All that remains of a house demolished in Al-Jiftlick village in the Jordan Valley. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
JIFTLICK, Occupied West Bank, Sep 14 2013 (IPS)

In the Jordan Valley, contrasts are stark. Lush green agricultural fields and fenced-in greenhouses belong to the Israeli settlements that dot the landscape and benefit from the area’s abundant water supply on one hand. On the other, Palestinian farmers denied access to their lands and other resources by the Israeli authorities struggle to cultivate the most basic crops and make a living wage.

“It’s a struggle for the farmers,” Palestinian farmer Ahmad Said Moahri told IPS from his home in Jiftlick, a Palestinian village in the Jordan Valley. “The farmers lose money sometimes by farming the land, but they cannot leave or Israel will take it.”

The 46-year-old owns 47 dunams (47,000 square metres) of agricultural land in Jiftlick. He harvests vegetables – eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, and more on 27 dunams, and rents the remainder to another local farmer.

While Moahri earns between 15,000 to 20,000 shekels (4,200 to 5,600 dollars) annually through farming, he said that for five months each year, between September and January, he takes on a second job to support his family: packaging Israeli dates at a factory in Massu’a, an illegal Israeli settlement near Jiftlick.“I love the land and our home is here ... There is not a day that I won’t visit, or look at, or take care of my land.” -- farmer Ahmad Said Moahri

“From the beginning, when the settlement was established, Israel gave them everything. There is no government support [for us], but in the settlement, there is,” said Moahri, who is paid 10 shekels (2.80 dollars) per hour, and makes between 12,000 to 14,000 shekels (3,400 to 4,000 dollars) each year from working in the settlement.

According to a report published by the Maan Development Centre, 1,800 dunams are allocated to agriculture in Massu’a, and the settlement produces eggplant, pepper, zucchini, cucumbers, watermelons, melons, and dates.

“The geographical location of settlements in the Jordan Valley has been determined by the important potential agricultural growth in the region. In addition, these agricultural settlements were established and maintained as export-oriented settlements,” Ma’an reported.

The Jordan Valley constitutes nearly 30 percent of the West Bank; 87.5 percent of this area is located in Area C, which falls under complete Israeli military control. Today, some 9,300 Israeli settlers and 65,000 Palestinians live in the Jordan Valley.

Palestinians are prohibited from accessing almost 95 percent of Jordan Valley, as half the land is being used by Israeli settlements, and the Israeli army declared another 45 percent as closed military zones, which are off-limits to Palestinians.

The Jordan Valley is known as the Palestinian breadbasket, as most of the West Bank’s arable land is located there. In a 2010 report, the World Bank stated that if Palestinians could access 50,000 more dunams of land and additional water resources in the area, they could earn approximately one billion dollars annually.

This economic potential is not lost on Palestinian, or Israeli, leaders.

As the “peace talks” between Palestinians and Israelis continue, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership has once again stated that the creation of a Palestinian state is impossible without control of Jericho and the Jordan Valley. “We are committed to that. We have said that more than once,” PA President Mahmoud Abbas said on Aug. 16.

The Israeli government, on the other hand, views the Jordan Valley as an important security buffer separating it from Jordan, and provides generous economic support to its settlements and settlement industries operating in the area.

In contrast, the PA government in Ramallah has done very little to support Palestinians in the Jordan Valley. The PA has never allocated more than one percent of its budget to the agricultural sector, and between 2001 and 2005, over 85 percent of that budget went to paying PA salaries.

The overall contribution of agriculture to the Palestinian GDP dropped from around 13.3 percent in 1994 to 5.7 percent in 2008, according to a report released by Al Shabaka, the Palestinian policy network.

“The support we get as farmers in the Jordan Valley is less than what we need. The government does not care about the agricultural situation. Agriculture was damaged because the (Palestinian Authority) neglected it. They didn’t change their strategy,” Moahri said.

Moayyad Bsharat heads the Jericho office of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which supports Palestinian farmers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He told IPS that because it is bound by the Oslo Accords agreement of the early 1990s, the PA is unable to support the most marginalised Palestinian farmers working in Area C.

“The first (solution is) to end the Oslo agreement. The solution in the Jordan Valley is political, 100 percent. We are talking about rights. The farmers want to go to their natural resources – the land, the water and the cultivation – and these things will not be done on the ground without a big political solution,” Bsharat said.

In the meantime, Israel aims to force Palestinians to leave the area, and exploits the resources and economic potential of the Jordan Valley, Bsharat added.

“The Israeli settlements have three million palm trees in the Jordan Valley, which gives yearly millions of shekels to the Israeli government. They have the grapes, flowers… all these things are exported. It gives it a lot of national income for Israel,” he said.

For farmer Ahmad Said Moahri, making a living from agriculture in the Jordan Valley is a struggle, but he sees his work as a form of resistance.

“I love the land and our home is here. For this reason, I cannot leave the land. There is not a day that I won’t visit, or look at, or take care of my land.”

Moshe Goldshmidt and his wife Lea at a new synagogue under construction in the Israeli settlement Itamar in the West Bank. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
HAR BRACHA SETTLEMENT, Occupied West Bank , Aug 14 2013 (IPS)

Large spools of black tubing and plastic-wrapped water tanks lay strewn across a dusty construction site. A handful of Palestinian labourers, speaking quietly in Arabic, shuttle the items to the two unfinished, three-storey apartment blocs behind them.

This is Har Bracha, an illegal Israeli settlement near Nablus, one of the West Bank’s largest Palestinian cities. And on a sunny day this July, construction was moving quickly.

“The bigger and bigger we get, the more difficult it will be to ever evacuate us,” said Yonatan Behar, a resident of Har Bracha, during a press tour of the settlement.

“Ariel [a nearby Israeli settlement] is a city of 20,000 people or more. Who in their right mind would ever think of evacuating a city of 20,000 people? A small community of 300 families [like Har Bracha], that’s possible. But if we get to 1,000 families, and 2,000 families, and 5,000 families, then it’s very, very difficult,” Behar said.

The importance of establishing these “facts on the ground” – which means rapidly building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – is not lost on the Israeli government.“Itamar is continuing to grow throughout the decades. I call it a growth spurt and we haven’t stopped building.” -- Moshe Goldshmidt, resident of the ideological settlement Itamar near Nablus

As Israeli and Palestinian leaders resume negotiations Aug. 14 towards a peace agreement, Israel has untaken several steps to strengthen and expand its settlements. How this will impact the so-called peace talks does not seem to be a factor.

Earlier this week, Israel approved construction of nearly 1,000 new housing units in seven different West Bank settlements, and it plans to build 900 more units in East Jerusalem, south of the West Bank city Beit Jala.

The Israeli government has also added several West Bank settlements to its list of so-called priority communities that are eligible for government funding. This includes three settlements that were originally considered outposts – built in violation even of Israeli law – that earned retroactive recognition last year.

Israeli army radio reported that the Israeli population in West Bank settlements grew more than the population inside Israel proper in the first half of 2013, with the settlement population growing by 2.1 percent, compared to just a two percent increase in Israel.

Housing start-ups in West Bank settlements also increased during the first quarter of 2013 by an astonishing 355 percent compared to the last quarter of 2012, according to data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.

These ongoing and seemingly accelerated efforts to expand Israeli settlements as negotiations re-start show that the Israeli government has no intention of uprooting its sprawling settler population, estimated to number more than 600,000 today.

Instead, Israel continues – as it has done since the settlements were first established decades ago – to flout international law by actively promoting settlement growth, with a complete disregard for the consequences – since there are, in fact, none.

While some have argued that recent promises to build in the settlements are meant to appease right-wing factions within the ruling Israeli coalition government that oppose a return to negotiations, the reality is that negotiations have, since their inception 20 years ago, only facilitated the continuation of Israeli colonial policies.

Indeed, so-called peace talks have historically served as nothing more than diplomatic cover for Israel as it continued to confiscate Palestinian land and expand its settler colonies.

The last major agreement signed between the two parties was the 1993 Oslo Accords. Meant to be only a five-year interim agreement, the Oslo framework is still in place.

Today, it is hard to view Oslo as anything more than a failure. Through Oslo, Israel entrenched its occupation policies, and increased its settler population exponentially.

Between 1993 and 2010, the Israeli settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem more than doubled, going from 241,000 to over 500,000, according to Israeli human rights group Btselem.

Many Israeli settlers are unperturbed by the return to negotiations or by the prospects of an agreement; after decades of impunity, many boast just how secure they feel.

“Itamar is continuing to grow throughout the decades. I call it a growth spurt and we haven’t stopped building,” Moshe Goldshmidt, resident of the ideological settlement Itamar near Nablus, told IPS.

Goldshmidt said he has been hearing about possible evacuation of the settlements for 20 years now, but efforts to get them to move only strengthen the settlers’ resolve to stay.

“We’re not going to live in fear,” he said. “We believe very strongly in what we’re doing.”

Tesfahiwet Medin, 39, fled his native Eritrea and has sought asylum in Israel. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
TEL AVIV, Jun 24 2013 (IPS)

Tesfahiwet Medin holds a university degree and experience as a nurse. But six years after escaping the violent dictatorship in his native Eritrea, the 39-year-old says he feels like a part of him is missing, as he’s been prevented from continuing in his profession in Israel.

“I’m just like a bus without a motor,” Medin said. “I lost my time, my money, [and] all my energy for 16 years to achieve this profession. Now, I’m not helping my family, I’m not helping my community, [and] I’m not helping my country.”

Medin graduated with a diploma in nursing from Asmara University in 2006, specialising in prenatal care. A year later, he escaped from Eritrea and moved between Sudan, Libya and Egypt before arriving in Israel in 2010.

He spent 15 days in prison upon entering Israel before being dropped in Tel Aviv with no money, no knowledge of Hebrew, and only the clothes on his back. After struggling to find a place to live and finding only manual labour for work, Medin quickly turned to the black market."A lot of these people are well educated or have experience running a business, and they could be very beneficial to Israeli society."
-- Ilana Pinshaw

With the help of a local employment agency, he was finally hired to assist over 100 elderly Israelis living in a retirement home in Hod Hasharon, just north of Tel Aviv. His employer pays the agency his salary, and the agency relays the money to him, after taking a small cut for their services. It’s all under the table, Medin told IPS.

Despite his vast experience, he said that the Israeli government bars him from taking the nurses licencing exam because he doesn’t hold a valid work permit. Today, Medin works an average of 300 hours per month, he said, and makes no more than 5,000 NIS (1,374 U.S. dollars).

Refugee status determination

Israel is a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, which sets out refugees’ rights and states’ responsibilities towards them. Nevertheless, Israel has not yet formulated a clear policy to determine refugee status. It doesn’t officially process refugee claims and has recognised fewer than 200 asylum seekers as refugees since its creation in 1948.

Today, the United Nations’ refugee agency estimates that just over 54,000 refugees and asylum seekers live in Israel, with the majority coming from Sudan and Eritrea. Because their refugee status is never formally verified, most refugees in Israel hold a “conditional release” visa, which must be renewed every three months and does not allow them to work.

The Israeli High Court ruled in 2011 that employers in Israel would not be fined, or charged, for employing asylum seekers holding a conditional release visa. While the decision effectively allows asylum seekers to work legally in the country, many employers remain hesitant to hire them.

Last year, the Israeli government threatened to fine business owners and mayors of municipalities that employ African refugees. Earlier this month, Israel passed a law severely limiting how much money asylum seekers could withdraw from bank accounts while in Israel and how much money or property can be transferred abroad. The law now makes it almost impossible for refugees to support relatives in their home countries.

“We are focusing on the infiltrators’ departure from Israel. Several thousand infiltrators have already left Israel and we are continuing to work on repatriating the illegal work infiltrators already here,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the law was passed.

Exploitation widespread

As a result of employment restrictions, African asylum seekers are often forced to work in the informal sector, where they don’t have social protection or insurance, receive low wages for long hours and are vulnerable to exploitation.

“[A refugee] doesn’t have family here. He doesn’t have community support. He doesn’t have any money from the government. He has nothing. So he’s ready to work 15 hours a day,” explained Orit Marom, advocacy coordinator at the Aid Organisation for Refugees and Asylum-seekers in Israel (ASSAF).

Marom told IPS that Israel’s restrictions are motivated by the government’s hope that strict conditions, which include a policy of imprisoning asylum seekers for at least three years for entering the country illegally, will deter others from coming to Israel. It has constructed a fence along its southern border with Egypt and the world’s largest refugee detention centre for the same purposes.

