking paths in the occupied territories is something that Palestinians hope will draw them both tourism and international support.

“We want to bring tourism to areas that never had tourism and bring a good economic impact to the community,” explained Michel Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Siraj Centre, a non-profit tour operator based in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem.

If people spend more time in the Palestinian territories, “they will leave with a real understanding of the Palestinian cause and become advocates for justice in their countries”, Awad added.

The Siraj Centre organizes walking, biking and political tours for international visitors throughout the West Bank. These include the Nativity Trail, a path winding from Nazareth to Bethlehem thought to follow in the footsteps of Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary, or the Abraham Paths, spanning about 170 kilometres from Nablus to Hebron.

Awad told IPS that Israeli tour operators handle most religious pilgrimage tours – a booming business in the Holy Land – even if these tours go to sites in Palestinian areas. Tourists often visit holy sites in Bethlehem, only to return at night to Israeli-run hotels in Jerusalem, for example.

As a result, community-based tourism is an alternative to these religious tours and plays to Palestinians’ strengths. Israelis can’t compete because these hikes encompass much more than just a walking tour, Awad said. “It’s meeting the community and meeting families. It’s totally different.”

Palestinian village and town councils provide input and direction for Siraj Centre’s walking tours, and families regularly host participants for lunch or overnight stays. Families that cook lunch for participants during weekly walking excursions, for instance, receive 40 Israeli shekels per person they host.

“Our aim is to create a new experiential tourism in Palestine that allows travellers to experience Palestinian hospitality and encounter the many landscapes. We want to create a new type of tourism that is in touch with local communities and brings benefits to the rural areas directly,” Awad said.

From January to June 2012, approximately 3.5 million visits were made to tourist sites in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and most visits took place in the Bethlehem governorate.

But hiking in Palestine does more than just generate tourism.

“We love the landscape: the stones, the trees, everything. It is a breath of fresh air, literally,” said Bassam Al Mohor, a photographer and member of Shat-ha hiking collective, based in Ramallah.

Each Friday, Shat-ha organises hikes in different areas of the West Bank, and occasionally to places inside Israel, Jordan, or abroad. The hikes are not difficult, free of charge, and generally last from the early morning to early afternoon.

The group tends to target local Palestinians, although international visitors are welcome, as it aims to connect Palestinian city-dwellers with their counterparts in rural villages and towns, strengthening the bonds between people and their homeland.

“The landscape in the West Bank is shrinking, vanishing, dying slowly. It’s mainly because of the occupation. If we come close to settlements, we risk being attacked. It’s really sad to see tracks that we’ve been walking nicely suddenly off limits for us,” Al Mohor explained.

“But when you walk and see old stone houses or terraces or old towns, as a traveller, what first attracts you is that heritage. We never knew that nature could be like this. You can lose yourself in this.”

Tebu security staff at Saharan oil fields in southern Libya. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS

Kaltoum Saleh, 18, is elated to graduate from her overcrowded high school in the remote Saharan town of Ubari, near the Algerian border.

Saleh, a member of Ubari’s indigenous Tebu tribe, says that for decades under former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan Tebu suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination, which stemmed in part from the failure of the semi-nomadic tribe to register under Libya’s 1954 citizenship law.

Gaddafi’s subsequent “Arabisation” campaign, intended to erase indigenous language and culture, also contributed to discrimination against the Tebu, many of whom were deprived of citizenship papers. As a result, they were barred from decent health care, education and skilled jobs. They often worked for low pay or as subsistence cross-border smugglers.

The tribe was swift to join the revolution against the regime in 2011, and with Gaddafi’s overthrow, the Tebu hoped to attain what they had long been struggling for: their full rights as citizens.

More than two years after the revolution, Saleh proudly says that her father, once a security guard, is now a hospital manager. She herself has considerable ambitions and is striving to become a human rights lawyer and fight for Tebu rights.

“The revolution was good for our self worth,” she says optimistically. “Now I feel like a Libyan citizen.”

