MCC Palestine Update #79
April 30, 2003
This past weekend my family and I were in Zebabdeh, a village in the northern West Bank where Sonia and I taught English for three years at the local Catholic school. Christians in Zebabdeh’s three churches—Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Anglican—were celebrating Easter together on the Eastern calendar. [Christmas is celebrated jointly on the Western calendar.] The small Greek Catholic community, which worships with the Roman Catholic community, was represented by a deacon who was still in his seminary studies when we were is Zebabdeh 10 years ago. We were privileged to worship once more in Zebabdeh, joining the Roman and Greek Catholics for the Good Friday, “Saturday of Light,” and Easter morning services. The church building was bursting at the seams with people, fuller than I had ever seen it. Amidst the economic, social, and political troubles engendered and exacerbated by the ongoing Israeli occupation, Palestinian worshipers this weekend offered up a dynamic and vibrant proclamation of the Gospel that death does not conquer, but that it has instead by trampled under foot by Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. Amidst the desperation in Palestine/Israel, I and other MCC workers are blessed by many signs of hope: Israelis and Palestinians working together to rebuild a destroyed home, for example, or grassroots demand for training in nonviolence. Without diminishing these signs of hope, however, this past weekend in Zebabdeh drove home for me once more one of my fundamental sources of hope: the worship and witness of the Palestinian churches and the commitment of Palestinian Christians as followers of the risen Lord.
The two news items from Palestine/Israel that have been getting the most attention recently have been questions about whether or not the designated Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) would be able to form a government and whether or not the “Quartet” (US/UN/Russia/European Union) would then release the so-called “road map” which is to chart the way to a Palestinian crackdown on violence against Israeli civilians, an Israeli settlement freeze, and the establishment of a “provisional” Palestinian state in ca. 40% of the West Bank and 60% of the Gaza Strip by the end of 2003, with a final status agreement wrapped up by 2005. Israel has sent envoys to Washington with a list of 14 objections (trimmed down and consolidated from an original list of over 100 objections) to the road map. While Palestinian leaders have for the most part embraced the roadmap and while many average Palestinians are desparate for any stability that might, even if only temporarily, strengthen a crumbling economy, most Palestinians are also skeptical that the “road map” will pave the way for a permanent resolution of the conflict. The ongoing construction of the “security wall” throughout the West Bank, the continued construction of illegal colonies, and Israel’s blanket refusal to acknowledge even a symbolic right of return for Palestinian refugees (let alone real refugee choice) feed this skepticism. The road map is an attempt to revitalize the incremental style of the Oslo process, a process that supposedly aims at a viable two-state solution. Palestinians increasingly doubt that a viable state will be the real destination of the road map; rather, they fear, the road will be blocked at the interim phase, leaving Palestinians with a “provisional” state in discontiguous parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, no connection to Jerusalem, no dismantling of Israeli colonies, and no control over land, borders or water. The Israeli colonization process, they suggest, may have already undermined a viable two-state solution. I have addressed these matters in a recent article in the Christian Century (May 3, 2003), which I include below. I have also included a piece by Tel Aviv University professor Tanya Reinhart on how the “separation wall” is dispossessing Palestinians in the West Bank villages of Bidia and Mash’a.
A final note. I will be in Egypt for regional MCC meetings and retreat from May 3 to 13. There will therefore be no updates during this period.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. The slow death of a Palestinian solution
Beyond Two States
Alain Epp Weaver
The Christian Century
May 3, 2003
A viable two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is dying; perhaps it is already dead. This reality should prompt new theological and political analysis among Christians and others who yearn for justice, peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.
The Negotiations Affairs Department of the PLO recently issued a policy analysis arguing that “Israel’s on-going colony construction and other unilateral measures in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are effectively pre-empting the possibility of a two-state solution of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel” (at http://www.nad-plo.org/). If not reversed, these facts “will force Palestinian policy makers to re-evaluate the plausibility of a two state solution.” Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, in a December opinion piece in the New York Times, warned that the Israeli government, through its actions in the occupied territories, was preparing a “ghetto ‘state’” for the Palestinians, “surrounded by Israeli settlements, with no ability to defend itself, deprived of water resources and arable land, with an insignificant presence in Jerusalem and sovereign in name only.”
Since Ariel Sharon became Israel’s Prime Minister in March 2001, the growth of existing Israeli settlements (what Palestinians prefer to call colonies) and the construction of new ones have skyrocketed. Satellite imaging identifies 24 new colonies in the West Bank, the expansion of 45 more, and the establishment of 113 new “outposts,” that is, caravans placed on hilltops that are later developed into full-fledged colonies. The placement of new colonies and outposts is strategic and multifaceted. First, Jerusalem is being progressively encircled by rings of Israeli colonies which break up the contiguity of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and which separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
Second, the “separation” wall (what Palestinians call the Apartheid Wall) is reconfiguring the geographical terrain: the wall, whose construction is most advanced in the northern West Bank, allows Israel to deepen the integration of its illegal West Bank settlements into Israel proper, thereby isolating Palestinian towns and villages from each other, solidifying control over water resources, and paving the way for future land confiscations by preventing farmers from reaching their farmland. The international media has often portrayed the wall as running along the “Green Line” separating Israel from the occupied territories. In fact, the wall cuts far into the West Bank; if the wall is completed along projected paths, it will mean the de facto annexation of at least 10 percent of the West Bank into Israel. (For more on the Apartheid Wall, see the “Stop the Wall” at http://www.pengon.org/.)
These various developments leave Palestinian population centers separated from one another and will create various isolated “cantons” (what Palestinians, referring to South Africa under apartheid, call “Bantustans”) within 35-40 percent of the West Bank: the canton of Bethlehem for example, or of Ramallah, Nablus/Jenin, Hebron, etc. These cantons might be left disconnected, or perhaps they would be granted what Sharon recently dubbed “transportation contiguity” in the form of bridges or tunnels to connect them.
Thus, the Israeli settlement enterprise in the occupied territories over the past decades has been about establishing a matrix of roads and settlements by which Israel can, directly or indirectly, control all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Journalist Amira Hass, writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in January, highlighted the military significance of the settlements and their road networks: “Israel’s decision-makers, who over the last 20 years have carefully planned the location of every Jewish settlement in the West Bank and every water pipe and electricity pylon, also knew how to plan a ramified network of roads that would become a key weapon against the Palestinians. If you are good children and accept the dictate of the settlements, you can use the roads. If you are bad children we will lock you into the tiny prisons that these roads so cleverly created.” The past decade has witnessed these roads and settlements making these prisons ever smaller and exit from them ever more difficult.
Israeli colonial expansion, therefore, is putting the nails in the coffin of any plans for a viable two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Talk of “roadmaps” devised by the “Quartet” (United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia) for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 appear naïve at best and dangerous at worst. It is naïve because current Israeli colonial expansion is undermining the viability of a Palestinian state. It is dangerous, since Israel likely will offer to accept as a “painful compromise” a Palestinian “state” in the discontinguous 35-40 percent of the West Bank. Palestinians assume that, following the US-led war against Iraq, tremendous international pressure will be brought to bear upon them to accept a “provisional” state in less than half of the West Bank with, at best, a vague timetable for any further Israeli withdrawals. The current Israeli leadership has made it clear that it does not believe that the roadmap will lead to a full withdrawal from the occupied territories. Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar, for example, observed in Ha'aretz that Israeli defense officials “regard the road map as mere ‘lip service’ and expect it to eventually be shelved together with all of the [Bush] administration's previous plans for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
How should advocates for justice, peace and real security for Palestinians and Israelis respond to this emerging reality? First, we should free ourselves from the conceptual bind of seeing “statehood” (be it Palestinian or Israeli) as an end in itself. Various Christian bodies—denominations, church-related organizations—have called for an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip and for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. What is there to say, however, if Israeli colonial expansion has undermined a viable two-state solution?
Advocates for a just and lasting peace should not be ultimately concerned with whether or not a Palestinian state comes into being. After all, Israel (and the United States, and perhaps the European Union) might eagerly back the creation of a “provisional” state—doomed to indefinite provisionality—comprising discontiguous Bantustans. This would not bring justice and freedom for Palestinians, nor stability or security for either Palestinians or Israelis. Statehood, from a Christian perspective, is simply not an end in itself. What is a good in and of itself is the flourishing and the well-being of all who inhabit “Mandate Palestine,” that is, present-day Israel, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. If current realities have undermined a two-state solution, then those who care about the well-being and security of Palestinians and Israelis must dream of new ways for Palestinians and Israelis to be able to live side by side in justice, freedom and equality.
If a viable two-state solution is eclipsed, then Palestinians will need to struggle against an apartheid reality in the occupied territories and work for equal citizenship in a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis are equal citizens before the law, in all of Mandate Palestine. The vision of one, binational state must not be dismissed out of hand by advocates of a just peace, even though many will find it difficult to move beyond the language of “two states” to which they have become wedded. Further, advocacy for one, binational state will be perceived as being against the State of Israel and thus as anti-Zionist. Support for a two-state solution has allowed many Christians to avoid a theological reckoning with Zionism, not resolving the question of whether the creation of a sovereign state which denies Palestinian refugees from 1948 the right to return to their homes and insists on maintaining a “Jewish demographic majority” is a theological good. Some Christians, like those committed to dispensationalist readings of Scripture, warmly embrace Zionism. If Zionism necessarily means the creation and preservation of a “Jewish demographic majority” at the expense of the rights and well-being of Palestinians, then advocacy for one-binational state is indeed anti-Zionist. Other Zionisms, however, such as a ‘cultural Zionism’ that looks for a revitalization of Jewish life in the land while not depending on sovereign and demographic control, might emerge as possibilities compatible with a binational vision.