“This policy is not only harming the very basic human rights of refugees themselves, but also harming Israeli society and especially the very weak populations in the Israeli society,” Marom said.

Even asylum seekers that have succeeded in opening businesses in Israel – mainly clothing stores, restaurants or cafes – face pressure. Last month, Ministry of Health inspectors poured bleach on food and confiscated meat at several refugee-run restaurants in South Tel Aviv after the establishments allegedly failed to meet health standards.

“Rather than saying, ‘This is what you need to do,’ they destroyed all food in the restaurant, including what was on peoples’ plates,” explained Ilana Pinshaw, project manager at Tel Aviv-based microfinance group Microfy, which monitored the case and provides training, mentorships and small loans to asylum seekers in Israel looking to start businesses.

“The perception is that most of (the refugees) are just coming because they’re not making any money where they’re from and they have no skills,” Pinshaw explained. “The truth is that a lot of these people are well educated or have experience running a business, and they could be very beneficial to Israeli society.”

Official status

A recent opinion poll conducted by the Centre for International Migration and Integration (a group funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) reported that about 60 percent of Israelis believe that African refugees pose a danger to Israeli society.

Almost 70 percent of survey respondents also felt that refugees are a burden on the Israeli economy, while 54 percent said they take jobs from Israelis.

According to Tesfahiwet Medin, nothing – including harsh restrictions on work – will deter refugees from coming to Israel if they are fleeing war and persecution in their home countries. The solution to the current hardships asylum seekers face, he said, lies instead with pressuring Israel to examine refugee status claims.

“What’s my status? Am I a refugee? Where is my identity card as a refugee?” Medin said. “We are under registration only. We are under [the government’s] control because every three months we are renewing our visas. They know where we are. They are not looking at what will be our future.”

A smashed NTV satellite van in the centre of Taksim Square in Istanbul highlights protesters' frustration with how Turkish media has covered their movement. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
ISTANBUL, Jun 7 2013 (IPS)

Sitting with hundreds of other protesters in the centre of Istanbul’s Gezi Park Thursday night, Arzu Marsh rummages through her backpack to show off what she calls her makeshift “emergency kit”: medical masks, a red spray-bottle filled with a liquid that lessens the effect of tear gas, a scarf and some food.

But perhaps the most important item is what’s sitting in her lap, and, every few seconds, lights up with incoming text messages: her cell phone.

“I’m from Ankara, so all my friends and all my family are from Ankara, and as soon as I put [photos and videos on] Facebook, everyone saw it, and of course they also shared,” Marsh explained, referring to images of recent anti-government protests in Istanbul.

“Now, we are all following…Facebook or Twitter. We are not following any [traditional] news,” she said.

As spontaneous chants of “Everywhere is Taksim! Everywhere is resistance!” spread through the crowd, and a banner reading “Keep resisting Ankara – we are with you” hung overhead, Marsh told IPS that sharing information on social media about protests across Turkey has not only helped keep activists motivated but also built solidarity across political and geographical divisions."We all follow Facebook or Twitter. We are not following any [traditional] news."
--Arzu Marsh

“Yesterday we heard that… there was a [protest] in Rize, so we had an applause for Rize. It was very emotional, and it motivates you,” she said.

Distrust of traditional media

A smashed, bright yellow, satellite TV truck, belonging to one of Turkey’s leading broadcasters, NTV, sits in the centre of Taksim Square. Its doors are ripped off, windows shattered and tires punctured.

It is also covered in graffiti and highlights protesters’ frustration with the mainstream media in Turkey.

At the height of police violence in Istanbul’s Gezi Park last week, most local television networks ignored the events and instead continued with their regular programming, including cooking and travel shows.

While these same stations are now reporting on the protests – and NTV issued an apology for its initial lack of coverage – activists say social media continues to fill an important void and is the primary source of information for many.

“There’s a new, young generation that does not trust mainstream media broadcasts and they seek information that is independent and objective,” explained Emrah Ucar, an Istanbul-based activist who founded a popular social media network, called “Ötekilerin Postasi”, or “The Other Post”.

Indeed, as demonstrations continue across the country against the government’s increasingly authoritarian controls, protesters have developed an elaborate – and often times, humorous and creative – social media network to organise and sustain their protest.

The “Ötekilerin Postasi” now gets 1.7 million clicks per day, Ucar said, and is reaching a more widespread and politically diverse segment of Turkish society than it ever did before.

“What’s most important about social media is making people feel that they are participating in the production of news. When they get this feeling, they make it an issue for themselves and they participate in the commenting and spreading of the news,” he told IPS.

Government policies create ‘chilling effect’

Widespread arrests and detention of journalists, defamation lawsuits and government pressure on critical media outlets and columnists – including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s publicly calling out journalists for their reporting – has had a “chilling effect” on the Turkish media, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Turkey jailed the highest number of journalists worldwide in 2012, often through the use of draconian and easily applied criminal laws. The government has also imposed fines on major media conglomerates, forcing them to sell off assets and downsize their operations, and helped facilitate the transfer of large news outlets to pro-AKP owners.

“We have seen changes in the editorial management of newspapers, firing of critical columnists, and a gradual but consistent shift away from commentary and news that are unpleasant or critical of the government,” Asli Aydıntasbas, a columnist at the daily Milliyet newspaper, told CPJ.

“Newspapers routinely exercise self-censorship and suppress critical information and news—even in the face of declining circulation,” Aydıntasbas added.

According to Selcan Kaynak, a political science professor at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, the media’s failure to promptly report on the Gezi Park protests reflects its overall refusal to report on issues that are critical of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party-led (AKP) government.

“It’s really, in one word, hegemony that is being established. There are some critical columnists, or independent newspapers, but they’ve been marginalised. There [have] been very strict controls [of what goes] reported and unreported,” Kaynak told IPS.

Still, the fact that there was a complete media blackout at the start of the recent protests in Istanbul was “shocking”, Kaynak said. “They thought, I guess, that by ignoring this, the rest of Turkey…would have no idea, and it would just go by and they would go on with the usual business.”

Social media ‘menace to society’

According to Aslı Tunç, head of the media and communications department at Istanbul Bilgi University, social media helped give a platform to opposition voices in Turkey that were growing online, even before the protests began.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” Tunç told IPS. “Those voices were there already. But the mainstream media did not cover [them], did not give them a voice on their televisions or [in their] newspapers, and they tried to marginalise [them].”

On Wednesday, 29 people were arrested – and later released without charge – in the city of Izmir for allegedly “inciting riots and conducting propaganda” after posting things about the protests on social media website Twitter.

In a speech last weekend, Erdogan himself called Twitter “a menace to society”. He also said “the best examples of lies can be found there”.

The defiant prime minister, who just returned from a diplomatic visit to North Africa and has refused to back down from his aggressive position against the demonstrations, has also called protesters deviants, extremists, and even looters – “çapulcu”, in Turkish.

In response, protesters quickly re-appropriated the word, and are now proudly calling themselves Çapulcu, using it in posters around Taksim Square, and in photos and updates shared online. Protesters even created a website, called ÇapulTV, where they are live streaming from Gezi Park, while an Anglicised version of the word – “chapulling” – has taken on the new meaning of fighting for your rights.

“[The protesters] proved that Twitter, social media, is a very powerful organisational tool,” Tunç said. “The young people especially proved that social media is part of media now. You cannot ignore the power of social media.”

Protesters gather in Taksim Square in Istanbul, not far from Gezi Park, where protests were sparked last week against the government's most recent urban redevelopment project. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
ISTANBUL, Jun 6 2013 (IPS)

Few imagined that the symbolic act of standing in front of bulldozers in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in an effort to block a development project near the city’s central square would have caused the reaction it did.

The defiant act – and the Turkish police’s violent response – pushed thousands of Turks out into streets across the country over the last week to decry their government’s increasingly authoritarian controls, lack of public accountability, police violence and numerous urban development projects that are irreversibly changing the face of the country.

For many, the plans to uproot trees in Gezi Park are just the latest in a long string of urban projects that ignore the cultural and historic heritage of Istanbul. More over, these projects are built at the expense of the poor and fail to consider residents’ input.

“The poorer people are being driven out of the centre of the city and pushed to the edges,” explained Kevin Robins, an Istanbul-based urban planning researcher. “On the other hand, [there is] the taking over of more and more inner-city areas for the young, affluent middle-class.”

“The mixture…of classes that existed in Istanbul is now being eroded quite dramatically,” Robins told IPS, describing the phenomenon as “polarisation”."The mixture...of classes that existed in Istanbul is now being eroded quite dramatically."
-- Kevin Robins

“There’s a general feeling that there’s an attack on the way of life,” he added.

According to a report last year in The Guardian, redevelopment projects are slated for some 50 neighbourhoods in Istanbul, and in 2012 alone, 7.5 billion Turkish liras were allocated to urban renewal across the city.

Last week, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister and head of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), unveiled his controversial plan to build a third bridge – a 1,275-metre suspension bridge, with an expected price tag of six billion dollars – across the Bosphorus, linking the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.

Opponents to the plan say the bridge will destroy some of the only remaining green areas in the city and have condemned the government’s lack of consultation with local community groups.

Erdogan has also pushed for building a shipping canal across the Bosphorus, calling it “a project of such immense size that it can’t be compared to the Panama or Suez canals”. In May, the government signed a contract to develop a third airport in Istanbul, with a capacity of 150 million passengers.

In recent years, residents of many Istanbul neighbourhoods, especially those home to impoverished, minority groups, like the Tarlabaşı or Sulukule areas, have also been pushed out to make way for real estate developers and luxury housing projects.

So-called gecekondu neighbourhoods – unlicensed shantytowns established decades ago by migrants from eastern Anatolia who moved to Istanbul for work opportunities – are particularly vulnerable to being displaced for the sake of development, with the government and its agencies not only confiscating land but also evicting and sometimes relocating residents to the city’s outskirts.

According to political scientist Mine Eder, the rapid pace at which the Turkish government has launched these urban redevelopment projects is what sets gentrification in Turkey apart from other developing countries around the world.

“There’s a deliberate demolishing to create more money, and really, to create this exclusionary zone for the rich. There is a whole re-appropriation, re-definition, and privatisation of the public space,” explained Eder, who teaches at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University and specialises in the impact of gentrification on minority groups in Istanbul.

“[Erdogan’s] vision is driven by this sort of obsession with tourism and Istanbul becoming this big, giant, commercial centre,” Eder told IPS. “That vision is behind that unquestionable bulldozer construction. ‘Bulldozer neo-liberalism’ is a term that sort of encapsulates the whole thing.”

Nor is the government’s aggressive push for urban development projects limited to Istanbul.

On the road leading from the airport to Turkey’s capital city, Ankara, tall apartment blocks are being erected on numerous hilltops, construction cranes pepper the skyline, and huge billboards, sponsored by the government’s housing authority, TOKI, aim to entice potential homeowners.

“It’s happening everywhere. You see quite dramatic changes going on in Anatolian cities now, making them unrecognisable. Istanbul is clearly the dominant focus, but Ankara also has huge expansions, huge developments, and huge middle-class housing areas,” Robins said.

By 2023, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the modern Turkish republic, Turkey hopes to be among the top ten economies of the world and reach a gross domestic product (GDP) of two trillion dollars and 500 billion dollars in exports annually.

According to Eder, the protests in Gezi Park signal a historic moment in the reign of the current AKP government, forming the strongest and most unified opposition movement in recent years to these unsustainable economic and urban development projects.

“Until now, there was absolutely no one who could actually sit, metaphorically, in front of that bulldozer, and say you can’t go in here,” she said. “Now, they’ve done it.”

Israel's separation barrier as seen from Al Ram, once a thriving East Jerusalem community that now sits on the West Bank side of the barrier and has been severely economically affected. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM, May 26 2013 (IPS)

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”"It feels like they're coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police."
-- Abed Ajloni

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

Public discussions about sexuality and gender diversity are difficult to start in many places. But a new multimedia project that is garnering buzz in Palestine aims to reverse this trend and open up dialogue within Palestinian society around these historically taboo issues.

“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."We just want to make a dialogue. We just want to say that this issue is here."
-- Alaa, an Al Qaws volunteer from Haifa

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.”

Public discussions about sexuality and gender diversity are difficult to start in many places. But a new multimedia project that is garnering buzz in Palestine aims to reverse this trend and open up dialogue within Palestinian society around these historically taboo issues.