But the revolution has not produced all the gains the Libyan Tebu have sought.

They lack sufficient representation in the Tripoli-based government, are in conflict with neighbouring Arab tribes, partly over resources in the current power vacuum, and are still branded by some Libyans as ‘foreigners’.

Guarding southern borders

In their quest for equal rights, Libya’s Tebu are now positioning themselves as valuable and natural guardians of the country’s vast southern borders.

Stretched across Libya’s south, the Tebu live in Ubari, Sebha and Murzuq in the west, and across the Sahara nearly 1,000 kilometres to the Kufra oasis in the east.

The desert terrain, with no roads across its width, is rich in underground water – which is diverted to ninety percent of Libya’s population along the coast – as well as oil and precious minerals.

It is also a haven for illegal cross-border trade, with weapons, government-subsidised gasoline and food smuggled out, and migrants and drugs transported in.

At the beginning of the revolt in 2011, Gaddafi promised both the indigenous Libyan Tebu and Tuareg citizenship papers and rights in exchange for their support.

While the Tuareg threw their lot in with his regime, only to find themselves on the losing side, the Tebu say they instead took Gaddafi’s weapons, and turned them and their desert expertise against him.

“Our forefathers came here hundreds of years ago,” explained Ibrahim Abu Baker, a Tebu archeologist from Ubari. “When we hold the sand, even in the night when the moon is shining, we know where we are.”

Although the Tebu were heralded for their revolutionary role guarding Libya’s southern borders and oil wells, with just two Tebu representatives out of 200 in the current General National Congress (GNC), their fight for equal rights is just gearing up.

“During the revolution, people were perfect, excellent,” said Ali Ramadan, a Tebu military commander. “But when we returned to normal life, we found all the same people in their old positions, doing the same thing.”

In 2012, brutal clashes erupted between Tebu and Arab tribes in the desert towns of Sebha and Kufra. Mostly over power and resources, including smuggling routes, the fighting left hundreds dead and wounded, destroyed infrastructure and deepened animosity between neighbours.

Now an enormous wall and wide ditch encircles Kufra, built and controlled by the Arab Zwai tribe, who share the town with the minority Tebu. A tense ceasefire – not peace – is in place.

There is more optimism in Sebha. Last month, community elders successfully hammered out a reconciliation agreement between the western town’s Tebu and Arab Awlad Suleiman tribes.

“The Tebu want to close the chapter so they can get their citizenship, healthcare and education,” said Mohammed Sidi, one of the chief negotiators.

But Sidi still had reservations. “The wise people are together,” he said. “But the young people are separated now. The bad people – like those working in smuggling – are still together. They can’t negotiate because their experience is low. How do we bring those people together?”

Ubari, over 100 kilometres west of Sebha, is the last in a chain of fertile desert oases surrounded by sand dunes before the Algerian border. Dominated by the semi-nomadic Libyan Tuareg, who are also indigenous and have strong cross-border ties, this desolate corner thrived as a tourist destination until the 2011 revolution.

Now Ubari is known as a stop on the rumoured smuggling routes south to Mali and for its lucrative oil fields. It is also where Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of Muammar Gaddafi, was apprehended while trying to flee Libya after the fall of Tripoli.

The Tebu, along with Tuareg and Arab militias, maintain an uneasy presence here, legitimised and paid for as part of the Ministry of Defence’s auxiliary Shield of Libya brigades and by private oil field security companies.

For now, they are the border guard presence. While the Tebu loosely patrol the southern border from Niger to Egypt, the Tuareg control Libya’s far southwest corner and the Algerian frontier running north to Ghadames.

Keeping an uneasy peace

The war in Mali, the terrorist attack against the nearby Amenas oil field in Algeria, the French Embassy bombing in Tripoli and rumours of Islamists trafficking weapons and fighters south have heightened community tensions.