Perhaps the unexpected will occur and Israel will dismantle its colonies in the occupied territories, with a viable Palestinian state emerging next to Israel. If this happens, we will have cause for rejoicing. We must, however, soberly confront the possibility that the day of the two-state solution has already been eclipsed and start thinking through the theological and advocacy implications.
Alain Epp Weaver is country representative for Mennonite Central Committee in the occupied Palestinian territories.
2. SOPHISTICATED TRANSFER
Tanya Reinhart
Yediot Aharonot, March 10, 2003; translated from Hebrew by Irit Katriel
On the eve of the Iraq war, fears were expressed in different circles that under the cover of war, Israel may attempt a transfer of Palestinians in the “seam line” area of the northern West Bank (Kalkilya, Tulkarem). Last week, the army produced a scene from this scenario. On April 2 at 3 AM, a large force raided the refugee camp of Tulkarem, blocked all the roads and paths with barbed wires and announced on loudspeakers that all males aged 15 to 40 must go to a certain compound at the center of the camp. At 9 in the morning, the army began to transport the gathered males to a nearby refugee camp. This time it was only a staged scene, and the residents were allowed to return after a few days. But the producers of this show made sure that its significance would not escape the participants and the audience. They took special care that evacuation be done with trucks - an exact re-enactment of the 1948 trauma. As one of the residents described his feelings when he got on the truck, "all the memories and childhood stories of my father and grandfather about the Nakba came back” (Regular, Ha’aretz, March 4, 2003, attached below).
Many interpret this show as a “general rehearsal” for the possibility of a future transfer. There is no doubt that the current government is mentally prepared for transfer, but it is not certain that the “international conditions” are ripe for executing this in the way that was staged. The war Iraq has become to entangled for the U.S. to to risk opening another flashpoint. But transfer is not just trucks. In the Israeli history of “land redemption” there is also another model, more hidden and sophisticated. In the framework of the “Judaization of the Galilee” project, which has begun in the 1950s, the Palestinians that remained in Israel were robbed of half their lands, isolated in small enclaves, surrounded by Israeli settlements, and gradually lost the bonds that held them together as a nation. Such an internal transfer is occurring now in the occupied territories, and it has been escalated during the war.
On 24/3, the bulldozers got on the lands of the village of Mas'ha, which is near the settlement of Elkana, and began to mark there the new route of the separation wall, which will disconnect the village from all of its lands, as well as thousands of dunams belonging to Bidia and other villages in the area. Elkana is about 7 kilometers away from the green line, but the route of the fence was changed on June 2002 so that it will include Elkana as well in the Israeli side. Still, even in this plan, it is not necessary to take these lands from the villages.
It wasn’t only land greed that sent the bulldozers to the lands of Bidia and Mas'ha. These lands are on the western part of the Mountain groundwater basin - the large water reservoir originating in the West Bank, whose water flow under the ground also to the center of Israel. Out of six hundred million CM (cubic-meter) of water that the Mountain reservoir provides in a year, Israel withdraws in different areas about five hundred million (1). Control over the water sources has always been a central Israeli motivation for maintaining the occupation. The Labor governments of the seventies located the first settlements that they approved in areas defined as "critical locations" for drilling. Elkana was one of these settlements, founded within a plan that was given the (misleading) name “preservation of the sources of the Yarkon" (2).
Since the occupation in 1967, Israel prohibited Palestinians from digging new wells, but in the lands of Mas'ha and Bidia, as well as in lands that were already cut off from Kalkilia and Tul Karem, there are still many operating wells from before 1967. Their continued use may reduce a little the amount that Israel can withdraw.
The residents of Mas'ha and Bidia, who are struggling to save their lands and livelihoods, set up protest tents along the bulldozer path. “Peace tents”, they called them in an outburst of hope. Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals have been staying in these tents day and night to watch and stand in front of the bulldozers. I was there on Saturday. Around, in all directions, hills and hills of olive trees - huge areas of a green and pastoral landscape that one can find only where people live on their land for generations and generations, aware of its preciousness and beauty. And all this land is now being grabbed by the land redemptionists, who would dry its wells and sell it to real-estate investors.
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(1) These are the pre-Oslo figures for 1993, as quoted in Haim Gvirzman "Two in the same basin", Ha'aretz, May 16, 1993. According to the Palestinian Hydrology group, at the present, out of the annual recharge of the western part of the Mountain Groundwater Basin, which is 362 million CM/year, the total Palestinian withdrawal is only 22 million CM/year (www.pengon.org, Report #1.)
(2) Gvirzman, ibid.
Wednesday, April 30
Tuesday, April 15
MCC Palestine Update #78
MCC Palestine Update #78
April 15, 2003
Christians—be they Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox—in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be celebrating Palm Sunday this upcoming Sunday, rather than Easter, as local parishes are continuing a relatively recent practice of celebrating the major “feasts” of Easter and Christmas together, with the “Western” churches celebrating Easter with the Orthodox on the “Eastern calendar,” and the “Eastern” churches celebrating Christmas with the Catholics and Protestants on December 25. Because Jerusalem, however, prides itself on being unique, and because churches in Jerusalem stick closely to the “status quo” which guides all of the rights and privileges of the churches, we ended up celebrating Palm Sunday two days ago. “Ride on, ride on in majesty,” our small congregation sang, reflecting on the unbearable memory that the crowds that shout Hosanna one week are shouting Crucify him! the next, on the painful realization that we, like Peter, who so eagerly want to proclaim our devotion, fall away.
This update is thus being sent out during Jerusalem’s Holy Week, which happens to be Holy Week for the vast majority of you reading these words. Like the past two years, it has felt hard for me to embark on the journey of Holy Week. This is a week of remembering violence, and violence seems omnipresent here, if not omnipotent. This past week, to give an incomplete listing, saw the death of Omar Matar, the 411th Palestinian child killed by the Israeli military; the killing of Thomas Hurndall, a British peace activist, in Rafah by an Israeli sniper; extrajudicial killings in Gaza that brought with them “collateral damage,” including the deaths of children; the killing of two Israeli soldiers in a military outpost in the Jordan valley. This is a week of remembering betrayal, and this is a land where the hopes of peace and reconciliation have too many times been betrayed.
As Christians, of course, we are empowered to live in hope amidst this violence and betrayal through Christ’s resurrection. In our present reality, however, as we await Christ’s return, the forces of sin and death (be they military, political, or deep within our souls) persist, even in the light of the resurrection. This coming Sunday our family and MCC’s peace development worker Ed Nyce will go to the Mount of Olives for a sunrise service to celebrate Jesus’ triumph over the powers of sin and death, to greet each other with “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” Yet, as we wait for the sun to rise over the Jordan valley, we will be looking out onto lights in the valley below, most of which belong to the armed perimeter fences of illegal Israeli colonies built by force and “occupier’s law” in the Jordan valley, a stark reminder of the ongoing forces of violence of dispossession in the country. Other places in the world—be they Iraq, Canada, or the United States—bear somber witness to the continuing reality of sin and death, even as we gather in celebration for Easter. This Holy Week, may we of course be soberly realistic about the powers of sin and death in our lives and in our nations, but even more so God grant us the grace to be hopeful and expectant, living in the confidence granted by Jesus’ victory over death.
Below you will find two pieces. The first, by Uri Avneri, the head of the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, provides a critical analysis of the much-discussed (but not yet officially released) “road map” designed by the Quartet (US/EU/UN/Russia). The second, by Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy, looks at the death of the 411th Palestinian child to be killed by the Israeli military since the end of September 2000.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. A Road Map to Nowhere - Or: Much Ado About Nothing
Uri Avnery
5.4.03
This could have been an important document, I F -I F all the parties really wanted to achieve a fair compromise.I F Sharon and Co. were really prepared to give back the occupied territories and dismantle the settlements.I F the Americans were willing to exert serious pressure on Israel.I F there were a president in Washington like Dwight Eisenhower, who did not give a damn about Jewish votes and donations.I F George Bush were convinced that the Road Map serves his interests, instead of being a bone to throw to his British poodle.I F Tony Blair thought that it serves his interests, instead of being a crumb to throw to his domestic rivals.I F the United Nations had any real power.I F Europe had any real power.I F Russia had any real power.I F my grandmother had wheels.