“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.”

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

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
DEIR GHASSANEH, Occupied West Bank, May 17 2013 (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.”"Israelis say that all the culture here is theirs. But when people come, they see something else."
-- Rafat Jamil

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.”

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

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
ASIRA AL-QIBLIYA, Occupied West Bank, May 16 2013 (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.”"When we see the settlers, we send the children to another house."
-- Ibrahim Makhlouf

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.”

Eid Hamis Jahalin from Khan Al-Ahmar village warns of the dangers from the eviction of Bedouin people. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
KHAN AL-AHMAR, Occupied West Bank, Apr 29 2013 (IPS)

Dozens of metal and wooden tents cling to the rocky hillside, just outside of Jerusalem along the road leading to the Dead Sea, while the unmistakable red roofs of Israeli settlements peak out from behind opposite hilltops.

For 49-year-old Eid Hamis Jahalin, this quiet spot symbolises the potential centre of peace in the region, and one thing is clear: his family must be allowed to stay in its community.

“The Bedouin are fighting to exist (here) since 1967. Israel has been trying to displace us since then,” Jahalin said, sipping tea in the shade of his family’s tent in the village of Khan Al-Ahmar. The Bedouin are an indigenous people

“The whole world is talking about two states and two governments. If they get the Jahalin out of here, the border of Jerusalem will be the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley. After that, where can you have two states?” Jahalin told IPS.

Last week, local human rights groups announced that the Israeli Ministry of Defence is soon expected to unveil a new relocation plan for almost two dozen Bedouin communities living in the Jerusalem periphery, including Khan Al-Ahmar.

This proposal involves forcibly displacing some 3,000 Jahalin Bedouin to an area in Nwei’mah near the city Jericho in the Jordan Valley, which would be under Palestinian Authority control.

“It would put them all together in blocks of 800 units, which of course were not created according to the needs of these communities. They are very small plots. The density is too high. There will be no area for grazing, and this area is already used by other Bedouin communities,” said Alon Cohen-Lifshitz, an architect with Israeli planning rights group Bimkom.

The new plan would also place the Jahalin community between numerous restricted areas, including an Israeli closed military zone, checkpoint and settlements, and a Palestinian Authority security forces training area.

The Israeli government, however, says moving the Bedouin from their current location will greatly improve the quality and level of services they receive.

“They are living there illegally and we are looking at a series of options,” Guy Inbar, spokesperson for the Israeli Civil Administration, told The Media Line, adding that no plan has been finalised yet.

“We want the Bedouin to live in an area where they get all the infrastructure they need, like water and electricity, instead of living in tents that could be demolished.”

“It’s like being a sardine in a tin, one next to another."
The Israeli Civil Administration is an Israeli military body that governs Area C of the occupied West Bank, which accounts for 60 percent of all the West Bank. Area C is under full Israeli control, and the Civil Administration regulates all Palestinian building and planning therein.

According to Cohen-Lifshitz, numerous Israeli restrictions have made it so that Palestinian construction in Area C is only allowed on one percent of the land.

“They are trying to create a huge pressure with the demolition orders, with other restrictions, and creating what’s called the silent transfer. If (Palestinians) understand that they cannot live freely in Area C, then people will move to Area A and B, where they can build and live without restrictions,” he told IPS.

The Jahalin Bedouin tribe was evicted from its land near Tel Arad, in Israel’s southern Negev desert region, in the early 1950s. Since then, the community has lived on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It is now surrounded by a handful of Israeli settlements, including the mega-settlement Ma’ale Adumim, which has a population of 40,000.

Residents of Khan Al-Ahmar don’t have access to running water or electricity, and each structure in the village, including the local school, is subject to an Israeli demolition order. Israeli settlement expansion – including construction in the E-1 corridor located near Khan Al-Ahmar – also continues to threaten the village. The expansion would sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

In the late 1990s, in an earlier effort to expand Ma’ale Adumim, Israel displaced 200 Bedouin families living near Jerusalem to a new location near the municipal dumping grounds in Abu Dis, posing a serious health hazard for residents.

“Previously relocated families report negative consequences, including health concerns, loss of livelihood, deteriorated living conditions, loss of tribal cohesion and erosion of traditional lifestyles,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) found.

The latest round of expulsions was quietly unveiled in October 2011, with the Israeli Civil Administration hinting that approximately 27,000 Bedouins would be evicted from their homes in the Jordan Valley area within three to six years.

The first phase of this plan – which was met with staunch local and international condemnation – involved expelling the Jahalin near Ma’ale Adumim.

At the time, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which supports Palestinian refugees, stated that efforts to move the Jahalin, “may amount to individual and mass forcible transfers and forced evictions contrary to international humanitarian and international human rights law”.

According to Eid Jahalin in Khan Al-Ahmar, the Israeli government must abandon its new plan to relocate the community. The state has only two options, he said: allow the Jahalin to live peacefully in their current location, or let them go back to their original lands in the Negev.

“I want to live in a Bedouin village,” Jahalin said. “It’s like being a sardine in a tin, one next to another. Take that (relocation) plan and show it to Israelis and see if they would want to live there. Nobody would live there.” (END)

Readings in Hebrew at a centre in Tel Aviv tell Israelis about the Nakba. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
TEL AVIV, Apr 18 2013 (IPS)

Fireworks went off over the Tel Aviv skyline this week as thousands of flag-waving Israelis marked the 65th anniversary of their country’s founding. At the same time, a smaller group of Israeli activists explored the other, most often ignored, side to their country’s creation: the forced displaced of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Israeli group Zochrot (‘Remembering’ in Hebrew) unveiled the first Hebrew-language map on this year’s Israeli Independence Day, detailing hundreds of Palestinian villages that were destroyed in historic Palestine from the beginning of the Zionist movement until the war of 1967.

The map also includes Jewish and Syrian villages that were destroyed, dating as far back as the late 1800s.

Each former village and town is marked with a dot – red, blue, yellow, pink, purple or green – to indicate its type, and when and how its residents were displaced. The names of the Israeli communities that were built over the Palestinian ones are also marked.

“It’s about time, no?” said Zochrot founder Eitan Bronstein, laughingly, about why the organisation decided to create a Nakba map in Hebrew.

“For us, it’s very important not only to show the destruction, but to show it as the background of what’s happening today. It’s crucial to acknowledge that where we live today is close to that (former Palestinian) town, or village, or so on,” Bronstein told IPS.

The Palestinian Nakba (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic) refers to the 750,000 Palestinians who were forcibly expelled or who fled from their homes and villages before and during the foundation of the state of Israel in 1947-48.

Israeli forces depopulated and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages during this time, and in the years that followed. Palestinian refugees have been barred from returning to their homes ever since; today, Palestinians constitute the largest refugee population in the world, and many still live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Fifty-two-year-old Hanna Farah is originally from the Palestinian village Kufr Bir’im, not far from the Lebanese border in the Galilee region of northern Israel. His family was forcibly displaced in 1948, and he grew up as an internally displaced refugee in his mother’s village Jesh, also in the Galilee.

“Always I am from Kufr Birim – always and forever,” Farah, who now lives in Jaffa, told IPS at the Nakba map launch event. He said he hoped having a Nakba map in Hebrew would finally open Israelis’ eyes to their history, and help them acknowledge the Nakba.

“When they go to the park and have a BBQ, they are sitting on the stones of Palestinian houses. Maybe this (map) will be a little bit of an electric shock,” Farah said. “Most of them cover their eyes. They don’t want to look because it’s uncomfortable for them. Maybe now they would be open to see the real problem and discuss it on a real level.”

Israeli activist Rivka Vitenberg stressed the importance of discussing the Nakba, especially in a society where only the Israeli narrative is taught in schools, and the Palestinian experience is all but ignored.

“When I grew up here, all the time the teachers said that we have only one state and the Arabs have 22 states. When I started to know about the Palestinian point of view, I saw it wasn’t exactly like this. There were people living here,” Vitenberg told IPS.

“I want people to remember the Nakba. It’s a very important part of history. We have to know it.”

In February, a study by the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land found that both Israeli and Palestinian school textbooks present “unilateral national narratives”, and historical events – such as the Palestinian Nakba, or, as it is known to most Israelis, the state’s war of independence – are “selectively presented to reinforce each community’s national narrative.”

Still, according to Eitan Bronstein at Zochrot, there has been a gradual shift in Israeli society towards discussing the Nakba more openly, thanks in part to the increased visibility of Palestinian refugees’ demand to return home, and Israeli government efforts to suppress the Nakba.

In 2011, Israel passed a controversial law – known as the Nakba Law – that barred institutions receiving state funding from hosting events to commemorate the Nakba. An original, eventually scrapped, version of the law would have made marking the Nakba a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison.

“If it would be ten years ago, people would tell us, what’s this? They didn’t know what’s the word (Nakba). Today, for sure, more people are open to know it,” Bronstein said.

“We are going to distribute (the map) to university teachers, high school teachers, headmasters, libraries, journalists… I really hope that it will open more places for discussion.” (END)

Bab Al-Shams, the first tent encampment erected by Palestinian activists. Credit: Andreas Hackl/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
JERUSALEM, Apr 13 2013 (IPS)

Tent cities are being set up by Palestinians all over the West Bank to protest against Israeli settlements, building on a protest during the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama last month.

Holding signs reading ‘Obama: you are on the wrong side of history’ and ‘Obama: you promised hope and change – you gave us colonies and apartheid’, dozens of Palestinian activists set up tents on a hillside just outside of Jerusalem during Obama’s first official visit to Israel last month.

The tent village aimed to draw international attention to continued Israeli settlement building, and to unwavering U.S. support for Israeli policies. It was established in an area of the West Bank known as E-1, where Israel plans to expand the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

Activists said in a statement that the village was a step “to claim our right as Palestinians to return to our lands and villages” and “to claim our sovereignty over our lands without permission from anyone.”

Hundreds of Palestinian activists built the first tent encampment called Bab Al-Shams, literally ‘Gate of the Sun’, on privately owned Palestinian land in the E-1 corridor in January. Despite being violently dispersed by Israeli police and soldiers a few days after it was established, Bab Al-Shams inspired the building of even more tent villages throughout the West Bank.

In February, tents were erected in the West Bank village Burin, the site of frequent Israeli settler attacks against Palestinian residents, and then near the southern West Bank town Yatta.

“Our hope is to encourage more and more of this and to build a national movement that brings Palestinians from different parts of Palestine, not only the West Bank, but also the Galilee and other places, to help each other stay on their land,” said Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian activist who participated in setting up many of the tent villages.

The author of ‘Popular Resistance in Palestine’, Qumsiyeh told IPS that the idea behind the tent villages builds on decades of Palestinian steadfastness in resisting Israeli efforts to displace them from their lands. “It’s not a new phenomenon,” Qumsiyeh said.

“There are six million Palestinians still living (here) after 90 years of ethnic cleansing, 90 years the Zionist movement tried to basically remove Palestinians from their land. The fact that they stayed is a form of resistance.”

According to a recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research of 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 71 percent of respondents believed that “creating facts on the ground, such as the placement of tent encampments in area C, would be an effective means of confronting settlement expansion and protecting land threatened by settlers.”

According to Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a leader in the West Bank village Bil’in, which has held weekly demonstrations against the Israeli wall and settlements for eight years, the tent encampments represent a new strategy in Palestinian non-violent resistance.

“We try to use creative ideas and new ideas. We try to build our tents, using this type of non-violent resistance, to stop the plans of the Israelis of building settlements,” Abu Rahmah, who helped build several of the tent villages, told IPS.

“We know about the danger of the plan in E1, in the area of Bab Al-Shams; if the Israelis continue this plan, it will destroy the dream of Palestinians for independence and their country.”"The fact that they stayed is a form of resistance."

Dena Qaddumi is an architect, and co-founder of arenaofspeculation.org, a website dedicated to exploring spatial resistance in Israel-Palestine. She told IPS that the tent encampments signal a less reactionary form of Palestinian resistance, especially since they sparked critical discussions both locally and internationally.

“Every day, Palestinians are spatially resisting in their particular localities but thus far it has been difficult to bring this together en masse so that they not only make international headlines, but expand the imagination – and this is critical – of Palestinians in Palestine and outside. On this latter point we can say (the tent villages were) a success.”

