Makeshift Bedouin home in a camp east of Jerusalem on the way to Jericho. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 18 2014 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Naifa Youssef and 50 other members of her Bedouin community live a precarious life, eking out a hand-to-mouth existence alongside the main road which links Jerusalem with the Dead Sea and the ancient city of Jericho.

Home for this community, east of Jerusalem, comprises a collection of shanty structures and hovels as well as tents erected on the rugged and rocky hills which line the road.

These makeshift homes are not connected to the electricity grid or to water and waste infrastructure. In winter the bitter cold rain and howling winds creep into the structures while mud and sewerage build up in pools around the tents.“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent” – Naifa Youssef, a Palestinian Bedouin

Water has to be purchased and brought in by hand from the nearest village of Anata, a 15-minute and 5-km taxi journey away costing about two dollars per person.

Youssef’s community lives below the poverty line as the men folk struggle to make ends meet from casual day labour and herding their goats and sheep, with the area they can graze on limited by Israeli settlements.

The community has lived there for 50 years following their expulsion from the Negev Desert in 1948 when the Israeli state was established. The majority of the West Bank’s Bedouin communities were expelled from the Negev Desert during the same year.

Over the next few years, Israel plans to forcibly expel and relocate approximately 27,000 Palestinian Bedouins from Area C of the West Bank to make way for Israeli settlements.

This followed an announcement by the Israeli government in August that it planned to confiscate over 1,000 acres of West Bank land – the biggest land grab by the Jewish state in three decades.

The West Bank is divided into Area A, under nominal Palestinian control, Area B under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, and Area C (which comprises approximately 60 percent of the territory) under full Israeli control, although overall control of the entire West Bank ultimately falls under Israeli control.

The Israelis argue that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Area C does not belong to the Palestinians and that most of the structures built there were constructed without permits.

However, obtaining the requisite Israeli building permits for Palestinians is notoriously difficult in East Jerusalem and most parts of the West Bank, and almost impossible in Area C. Critics argue that this is a deliberate policy by the Israeli authorities to keep the occupied territory part of Israel.

The Israeli authorities have warned the Youssefs and their neighbours that they have less than two months to evacuate and that if they refuse to leave they will be forcibly expelled by Israeli security forces.

“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent,” Youssef said.

Youssef’s problems have been experienced by thousands of other Bedouins and will be experienced by thousands more once again as Israel moves to keep most of the West Bank free of Palestinians and exclusively for Israeli settlers and settlements.

In preparation for what some have labelled an accelerated wave of ethnic cleansing, officials from Israel’s Civil Administration, which administers the West Bank, have been demolishing Palestinian infrastructure in Area C including shacks, tents, animal shelters and homes and other structures deemed to have been built “illegally”.

As part of the forced relocation, more than 12,000 Bedouins will be relocated to a new settlement near the West Bank city of Jericho where they will be surrounded by a firing zone, settlements and an Israeli checkpoint which will limit their ability to graze their herds, the main source of income for these nomadic pastoralists.

Several Bedouin communities were forcibly relocated in the 1990s by the Civil Administration from near East Jerusalem to an area of land near a garbage dump in Abu Dis which falls in Area B.

The expulsion of the Bedouins in the 1990s was primarily to make way for enlarging the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, one of the largest in the West Bank.

Further to enlarging Maale Adumim, part of Israel’s plan has been to keep an area known as the E1 corridor, which links the settlement with East Jerusalem, contiguous and under Israeli control by building more settlements, effectively dividing the West Bank in two.

The move also further isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank. East Jerusalem is of great importance to Palestinians due to cultural, educational, family, business, and religious ties. Palestinians also hope to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“The Civil Administration’s plan blatantly contravenes international humanitarian law, which prohibits the forced transfer of protected persons, such as these Bedouin communities, unless the move is temporary or is necessary for their safety or to meet a military need,” says Israeli rights group B’tselem.