All these Ifs belong to an imaginary world. Therefore, nothing will come from all the talking about this document. The embryo is dead in the womb of its mother, the Quartet.In spite of this, let's try to treat the matter in all seriousness. Is this a good document? Could it be helpful, if all the Ifs were realistic?In order to answer this seriously, one has to distinguish between the declared objectives and the road that is supposed to lead to them.The objectives are very positive. They are identical with the aims of the Israeli peace movement: an end to the occupation, the establishment of the independent State of Palestine side-by-side with the State of Israel, Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian peace, the integration of Israel in the region.In this respect, the Road Map goes further than the Oslo agreement. In the Oslo "Declaration of Principles" there was a giant hole: it did not spell out what was to come after the long interim stages. Without a clear final aim, the interim stages had no clear purpose. Therefore the Oslo process died with Yitzhaq Rabin.The Road Map confirms that there now exists a worldwide consensus about these objectives. This fact will remain even if nothing comes out of it. Those of us who remember that only 35 years ago there were hardly a handful of people in the world who believed in this vision can draw profound satisfaction from this Road Map. It shows that we have won the struggle for world public opinion.But let's not exaggerate: in this document, too, there is a gaping hole in the definition of the aims. It does not say what the borders of the future Palestinian State should be, neither explicitly nor implicitly. The Green Line is not even mentioned. That by itself is enough to invalidate the whole structure. Ariel Sharon talks about a Palestinian state in 40% of the "territories" - equivalent to less than 9% of Palestine under the British Mandate. Does anyone believe that this will bring peace?When we pass from poetry to prose, from the mountaintop of the aims to the road that is supposed to get us there, the warning signs become more and more frequent. This is a perilous road with many curves and obstacles. Even a very brave athlete would shudder at the thought of having to run this course.The road is divided into phases. In every phase the parties must fulfil certain obligations. At the end of each phase the Quartet must decide whether the obligations have been completely fulfilled, before entering the next one. At the end, the hoped-for peace will come, God willing.Even if all the parties were imbued with goodwill, it would be extremely difficult. When David Lloyd-George, as British Prime Minister, decided to end the British occupation of Ireland, he observed that one cannot cross an abyss in two jumps. The initiators of the Road Map propose, in effect, to cross the Israeli-Palestinian abyss in many small hops.First question: who is this "Quartet" that has to decide at every point whether the two parties have fulfilled their obligations, and a new phase can be entered?At first glance, there is a balance between the four players: the United Nations, the United States, Europe and Russia. It is rather like a commercial arbitration: each side appoints one arbitrator, and the two arbitrators together choose a third one. Judgement is reached by majority decision and is binding on both parties.This could work. The United States are close to Israel, Europe and Russia are acceptable to the Palestinians. The UN representative would have the casting vote.Not at all. According to the document, the Quartet must take all decisions unanimously. The Americans have a veto, which means that Sharon has a veto. Without his agreement, nothing can be decided. Need more be said?Second question: When will it end?Well, there is no clear-cut timetable for passing from one phase to the next. The document vaguely mentions several vague dates, but they are difficult to take seriously. The first phase should have started in October, 2002, and come to a close in May 2003. In the real world, the Map will be shown to the Israelis and the Palestinians for the first time in May, and only then will the serious haggling begin. Nobody can foresee when the implementation of the first phase will actually begin. And in the meantime�It should be remembered: in the Oslo agreements many dates were fixed, and almost all of them were missed (generally by the Israeli side). As the good Rabin declared: "There are no sacred dates."Third question: Is there any kind of balance between the obligations on the two parties? The answer must be "no".In the first phase, the Palestinians must stop the armed Intifada, establish close security cooperation with the Israelis and recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security. They must also appoint an "empowered" Prime Minister (meaning, in effect, the neutralization of the elected president, Yasser Arafat) and start the drafting of a constitution that will meet with the approval of the Quartet.What must Israel do at the same time? It must enable Palestinian officials (note: officials. This does not apply to the rest of the population) to move from place to place, improve the humanitarian situation, stop attacks on civilians and the demolition of homes and pay the Palestinians the money due to them. Also, it will dismantle "settlement outposts" erected since Sharon came to power, in violation of the government's guidelines. Who will decide to whom this applies? There is also no mention of freezing settlement activity in this phase.Does anyone believe that Prime Minister Abu Mazen could put an end to Hamas and Jihad attacks without any political quid pro quo at all, and while the settlements keep expanding?After this phase, the Palestinians must reform their institutions, create a constitution "based on strong parliamentary democracy" (they will not be allowed to have an American presidential system, for fear of Arafat retaining some powers). Only then, "as comprehensive security performance moves forward", the Israeli army will "withdraw progressively from areas occupied since September 28, 2000". Not immediately, not in one withdrawal, but bit by bit, "progressively". Not from areas B and C, but only from area A. They will be where they were before the present Intifada.(There is an old Jewish joke about a family that complains about being crowded together in one room. The rabbi advises them to bring in a goat, too. Later, when the family complains that life has become intolerable, the rabbi tells them to take the goat out again. Suddenly they feel that they have a lot of space. This time the Israeli army is told to remove the goat, but the Palestinians are told to remove father and mother.)After all this, the next phase will start; the Palestinians will adopt their constitution and hold free elections, the Egyptians and Jordanians will send their ambassadors back to Israel and the Israeli government will, at last, freeze settlement activity.The next phase will focus on the "possible" creation of an indPalestinian state with "provisional borders". So, long after all attacks have been stopped, there will be an "option" of creating a Palestinian state in Area A, a tiny part of what used to be Palestine. According to the Roadmap, this should happen by the end of 2003, but it is clear that, if at all, this will come about much later. It is also stated that "further action on settlements" will be a part of the process. What does this mean? Not the dismantling of a single settlement, not even the most remote and isolated one.After all this comes about, the Quartet will decide (again: unanimously - only with the agreement of the Americans) that the time has come for negotiations aimed at a "permanent status agreement", hopefully in 2005, including discussion of items such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements. If Sharon or his successor want it, there will be an agreement. In not, then not.The truth is, in this whole document there is not one word that Sharon could not accept. After all, with the help of Bush he can torpedo any step at any time.To sum up: Much Ado about Nothing. As evidenced by the fact that neither Sharon nor the settlers are upset.
2. The 411th child: Fourteen-year-old Omar Matar of Qalandiyah was shot in the head and killed
Gideon Levy
Haaretz, April 11, 2003
On the morning of his death, Omar Matar woke up later than usual. Omar loved to eat breakfast together with his father Musa, a truck driver, before Musa left for work at 5:30 A.M. But on that Friday two weeks ago, Omar didn't wake up until seven. He ate alone - tea, pita, za'atar and cheese, and then did something else that he'd never done before: He offered to wash the stairs for his mother.After he'd finished that, Omar took a shower, changed clothes and went out as he did every Friday to the mosque in the Qalandiyah refugee camp. That was where Musa Matar saw his young son for the last time. Omar, who was just shy of 14, left the mosque to go to a demonstration in support of the Iraqi people and then headed for the deserted airport across from Qalandiyah. Omar dreamed of being a pilot when he grew up, but that day he had another childish plan in mind - to try to disconnect the observation balloon that the soldiers sent up over the airfield, apparently to film the goings-on in the refugee camp.Box cutter in hand, and accompanied by his brother Fadi and his friend Mujahed, Omar approached the airport fence. It was early afternoon. The soldiers immediately noticed them and started chasing them back toward the camp. When they had almost reached the house of Walid Zawawi, on the main road, a soldier kneeling on the road fired two shots at Omar, according to Zawawi. One hit the boy in the head and the other in the neck.Zawawi, the deputy manager of the refugee camp for UNRWA, who watched from his window as the episode unfolded, claims that one of the soldiers clapped his comrade - the sniper of children - on the shoulder after he saw Omar fall. Mujahed Taya, 19, the friend who was with Omar, tried to move Omar, who was bleeding from his head and neck, but then he was shot, too - in the hand and leg. Omar died five days later in the hospital in Ramallah. He was the 411th Palestinian child to be killed in this intifada, according to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. Just over a week went by from when the 406th child victim, 12-year-old Christine Sa'ada, whose story was told here last week, was shot while riding in her family's car in Bethlehem until Omar's death. In between, several other Palestinian youngsters were killed: a 14-year-old boy in Jenin, a 17-year-old boy in Nablus and a 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy in Gaza. Six children in just over a week.The usual memorial posters have been attached to the wall at the dead boy's home, but there is also a huge poster of Omar all along the side of the house, from which his face stares out at the surrounding houses. The last time we came here it was to meet Sami Kusaba, to hear the story of how he lost his two sons, Yasser and Samer, within 40 days of each other. This week, we came to meet bereaved father Musa Matar. His spirits do not seem that down, perhaps because he has already been through so much in his life, including 12 years in prison for weapons smuggling. Portly and mustachioed, in his dusty work clothes that barely fit around his stomach, he speaks dryly about the loss of his son. "God gave and God took away. We give thanks to God."About ten thousand people live in the refugee camp, most of whose origins lie in the lost villages around Jerusalem. Thirty-two Qalandiyah residents have been killed in this intifada, three times more than in the previous one. The IDF actually does not often enter the camp, and most of the confrontations between the local children and the soldiers take place on the road and not inside the camp. The unemployment rate is 70 percent.Musa Matar and his wife Turiya have 11 children and 18 grandchildren. Omar and Khaled were the youngest. Musa is 68. Omar was in eighth grade at the UNRWA boys' school in the camp. Sometimes he would help his father work in the garden behind their small house. Khaled winces whenever his dead brother's name is mentioned.That fateful Friday, Omar and his brother Fadi, 16, did not come home for lunch. After leaving the mosque, they took part in a demonstration against the war in Iraq. Khaled told his father that he saw his two brothers on the side of the road with another group of kids and teenagers. That's where the youngsters go to burn tires or throw rocks, when there's nothing to do. And there usually isn't much to do in this impoverished and encircled refugee camp. The kids were apparently throwing rocks over the fence of the abandoned Atarot airport, where the soldiers were, but Omar, Fadi and Mujahed decided to take it a step further and try to cut off the observation balloon. Meanwhile, at home, Musa and Turiya were sitting on the roof, enjoying the sun. At 1:45 P.M., they heard four or five shots from the direction of the main road, but they didn't think much of it. They hear gunfire practically every day. Fifteen minutes later, a little boy came up to the roof and told them that Omar was wounded in the eye and was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Omar's older brother Mohammed hurried to the hospital in Ramallah. Omar was already unconscious. Turiya and Musa came as fast as they could. The doctors told them that Omar's condition was grave - a bullet in the head and one in the neck. All they could do was pray.Zawawi, the eyewitness, saw from his window three youths hiding behind some barrels on the side of the road and the soldiers chasing after them on foot. Suddenly, Omar came out from behind the barrel and started running toward Zawawi's house. The soldier knelt down behind the separation fence on the main road, aimed and fired - from a distance of about 100 meters. Omar was just a few meters from Zawawi's door, facing the soldier.The soldier and the child were facing each other, until the child fell. Not from rubber bullets or from tear gas, but from live bullets fired at the child's head. The IDF Spokesperson: "The military police are investigating. When the investigation is complete, the findings will be transmitted to the military advocate general."Mujahed darted out from behind the barrels and ran to the aid of his bleeding friend. He tried to pick him up to get him out of there, but the soldiers shot him, too. There were about ten soldiers there. When they left, people from the camp came out and stopped passing cars to get them to take Omar, and then Mujahed, whose injuries were not as serious, to the hospital. Leaning on his crutches, Mujahed comes into the tiny living room of his parents' house in the refugee camp. He has on a white T-shirt and shorts, and has styled his hair with gel. His father served 15 years in an Israeli prison for the murder of a Palestinian real estate dealer in the camp. A photo of the father after his release, standing with Yasser Arafat, hangs on the wall. Mujahed, 19, doesn't go to school, doesn't work - doesn't do anything, apart from occasionally throwing stones at soldiers on the road along with children who are much younger than him.On Friday, after the demonstration, they suddenly noticed the observation balloon floating over the airport with a camera attached, apparently to spy on life in the camp. They'd never seen this contraption before. From the camp, it appeared that it would be possible to sever the cord attached to the balloon, so they took a box cutter and headed for the airport. They knew there were always soldiers around there, but this didn't stop them. They thought that the balloon was attached to the airport fence. As soon as they got close to the fence, they saw five jeeps speeding towards them, says Mujahed.His elderly grandmother comes into the room, hugs him and asks how he is. His arm and leg are bandaged; the bullets entered and exited, fortunately.The boys started running from the soldiers toward the refugee camp. Mujahed says that they shot him while he was holding his wounded friend Omar. He dropped Omar on the sand and fled to Zawawi's house. New sand now covers the bloody trail left when Mujahed tried to carry Omar. The barrels are still there, waiting for the next child to use them for cover.For five days and nights, Omar's family stayed by his bedside in the intensive care unit in Ramallah, until early Wednesday morning, when he died. "He wanted to liberate Palestine from the air," his father says with a bitter smile.