She said that uniting Palestinians across physical space – Israel bars Palestinians from the West Bank from going to the Gaza Strip, and vice-versa, for example – is something Palestinians must address.

“We need to find ways to overcome these spatial constraints. Finding a way to bridge these spatial realities together and narrate the injustice of this situation is paramount.”

Local food for local people. That’s the idea behind Sharaka (‘partnership’, in Arabic), an entirely volunteer-run, Palestinian organisation that aims to bring locally grown products directly to Palestinian dinner tables.

“Our vision is a food sovereign Palestine where we’re economically independent, we use our local resources and we support each other. That leads to human development. It’s local economy. Through a local economy and a local food system, that’s how you build community,” said volunteer and Sharaka co-founder Aisha Mansour.

Mansour said that while it has often been a struggle to convince both Palestinian farmers and consumers to participate, Sharaka has organised several successful farmers’ markets in Ramallah, and continues to raise awareness about the benefits of eating locally.

The group has also refused to take any international aid to support its work.

“It’s a broken system. Everybody knows that,” Mansour told IPS, about the international aid and development model currently in place. “Local people who know their community, who want to develop and support, they do things. That’s how they develop. That’s how development happens; it’s not an externally imposed thing.”

Palestinians are among the largest per capita recipients of international aid in the world. From 1994 – when the first international aid packages streamed into the occupied Palestinian territories – until the present day, billions of dollars have been spent.

The first donor conference to provide financial support to Palestinians was convened in October 1993 in Washington, shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

“The Oslo agreement between the PLO and Israel would not succeed, not work even, not last, without donor support,” said Dr. Samir Abdullah, director general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah.

Dr. Abdullah told IPS that restrictions placed on Palestinians under the Oslo agreement, including receiving only 80 percent of Palestinian tax revenues, and having access to only 40 percent of West Bank land, limited growth and development.

As a result, the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the Palestinian government created as a result of the Oslo Accords – was quickly forced to rely on international donors to fill gaps in its budget.

“Now, the PA has 3 billion dollars of debt,” Dr. Abdullah said. “If this continues, the Authority will collapse. If (donors) are not paying the burden, the debt will be unaffordable for the Authority.”

In its National Development Plan for 2011-2013, the PA stated: “Tax and clearance revenues, driven upwards by private sector-led economic growth and improved revenue administration, will progressively reduce our reliance on external aid.”

But efforts to wean the PA off its dependence on foreign aid have proven unsuccessful.

International donors pledged 1 billion dollars to the PA in both 2011 and 2012 to keep the organisation afloat. After this sum was never fully transferred, the PA faced the largest funding crisis in its history.

It is now regularly unable to pay the salaries of its public sector employees, and President Mahmoud Abbas often launches emergency appeals to Arab states to support his Ramallah-based government.

International aid to Palestinians is also very much dependent on the local political situation, and mainly, on so-called peace process negotiations with Israel.

After the PA secured the upgraded status of Palestine at the United Nations last November, Israel said it would withhold 100 million dollars in Palestinian tax revenues each month, and the United States froze 500 million dollars in aid as punishment.

Nora Lester Murad is a volunteer and co-founder of Dalia, a Palestinian organisation that advocates better use of local resources, and development that meets Palestinian goals. She said that while international aid has brought some positives to Palestinian society – including jobs and basic institution-building – it has largely been destructive.

“It has not helped in the claiming of rights. It has not helped in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I’d go further and say that it has undermined rights and has delayed or prevented and made more difficult, the resolution of the conflict,” Lester Murad told IPS.

“But things are changing. There is a lot of discontent, and that’s the first step. There is also discussion, and that’s the second step.”

In 2012, the overall unemployment rate in the occupied Palestinian territories hovered just below 23 percent. In the West Bank, youth unemployment reached 30 percent in mid-2012, and 52 percent in the Gaza Strip.

Itiraf Remawi, acting director general of the Ramallah-based Bisan Centre for Research and Development, told IPS that Palestinians must return to the more sustainable system of development, similar to the one that characterised the First Intifada in the late 1980s.

“The development has to take an approach that facilitates and reinforces the Palestinian existence (and) the Palestinian resistance against the occupation,” Remawi said.

“The model (in the First Intifada) was much, much better. There was voluntary work, collective work. There was a very close relationship between the people. They struggled against the occupation without differentiating between this one or that one, between political factions or others. There was a common agenda.”

According to Aisha Mansour, that is exactly the type of community that Sharaka aims to build.

“How can you move into an independent country when people are at the level where they’re just struggling to put bread on the table?” she said. “That tipping point has to come for people to really say, ‘Ok. There’s no more money. We have to really think about a way to keep our community going, whether we’re under occupation or not, and develop.’” (END)

The release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in late 2011 set off scenes of jubilation throughout the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, as families joyously welcomed their loved ones homes after months and years apart. But for many of these same families, an Israeli military order – that allows Israel to re-arrest released Palestinian prisoners based on secret evidence – has now shattered those happy reunions.

“It was like a historic (moment),” said Shireen Issawi, about the day her brother, Samer Issawi, was released from an Israeli prison in 2011. “We started to laugh and to cry. When we really saw him in the street, walking towards us, we just started to cry and scream, ‘Samer! Samer!’ We couldn’t believe it.”

But in July of last year, Samer, a 33-year-old resident of Issawiya in East Jerusalem, was re-arrested after Israel said he broke the conditions of his release. On Feb. 21, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced Issawi to eight months in prison, which will be applied retroactively starting from the date of his arrest on Jul. 7, 2012.

Issawi is now waiting for a ruling from an Israeli military committee on his case, however, and still might be forced to serve the remainder of his original sentence, 20 more years, in prison.

Issawi has been on hunger strike for over 200 days now in protest of his imprisonment, subsisting intermittently on only water, salt, and vitamins. During a court hearing on Feb. 19, his mother, Layla, collapsed from the stress of the situation.

“We took her to the hospital in ambulance and she was in a very bad condition,” Shireen told IPS, adding that the pressure on her family began from the very moment her brother was re-arrested. “We couldn’t believe that he was arrested again with no charges. It was very, very difficult for us. We started to cry and pray to God that he will be released.”

Passed in 2009, Article 186 of Israeli military order 1651 allows a special Israeli military committee to put released Palestinian prisoners back behind bars for the remainder of their original sentences, based on undisclosed evidence that isn’t shared with the prisoners or their lawyers.

To date, over a dozen Palestinians have been re-arrested under this law. Many of these prisoners were released in the November 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas that saw 1,027 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Mourad Jadallah, a legal researcher with Ramallah-based prisoners rights group Addameer, explained that Israel quietly passed the military order as negotiations towards a prisoners exchange were being held, and long before the agreement was finalised.

“Israel, before taking any action, prepared the ground to bypass the agreement,” Jadallah said. “They had to protect themselves, at least legally, and give themselves the authority to re-arrest the Palestinian prisoners, and this is what they did.”

On Feb. 20, a group of Palestinian lawyers petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court against the military order. The law’s application, Addameer stated in a press release, is “completely unjustified and undermines the protection of prisoners and ex-prisoners, and puts the lives of the hunger strikers in grave danger.”

“The Court said it understands the need for this petition, but it’s still early because until now, the military committee never used this Article,” Jadallah told IPS, about the hearing. “At the same time, the case of Samer Issawi, it was based on (Article) 186.”

Right now, four Palestinian prisoners – Samer Issawi, Ayman Sharawna, Jafar Ezzedine and Tarek Qa’adan – are conducting open-ended hunger strikes in protest of their detention in Israeli prisons.

A movement in solidarity with the hunger strikers has grown in recent weeks. Demonstrations are regularly held in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and inside Israel. Supporters have even begun hunger strikes of their own in solidarity with the prisoners.

On Feb. 11, former Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan – who was released from Israeli jail in 2012 after conducting a 66-day hunger strike – began a sit-in and hunger strike at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) offices in Al Bireh, near Ramallah.

The ICRC closed its office shortly after Adnan’s hunger strike began. A spokesperson for the organisation told Israeli daily Ha’aretz that “as a humanitarian organisation we cannot agree that our offices be used for political purposes.”

According to Israeli human rights group Btselem, 4,517 Palestinian prisoners were held in Israeli jails at the end of 2012, including 178 Palestinians held without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention orders.

Israel has detained an estimated 800,000 Palestinians – 20 percent of the overall Palestinian population, and 40 percent of the male population – since its military occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967. (END)

Newspapers on sale in Istanbul. But the freedom of Turkish journalists is seriously threatened. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
ISTANBUL, Feb 1 2013 (IPS)

As negotiations in Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union remain stalled, many worry that the Turkish government has little incentive to curb its ongoing crackdown on media freedoms and freedom of expression.

“Reviving Turkey’s accession process to the EU is crucially relevant to press freedom in the country for the simple reason that the process provides the government with a fundamental incentive to make progress,” wrote former European ambassador to Turkey Marc Pierini in a policy paper for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The EU needs a prosperous, stable and democratic Turkey irrespective of whether it is a member, a strategic ally, or a neighbour. More importantly, it needs a Turkey that is at peace with itself and manages coexistence and tolerance between various strands of its society,” Pierini wrote.

In recent years, local and international human rights groups have condemned the Turkish government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), for placing severe restrictions on media freedoms, and, in particular, for jailing large numbers of journalists.

According to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) titled Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis, Turkey imprisoned the largest number of journalists in the world in 2012, ahead of Iran, Eritrea and China.

In August alone, 76 Turkish reporters were in imprisoned; 70 percent of these were Kurdish citizens of the state. Many journalists were charged for their coverage of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which Turkey deems a terrorist group.

“Authorities have imprisoned journalists on a mass scale on terrorism or anti-state charges, launched thousands of other criminal prosecutions on charges such as denigrating Turkishness or influencing court proceedings, and used pressure tactics to sow self-censorship,” CPJ stated.

In response, Turkish Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin called the allegations included in the CPJ report “exaggerated” and stated that criticism of press freedom in Turkey was being used as a political tool against the government.

“We, as the Government, would not want any single person, whether a journalist or not, to be victimised because of their thoughts or expressions,” Ergin wrote. “Turkey is making an effort to strike the right balance between preventing the praising of violence and terrorist propaganda, and the need to expand freedom of speech.”

Still, many have pointed to Turkey’s flawed penal code as a major factor in suppressing freedom of the press. The country’s vague anti-terror legislation – writing an article can lead journalists to be accused of belonging to, or aiding, a terrorist group, for example – has been especially condemned.

According to Hugh Pope, a researcher on Turkey at the International Crisis Group (ICG), the upcoming fourth judicial reform package which the Turkish government is expected to unveil shortly must address this problematic definition of terrorism.

“The definition of terrorism is completely out of sync with the European norm and it has to change,” Pope told IPS. “It’s absolutely essential to adjust the definition of terrorism to something that is more rational and thereby allow the release of several thousand people currently in jail on terrorist charges that wouldn’t be considered to be terrorists anywhere else in Europe.”

Turkey was declared eligible to join the European Union in 1997, and accession negotiations began in 2005. The process has been stalled since 2006, however, largely due to Turkey’s conflict with Cyprus over Turkish control of half the island territory.

“It doesn’t help that in Europe, Turkey is perceived as a gagger of the press, but I think that’s not the main problem. The main problem is the major European reservations about Turkey,” Pope added. “But if Turkey had a more defensible media scene, that would make Turkey seem more European.”

Last year, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) launched a solidarity campaign for imprisoned Turkish journalists, called “Set Turkish Journalists Free”. EFJ representatives also attended court hearings in Turkey in solidarity with the jailed reporters.

“It is very important (for Turkish journalists) to feel that they are not isolated, (that) they are not alone. The visits to the court hearings have shown enormous support,” EFJ director Renate Schroeder told IPS.

“All journalists know what it is to want to write the truth even though we all know how difficult it is. Just to be critical, that’s why you are a journalist. There is a real bond and solidarity,” Schroeder said.

In its last progress report on Turkey’s EU accession aspirations released in October, the European Commission said while space exists for debating sensitive issues, and opposition views are expressed in Turkey, the state’s reforms on freedom of expression fall short.

It stated that the arrests and imprisonment of journalists, the application of the state’s anti-terror legislation, and high-ranking government and army officials who have launched cases against journalists are the most pressing problems.