“Libyans were very worried when the French intervention started in Mali,” a western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “Their main concern is that Islamists being flushed out by French jets could seek refuge in the kind of ungoverned space in southern Libya. They are worried about extremist groups moving through the region.”

Concerned about Libya’s porous frontier, the European Union and countries including the United States and United Kingdom are providing “advisory” roles in building up the government’s border guard.

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has established a military base for drones on the south side of the Libyan border, in Niger.

“Broadly speaking, there are localised rivalries, ethnic rivalries and tribal rivalries in the south,” said the western diplomat. “A long-term solution for border security would most probably include both Tebu and Tuareg because they know the region and they live on the borders.”

Chaotic downtown Ubari is filled with migrants, most from Mali and Niger, who congregate on damaged sidewalks hoping for work, while Tuareg and Tebu tribesmen, wrapped in elaborate scarves to shield themselves from the dust, drive by in honking Toyota pickups.

Chieftains work hard to maintain the peace in mixed Libyan Tebu and Tuareg communities, like Ubari. They understand their shared battle is to overcome discrimination from Libya’s Arab population and to secure their rights.

Shamsideen Khoury, an 18-year-old Tebu student in Ubari, fought in the revolution and has faith in the future. He seeks a different path from his deceased father, who was a low level security guard. “I want to be an architect,” he says quietly. “I want to build a new Libya.”

Yara Mashour, editor of Lilac magazine, wants to confront and challenge stereotypes of Arab women. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

With a subtle blend of colour and shadow, 20-year-old Sumoud Farraj prepares for a photo shoot. Next month, along with three other young Arab women, she’ll appear in a designer miniskirt on the cover of Lilac, an Arabic-language women’s magazine.

Lilac‘s editor-in-chief, Yara Mashour, is in the business of breaking taboos and stereotypes with beauty and fashion. “Lilac isn’t just a regular fashion magazine; it’s a magazine with a cause,” she stresses.

The “cause” is to try to change how Arab women see themselves, how Arab men see them, and how Jewish Israelis see their fellow citizens of Palestinian descent (one in five Israelis is Arab).

In traditional societies accustomed to veiling beauty, exposing one’s beauty requires no small amount of steadfastness – sumoud in Arabic, and Farraj’s first name.

“Some people reject me because of my modelling ambitions,” says Farraj. “I can live with rejection. I am who I am, and I’ll move forward to be known – not just in Israel, but around the world.”

“Our predicament as Arab women demands a mini-revolution – to help ourselves attain freedom, mental and social, and realise ourselves, because we often need our husband’s, parents’, and society’s permission to do something daring.”

Challenging stereotypes

In 2011, Mashour decided to publish a cover picture of Huda Naqash, a Nazarene model crowned Miss Earth, in a bikini swimsuit. It was the first time ever that an Arab woman posed for an Arab magazine in such an outfit.

“Miss Huda rocks this earth!” read the caption. Thanks to the Internet, the tremor was felt throughout the Arab world, arousing a passionate virtual debate with over 70,000 mostly critical posts on the Saudi Arabia-owned Al-Arabiya website.

The suggestive photo was meant to illustrate engrained misconceptions and stereotyping of Arab society in general, Mashour points out. “There was no earthquake,” she adds. “Naqash didn’t get killed. No one threatened her. More than a model in bikini, the picture showed that Arab societies are gradually becoming more liberal in accepting changes.”

“I’m confident in my readers,” adds Mashour. “They mustn’t agree with me – you don’t like Lilac, don’t buy it – but we must debate in a democratic manner.”

Unperturbed by what she calls “this ridiculous media buzz”, she followed up last fall with the same model posing in sexy lingerie.

Powered by women

On Mashour’s desk sit copies of Lilac‘s ancestors from the 1970s, with models in poses more indolent than Naqash’s. “We went through many changes,” she says.

She evokes the Egyptian cinema’s golden era – its suggestive scenes and passionate kisses – and the ensuing conservative reaction. “Now we’re trying to revisit that period of freedom.”