April 15, 2003
Christians—be they Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox—in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be celebrating Palm Sunday this upcoming Sunday, rather than Easter, as local parishes are continuing a relatively recent practice of celebrating the major “feasts” of Easter and Christmas together, with the “Western” churches celebrating Easter with the Orthodox on the “Eastern calendar,” and the “Eastern” churches celebrating Christmas with the Catholics and Protestants on December 25. Because Jerusalem, however, prides itself on being unique, and because churches in Jerusalem stick closely to the “status quo” which guides all of the rights and privileges of the churches, we ended up celebrating Palm Sunday two days ago. “Ride on, ride on in majesty,” our small congregation sang, reflecting on the unbearable memory that the crowds that shout Hosanna one week are shouting Crucify him! the next, on the painful realization that we, like Peter, who so eagerly want to proclaim our devotion, fall away.
This update is thus being sent out during Jerusalem’s Holy Week, which happens to be Holy Week for the vast majority of you reading these words. Like the past two years, it has felt hard for me to embark on the journey of Holy Week. This is a week of remembering violence, and violence seems omnipresent here, if not omnipotent. This past week, to give an incomplete listing, saw the death of Omar Matar, the 411th Palestinian child killed by the Israeli military; the killing of Thomas Hurndall, a British peace activist, in Rafah by an Israeli sniper; extrajudicial killings in Gaza that brought with them “collateral damage,” including the deaths of children; the killing of two Israeli soldiers in a military outpost in the Jordan valley. This is a week of remembering betrayal, and this is a land where the hopes of peace and reconciliation have too many times been betrayed.
As Christians, of course, we are empowered to live in hope amidst this violence and betrayal through Christ’s resurrection. In our present reality, however, as we await Christ’s return, the forces of sin and death (be they military, political, or deep within our souls) persist, even in the light of the resurrection. This coming Sunday our family and MCC’s peace development worker Ed Nyce will go to the Mount of Olives for a sunrise service to celebrate Jesus’ triumph over the powers of sin and death, to greet each other with “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” Yet, as we wait for the sun to rise over the Jordan valley, we will be looking out onto lights in the valley below, most of which belong to the armed perimeter fences of illegal Israeli colonies built by force and “occupier’s law” in the Jordan valley, a stark reminder of the ongoing forces of violence of dispossession in the country. Other places in the world—be they Iraq, Canada, or the United States—bear somber witness to the continuing reality of sin and death, even as we gather in celebration for Easter. This Holy Week, may we of course be soberly realistic about the powers of sin and death in our lives and in our nations, but even more so God grant us the grace to be hopeful and expectant, living in the confidence granted by Jesus’ victory over death.
Below you will find two pieces. The first, by Uri Avneri, the head of the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, provides a critical analysis of the much-discussed (but not yet officially released) “road map” designed by the Quartet (US/EU/UN/Russia). The second, by Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy, looks at the death of the 411th Palestinian child to be killed by the Israeli military since the end of September 2000.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. A Road Map to Nowhere - Or: Much Ado About Nothing
Uri Avnery
5.4.03
This could have been an important document, I F -I F all the parties really wanted to achieve a fair compromise.I F Sharon and Co. were really prepared to give back the occupied territories and dismantle the settlements.I F the Americans were willing to exert serious pressure on Israel.I F there were a president in Washington like Dwight Eisenhower, who did not give a damn about Jewish votes and donations.I F George Bush were convinced that the Road Map serves his interests, instead of being a bone to throw to his British poodle.I F Tony Blair thought that it serves his interests, instead of being a crumb to throw to his domestic rivals.I F the United Nations had any real power.I F Europe had any real power.I F Russia had any real power.I F my grandmother had wheels.
All these Ifs belong to an imaginary world. Therefore, nothing will come from all the talking about this document. The embryo is dead in the womb of its mother, the Quartet.In spite of this, let's try to treat the matter in all seriousness. Is this a good document? Could it be helpful, if all the Ifs were realistic?In order to answer this seriously, one has to distinguish between the declared objectives and the road that is supposed to lead to them.The objectives are very positive. They are identical with the aims of the Israeli peace movement: an end to the occupation, the establishment of the independent State of Palestine side-by-side with the State of Israel, Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian peace, the integration of Israel in the region.In this respect, the Road Map goes further than the Oslo agreement. In the Oslo "Declaration of Principles" there was a giant hole: it did not spell out what was to come after the long interim stages. Without a clear final aim, the interim stages had no clear purpose. Therefore the Oslo process died with Yitzhaq Rabin.The Road Map confirms that there now exists a worldwide consensus about these objectives. This fact will remain even if nothing comes out of it. Those of us who remember that only 35 years ago there were hardly a handful of people in the world who believed in this vision can draw profound satisfaction from this Road Map. It shows that we have won the struggle for world public opinion.But let's not exaggerate: in this document, too, there is a gaping hole in the definition of the aims. It does not say what the borders of the future Palestinian State should be, neither explicitly nor implicitly. The Green Line is not even mentioned. That by itself is enough to invalidate the whole structure. Ariel Sharon talks about a Palestinian state in 40% of the "territories" - equivalent to less than 9% of Palestine under the British Mandate. Does anyone believe that this will bring peace?When we pass from poetry to prose, from the mountaintop of the aims to the road that is supposed to get us there, the warning signs become more and more frequent. This is a perilous road with many curves and obstacles. Even a very brave athlete would shudder at the thought of having to run this course.The road is divided into phases. In every phase the parties must fulfil certain obligations. At the end of each phase the Quartet must decide whether the obligations have been completely fulfilled, before entering the next one. At the end, the hoped-for peace will come, God willing.Even if all the parties were imbued with goodwill, it would be extremely difficult. When David Lloyd-George, as British Prime Minister, decided to end the British occupation of Ireland, he observed that one cannot cross an abyss in two jumps. The initiators of the Road Map propose, in effect, to cross the Israeli-Palestinian abyss in many small hops.First question: who is this "Quartet" that has to decide at every point whether the two parties have fulfilled their obligations, and a new phase can be entered?At first glance, there is a balance between the four players: the United Nations, the United States, Europe and Russia. It is rather like a commercial arbitration: each side appoints one arbitrator, and the two arbitrators together choose a third one. Judgement is reached by majority decision and is binding on both parties.This could work. The United States are close to Israel, Europe and Russia are acceptable to the Palestinians. The UN representative would have the casting vote.Not at all. According to the document, the Quartet must take all decisions unanimously. The Americans have a veto, which means that Sharon has a veto. Without his agreement, nothing can be decided. Need more be said?Second question: When will it end?Well, there is no clear-cut timetable for passing from one phase to the next. The document vaguely mentions several vague dates, but they are difficult to take seriously. The first phase should have started in October, 2002, and come to a close in May 2003. In the real world, the Map will be shown to the Israelis and the Palestinians for the first time in May, and only then will the serious haggling begin. Nobody can foresee when the implementation of the first phase will actually begin. And in the meantime�It should be remembered: in the Oslo agreements many dates were fixed, and almost all of them were missed (generally by the Israeli side). As the good Rabin declared: "There are no sacred dates."Third question: Is there any kind of balance between the obligations on the two parties? The answer must be "no".In the first phase, the Palestinians must stop the armed Intifada, establish close security cooperation with the Israelis and recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security. They must also appoint an "empowered" Prime Minister (meaning, in effect, the neutralization of the elected president, Yasser Arafat) and start the drafting of a constitution that will meet with the approval of the Quartet.What must Israel do at the same time? It must enable Palestinian officials (note: officials. This does not apply to the rest of the population) to move from place to place, improve the humanitarian situation, stop attacks on civilians and the demolition of homes and pay the Palestinians the money due to them. Also, it will dismantle "settlement outposts" erected since Sharon came to power, in violation of the government's guidelines. Who will decide to whom this applies? There is also no mention of freezing settlement activity in this phase.Does anyone believe that Prime Minister Abu Mazen could put an end to Hamas and Jihad attacks without any political quid pro quo at all, and while the settlements keep expanding?After this phase, the Palestinians must reform their institutions, create a constitution "based on strong parliamentary democracy" (they will not be allowed to have an American presidential system, for fear of Arafat retaining some powers). Only then, "as comprehensive security performance moves forward", the Israeli army will "withdraw progressively from areas occupied since September 28, 2000". Not immediately, not in one withdrawal, but bit by bit, "progressively". Not from areas B and C, but only from area A. They will be where they were before the present Intifada.(There is an old Jewish joke about a family that complains about being crowded together in one room. The rabbi advises them to bring in a goat, too. Later, when the family complains that life has become intolerable, the rabbi tells them to take the goat out again. Suddenly they feel that they have a lot of space. This time the Israeli army is told to remove the goat, but the Palestinians are told to remove father and mother.)After all this, the next phase will start; the Palestinians will adopt their constitution and hold free elections, the Egyptians and Jordanians will send their ambassadors back to Israel and the Israeli government will, at last, freeze settlement activity.The next phase will focus on the "possible" creation of an indPalestinian state with "provisional borders". So, long after all attacks have been stopped, there will be an "option" of creating a Palestinian state in Area A, a tiny part of what used to be Palestine. According to the Roadmap, this should happen by the end of 2003, but it is clear that, if at all, this will come about much later. It is also stated that "further action on settlements" will be a part of the process. What does this mean? Not the dismantling of a single settlement, not even the most remote and isolated one.After all this comes about, the Quartet will decide (again: unanimously - only with the agreement of the Americans) that the time has come for negotiations aimed at a "permanent status agreement", hopefully in 2005, including discussion of items such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements. If Sharon or his successor want it, there will be an agreement. In not, then not.The truth is, in this whole document there is not one word that Sharon could not accept. After all, with the help of Bush he can torpedo any step at any time.To sum up: Much Ado about Nothing. As evidenced by the fact that neither Sharon nor the settlers are upset.