“All of this, combined with a high concentration of the media in industrial conglomerates with interests going far beyond the free circulation of information and ideas, has a chilling effect and limits freedom of expression in practice, while making self-censorship a common phenomenon in the Turkish media,” the Commission found. (END)

The Israeli army is systematically using crowd control weapons and live ammunition unlawfully against Palestinians in the West Bank, signaling a widespread breach of military regulations and an alarming culture of impunity, a leading Israeli human rights group has warned.

At least ten Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army’s use of crowd control weapons in so-called “disturbance of the peace” situations in the West Bank since 2005, Israeli group Btselem stated in a new report, titled ‘Israel’s Use of Crowd Control Weapons in the West Bank’.

Additionally, Israeli soldiers killed 46 Palestinians with live ammunition in the same time period.

“Members of the security forces make almost routine use of these weapons in unlawful, dangerous ways, and the relevant Israeli authorities do too little to prevent the recurrence of this conduct,” the report found.

When used properly, Israel’s crowd-control weapons – which include tear gas, stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets, water cannons, foul-smelling liquid called ‘The Skunk’, and more – are meant to disperse crowds. The way the Israeli army uses these weapons today, however, can make them deadly, Btselem said.

“The authorities must ensure that the troops on the ground obey the open-fire regulations and use crowd control weapons within the parameters that keep them non-lethal. It follows that every soldier, officer, or police officer violating these rules must be prosecuted,” the report stated.

In an e-mail to IPS, the Israeli army spokesperson’s office disputed Btselem’s findings as “biased”, and stated that the incidents outlined in the report “are exceptions to IDF policy, rather than the rule.”

“The IDF does everything in its power to ensure that the use of riot dispersal means is done in accordance with the Rules of Engagement, minimising collateral damage and maintaining stability and security in the region,” the spokesperson’s unit stated.

Still, since the beginning of 2013 alone, at least five Palestinian youths were killed by live ammunition fired by the Israeli military in the West Bank.

Seventeen-year-old Samir Awad was killed after sustaining four bullet shots near the separation fence in Budrus village on Jan. 15. The Israeli army said Awad was trying to enter Israel illegally when he was shot.

On Jan. 23, 22-year-old Palestinian student Lubna al-Hanash was shot and killed on a main road near Al Aroub refugee camp, in the southern West Bank. The Israeli army said soldiers only fired after Molotov cocktails and rocks were thrown at them.

United Nations humanitarian coordinator James Rawley released a statement on Jan. 30 highlighting his concern at the Israeli army’s use of live fire in the West Bank, which has killed eight Palestinians since mid-November, and urged “maximum restraint in order to avoid further civilian casualties.

“Using live ammunition against civilians may constitute excessive use of force and any such occurrences should be investigated in a timely, thorough, independent and impartial manner. Individuals found responsible must be held accountable,” Rawley stated.

Palestinians have engaged in non-violent civil disobedience against Israel’s policies of occupation and colonisation for decades. Weekly, non-violent demonstrations have taken place in several West Bank villages since 2005.

A handful of Palestinians have been killed, and dozens more have been seriously injured by Israeli soldiers attempting to quell these protests and through the army’s inappropriate use of crowd control weapons.

In April 2009, Bassem Abu Rahmah was killed in the Palestinian village of Bil’in after being hit in the chest by an Israeli army-fired extended range tear gas grenade. Abu Rahmah’s sister, Jawaher, was killed in January 2011 after inhaling massive amounts of tear gas during another protest in the village.

Twenty-eight-year-old Mustafa Tamimi, from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, was also killed in December 2011, when a tear gas canister struck his head. The Btselem report stated that despite photographic evidence proving a soldier fired the tear gas canister directly at Tamimi, the Israeli army continues to deny this direct-firing practice.

“The IDF carefully investigates complaints that are tendered, instigating military police investigations when necessary, as per the policy determined by the Supreme Court and in line with the IDF’s ethical code,” the army spokesperson’s unit told IPS.

According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, however, only 3.5 percent of complaints received by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Unit of crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank lead to indictments.

“The State of Israel is not meeting its obligation to protect the civilian population living in the area it occupied through the proper and effective investigation of suspicions of criminal offences committed by soldiers,” Yesh Din found. (END)

A Roboski solidarity march in Istanbul this past December. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
ISTANBUL, Jan 15 2013 (IPS)

After over a year without accountability for a Turkish aerial bombing that killed 34 Kurdish men and boys, Turkey has come under heavy criticism for what many say is a widespread culture of impunity, especially when it comes to the treatment of its Kurdish citizens.

“It has been one year and there are no important steps we can see. Nobody has been arrested,” said lawyer Tahir Elci, head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, which represents over 800 lawyers working in Turkey’s largest Kurdish-majority city.

“Usually, the prosecutors and other authorities protect the perpetrators and there are many barriers before the victims when they try to get justice,” Elci told IPS. “Even if perpetrators have not been punished, it is very important for relatives of victims to learn the truth.”

On Dec. 28, 2011, Turkish air force jets bombed a group of Kurdish villagers who were smuggling goods – sugar, fuel and cigarettes – from Iraqi Kurdistan back over the Turkish border along a well-known trading route.

Using drone footage of the area, Turkey reportedly mistook the group for fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is deemed a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, among others.

Seventeen children were among those killed in the bombing, known as the Uludere or Roboski massacre, after the name of the village (in Turkish and Kurdish, respectively) where it took place.

The government set up a commission of inquiry into the incident in January 2012, but conclusions are yet to be released. The prosecutor’s office in Diyarbakir, which has been tasked with leading a criminal investigation into the killings, has neither completed its work nor released any of its findings.

“The lack of progress in an entire year on completing any investigation of the Uludere (Roboski) incident is very troubling because it is consistent with (authorities’) overall reluctance to account to the public for the government’s wrongdoing,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, a researcher on Turkey at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

“Holding state authorities who killed civilians accountable is crucial to upholding democracy and the rule of law,” she stressed.

The murder of three Kurdish human rights activists – including a co-founder of the PKK – in Paris last week has also drawn international attention to the ongoing struggle for Kurdish rights.

Some analysts have said the killings, which local police described as professional executions, may have been meant to derail a potential peace agreement, as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan re-started peace talks with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in early January.

Umut Suvari is a board member of the Diyarbakir city council, and founder of the Youth and Change Association, which provides training and empowerment activities for Kurdish youth.

He explained that a young generation of Kurds is growing up more radical than their parents, thanks to increasing political pressure on Kurdish citizens.

Human rights groups estimate that the Turkish government has arrested thousands of Kurdish citizens over the past few years, including local mayors, academics, and lawyers. Many have been rounded up for alleged affiliations to the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), a civil society group that the government views as the urban wing of the PKK.

In 2012, Turkey had jailed the most journalists of any country worldwide. Most of these journalists were Kurds imprisoned on terrorism-related charges.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), “Broadly worded anti-terror and penal code statutes have allowed Turkish authorities to conflate the coverage of banned groups and the investigation of sensitive topics with outright terrorism or other anti-state activity.”

Kurdish language instruction was also only introduced to Turkish public schools as an elective course earlier this year. Before that, students were prohibited from speaking their mother tongue.

“People don’t care anymore. They are joining demonstrations knowing they are going to be arrested,” Suvari told IPS from his office in Diyarbakir, referring to increasingly disenfranchised Kurdish youth.

“But we are teaching (youth) something different here. They can see how they are powerful when they get involved. When you give them a chance, they are doing great things.”

Twenty-eight-year-old Kurdish activist Emrah Ucar was raised in Diyarbakir, but never learned to speak his family’s native language. Despite this, he said growing up in the city gave him a heightened political consciousness at a young age.

“It would be different if I grew up in Istanbul, but I grew up in Diyarbakir and witnessed many things,” Ucar told IPS. “We’re not afraid to lose anything because a lot of family and friends are already in jail.”

Ucar helped organise an event in Istanbul in late December to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Roboski killings. Dozens of intellectuals and artists participated, and the event was broadcast live online, where it has since garnered over 500,000 views.

“In order to understand Roboski, (people) have to understand history. Kurds have been killed regularly and systematically since the establishment of the (Turkish) Republic. You don’t have to be a guerilla in order to be killed by the Turkish state. The Kurdish question did not start with the PKK,” he said.

(END)

Rehabilitation efforts have allowed 10,000 Palestinians to return to the old city of Hebron. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
HEBRON, Occupied West Bank, Dec 29 2012 (IPS)

Every day, Anas Maraka sees his family’s home, but can’t go inside. “It’s hardest for my grandfather,” said Maraka, referring to the house overlooking Shuhada Street, once the central marketplace in Hebron’s old city.

While he never lived there himself, Maraka explained that being so close – and yet, so far – from his family’s ancestral home motivates him to maintain Palestinians’ presence in the largest, and one of the most tense and volatile, cities in the West Bank.

“I like the old city. It’s our culture. Our goal is to rehabilitate houses in the old city and bring people back to abandoned houses. We want to improve the quality of life,” explained Maraka, a member of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (HRC).

Maraka told IPS that in 15 years of work, HRC has refurbished approximately 900 houses in the old city of Hebron. This rehabilitation, he said, has allowed some 10,000 Palestinians to return to the area.

“After the Second Intifada, most people left their houses. They were afraid to go back because of the Israeli settlers and the Israeli military. They can’t live easily in the old city, but we’re trying to bring them back. We can’t leave this area because the settlers would come to take the houses,” Maraka said.

According to a 2006 survey conducted by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, over 1,000 Palestinian homes were abandoned and over 1,800 shops were closed in the centre of Hebron as a result of Israeli restrictions in the area. This represents about 42 percent of homes, and 77 percent of businesses, that were originally used by the city’s occupants.

Currently, about 500 Jewish-Israeli settlers live in five settlements in the heart of Hebron in an area known as H2; their presence there is protected by thousands of Israeli police and soldiers.

Some 15,000 to 20,000 Palestinians also live in the old city, where they face a myriad of movement restrictions and a near-constant threat of harassment and violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers and settlers.

On Dec. 12, an Israeli border police officer shot and killed 17-year-old Hebron resident Muhammad al-Salaymeh at an Israeli checkpoint near the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron’s old city.

Officials said al-Salaymeh threatened soldiers with a gun. The alleged weapon later turned out to be a toy. Violent clashes broke out between the Israeli military and Palestinian youth in the volatile neighbourhood after the killing.

“We want to keep Palestinians living in this area and to keep resisting. It’s an important place in all of the West Bank. It’s difficult still, but we’re trying to help as much as we can,” Maraka said.

Historic buildings have been refurbished and renovated throughout Palestine for decades. Today, entire villages and towns are being rehabilitated. These efforts are seen as a way to insist on the Palestinian character of the area and to maintain Palestine’s unique, cultural heritage, according to Palestinian architect and planner Iyad Issa.

“It’s part of our history, part of our identity,” said Issa, who works with ‘Riwaq’, a Ramallah-based centre for architectural conservation, adding that rehabilitating buildings provides people with a lasting “visual memory and a tangible cultural heritage.”

Issa told IPS that Riwaq has documented some 50,000 historic buildings in Palestine that need conservation. To date, about 100 buildings in 90 different Palestinian villages have been refurbished, while four villages in the West Bank are currently undergoing overall reconstruction.

“It is a creative way to use the space. It provides social (and) cultural infrastructure and creates new functions for the (local) community,” Issa said, explaining that architectural value and social impact are the two main criteria used to select a building for conservation.

The Palestinian town of Birzeit, just north of Ramallah, is an example of a community that has benefited from overall rehabilitation. The town counts some 200 historic buildings, including over 100 in the historic old city, with some dating back to the Mamluk era.

After the Birzeit University campus moved, leaving dozens of buildings unoccupied, rehabilitation reinvigorated social and economic development, and brought tourism back to the town.

Still, according to Issa, keeping the focus on smaller, more isolated Palestinian communities is crucial, as is making sure that local residents use the buildings for their own needs.

“People in villages are quite marginalised. This heritage belongs to the community and should be used by the community,” he said. “Renovation is a process to see what’s possible, to envision a better future.”

(END)

A home recently demolished in the village of Bir Hadaj, part of the Abu Basma regional council. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
BEERSHEBA, Israel, Dec 22 2012 (IPS)

As campaign posters pop up around Israel ahead of the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections, Bedouin citizens of the state are still reeling after being denied the chance to elect their own local council representatives.

Legal rights activists say the move represents the limits of democracy in Israel, particularly with regard to its non-Jewish citizens.