“The Civil Administration’s expulsion plan meets none of these conditions. Israel, as the occupying power, is obligated to act for the benefit and welfare of residents of the occupied territory. Expansion of the settlements does not comport with this requirement.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

“Strong together, we love Israel and trust the army” banner in Jerusalem. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Pierre Klochendler
JERUSALEM, Aug 7 2014 (IPS)

“Strong together, we love Israel and trust the army” – while a tentative truce takes root, banners adorned with the national colours still dominate cities and highways across the country.

Calling for unquestioned patriotism and solidarity, the embrace is a bear hug in the minds of those who question the merits and morality of Israel’s latest onslaught on Gaza.

It is tough to subscribe to the credo of peace when nationalist emotions are exacerbated by plaintive sirens and the deafening sound of Iron Dome missiles slamming incoming rockets, when rational judgment is mobilised for the war effort and crushes rational assessment of the effect of war.

War is the antithesis of peace is a tautology. Challenged by war, Israeli peace activists grapple with dilemma.... ordinary Israelis took refuge in the safety net of their emotions, seeking comfort in national anxiety, pronouncing moral judgment on the “sanctimonious” critics at home who contest the axiomatic assertion proclaimed time and again that “the Israel Defence Forces is the world’s most moral army”

A war, when launched, must be won. Yet this war results neither in victory nor defeat, is not a war to end all wars, but a war to avoid the next war by means of deterrence, maybe. In war, there is only loss, and losers, peace activists reckon.

If war will not have solved the conflict – it contains the seeds of the next round of violence – peace will, they assert.

But when the cannons roar, peace is silenced.

Stressing that there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Peace NGO Forum called for a ceasefire and a resumption of the negotiations towards a two-state solution on Day 22 of the operation.

The Peace NGO Forum is an umbrella platform for Jewish and Palestinian civil society organisations dedicated to peace within a two-state solution to the conflict. The partner organisations, which include the women’s peace coalition Bat Shalom and the Combatants for Peace movement, partake in networking, capacity-building and joint demonstrations,

The belated statement generated by the Israeli wing of the forum exposed the dilemma: “Israelis reserve the right to self-defence and deserve to live in security and peace, without the threat of rockets fired at them and enemy tunnels dug into their midst.”

And so, at its height, the war was justified, enjoying quasi-consensual approval ratings among Jewish Israelis. Social media brimmed with racist, intimidating, “Kill Arabs”, “Kill leftists” comments.

“No more deaths!” On Day 19 of the operation, 5,000 Israelis joined a rally organised by pro-peace civil society organisations. The emblematic Peace Now movement was absent, as was the liberal Meretz party. The protestors dispersed after rockets were fired at the Tel Aviv metropolis.

Succumbing willingly to the 24 hours a day news coverage on TV, ordinary Israelis took refuge in the safety net of their emotions, seeking comfort in national anxiety, pronouncing moral judgment on the “sanctimonious” critics at home who contest the axiomatic assertion proclaimed time and again that “the Israel Defence Forces is the world’s most moral army”.

Left-wing Israelis counter that self-righteousness is intrinsic in such proclamation.

“How can you not identify with our national pain when we’re under threat” is a blame often levelled by right-wingers against fellow Israeli peace activists.

The Israeli public which, in its overwhelming majority, is at the centre and right of the political spectrum, charges that the country is falling victim to ‘victimology’, the victim-focused coverage of the conflict.

Supporters of the peace movement see respect for “human rights as our last line of defence”, as Amnesty International director Yonatan Gher put it in the liberal daily Haaretz on Wednesday. They object to the disproportionate reaction of the military. Israel must understand the weakness inherent in its own military might, they suggest.

The mainstream’s assumption is that peace activists too often give in to ‘the mother of all tautologies’ – that “war is hell” and “evil” and, in essence, a war crime. Any sign of soul searching that this war is not just is resented as vacillation and unwanted self-flagellation.