“I’m ready to pose in sexy lingerie,” affirms Farraj.

Lilac is the hook at the end of “The Fishing Rod”, or As-Sinara. Founded in 1983 by Mashour’s father, Lutfi, As-Sinara was the first independent Arabic-language weekly published in Israel.

Following Lutfi Mashour’s death in 2007, the three women in his life inherited his media venture. Yara became Lilac‘s editor, her sister Varia took over the advertising agency, and their mother Vida replaced her late husband as senior editor.

Common wisdom had it that with women at the helm, the newspaper would soon write its own eulogy. Yet As-Sinara remains Israel’s most widely circulated Arabic-language weekly and only newspaper managed by women.

“Women are more open and courageous than men,” quips Varia Mashour. “The male staff are scared of changes. We try things until things work out.”

Pushing for equality

Female innovation – more than empowerment – is what drives Yara Mashour. To innovate, she says, is to break the encirclement of her own existential isolation as a woman in a mainly conservative community, as a Christian in a mainly Muslim society, as a Palestinian in a mainly Jewish state, and as an Israeli in a mainly Arab Middle East.

“We’re on our own,” she confides. “We’re politically uncertain of our place. We want Israel and the world to see us and understand us, to accept us as equal in terms of laws, society and economy.”

Her father would say, “We say we’re first Palestinians; second – Arabs; third – Israelis. But in reality, we behave first like Israelis; then like Arabs; and only then like Palestinians. We’re Israeli – the way we think; react; speak. In essence, we’re all the same, Jews, Arabs. They, the Jews, are the other part of us.”

“I’m a Palestinian,” stresses Mashour. “I’m an Arab; I’m a woman; I’m an Israeli. And I’m trying to make people who’re part of this definition accept me, because I’ve accepted them.”

It’s easier to convince Arab Israelis that women should be equal to men than to convince Jewish Israelis that Arab Israeli women and men should be equal to them, Mashour notes. “Israeli Jews are stuck; know very little about us, though we’re looking them in the face.”

“The one good thing is that Jews and Arabs who live together influence each other,” Mashour adds on a more optimistic note, showing the current cover of 19-year old Lina Makhoul, an Arab woman from the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Acre who just won Israel’s version of “The Voice”.

For Lilac‘s next issue, business-like Mashour has a more traditional cover of a model dressed in a wedding gown.

“In our society, marriage is still the most important ‘job’. We bring to light any woman who wants to achieve a career. Become economically independent, then get married and have children,” she urges, conceding that this goal has not yet been reached. “But we’ve opened an expanding fashion and modelling industry.”

“My next project is to find a Palestinian model from Palestine to participate in international pageants, and to wear a bikini – if that’s what’s required,” but Mashour knows that this task will not be easy.

Ibrahim Makhlouf stands on the roof of his home in the West Bank, from where he can see the Israeli settlement outpost of Shalhevet Farm. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

Ibrahim Makhlouf reaches for two wooden planks lying in the hallway and places them expertly in an L-shape along the seams of his front door.

“Open [the door],“ he beckons, knowing that doing so is nearly impossible. “Every night, we put this here,” he explains. “For the settlers.”

Makhlouf’s home sits on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Asira Al-Qibliya, only 500 metres from the illegal Israeli settlement outpost of Shalhevet Farm, an offshoot of the equally illegal settlement of Yitzhar.

Makhlouf told IPS that his house is attacked by Israeli settlers at least two times per week and has been vandalised over 100 times. The windows on Makhlouf’s two-story home all have bars on the outside to prevent them from shattering when settlers throw stones.

“When we see the settlers, we send the children to another house. What can we do?” Makhlouf, who lives with his wife and six children, said. “We’re afraid. There is no safety.”

Since the Shalhevet Farm outpost was established in 1999, Makhlouf said he has been barred from accessing some 16 dunams of his family’s land, which was traditionally used to plant figs, grapes, olives and other trees, and from using a freshwater spring.