2. The 411th child: Fourteen-year-old Omar Matar of Qalandiyah was shot in the head and killed
Gideon Levy
Haaretz, April 11, 2003
On the morning of his death, Omar Matar woke up later than usual. Omar loved to eat breakfast together with his father Musa, a truck driver, before Musa left for work at 5:30 A.M. But on that Friday two weeks ago, Omar didn't wake up until seven. He ate alone - tea, pita, za'atar and cheese, and then did something else that he'd never done before: He offered to wash the stairs for his mother.After he'd finished that, Omar took a shower, changed clothes and went out as he did every Friday to the mosque in the Qalandiyah refugee camp. That was where Musa Matar saw his young son for the last time. Omar, who was just shy of 14, left the mosque to go to a demonstration in support of the Iraqi people and then headed for the deserted airport across from Qalandiyah. Omar dreamed of being a pilot when he grew up, but that day he had another childish plan in mind - to try to disconnect the observation balloon that the soldiers sent up over the airfield, apparently to film the goings-on in the refugee camp.Box cutter in hand, and accompanied by his brother Fadi and his friend Mujahed, Omar approached the airport fence. It was early afternoon. The soldiers immediately noticed them and started chasing them back toward the camp. When they had almost reached the house of Walid Zawawi, on the main road, a soldier kneeling on the road fired two shots at Omar, according to Zawawi. One hit the boy in the head and the other in the neck.Zawawi, the deputy manager of the refugee camp for UNRWA, who watched from his window as the episode unfolded, claims that one of the soldiers clapped his comrade - the sniper of children - on the shoulder after he saw Omar fall. Mujahed Taya, 19, the friend who was with Omar, tried to move Omar, who was bleeding from his head and neck, but then he was shot, too - in the hand and leg. Omar died five days later in the hospital in Ramallah. He was the 411th Palestinian child to be killed in this intifada, according to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. Just over a week went by from when the 406th child victim, 12-year-old Christine Sa'ada, whose story was told here last week, was shot while riding in her family's car in Bethlehem until Omar's death. In between, several other Palestinian youngsters were killed: a 14-year-old boy in Jenin, a 17-year-old boy in Nablus and a 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy in Gaza. Six children in just over a week.The usual memorial posters have been attached to the wall at the dead boy's home, but there is also a huge poster of Omar all along the side of the house, from which his face stares out at the surrounding houses. The last time we came here it was to meet Sami Kusaba, to hear the story of how he lost his two sons, Yasser and Samer, within 40 days of each other. This week, we came to meet bereaved father Musa Matar. His spirits do not seem that down, perhaps because he has already been through so much in his life, including 12 years in prison for weapons smuggling. Portly and mustachioed, in his dusty work clothes that barely fit around his stomach, he speaks dryly about the loss of his son. "God gave and God took away. We give thanks to God."About ten thousand people live in the refugee camp, most of whose origins lie in the lost villages around Jerusalem. Thirty-two Qalandiyah residents have been killed in this intifada, three times more than in the previous one. The IDF actually does not often enter the camp, and most of the confrontations between the local children and the soldiers take place on the road and not inside the camp. The unemployment rate is 70 percent.Musa Matar and his wife Turiya have 11 children and 18 grandchildren. Omar and Khaled were the youngest. Musa is 68. Omar was in eighth grade at the UNRWA boys' school in the camp. Sometimes he would help his father work in the garden behind their small house. Khaled winces whenever his dead brother's name is mentioned.That fateful Friday, Omar and his brother Fadi, 16, did not come home for lunch. After leaving the mosque, they took part in a demonstration against the war in Iraq. Khaled told his father that he saw his two brothers on the side of the road with another group of kids and teenagers. That's where the youngsters go to burn tires or throw rocks, when there's nothing to do. And there usually isn't much to do in this impoverished and encircled refugee camp. The kids were apparently throwing rocks over the fence of the abandoned Atarot airport, where the soldiers were, but Omar, Fadi and Mujahed decided to take it a step further and try to cut off the observation balloon. Meanwhile, at home, Musa and Turiya were sitting on the roof, enjoying the sun. At 1:45 P.M., they heard four or five shots from the direction of the main road, but they didn't think much of it. They hear gunfire practically every day. Fifteen minutes later, a little boy came up to the roof and told them that Omar was wounded in the eye and was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Omar's older brother Mohammed hurried to the hospital in Ramallah. Omar was already unconscious. Turiya and Musa came as fast as they could. The doctors told them that Omar's condition was grave - a bullet in the head and one in the neck. All they could do was pray.Zawawi, the eyewitness, saw from his window three youths hiding behind some barrels on the side of the road and the soldiers chasing after them on foot. Suddenly, Omar came out from behind the barrel and started running toward Zawawi's house. The soldier knelt down behind the separation fence on the main road, aimed and fired - from a distance of about 100 meters. Omar was just a few meters from Zawawi's door, facing the soldier.The soldier and the child were facing each other, until the child fell. Not from rubber bullets or from tear gas, but from live bullets fired at the child's head. The IDF Spokesperson: "The military police are investigating. When the investigation is complete, the findings will be transmitted to the military advocate general."Mujahed darted out from behind the barrels and ran to the aid of his bleeding friend. He tried to pick him up to get him out of there, but the soldiers shot him, too. There were about ten soldiers there. When they left, people from the camp came out and stopped passing cars to get them to take Omar, and then Mujahed, whose injuries were not as serious, to the hospital. Leaning on his crutches, Mujahed comes into the tiny living room of his parents' house in the refugee camp. He has on a white T-shirt and shorts, and has styled his hair with gel. His father served 15 years in an Israeli prison for the murder of a Palestinian real estate dealer in the camp. A photo of the father after his release, standing with Yasser Arafat, hangs on the wall. Mujahed, 19, doesn't go to school, doesn't work - doesn't do anything, apart from occasionally throwing stones at soldiers on the road along with children who are much younger than him.On Friday, after the demonstration, they suddenly noticed the observation balloon floating over the airport with a camera attached, apparently to spy on life in the camp. They'd never seen this contraption before. From the camp, it appeared that it would be possible to sever the cord attached to the balloon, so they took a box cutter and headed for the airport. They knew there were always soldiers around there, but this didn't stop them. They thought that the balloon was attached to the airport fence. As soon as they got close to the fence, they saw five jeeps speeding towards them, says Mujahed.His elderly grandmother comes into the room, hugs him and asks how he is. His arm and leg are bandaged; the bullets entered and exited, fortunately.The boys started running from the soldiers toward the refugee camp. Mujahed says that they shot him while he was holding his wounded friend Omar. He dropped Omar on the sand and fled to Zawawi's house. New sand now covers the bloody trail left when Mujahed tried to carry Omar. The barrels are still there, waiting for the next child to use them for cover.For five days and nights, Omar's family stayed by his bedside in the intensive care unit in Ramallah, until early Wednesday morning, when he died. "He wanted to liberate Palestine from the air," his father says with a bitter smile.