Peace activists hold Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories as the source of evil.

The 47-year occupation, most Israelis argue, reduces their predicament to a simplistic imagery, because the occupation does not justify the hatred of Israel professed by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, and the repetitive cycle of violence. The occupation continues because peace is unattainable, they stress.

“Try,” retort peace activists, “We’ve proven enough that we’re strong enough to take a risk for peace.”

Israelis have been stuck in this perennial debate for 14 years.

During this time, they have experienced a flurry of conflicts with no end in sight: the 2000-2005 Palestinian Intifadah uprising, the 2006 Lebanon war against Hezbollah, onslaughts on Hamas in Gaza in 2006 (“Summer Rains”), 2008-2009 (“Cast Lead”), in 2012 (“Pillar of Defence”), and now.

Disillusion and despair are all the more potent that, during the years of the Oslo_Accords, a process of mutual reconciliation engaged both Israelis and Palestinians towards tentative recognition of the other’s pain.

With the ensuing confrontations, both people quickly backpedalled to the existential, elemental, dimension of their conflict.

In adversity, it has become necessary for both Israelis and Palestinians not only to exclude any identification with the other’s pain but also to inflict pain on the other as the sole way to assuage one’s pain and deter the other from inflicting pain.

What, however, unifies the overwhelming camp of war supporters and the dedicated ranks of peace supporters is the acknowledgement that the reality is complex.

Mainstream Israelis realise that their argument that an assessment of the situation requires not being focused solely on the body count in Gaza is a lost cause.

Peace activists understand that the threat that triggered Israel’s operation is tangible, but also the direction in which its outcome might be leading, its consequences and implications for Israel, and, by correlation, for the Palestinians and for peace between the two peoples.

Their ideal of co-existence grinded by years of wars, peace activists reject the focus on suffering if it only serves the hackneyed precept that, on one hand, in war, the end justifies (almost) all means, or, on the other, that war cannot be justified.

They draw fine lines between exercising a legitimate right of self-defence against an unwarranted act of aggression and ever greater use of force, and between the morality, rights and laws of war and the wrongs of the Occupation.

And now that the war seems over, they hang their hope on the realisation by their national leaders that they will urgently initiate a bold diplomatic move towards peace with the Palestinians, and will not let the same amount of time since the previous operation be wasted lest the same, recurring, reality blows up in both peoples’ faces.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Tzion Swery at a makeshift memorial to his lost children. Courtesy: Pierre Klochendler

By Pierre Klochendler
TEL AVIV, Aug 12 2013 (IPS)

Standing in front of the makeshift memorial corner of his deceased children that he arranged in the room , Tzion Swery says to himself, “How ironical that we mark the 12th anniversary of their death on Tuesday just as Israel starts releasing Palestinian prisoners.”

The Israeli government’s decision, starting Tuesday, to free 104 long-serving Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli prisoners, whom it calls “terrorists” because they took part in attacks which killed Israelis, coincides with the resumption of peace talks, revived after a three-year hiatus.

The phased release of prisoners sentenced for life prior to the Oslo Accords of September 1993 was approved a fortnight ago, to the dismay of the victims’ families.

In the historic agreement signed 20 years ago by former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and former Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman Yasser Arafat, both Israel and the PLO agreed to “recognise their mutual legitimate and political rights” and negotiate a two-state solution to their conflict. The accords never materialised into a final peace agreement.“Only god can forgive. I won’t forgive the murderers of my son... Yet I’m ready to compromise, to reconcile, to open a new page.” -- Yitzhak Frankenthal, bereaved father of a soldier

The newly-resumed talks intend on finishing what the Oslo Accords started. Following the release of a first batch of 26 veteran prisoners, a second round of negotiations will begin on Wednesday in Jerusalem and in the West Bank town Jericho.

The rest of the 104 prisoners will be set free in three additional stages, conditional on progress made during the nine months allocated for the talks which officially began in Washington Jul. 30.