“It is my father and grandfather’s land, but now settlers are planting, and I can’t even enter it. They want to confiscate the land and houses and control the whole area to extend their settlements,” Makhlouf said.

“The [Israeli] government encourages them, with money and protection from the soldiers,” he added. “The government and the settlers are one.”

Illegal settlements

In recent weeks, international actors, including the United States, have renewed efforts to get Israel to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank in order to restart long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians. On Apr. 30, the Arab League said it would support potential land swaps along the 1967 Green Line in negotiations of final borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

But the growth of Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank, like Shalhevet Farm, has been almost entirely omitted from the conversation. Such outposts are often precursors to full-fledged settlements, both of which are illegal under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention also forbids an occupying power from transferring its civilian population to the territory it occupies.

For Palestinians, both settlements and outposts have the same negative impact on their lives. But the Israeli government views only outposts, not settlements, as illegal, sometimes dismantling them for being built without the required permits and then relocating residents to nearby settlements.

Settlements are generally much larger than outposts and receive full services and infrastructure, although the Israeli government does also provide outposts, which generally begin as a few caravans on a hilltop, with basic services such as water and electricity. The Israeli army also protects outpost residents, as it does all other Israeli settlers.

Israeli settlement outposts were first built in the mid-1990s, during a freeze on settlement construction imposed by then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. A few years later, Israeli leader Ariel Sharon famously urged Israeli settlers to seize every hilltop. “Whatever you grab will be ours. What you don’t grab will not be ours,” he said.

In 2005, at the behest of the Israeli government, lawyer Talia Sasson reported that the outposts are illegal under Israeli law. To be considered legal, a settlement must be established by a government decision, be built on “state land”, possess a building plan, and have clear, territorial boundaries.

Outposts fail to meet these criteria, although earlier this week, the Israeli government announced plans to examine whether it could retroactively legalise four outposts.

Expansion for control

Today about 100 Israeli settlement outposts dot the West Bank. While most begin small, they develop quickly, and many have cement houses, paved roads, playgrounds and daycare centres.

In the case of Shalhevet Farm, Peace Now, an Israeli non-governmental organisation that works against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, found that the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction spent 1.1 million Israeli shekels (over 300,000 U.S. dollars) to connect the outpost to basic infrastructure. The national water company, Mekorot, provides it with water.

Many outposts also serve an important geopolitical aim.

According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, some outposts aim “to create Jewish continuity and connect isolated settlements with settlement blocs, in order to prevent future evacuation. Even though each of these outposts is home to only a few dozens of families, the outposts can completely control the land or the road around it.”

Violence against Palestinians and their property emanating from settlement outposts has also been well documented. After a Palestinian man killed an Israeli settler earlier this month near Nablus, Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq documented 13 settler attacks against Palestinians in one week in the area.

38-year-old Munir Jibreel Qaddous, a farmer from the West Bank village of Burin, told IPS about being viciously attacked by Israeli settlers in 2011, while the Israeli army and police looked on and did nothing.

White caravans of the settlement outpost of Bracha B, an extension of the Bracha settlement, overlook much of Burin’s farmland, and settlers regularly vandalise Palestinian property and attack their homes in the village, Qaddous explained.

Data collected by Yesh Din shows that between 2005-2012, over 91 percent of complaints filed by Palestinians against acts of Israeli settler violence were closed without an indictment. Of this, 84 percent were closed due to the Israeli police’s failure to properly investigate the crimes.

“All of them are the same,” said Qaddous, referring to Israeli settlers living in settlements and unauthorized outposts. He told IPS that he witnessed the Bracha B outpost’s construction and gradual expansion.

“In 1999, a watch-tower was put up, then trailers were erected. Then, there were 15 cement houses. Before the settlers came, they put [in] a road, electricity and water,” he said.

“This area is a very strategic area of the West Bank. After five or ten years, maybe you will see settlers on every hill.”