Friday, April 4
MCC Palestine Update #77
MCC Palestine Update #77
April 4, 2003
Last week we solicited your prayers that the convoy of food headed for the Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip would be allowed through. Late Sunday evening we received word that our group of Christian organizations (of which Mennonite Central Committee is an active member) was being granted a permit to do a “back-to-back” transfer of the goods at the Israeli checkpoint into the Mawasi. In other words, our trucks would have to back up to the checkpoint, be unloaded, and then loaded onto another truck. Furthermore, each of the 1200 25 kg. bags of flour and each of the 1200 boxes of food would have to go through an x-ray machine. While we were disappointed with the restrictions, we were happy with the permit.
Our trucks reached the Mawasi checkpoint at 11 am on Monday morning. Dan Simmons of World Vision and Alain Epp Weaver of MCC approached the soldiers at the checkpoint to see about the procedures. After a while, a young soldier informed us that while we did have a permit, it had not gone through the proper channels and so we would have to wait until 2 or 2:30 to start unloading. The checkpoint, meanwhile, we were told, would close at 5 pm. Doubting that we could unload and load the trucks in that little time, we protested; the soldier responded blithely that if we didn’t finish unloading today, we could do so tomorrow.
After some frantic calls to senior Israeli military officers, we secured permission to unload from 2:30 to 6:30. In what felt like a race against the clock, we rushed to finishing unloading and loading the trucks. When the final box cleared the x-ray machine, we felt a burst of satisfaction at a completed job.
This satisfaction was greatly tempered, however, by the fact that, during the entire time we were at the checkpoint, scores of Palestinians from the Mawasi waited on either side of the checkpoint for permission to leave to go to Khan Younis (for medical care, for food, etc.), or to return (after having given birth, having been in the hospital, etc.). Only a handful were let through during the nearly 8 hours we were there. One woman, Basima, had come out of the Mawasi after going into labor in her eighth month of pregnancy. She lost the baby and had been trying for days to get back home. One man, Majd, waited with 10 boxes of needles for the Mawasi’s medical clinic; he, too, had been waiting for days.
The people of the Mawasi, living imprisoned among Israeli settlements and military checkpoints, and having been economically devastated by 30 months of tight travel restrictions and the near-destruction of their agricultural and fishing sectors, freely admit that they can use the food that we brought them. That makes our work on Monday feel satisfying. What is clear, however, is that the greatest need of the Mawasi’s residents is freedom—freedom from occupation, freedom to travel a mere kilometer to work, to hospital, to school.
Below you will find three pieces. The first is an interview with Jamal Jume’, the coordinator of the campaign against the separation/apartheid wall being built by the Israeli military throughout the occupied territories. MCC is supporting this campaign, directed by the Palestinian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Network. [For a very recent map projecting the path of the wall—based on satellite imaging, media reports, field visits, and expert analysis—see the following URL: http://www.nad-plo.org/maps/FFiNuMacant13.pdf]. In the second piece Ha’aretz journalist Amira Hass provides a critical look at the actions of Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories. In the final, more journalistic piece, Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy reports from Tulkarem about how that city’s residents are viewing the current US invasion of Iraq.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. A ghetto between the wall and the Green Line
Published at http://www.palestinereport.org on March 26, 2003.
This week Palestine Report interviews Jamal Jume', coordinator of the Apartheid Wall Campaign for the Palestinian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Network, on the recent changes in the course of Israel's separation wall.
PR: What changes are now being made in Israel's wall, and how will these changes affect West Bank residents?
In the first phase, they didn't announce any maps; they just announced what they started to work on. We know that they are not willing to tell the Palestinians and the world what they are doing, so that they can modify the route of the wall as it is developed on the ground.
The first phase, from Salem, near Jenin, until south of Qalqilya, isolated 17 villages with a total population of 14,000 people. They are totally isolated from the West Bank and from Israel. They're stuck in a ghetto between the wall and the Green Line [marking the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank], isolated from hospitals, from all services, schools, universities, markets. This whole population is threatened. There are also another 15 villages that have become landless. This means that all of their land is located on the west side of the wall and they don't have any access to it.
As expected from the beginning, this wall is going to stretch all along the West Bank; it's going to be 360 kilometers long. As they are doing it now, the wall's buffer zone is between 30 to 100 meters.
For the first phase of the wall, the footprint, or the area it is being built on, took 11,500 dunams of land. In this phase, they pulled up 83,000 fruit trees - olive, citrus, almond and other trees. Eighty-four dunams, like 8.4 square kilometers, have been destroyed by bulldozers. We are talking about 35.7 kilometers of water pipes and networks, and more than 33 artesian wells that people depend on for irrigating their land and also for drinking water. They have now been isolated behind the wall, and even the other wells, on the eastern side of the wall, have been disconnected from the land that they irrigated on the other side of the wall.
The main government proposal was supposed to isolate 95,000 Palestinians, excluding East Jerusalem. That's 4.5 percent of the West Bank population. That's if they just continue building the wall as planned in the beginning, before all of the modifications. This is besides the other 200,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem who would be totally isolated from the West Bank.
PR: Why are these changes being made at such a late date? Was this always part of the overall plan?
Now the settlers are becoming interested in this. At first, the settlers were against the wall from a theoretical point, because it was going to prevent them from expanding in the West Bank and enjoying Israel's land - as they consider it. Now, they are in favor of the wall because they've seen how much they can benefit from the wall.
Their plan is to annex [to Israel] most of the major settlements in the middle of the West Bank, and also the block around Jerusalem, Bethlehem and between Bethlehem and Hebron. This is going to isolate another 110,000 Palestinians in the area. In total, 410,000 Palestinians will be isolated between the Green Line and this wall. This is almost 20 percent of the Palestinian population.
The other political issues are very clear. They are totally controlling the West Bank, totally isolating it into cantons. Even the cities will be like open-air prisons. This is the political future of Palestinian areas - ghettos, isolated areas, no continuity. The [East Jerusalem settlement] Maale Adumim expansion plan is until Jericho, it totally isolates the two parts of the West Bank.
[Israeli Prime Minister] Sharon is in favor of the settlers; [Defense Minister] Mofaz is in favor of the settlers. The government is seriously studying the settlers' proposal and they are almost approving annexing at least Ariel [settlement], which hints that the proposal is going to be accepted in other areas. Sharon has also declared the other wall in the east part of the West Bank, which has totally isolated the Jordan River valley from the rest of the West Bank. This wall became the frame for the political, colonial project in the West Bank.
The wall has surrounded the whole West Bank now, from all sides. It will be, according to Sharon's latest declaration, more than 700 kilometers long around the West Bank. In the long term, this controls the expansion of the population. The other choice for the Palestinians in the future, in the coming years and decades, because there is no other area to build on, is to leave, to leave the country.
PR: In addition to the obvious destruction caused to agricultural land, water pipes and so forth, does the construction of the wall pose any threats to the environment?
Jume': The impact of the whole settlement project, not just the wall, is a monster from the beginning. First of all, look at what this network of roads in the West Bank has done. They are getting rid of the biodiversity. Wildlife, especially animal wildlife, is going to disappear, and it is disappearing. With these huge highways that they've opened, wild animals can't cross from one area to another.
All of the chemical and dangerous industries that they didn't allow in Israel, they brought to the West Bank. Now we have more than five very dangerous chemical factories running in Palestinian areas, one of them in one of the major cities - Tulkarem. You can review reports about the health problems that have developed in that area, such as cancer.
PR: What kind of strategies can be used to fight the construction of this wall?
Jume': We launched a campaign to stop the wall. We know that this wall finalizes the apartheid system in the West Bank. We are shouting, and calling to the whole world, saying that if you are interested in having any peaceful agreement in this area, in the Middle East, which affects the whole world, this wall has to be stopped immediately. It's simply going to enforce the occupation, it's going to make the conflict much worse.
We are still running this campaign and doing lobbying and advocacy issues and meeting decision makers, taking them on tours to the wall. We are now planning on doing speaking tours in Europe, meeting the parliaments and asking them to come here, to see. This is a responsibility not just for the Palestinians, it is the whole world's responsibility. This is going to dismantle the Oslo agreements, and United Nations resolutions 242 and 338.
Unfortunately, Israel is using the right time to implement this, and they are working like crazy. There are 25 big construction companies in Israel working six days a week, 10 hours a day on the wall - more than 250 big heavy machines are working at the same time. This is the right time because nobody is listening to what we are saying. The whole world is busy with other things. This is the time now to stop the Israelis from this madness. Creating another apartheid system won't help them, won't help peace. Palestinians, in the 21st century, won't accept to live in cantons, in open-air prisons.