“Every citizen wants to have a say in the affairs of their lives. This is their legal right,” Jazi Abu Kaf, a local leader in Um Batin, a Bedouin village of some 4,000 residents in Israel’s southern Negev desert region, told IPS.

“The authorities don’t want to allow elections or see leaders (emerge) from among the local people.” The current head of the council is not from the villages, making locals feel alienated from the local government.

Um Batin is one of 11 Bedouin communities in the Negev that make up the Abu Basma regional council. Formed in 2004, the council is the newest, and one of only three, non-Jewish local councils in Israel.

As of 2011, 53 regional councils governed approximately 850 rural towns and villages in Israel. Made up of elected representatives from communities within each council’s jurisdiction, regional councils help distribute local budgets, provide services to residents, and liaise with various government bodies.

While it now represents approximately 30,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel, the Abu Basma regional council is still run by an Israeli government-appointed representative, and Israel has repeatedly delayed elections to appoint representatives from among the local people.

The Israeli ministry of interior passed an amendment to the Regional Councils’ Law in 2009, which allowed it to indefinitely postpone elections in new regional councils. Before this, Israeli law mandated that elections be held within four years of the creation of a new regional council.

In 2011, after local human rights groups appealed the amendment, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the state to hold elections in December 2012 for the Abu Basma villages.

But only a few months before the elections were set to take place, a special committee created by the Interior Ministry suggested splitting the Abu Basma regional council into two new councils: Al Kasum and Neve Midbar.

In its justification of the split, the state argued that the residents of Abu Basma were not ready to hold elections, and the council didn’t cover a contiguous territory.

“Even if they had reasonable arguments, the timing of appointing such a committee – a few months before the elections were supposed to take place – indicates that their purpose was to avoid the Supreme Court verdict and to split the council,” said Rawia Abu Rabia, an attorney with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which represents the villagers in their efforts to hold elections.

“(Bedouin) are excluded from democratic processes that (their) Jewish neighbours are not. People feel more alienated from the state authority. They feel a lack of trust.  It’s also weakening leadership within the Bedouin society,” Abu Rabia told IPS, explaining that without elections, local Bedouin leaders feel powerless to positively impact their communities.

There are approximately 200,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Negev area. In addition to the Abu Basma council villages, more than 60,000 Bedouin live in about 35 ‘unrecognised’ Bedouin villages in the Negev, while about 100,000 live in state-built Bedouin townships.

Virtually all the Bedouin communities in the Negev – whether recognised, or not – suffer from a widespread lack of services, high unemployment, and abject poverty. The government-planned Bedouin towns, for instance, annually fall into the lowest socio-economic bracket in Israel.

A government proposal passed in 2011, known as the Prawer Plan, also aims to uproot at least 30,000 citizens from their homes in unrecognised villages and relocate them to the townships. The government justifies this move as a way to modernize the Bedouin community and provide it with better services.

Bedouin citizens of the Negev, however, have flatly rejected the Prawer Plan as an affront to their basic rights.

“This policy sees the Bedouin not as citizens, but rather as the enemy or a demographic threat. In order to be able to implement the government policies that the Bedouin are opposing, the Israeli government is re-organising the space in different ways, through planning, land use and local municipalities,” Abu Rabia said.

According to Jazi Abu Kaf, denying thousands of Bedouin citizens the right to elect their own leaders only adds to a sense of dispossession growing within the community.

“Nine years after the (Abu Basma regional) council was established, the situation in the villages is no different than before. The council didn’t do anything for the villages,” said Abu Kaf, adding that some homes in Um Batin are still without electricity, despite the village’s on-paper recognition.

“Israel is not a democratic state. There is no equality between Arabs and Jews. Young people see that they are present in this state, but don’t have their rights. They have no hope for the future.”

(END)

Afnan Hamad (far right) and her colleagues demonstrate their invention to convert plastic waste into fuel. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Dec 16 2012 (IPS)

Afnan Hamad stands proudly in front of a booth at the Ramallah Cultural Palace exhibition hall, three plastic bottles filled with discoloured liquid on the table in front of her.

“We designed a device to convert plastic waste into gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel,” explains the 23-year-old chemical engineering graduate from An-Najah National University in Nablus, pointing to one of the bottles. “We hope to see a real factory built, and be the first supplier of alternative fuel in Palestine.”

Hamad and her colleagues – Marah Jamous, Mohammad Manasrah and Rahal Rashed – displayed their machine to convert waste into reusable fuel as part of the ‘Made in Palestine 2012’ fair held last week in Ramallah, an annual event that aims to promote skills and innovations that often get buried beneath the hardships of daily life in Occupied Palestine.

While it started off as a miniature experiment, Hamad’s machine can now hold ten kilogrammes of plastic waste and produce nine litres of fuel, she explained, adding that the invention was designed to address economic and environmental problems prevalent in the area.

“Using our device, we can get rid of a huge amount of waste, which is difficult to do in Palestine,” she told IPS. “Also since we don’t have petrol here, we can produce fuel at a lower cost. One litre of fuel will cost five shekels (about 1.30 dollars).”

Now in its seventh year, the ‘Made in Palestine’ event was co-sponsored by the local Palestinian organisation Al Nayzak and the Swedish NGO Diakonia. Two exhibitions were held, one in Ramallah and one in the Gaza Strip, showcasing over 20 innovations in the fields of engineering, IT, biology and other sciences.

“It doesn’t only tackle science, innovation and technology; (the event) also addresses the idea of business entrepreneurship. We aim to create scientific entrepreneurs who are able to make and found businesses on those innovations that they’ve thought about and put into action,” explained Maha Thaher, international relations officer at Al Nayzak.

With offices in Gaza, Jerusalem and Ramallah, Al Nayzak aims to build a more vibrant scientific culture in Palestine, and encourage critical thinking and science education among Palestinian youth.

“We don’t want students to just avoid these subjects (until) they disappear from our community,” Thaher told IPS, adding that Palestinian students are endowed with a range of talents, which deserve to be nurtured, rather than ignored, by the education system.

“This is the one thing that occupation fails to seize and severely damage: we can (always) count on our minds, our intellect and our people,” she added.

Other innovations on display in Ramallah included a multi-tasking robot equipped with special wheels that allow it to move from left to right without turning, a cell phone application that helps users reserve library books in advance, and an onion planting machine.

Planting onion bulbs can be a tricky exercise, but this machine “plants the bulbs in exactly the right way”, explained inventor and local farmer Ibrahim Da’abes, who owns 100 dunams (nine square kilometres) of farmland in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank and believes his machine will cut farming costs in half.

“The cost is much lower than employing workers to do it by hand. Bigger farmers would need this machine,” he told IPS.

At another booth, 20-year-old computer engineering student Rasha Saffarini, and her colleagues Isra’ Al-Qatow and Abdullah Al-Qatow, showcased their cell phone application that helps people reach a healthy weight.

Called ‘Healthy Gate’, the application asks users for various inputs – including current and ideal weight, age and food preferences – and sets alarms to alert them when, and what, they should eat throughout the day.

“Because of the difficulty of going to the gym, we make it easy for people to be their ideal weight,” said Saffarini, who is in her last year at the Palestine Technical University in Tulkarm, a city in the western West Bank.

Many of the participants of the ‘Made in Palestine’ fair were women. This, according to Thaher, highlights a growing acceptance within the Palestinian community of science education as a legitimate pursuit.

Families have generally been sceptical of the idea of their daughters pursuing dreams of making an important scientific invention or discovery, since this strays so far from the traditional path women are expected to walk.

“At times we had to go door-to-door and talk to parents about how they should let their daughters be involved in such programmes and build on their ideas,” Thaher said.

“But once the parents see their children so involved in this system that cares for their scientific approaches, they start to think differently themselves.”

According to Hamad, “Our families are very proud and so are we. We invented something new for Palestine.”

(END)

After successfully upgrading their status at the United Nations, and securing what has been locally deemed a victory in eight days of fighting between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are taking on their next difficult challenge: bridging the long-standing rift between the major Palestinian political factions.

“In Gaza, people are optimistic about reconciliation and they would like to see reconciliation achieved. Over the course of the last few days, we witnessed some new positive spirit in this regard,” said Hamdi Shaqqura, deputy director of programmes at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza City.

Shaqqura told IPS that Fatah party members – the political party that forms the majority of the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in the West Bank – has held rallies openly in Gaza, a sight that was almost unthinkable only a few weeks ago in the Hamas-governed territory.

“That was very important and positively in the right direction,” Shaqqura said. He added that Egypt’s role in mediating between Hamas and Fatah would be crucial in securing any truce between the rival groups.

“I hope this will provide more pressure on both parties to go ahead in terms of real and serious steps,” he said.

Following Hamas’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, tensions grew as the Palestinian Authority refused to acknowledge the new Hamas government amidst pressure from the international community and Israel to discount the results.

After the two sides failed to come to a power-sharing agreement, violence quickly ensued – including a bloody coup attempt in the Gaza Strip in 2007. The occupied Palestinian territories were thus divided along political lines, with the PA controlling the West Bank and Hamas governing Gaza.

Palestinian political institutions have been paralyzed as a result of the split.

“We are looking for one government, one judiciary, one legislature, and functioning institutions. There is a need for elections,” Shaqqura said. “And we need to join forces to confront the real challenge: to end the occupation, face settlement expansion in the West Bank and lift the closure on the Gaza Strip.”

Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that 12 Fatah members returned to the Gaza Strip Monday after Hamas vowed to allow them to return safely without harassment. Approximately 450 Fatah members left Gaza when violence erupted with Hamas in 2007.

“We are strugglers. We left for blood not to be shed and today we come back to our homeland after five years,” Fatah member Mahmoud Musleh who returned to Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt told Ma’an. “The happiness is mixed with pain because we left our friends in Egypt but we’re happy to go back to Gaza.”

In 2011, a group of Palestinian youth publicly called for an end to the division and held demonstrations in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Known as the ‘March 15’ movement, referring to the date of the group’s first protests, the activists were met with violence in both areas by government supporters.

While its overall impact was minimal, the movement did contribute to forcing Palestinian leaders to at least talk about Palestinian unity. Indeed, Fatah and Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement in May 2011, but discussions over how to implement the plan – and crucially who would lead it – quickly disintegrated.

Hamas representative Khaled Meshaal signed a new agreement with PA President Mahmoud Abbas to end the division in February 2012, but this too amounted to nothing.

According to Dr. Sami Awad, professor of political science at Birzeit University in the West Bank, Israel will not be happy if Palestinian reconciliation is successful this time around, since this would place pressure on the Israelis to negotiate with a united Palestinian leadership.

“The situation is going to be very difficult for Israel, so Israel is going to block reconciliation between the Palestinians. They are going to say that since Abu Mazen (PA President Abbas) is meeting with Hamas, then Abu Mazen is responsible for terrorism,” Dr. Awad told IPS.

He said that this, coupled with the fact that many Palestinians – including political leaders and individuals operating the tunnel trade in and out of the Gaza Strip – are benefiting from the division, made him pessimistic that an agreement would be reached.

“Institutions (were) created in the West Bank and Gaza so that some actors will benefit from the division and the segregation. I think that those people who benefit from the division are going to fight for it,” Dr. Awad said.

“But Hamas and Fatah right now feel that they need to bring together some real achievement. The division between the West Bank and Gaza cuts into their victories. They need to show the people of Palestine that they are serious enough and that they are able to close that book of division between the Palestinians.” (END)

After the cancellation of an international conference to create a nuclear-free Middle East, leading experts have warned that an important opportunity to create stability in the region has been squandered.

“The 2012 meeting in Helsinki was a precedent. For the first time, the important decision (was taken) of convening a special meeting to study the requirements of a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East,” Ayman Khalil, director of the Amman-based Arab Institute for Security Studies told IPS.

“That in and of itself was an important decision and a milestone. Sadly, this didn’t materialise.”

Sponsored by the United Nations and backed by Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, the conference on building a nuclear-free Middle East was set to take place in December in Finland.

United States State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland stated that the conference was cancelled due to “a deep conceptual gap (that) persists in the region on approaches towards regional security and arms control arrangements,” and because “states in the region have not reached agreement on acceptable conditions” for the meeting.

The meeting is now expected to be held in early 2013.

According to the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA), holding the conference was especially important at this time given “Iran’s non-response to the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency on one hand, and Israel’s threat to launch a military attack on Iran on the other hand.”