“We put our trust in the political and judicial systems that these murderers never see the light of day,” protests Swery. “Releasing them is as if they killed our children twice.”

Swery has been in mourning for the past 12 years. In August 2001, at the height of the second Palestinian Intifadah uprising, his son Doron, his daughter Sharon and his son-in-law Yaniv Ben-Shalom were killed in a drive-by shooting on an occupied West Bank road.

His granddaughters Shahar and Efrat, then three months and one year old, survived the attack. His daughter, their mother, protected them with her body. The perpetrators were caught and sentenced to consecutive life imprisonments.

The men convicted of killing his family are not listed for release.

Not all parents think as Swery does. “Arik was 19 years old, a lovely boy who smiled all the time,” said Yitzhak Frankenthal, bereaved father of a soldier.

Arik Frankenthal was kidnapped and killed by Hamas militants while hitchhiking his way home from his base in July 1994.

Nineteen years on, still coping with the loss of his son, Frankenthal leads an organisation of Israeli and Palestinian bereaved parents determined to work together for the sake of reconciliation, tolerance and peace.

“We need to overcome the psychological barriers of fear, hatred, mistrust, ignorance, and to push both governments to make peace,” he says. 

“If the same people who sent these prisoners against Israel now talk with Israel, the prisoners shouldn’t continue to be in jail,” former Palestinian peace negotiator Ziad Abu Zayyad tells IPS.

According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, more than 6,000 Palestinians are currently in Israeli jails. They represent one of the most painful issues of the conflict, not only for Israelis.

“Each prisoner has also a family, a community, and many people are involved emotionally,” Abu Zayyad points out.

For the Palestinians, they are “freedom fighters” resisting the Israeli occupation – for them, the worst form of terror. Their release is a long-standing demand.

“This cycle of bloodshed must stop. Releasing prisoners gives a signal to the Palestinian people that the Israeli government is serious, and thus helps create a better climate for the negotiations,” stresses Abu Zayyad.

The issue pits not just Palestinians against Israelis but Israeli families against one another.

“If releasing murderers is a condition for peace, then this isn’t peace at all,” objects Swery.

“I lost Arik precisely because there’s no peace between us and the Palestinians,” says Frankenthal.

“Unfortunately, the only language that we Israelis understand is the language of force, of power,” Frankenthal adds. “If there’s no terror, no need to talk with the Palestinians; if there’s terror, why want to talk. It’s a catch 22 situation.”

Frankenthal points at the powerful solidarity campaign organised by segments of Israel’s civil society for the release of soldier Gilad Shalit who was abducted in 2006 by the Islamist resistance movement Hamas.

After more than five years in captivity, Shalit was exchanged for more than 1,000 prisoners.

“Palestinians who fight soldiers are real soldiers. Releasing them is legitimate,” acknowledges Swery, “Just like when armies exchange prisoners. But these particular prisoners are murderers.”

The prisoners who will be released in four batches starting Tuesday took part in attacks that killed Israelis prior to the Oslo Accords in 1993.

“What’s the difference between a Palestinian fighter – in our point of view a terrorist – who puts a bomb in a cafe and kills 10-15 people, and an Israeli pilot who bombs Gaza City and kills 10-15 Palestinians?” retorts Frankenthal.

Whether they are “terrorists with blood on their hands” or “freedom fighters” or both, Palestinian prisoners conjure up all the elemental emotions which Israelis and Palestinians grapple with in their inextricable conflict – fear and blame, hatred and revenge, crime and punishment, loss and grief.

Whether terror is inflicted by Palestinians or by the Israeli occupation, neither side can forgive or forget – even the most committed peace lovers.

“Only god can forgive,” says Frankenthal in a murmur. “I won’t forgive the murderers of my son. They’d bring my son back, I’d forgive them. Yet I’m ready to compromise, to reconcile, to open a new page.”