-Published 26/3/03(c)Palestine Report
2. The soldier is evil, the soldier is Israel
By Amira Hass
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=279569&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Israel has recently come out with a number of humanitarian gestures in the territories, primarily the easing of conditions at checkpoints - such was the announcement made to the United States, and such was the announcement made Monday on one of the television news broadcasts. Perhaps these gestures were put into practice after last Thursday; and perhaps before then, the Americans hadn't had the time to inform the commanders and soldiers in eastern Nablus that they must now adopt a welcoming approach to the pregnant woman who almost slips on the muddy slope, or to the elderly man who, on his way home from the doctor in Nablus, climbs over the piles of asphalt fragments that the Israel Defense Forces bulldozers have crushed. Last Thursday, someone from the village of Salem, east of Nablus, called and said the soldiers had been holding "hundreds of people - women, adults and children - for the past three hours" and were not allowing them to pass. Rifles held at an angle of 60 degrees and fingers on the trigger make the soldiers' intentions clear. It's almost standard practice, say residents of the three villages east of Nablus - Salem, Dir al-Khateb and Azmut: An IDF force positions itself at the foot of the hill of the new Askar refugee camp, alongside what was once a short asphalt road that reaches the three villages and is now a mess of mud and piles of torn-up tarmac. The force holds up people for no apparent reason, the residents say, from both directions - from the west, to Nablus, or from the east, from Nablus to the villages. The soldiers often force people to backtrack; and they frequently accompany their actions with offensive speech and insults. Some even use force. A military source was convinced that the directives are to check only that men between the ages of 16 and 40 have permits from the Civil Administration to move from the villages to Nablus and vice versa, and that there are no intentions to prevent women, the elderly and children from passing through the checkpoints. The reality on the ground is different: Without explanation and without any apparent checks, the soldiers do indeed hold these people up - for 10 minutes, or an hour or two, and more, all day, twice a day - men and women. This is the only thoroughfare for these three villages, and it's only for pedestrians (in fact, it's only for able-bodied pedestrians, as life-threatening danger lurks for anyone who has even a little difficulty walking). The sick and pregnant women also have to make the journey on foot, and go through a series of explanations and attempts to persuade the soldiers to allow them to continue to climb or wait for the ambulance that is slow to arrive. There is no commercial way of ferrying agricultural produce and food to and from the villages because there is no authorized thoroughfare for Palestinian vehicles - contrary, by the way, to an explicit promise made by the IDF to the High Court of Justice some two years ago in response to a petition against the closure policy submitted by an association of doctors: The IDF promised that every blocked and enclosed Palestinian community has a thoroughfare for direct vehicle traffic. In practice, most villages are blocked to rapid movement of emergency vehicles. The IDF is not honoring its promise to the High Court, and the soldiers are operating contrary to what their commanders are promising to the media. At most of the roadblocks that are manned by soldiers and include obstacles (mounds of dirt or ditches designed to prevent vehicular traffic), alongside which army patrols sometimes stop, the soldiers are adding to the institutionalized difficulty - the fruits of a policy from above - and are improvising insults and harassments of various kinds. Assume there are 300 such roadblocks and obstacles between the villages and cities. Through some of them, a thousand people try to pass each day; through others, 10,000 - on foot, in the rain, and in the heat. Assume that each roadblock is manned by between four and 10 soldiers. In other words, some 1,200-3,000 soldiers are positioned at these key points, in constant, daily friction with 20,000-100,000 Palestinian citizens at least. A few months after the outbreak of the bloody conflict, when commanders realized the roadblocks were being accompanied by the personal addition of insults and harassment, they tried to implement a system of internal checks, education and information. One of them admitted a few months ago that this system had failed, that there is in fact no way of preventing very many soldiers from coming up with various personal methods of proving who is "the man" in the field. For us, the Israelis, reports on routine harassment at roadblocks in particular, and the distress of the closures in general, cannot be "news." It is difficult even to describe in words the depressing, degrading topography of the obstacles and roadblocks to those who keep out of the occupied territories. For us, the Israelis, the soldiers are our brothers, and sons, and spouses and neighbors. The answer is that they are afraid, that there are terror attacks, that every pregnant woman could be a ticking bomb, that each child could be holding a knife, that it is hot, cold, rainy and muggy, that they are longing for home. It is difficult to imagine them as being cruel, heartless, just plain evil. But this is the picture they paint at the roadblocks, and this is the picture of Israel. Even if the Palestinians are able to recognize the extraordinary "good soldier," even if only one soldier in every four is abusive, he is the one who determines what the day will be like. He is the one who is etched in memory. He is Israel.
3. Their enemies' enemy
By Gideon Levy
They were affronted by the length of the American ultimatum that preceded the war. "Forty-eight hours? That is an important number in the history of the Arab people. That is a number we don't like, an insulting number," says Abd al-Jalili Maklouf, the director of the community center in the camp. He's convinced that the president of the United States laid down that particular ultimatum deliberately. The memory of 1948 is pervasive in every dwelling in this place, which is one of the most wretched and squalid of the refugee camps in the West Bank. There are at least 16,000 members of refugee families here - it's been a long time since anyone bothered to do a count - who are crammed into narrow, neglected alleys. Unemployment stands at more than 60 percent; 30 of the camp's residents have been killed in the current intifada; 250 more are inmates in Israeli prisons, and an Israeli tank is almost constantly parked at the end of the main street. Photographs of the people from the camp who have died in the fighting are pasted on the walls. The images of the scowling dead men have now been joined by a poster in memory of a young blonde woman who is smiling - the American volunteer Rachel Corrie, who was run over by an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah and has become a martyr in the muddy lanes of Tul Karm. Corrie, though, is the only American for whom the camp's residents have any sympathy. Residents are now following the war in Iraq, in the hope that salvation will come from there, when those whom they consider good triumph over the bad. As they count their dead and bemoan their joblessness, their poverty and the abject hopelessness of their lives, what do they have left apart from hope for the victory of Saddam Hussein, the enemy of their enemies, who has infused them with pride, if only for a moment. "The people who danced on the rooftops here in 1991 were people under curfew. They did not dance in their independent state," says Ibrahim Abu Awad, a resident of the camp and an official of the Palestinian Authority. "Why don't you Israelis feel for us and our suffering?" asks Taisar Mustafa, the director of the office of the PA's Legislative Council (parliament) in the camp. "Dead end" reads the sign on the road that leads from Netanya to the imprisoned city, as though there is no city and no life at the end of this road. And the truth is that Tul Karm is a dead end - half destroyed, half deserted, totally cut off from its outlying villages, with its two meager refugee camps, Tul Karm and Nur Shams. In the conference room of the Tul Karm camp's popular committee about a dozen camp functionaries are sitting around, discussing politics. Ibrahim Abu Awad: "Saddam is not only a person, Saddam is an Arab thought. He is a leader who is safeguarding his country's independence and sovereignty. He is standing alone and all the Arab states are standing to the side. America considers any government that does not support its policy a dictatorship. Maybe the Americans will succeed in removing Saddam, but they will never succeed in ruling Iraq. If they oust him it will only cause more despair and more hatred of them and of Israel." Adnan Damiri: "The Americans think they have to control every place in the Arab world that has oil, and the only obstacle in the gulf is Iraq. It's not that we like Saddam. It is not a matter of love - there is no love in politics - but he is against imperialism. A dictator is a dictator, the whole Arab world is full of dictatorships. [Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak is a dictator, too, he was also elected with a 99 percent majority. And what about the Saudis? The Kuwaitis? America is not against dictators, only against those who safeguard the independence of their people and country. They have supported and still support all the dictators in the world, so why pick on Saddam? I won't regret it if something happens to Saddam, but I will regret it if something happens to the Arab people. You ask about the parallel between Saddam and [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat? Well, I will draw a parallel between Saddam and [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon. The one is a war criminal and the other is a war criminal. Saddam hasn't yet had a court and a commission of inquiry to find that he is a war criminal. Sharon has. "I think that Israel should be persuaded that all the force, all the bombs and all the American planes will not be able to subdue the Iraqi people. I am convinced that all the pygmies on the Israel side will not be able to subdue the Palestinian people and will not be able to choose our leader for us. There is not going to be a new Kharzi [referring to Afghanistan President Hamid Kharzi], not for Iraq and not for Palestine. All there will be is more hatred for the Americans, the British and the Israelis, and more affection for the French. "Every nation always supports its soldiers, its children, in wartime, even if the people are against the war. So why can't the Arabs also support our children in a war, even if we do not support all the Iraqi positions? We have the right to support our Iraqi children in their war and our Palestinian children in our war. "You Israelis have experience in looking for an alternative leadership for another nation. You always looked for a different leadership, but had no success. You tried Antoine Lahad in Lebanon and the Village Leagues here, you tried with all your collaborators, you tried but didn't succeed. Do you think the Americans are going to be able to bring a nation of 25 million people a government of collaborators?" Are you disappointed that Iraq hasn't fired Scud missiles at Israel? Damiri: "An English journalist once asked me whether we danced on the rooftops [in 1991]. I told him, yes, we danced, I danced with my children and we were very happy. Why, he asked me. Because they are killing Israeli children? No, I told him, we are not happy when Israeli children are killed. But when someone has been slapping you around for 35 years, every day a slap, every day a blow, and suddenly someone comes and gives him a slap, should I be pleased or should I be angry at him? But no, I am not disappointed that there are no Scuds. I will be disappointed if the Americans are able to rule in Baghdad. What interests me is for the Iraqi people to win this war, so the Americans will not achieve their goals." Damiri said that he is "afraid that the Israelis still do not understand us well. After 35 years of occupation, they still don't understand us. We will not be happy to see an Israeli killed on the street or on a bus. That does not make us feel good. Believe me, it hurts us. A people that suffers like us is very sensitive to the suffering of another people. I will not be happy if someone is killed in Costa Rica, either. The problem is that there is hatred of the Israeli occupation, not of the Israeli people, and we will be happy at anything that is a setback for the occupation." Damiri relates that he was incarcerated by Israel in 1975. "There were three, four, maybe ten activists of the revolution in the camp, no more. I didn't think then that my people in this refugee camp would be part of the Palestinian revolution. Never. The Israelis said we were a `handful of terrorists.' Yet today, today we are the leaders of the Palestinian people - I was part of the security liaison for the Palestinian Authority and I sat across from those who interrogated me back then. "We in Fatah gambled on peace with the Israelis, on removing the occupation peacefully. We were the ones who signed at Oslo, not the [Popular] Front and not Hamas, only us in Fatah, and then came the Israelis and supported Sharon as their leader, and now 90 percent of the Israelis, even [Meretz MK] Yossi Sarid, say that Arafat is not relevant. People at soccer games in Jerusalem chant `Death to the Arabs,' and we do not have the face to come to our friends in Hamas and the Front and Islamic Jihad and tell them that we were right. They always said, `A dead infant was born at Oslo'; and we always said, `A disabled infant, a Mongoloid, was born, so what are we supposed to do, throw it out?' In the history of nations anything can happen, but in the end right is stronger than might. And the right of the Iraqis is stronger than the technology of the Americans." In the afternoon, Basil Abbas, who has been deaf and mute from birth, walked down the main street of the camp with his friend Rajah Nasrallah, who is also unable to hear. This was at the beginning of the month. Now Nasrallah, using sign language, is reconstructing what happened next to the camp's drugstore. The tank approached but Abbas didn't hear it. The soldiers began shooting. Abbas was hit in the leg and signaled to them with his hands that he was a mute, but the soldiers thought he was threatening them and they went on shooting, pumping six bullets into him. He died there, on the main street of his refugee camp. More than three weeks after the incident, four of his friends, all of them hard of hearing, are wandering through the alley around the house, their expressions downcast, still mourning. The bereaved mother, Amina, says that her son was killed as he was on his way to buy a milk substitute at the drugstore. Nasrallah says, in his language, that he tried to pull his dying friend off the street, but the soldiers wouldn't let him approach. Here is Abbas' deaf-mute card, serial number 75: "The bearer of this card is deaf. Thanks to anyone who helps him." An egg peddler goes from house to house in the narrow path, pushing a supermarket cart. Here is the home of a wanted man, Basil Shihab. The soldiers are constantly hunting him and lying in wait for him. Four palm seedlings behind a small fence are a monument to Omar Kassam, who died some time ago, after spending 25 years in an Israeli prison. And here is the home of the international soccer referee Kamal Abad, who was killed in an ambulance of the United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) exactly a year ago. Also killed on the same day, in another ambulance, belonging to the Red Crescent, was Ibrahim Assad. He was trying to rush a badly wounded man, Shadi Abbas, to hospital. A small marble plaque by the side of the street commemorates Abbas, who died. He was the cousin of the mute Abbas who was killed a year later. In the club run by the Popular Front, a group of men sit in a circle and mourn Hamed Abed Rabbo, who worked for UNRWA. He died just the other day. He was sitting in his house watching television, saw the news from Iraq; collapsed and died.