The ECFA stated that the Arab Forum for Non-Proliferation would hold a meeting Dec. 12 in Cairo to discuss how to get the process re-started. “Making the Middle East free of mass destruction weapons will create the appropriate environment for regional stability and security in the region,” it stated.

The decision to hold a special conference on the creation of a nuclear-free Middle East was made during a 2010 review meeting of states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Signed into force in 1970, the NPT aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons technology, and further the goal of nuclear disarmament around the world. Currently, 190 parties have signed the treaty, including the five official nuclear-weapons states: China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and the United States.

There are currently five nuclear-weapon-free zones in the world, according to the UN: Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, South-East Asia, Central Asia, and Africa.

Israel, which has long been believed to possess nuclear weapons yet maintains a policy of “nuclear ambiguity”, has not signed the NPT. Many have said that the decision to cancel the Helsinki conference may be linked to Israeli fears that it would be singled out for criticism.

According to Paul Hirschson, deputy spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israel was never formally invited to the Helsinki conference, and therefore never agreed or disagreed to participate.

“I think that we probably agree with the Americans that the conditions aren’t right…I don’t think we’ve really got much to talk about anything,” Hirschson told IPS.

“The subject’s a nice subject, but what we’re really interested in is peace with the Palestinians, diplomatic relations with the Saudis; we’ve got a hundred things ahead of us before we start devoting time to that.”

Over the past year, Israel has publicly voiced its opposition to Iran working to acquire nuclear weapons, a charge that Iranian officials have denied. Israeli leaders have gone so far as to suggest that they might pre-emptively strike Iranian nuclear facilities, causing diplomatic tensions with its largest ally, the United States.

According to Ayman Khalil, however, Israel’s nuclear ambiguity remains the “elephant in the room”, and it, not a nuclear Iran, constitutes the biggest obstacle to building a nuclear-free Middle East.

“All countries in the region have basically signed the (nuclear) non-proliferation treaty, including Iran. One country, and one country alone, remains outside of these arrangements, and that is Israel,” Khalil said.

“Arabs wanted this meeting (in Helsinki) to take place in good faith to reach an acceptable arrangement with Israel. If this meeting would have taken place as planned, it would have been a massive confidence building measure between members of the region.” (END)

A rally in Ramallah in support of the Palestinian bid at the UN. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Nov 30 2012 (IPS)

Thousands of Palestinians gathered throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip Thursday, including representatives of all the major political factions, to celebrate and to show their support for the Palestinian Authority’s bid for upgraded status at the United Nations.

“I’m here in support. We want a state like all the other Arab states,” 28-year-old Ramallah resident Amar Qendah told IPS from Clock Square in downtown Ramallah, which was covered in banners and Palestinian flags in support of the UN bid.

“All of us are together; all the Palestinian political parties are together as one. God willing this will improve our situation,” Qendah said.

In a session that began at 10:30 pm local time Thursday, Palestine succeeded in its bid to become a “non-member observer” at the UN General Assembly. In all 138 states voted in favour of the Palestinian motion, nine states voted against it, and 41 abstained.

“Your support for our endeavour today will give a reason for hope to a people besieged by a racist, colonial occupation. Your support will confirm to our people that they are not alone and their adherence to international law is never going to be a losing proposition,” said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a speech that garnered a standing ovation in the General Assembly shortly before the vote took place.

“The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine,” Abbas said.

Palestinians have held “permanent observer” status at the UN since 1974. The upgrade will now allow them to participate in General Assembly discussions, and will give them a better chance to be admitted to UN agencies and file claims in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Palestinian admission to the ICC has seemingly been the most conscientious issue for Israel, which fears that it may face charges for crimes committed against Palestinians living under its ongoing occupation. Israel and the United States – which voted against the Palestinian motion Thursday – have both condemned Palestinian appeals to the UN.

Watching the festivities at Clock Square in Ramallah Thursday, Koaibah Shtayeh from the northern West Bank city of Nablus told IPS that holding Israel accountable in an international court was the biggest reason she supported the PA’s decision to seek upgraded status at the UN.

“We can go after these Israeli leaders who have murdered thousands of Palestinians. So many things will change,” she said optimistically. “This will affect the future (for younger Palestinians). It will give them a different future than the one I had myself.”

The push for upgraded status at the UN was the latest in a string of steps taken by the PA to reach its goal of an independent Palestinian state, made up of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as the capital.

In September 2011, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas presented an application for statehood to the UN Security Council. This was eventually blocked after Security Council member states were unable to make a unanimous recommendation.

Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that thousands of people marched in the southern West Bank city of Hebron Thursday in support of the appealing to the UN for upgraded status. Fatah – the Palestinian political party that forms the majority of the PA – also held its first rally in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when a major rift formed between it and rival party Hamas, which governs Gaza.

Despite these moves towards Palestinian reconciliation, Israeli leaders have made clear that upgraded status at the UN will not alter the present situation. “The decision at the United Nations won’t change anything on the ground. It won’t promote the creation of a Palestinian state, it will distance it,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Many Palestinians also voiced skepticism that their lives would improve as a result of upgraded UN status.

“We are under the foot of occupation. The international community is still supporting Israel. Israel is a state established through the UN and it’s a state that is not respecting and violating the UN resolutions,” said Fathy Khdeirat, coordinator of the Jordan Valley Solidarity campaign.

The Jordan Valley makes up over 30 percent of the West Bank. It is often referred to as the “Palestinian breadbasket” for its high agricultural potential. But Israel controls over 86 percent of the land and almost all of its abundant resources, and places stringent restrictions on Palestinian communities in the area.

Khdeirat told IPS that living under these difficult conditions most Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were disinterested in the UN bid. “It’s not like the day after going to the United Nations there will be changes. I don’t think that it will change. But if we compare it with keeping silent or accepting the situation, it’s better to tell the world what’s going on here.” (END)

Ruins of the Abu Khadra complex for civil adminstration following an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
JERUSALEM, Nov 25 2012 (IPS)

As the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas seems to be holding, many are hoping that one of the agreement’s main points – the easing of restrictions on people and goods coming in and out of the Gaza Strip – signals a new era for the besieged Palestinian territory.

“The people of Gaza cannot go back to the situation as it was before. This cycle of violence and de-development must end,” Ramesh Rajasingham, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories told IPS via e-mail.

“Lifting of the blockade and allowing the free movement of people and goods to and from the Gaza Strip is the only way to address the chronic humanitarian needs amongst so many Gazans, and facilitate sustainable economic growth that benefits the population as a whole.”

Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 21 mediated by Egypt and the United States, to bring an end to eight days of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip and Hamas rocket fire onto Israeli cities.

According to a transcript of the agreement released by Agence France-Presse, in addition to halting violence on both sides, the agreement stipulated that further discussions would be held to open the border crossings between Israel and Gaza, and ease current restrictions on “the movement of people and transfer of goods” from Gaza.

According to local reports, Palestinian fishermen have been allowed to fish at a distance of six miles from the Gaza shore, up from three miles, for the first time in three years, and farmers allowed to work their lands within 300 metres of the border fence with Israel.

Israel has gradually implemented a closure policy on the Gaza Strip since the early 1990s, with strictly enforced restrictions on travel and on transfer of goods and services from the Palestinian territory.

Israel adopted more stringent restrictions in 2006 following the abduction of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian fighters. When the Islamic movement Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections and later ousted its rival Fatah party from Gaza – effectively dividing the occupied Palestinian territories into two entities, a Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank and a Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip – even more Israeli restrictions were enforced.

“The ban on goods from Gaza being marketed to Israel and the West Bank has crippled the agricultural and manufacturing sector. Unemployment in Gaza is one-third of the workforce. Humanitarian assistance is above 70 percent,” said Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, a legal centre backing freedom of movement.

Before June 2007, more than 85 percent of the goods exported from Gaza were sold in Israel and the West Bank; today, products from Gaza cannot be sold in either. Israel now allows an average of 18 truckloads of goods to pass through its territory to be marketed abroad per month, only two percent of pre-2007 export levels.

Under the 1993 Oslo agreement, Israel has a responsibility to treat the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a single, territorial unit. But Israel only allows Palestinians from Gaza to access the West Bank in “exceptional humanitarian cases”. This has largely meant medical patients and their companions, and merchants.

“Families are separated. Students cannot access their studies. Workers cannot access professional opportunities and the fragmentation of Palestinian society is exacerbated. While Israel has a right to conduct security checks on those seeking to travel through Israel, it must recognise the right of Palestinians to travel and choose their place of residence in Gaza and the West Bank,” Bashi told IPS.

The closure policy has also had a devastating impact on healthcare services.

According to Medical Aid for Palestine, hospitals in Gaza are operating with only 40 percent of essential medicines, and 65 percent of medical disposables are at zero stock. There is not enough staff, medical professionals are sometimes forced to re-use rubber gloves, and equipment is often broken, outdated, or altogether missing.

In August, the United Nations found that, should the current Israeli restrictions be maintained, Gaza would be unlivable by 2020. In particular, population growth – which would result in a density of more than 5,800 people per square kilometre – and lack of adequate access to water, electricity, health and education are exacerbating the situation.

“So far very few details have been provided about any changes to the closure policy. Negotiators will negotiate that,” said Gisha’s Sari Bashi, about the potential changes included in the ceasefire agreement.

“But right now, it’s in everybody’s interest. Right now there’s a real opportunity to protect the integrity of Palestinian society in ways that are responsive to Israel’s security needs.” (END)

As people anxiously wait to see if the newly-signed ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas will hold, local and international human rights groups are calling for investigations into Israeli human rights abuses committed during its eight-day assault on the Gaza Strip, including flagrant attacks on journalists.

“We want an international investigation into what happened in Gaza,” Abdal Nasser Najjar, chairman of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate told IPS. “We want to put an end to this (Israeli) policy of killing and injuring journalists. There is no difference between a journalist: Israeli, Palestinian, or international. We want to do our jobs only, as journalists.”

In its most recent assault on the Gaza Strip, which Israel called ‘Operation Pillar of Defence’, 162 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,100 injured. Three Palestinian journalists were killed and more than a dozen injured in targeted Israeli air strikes.

According to MADA, the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms, the Israeli army has killed 18 journalists, including two foreign journalists, in the past decade.

“They have classified journalists as enemies. They don’t want the world to know what they’re doing in Gaza, what the crimes of the Israeli soldiers are. I think they didn’t want the information to go from Gaza to outside,” Najjar, who is managing editor of the Al-Ayam daily newspaper said.

On Nov. 20, two Palestinian cameramen from Al-Aqsa TV were killed instantly when an Israeli missile hit their car, which was reportedly marked with “TV” in neon letters. The two journalists – Hussam Mohammed Salama, 30, and Mahmoud Ali al-Koumi, 29 – were on their way to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to document the admission of injured Palestinians.

The same day, a third journalist, Mohamed Abu Aisha, director of Al-Quds Educational Radio, was killed when a missile hit his car.

Reporters Without Borders called the Israeli attacks “deliberate” and, in a statement released Wednesday stated that “journalists are entitled to the same protection as civilians and should not be regarded as military targets.”

Almost a dozen reporters were also injured when Israeli air strikes hit buildings housing local and foreign media offices in Gaza City on three separate occasions. These buildings housed the offices of Al Arabiya, Agence France-Presse, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, and Russia TV among others.

“We demand the United Nations set up a committee to carry out a full investigation into these attacks and take action against the Israeli government. Moreover, the international community must respond immediately to this heinous act,” president of International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Jim Boumelha said in a statement.

On Nov. 21, the Israeli military spokesperson’s office posted the following message on its official Twitter feed: “Warning to reporters in Gaza: Stay away from Hamas operatives & facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields.”

The Israeli government also insinuated that since Al-Aqsa TV – one of the media outlets targeted by the Israeli air strikes – is affiliated with Hamas, its employees are not real journalists.

“There is the Al-Aqsa station, which is a station that is a Hamas command and control facility. Just as in other totalitarian regimes, the media is used by the regime for command and control and also for security purposes. From our point of view, that’s not a legitimate journalist,” said Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev in a heated televised interview on Al Jazeera.

“We don’t target journalists. We target Hamas,” Regev said.

According to Issam Younes, director of the Gaza-based Almezan Centre for Human Rights, Israel’s questioning of Palestinian journalistic standards is only a pretext to justify its destructive attacks on the Gaza Strip.

“Imagine if Hamas said that those commentators on (Israeli news stations) Channel 2 and Channel 10 are (Israeli intelligence agency) Shabak people; then they are legitimate targets for Hamas to attack? It’s just a pretext,” Younes told IPS.

Movement in and out of the Gaza Strip is almost entirely controlled by Israel; Egypt operates the southern Rafah border crossing. At the start of its latest military offensive, Israel allowed the entry of dozens of international journalists into Gaza.

This was a change from past Israeli policies. During its 2008-09 military operation in Gaza, known as ‘Operation Cast Lead’, Israel barred the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza, and declared the Israel-Gaza border, including a two-kilometre zone inside Israeli territory, and large areas inside Gaza as “closed military zones”.

It also used extreme violence against local journalists who were documenting the three-week Israeli assault from inside Gaza.

Al-Aqsa TV’s Gaza offices were completely destroyed during the offensive, resulting in a financial loss of approximately six million dollars, and the offices of the Al-Risala weekly newspaper were also damaged.

“There aren’t any red lines anymore,” Younes said. “Everything might be a target, as long as there is this political cover and as long as (the Israelis) believe that they are immune, above the law, and can do whatever they want without being investigated.” (END)

Anger surfaces in the West Bank at the funeral procession for Rushdi Tamimi. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Nov 21 2012 (IPS)

Hundreds of Palestinians marched through Ramallah Tuesday afternoon to mourn the death of a Palestinian protester who was fatally wounded during a demonstration against the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

“It’s mixed feelings, between being sad and angry, because he was killed in cold blood,” said 29-year-old Raya Ziada, a resident of Ramallah who participated in the march. “As a Palestinian, I’m here. It’s a Palestinian loss.”

Rushdi Tamimi, 31, died on Monday of wounds sustained over the weekend during a protest held in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh against Israeli violence in Gaza. According to an eyewitness account published by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC), a group of grassroots Palestinian activists, Israeli soldiers shot Tamimi in the stomach with live ammunition and rubber-coated steel bullets.

Tamimi reportedly suffered from ruptured intestines and two ruptured arteries before succumbing to his injuries.

Israel continues to bomb the Gaza Strip amidst talks of an imminent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic party that governs the Palestinian territory. More than 135 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, and over 1,100 were injured in less than one week of fighting.

But the violence hasn’t been restricted to the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli army is using extreme force to suppress Palestinians from across the West Bank who have taken to the streets in outrage over the situation in Gaza.

In addition to Tamimi, 22-year-old Hamdi Al-Falah was killed Monday during violent clashes with Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank city Hebron. Israeli soldiers reportedly shot Al-Falah four times with live ammunition.

According to Shawan Jabarin, director of Palestinian human rights group Al Haq, the general feeling among Palestinians in the West Bank is extreme anger and frustration at the killings in Gaza.

“I think people are very, very angry now about what’s going on in Gaza. Then the Israelis started using live bullets (in the West Bank). They are using excessive force against people. More demonstrations and more shootings will happen,” Jabarin told IPS.

He added that the popularity of Hamas is increasing, while the Palestinian Authority (PA), which rules over the West Bank, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas appear weak.

“The popularity of Hamas is increasing dramatically these days in peoples’ minds,” Jabarin said. “There are more and more voices to stop the security coordination between Palestinians and Israelis. People are angry (at the PA).”

Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that over 50 people have been injured across the West Bank in demonstrations in recent days. Ma’an also reported that masked Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli military checkpoint near the northern West Bank city Jenin on Monday.

“The fire was probably carried out by a vehicle that fled the scene, with several structures in the area damaged. Soldiers searched the area for suspects while Palestinians threw rocks at them,” an Israeli military spokesperson told Ma’an.

Israeli settlers are also suspected of carrying out two attacks in the West Bank: a mosque was set on fire in the Palestinian village Urif, near Nablus, and a car was burnt and racist graffiti was spray-painted in Sinjil village in Ramallah area.

Dozens of Palestinians have been arrested across the West Bank in the past week. Israeli forces re-arrested Thaer Halahleh, a Palestinian prisoner who recently spent 77 days on hunger strike in Israeli jail in protest of his detention without charge. He was released after four days in detention.

“There’s definitely been a spike in arrests,” explained a spokesperson from Addameer, a Ramallah-based Palestinian prisoners’ rights association. “(The Israelis) are using this as an opportunity to arrest more young people. To suppress, they arrest them at a young age.”

In Ramallah, 67-year-old Aisa Hralif watched from the sidewalk as the funeral procession for Rushdi Tamimi made its way towards the city’s central square, Al-Manara. The scene made him feel, he told IPS, that a third Intifadah, or Palestinian uprising, was beginning.

“There will be more violence. Every day in Beitunia (village near Ramallah), there are clashes. It’s like a third Intifadah,” Hralif said. “Gaza is not alone. We’re with them.”

Protester Raya Ziada agreed. “With the massacres that are taking place in Gaza, the protests (in the West Bank) are getting bigger and bigger on a daily basis. If the massacres in Gaza are going to keep going on, it’s going to expand in the West Bank as well.” (END)

A Palestinian demonstration in Haifa in Northern Israel. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
HAIFA, Northern Israel, Nov 19 2012 (IPS)

Dozens of Israeli tanks slowly made their way south on the back of flatbed trucks along Israel’s Road 6 highway Sunday. Emblazoned with Stars of David and Hebrew letters, and carrying frayed Israeli flags, the movement of these tanks has left many believing that Israel will soon launch a large-scale ground operation into the Gaza Strip.

“I see (the tanks) every day. It hurts me because I know they are going to kill children,” 20-year-old Mohammad Eghbariya told IPS at the computer store where he works in Umm Al-Fahm, a Palestinian city in Israel’s northern triangle area.

A Palestinian citizen of Israel, Eghbariya said that while it also hurts him to see Israeli civilians get injured in rocket attacks, he is Palestinian and stands in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

“We are behind them. We support them. They are related to us, as Palestinians,” Eghbariya said, as Israel’s Channel 2 Hebrew-language news showed images of the war on a nearby computer screen. “But of course it’s going to be worse. It’s going to be worse because of the pride of both sides.”

Last Wednesday Israel assassinated Ahmad Jabari, the head of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza City. A barrage of Israeli air strikes on the besieged Palestinian enclave quickly followed; a total of 1,350 sites have been targeted throughout the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli military.

About 90 Palestinians were killed, and several hundred injured in less than a week of violence.

Hamas, the Islamic movement that governs the Gaza Strip, declared that Jabari’s killing would “open the gates of hell” for Israel. Palestinian fighters fired hundreds of rockets from Gaza onto Israeli cities, with some reaching as far as the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Three Israelis have been killed as a result of rocket fire.

“Deterrence is always a very important thing in Israel’s calculations. It’s always viewed itself as a small country facing many, many enemies that outnumber it, and therefore it needs to be perceived as tough,” Nathan Krall, a Jerusalem-based Middle East policy analyst for the International Crisis Group told IPS, commenting on the possibility of further escalation.

Despite the uncertainty about what’s to come, Palestinians have mobilised against a possible increase in Israeli attacks on Gaza, holding demonstrations across the West Bank and Jerusalem, and inside Israel itself.

“We are here to demonstrate against Israeli aggression and Israel’s war on Gaza. We are here in solidarity with the people of Gaza and with the resistance,” said 23-year-old Said Suidan, who was among some 40 people demonstrating in Haifa Sunday evening against the attacks in Gaza. Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third largest in Israel.

A philosophy and sociology student at Tel Aviv University, Suidan said that while Palestinian resistance to Israeli policies takes various forms – bullets in Gaza, stones in the West Bank, and protests inside Israel – it is all the same fight.

“I’m part of the Palestinian people. This is my duty. We’re raising our heads higher because of their strength (in Gaza),” Suidan told IPS.

There are approximately 1.6 million Palestinian citizens in Israel, representing some 20 percent of the total population. Israeli leaders often describe Palestinian citizens as a “demographic threat” to the state’s self-defined Jewish character.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has gone so far as to suggest forcibly transferring Palestinian cities in Israel to the control of the Palestinian Authority. Newly passed Israeli legislation also mandates all citizens to declare their loyalty to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic” state.

According to Jafar Farah, director of the Mossawa, the Advocacy Centre for Arab Citizens of Israel, the violence in Gaza is rebuilding solidarity among Palestinians who have for decades been divided by geographic location and daily circumstances.

Discussion between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel about what’s happening in Gaza, however, is almost entirely absent, Farah said.

“People don’t talk about the issue, don’t talk about the situation. If you look at Israeli media, Jews are talking to each other and that’s it. They don’t want to listen to the voice of the Arab community, and this is also reflected on the street,” Farah told IPS.

While many Palestinians were hesitant to talk openly to IPS about their feelings towards the violence in Gaza, the community is becoming increasingly vocal about their opposition to the situation as Israeli air strikes continue and Palestinian deaths mount.

“Children and people in Gaza are suffering, and America and the world are complicit,” said Mariam Odeh, a Haifa resident who participated in the protest there Sunday. “We’re one people. We’re Palestinians. When they bleed (in Gaza), we bleed.” (END)

Palestinian children join in to make use of limited time given by the Israelis for gathering olives in Deir Istiya village in the occupied West Bank. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
SALEM, Occupied West Bank, Oct 29 2012 (IPS)

Affixed to a large cement bloc, the rusted, grey gate leading Palestinian farmers from the northern West Bank village of Salem to their olive groves was opened for four days this year.

“The road is closed by this gate and it’s (always) closed except for two times in the year,” says Adley Shteyeh, a member of the Salem local committee.

Salem residents own approximately 10,000 dunams of land on the eastern side of their village. The area can only be accessed with a permit issued by the Israeli military authorities and after crossing the gate and an Israeli settlement bypass road.

“Usually we need ten days or more to do our work on the other side (of the bypass road),” Shteyeh said. Over his shoulder, a handful of villagers could be seen cutting branches off their trees, to make sure they get all the olives before their permits run out.

Last week, two Palestinian farmers from Salem attempted to cross the bypass road in a tractor to access the olive trees. Before they could manage to do so, an Israeli military jeep blocked their passage. Moments later, IPS witnessed two more army jeeps arrive on the scene.

Then, about a dozen Israeli soldiers held a group of Palestinian and international supporters, who were on a tour of the village, and local Palestinian residents, on the suspicion that Palestinian youth from the village threw stones at nearby Israeli settlers.

After over half an hour, the group was finally let go, and the farmers were given access to their olive groves.

“If someone tries to cross this road without coordination, he is either beaten or harassed by settlers or the Israeli army,” Shteyeh says. “Settlers have come in and vandalised land, and beat up people inside the village also.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories (UN-OCHA), there are 73 barrier gates in the West Bank. Closed year round, the Israeli authorities only open them for limited amounts of time during the olive harvest.

Since the start of October this year, UN-OCHA estimates that Israeli settlers have vandalised or destroyed approximately 1,000 olive trees belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank.

This destruction has negatively impacted the economic viability of the olive oil industry in the occupied Palestinian territories, which accounts for 14 percent of the agricultural income in the area, and supports approximately 80,000 Palestinian families.

“Any losses relating to settler violence, or the ongoing restrictions on access for farmers to their olive groves throughout the year, has an impact on the local economy,” Ramesh Rajasingham, head of UN-OCHA, tells IPS via e-mail.

“The sad thing here is that, in many of these cases, a family that could previously support itself has had its livelihood pulled from under them and therefore suddenly find themselves reliant on support from humanitarian organisations and donors; this reliance on aid, in turn, further contributes to the crisis of dignity. This situation is entirely avoidable.”

But harvesting olives is more than just a means of sustenance for many Palestinians.

“Our lives are bound to the olive trees,” farmer Jamal Abu Hijji tells IPS. A 48-year-old father of four, Abu Hijji spent a sunny October afternoon last week with his two brothers, their wives, and their children in his olive tree grove in the Nablus-area village of Deir Istiya.

Together, using ladders and small plastic rakes, they combed through each branch and knocked olives onto plastic tarps set up below the trees.

Abu Hijji explains that during the olive harvest season, he works from 6 am to 4 pm each day for about one month, to cultivate almost 300 trees. But, in addition to harvesting, he must work at a local olive press to meet his family’s needs.

“The outcome is modest to make a living, but it is important for us as we have lived here and inherited the lands and the trees from our fathers and grandfathers,” he said. “Its significance is not for a great materialistic value; it is more because of the moral value, the traditions and the land. I am Palestinian and I want to protect my land.” (END)