April 4, 2003
Last week we solicited your prayers that the convoy of food headed for the Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip would be allowed through. Late Sunday evening we received word that our group of Christian organizations (of which Mennonite Central Committee is an active member) was being granted a permit to do a “back-to-back” transfer of the goods at the Israeli checkpoint into the Mawasi. In other words, our trucks would have to back up to the checkpoint, be unloaded, and then loaded onto another truck. Furthermore, each of the 1200 25 kg. bags of flour and each of the 1200 boxes of food would have to go through an x-ray machine. While we were disappointed with the restrictions, we were happy with the permit.
Our trucks reached the Mawasi checkpoint at 11 am on Monday morning. Dan Simmons of World Vision and Alain Epp Weaver of MCC approached the soldiers at the checkpoint to see about the procedures. After a while, a young soldier informed us that while we did have a permit, it had not gone through the proper channels and so we would have to wait until 2 or 2:30 to start unloading. The checkpoint, meanwhile, we were told, would close at 5 pm. Doubting that we could unload and load the trucks in that little time, we protested; the soldier responded blithely that if we didn’t finish unloading today, we could do so tomorrow.
After some frantic calls to senior Israeli military officers, we secured permission to unload from 2:30 to 6:30. In what felt like a race against the clock, we rushed to finishing unloading and loading the trucks. When the final box cleared the x-ray machine, we felt a burst of satisfaction at a completed job.
This satisfaction was greatly tempered, however, by the fact that, during the entire time we were at the checkpoint, scores of Palestinians from the Mawasi waited on either side of the checkpoint for permission to leave to go to Khan Younis (for medical care, for food, etc.), or to return (after having given birth, having been in the hospital, etc.). Only a handful were let through during the nearly 8 hours we were there. One woman, Basima, had come out of the Mawasi after going into labor in her eighth month of pregnancy. She lost the baby and had been trying for days to get back home. One man, Majd, waited with 10 boxes of needles for the Mawasi’s medical clinic; he, too, had been waiting for days.
The people of the Mawasi, living imprisoned among Israeli settlements and military checkpoints, and having been economically devastated by 30 months of tight travel restrictions and the near-destruction of their agricultural and fishing sectors, freely admit that they can use the food that we brought them. That makes our work on Monday feel satisfying. What is clear, however, is that the greatest need of the Mawasi’s residents is freedom—freedom from occupation, freedom to travel a mere kilometer to work, to hospital, to school.
Below you will find three pieces. The first is an interview with Jamal Jume’, the coordinator of the campaign against the separation/apartheid wall being built by the Israeli military throughout the occupied territories. MCC is supporting this campaign, directed by the Palestinian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Network. [For a very recent map projecting the path of the wall—based on satellite imaging, media reports, field visits, and expert analysis—see the following URL: http://www.nad-plo.org/maps/FFiNuMacant13.pdf]. In the second piece Ha’aretz journalist Amira Hass provides a critical look at the actions of Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories. In the final, more journalistic piece, Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy reports from Tulkarem about how that city’s residents are viewing the current US invasion of Iraq.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. A ghetto between the wall and the Green Line
Published at http://www.palestinereport.org on March 26, 2003.
This week Palestine Report interviews Jamal Jume', coordinator of the Apartheid Wall Campaign for the Palestinian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Network, on the recent changes in the course of Israel's separation wall.
PR: What changes are now being made in Israel's wall, and how will these changes affect West Bank residents?
In the first phase, they didn't announce any maps; they just announced what they started to work on. We know that they are not willing to tell the Palestinians and the world what they are doing, so that they can modify the route of the wall as it is developed on the ground.
The first phase, from Salem, near Jenin, until south of Qalqilya, isolated 17 villages with a total population of 14,000 people. They are totally isolated from the West Bank and from Israel. They're stuck in a ghetto between the wall and the Green Line [marking the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank], isolated from hospitals, from all services, schools, universities, markets. This whole population is threatened. There are also another 15 villages that have become landless. This means that all of their land is located on the west side of the wall and they don't have any access to it.
As expected from the beginning, this wall is going to stretch all along the West Bank; it's going to be 360 kilometers long. As they are doing it now, the wall's buffer zone is between 30 to 100 meters.
For the first phase of the wall, the footprint, or the area it is being built on, took 11,500 dunams of land. In this phase, they pulled up 83,000 fruit trees - olive, citrus, almond and other trees. Eighty-four dunams, like 8.4 square kilometers, have been destroyed by bulldozers. We are talking about 35.7 kilometers of water pipes and networks, and more than 33 artesian wells that people depend on for irrigating their land and also for drinking water. They have now been isolated behind the wall, and even the other wells, on the eastern side of the wall, have been disconnected from the land that they irrigated on the other side of the wall.
The main government proposal was supposed to isolate 95,000 Palestinians, excluding East Jerusalem. That's 4.5 percent of the West Bank population. That's if they just continue building the wall as planned in the beginning, before all of the modifications. This is besides the other 200,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem who would be totally isolated from the West Bank.
PR: Why are these changes being made at such a late date? Was this always part of the overall plan?
Now the settlers are becoming interested in this. At first, the settlers were against the wall from a theoretical point, because it was going to prevent them from expanding in the West Bank and enjoying Israel's land - as they consider it. Now, they are in favor of the wall because they've seen how much they can benefit from the wall.
Their plan is to annex [to Israel] most of the major settlements in the middle of the West Bank, and also the block around Jerusalem, Bethlehem and between Bethlehem and Hebron. This is going to isolate another 110,000 Palestinians in the area. In total, 410,000 Palestinians will be isolated between the Green Line and this wall. This is almost 20 percent of the Palestinian population.
The other political issues are very clear. They are totally controlling the West Bank, totally isolating it into cantons. Even the cities will be like open-air prisons. This is the political future of Palestinian areas - ghettos, isolated areas, no continuity. The [East Jerusalem settlement] Maale Adumim expansion plan is until Jericho, it totally isolates the two parts of the West Bank.
[Israeli Prime Minister] Sharon is in favor of the settlers; [Defense Minister] Mofaz is in favor of the settlers. The government is seriously studying the settlers' proposal and they are almost approving annexing at least Ariel [settlement], which hints that the proposal is going to be accepted in other areas. Sharon has also declared the other wall in the east part of the West Bank, which has totally isolated the Jordan River valley from the rest of the West Bank. This wall became the frame for the political, colonial project in the West Bank.
The wall has surrounded the whole West Bank now, from all sides. It will be, according to Sharon's latest declaration, more than 700 kilometers long around the West Bank. In the long term, this controls the expansion of the population. The other choice for the Palestinians in the future, in the coming years and decades, because there is no other area to build on, is to leave, to leave the country.
PR: In addition to the obvious destruction caused to agricultural land, water pipes and so forth, does the construction of the wall pose any threats to the environment?
Jume': The impact of the whole settlement project, not just the wall, is a monster from the beginning. First of all, look at what this network of roads in the West Bank has done. They are getting rid of the biodiversity. Wildlife, especially animal wildlife, is going to disappear, and it is disappearing. With these huge highways that they've opened, wild animals can't cross from one area to another.
All of the chemical and dangerous industries that they didn't allow in Israel, they brought to the West Bank. Now we have more than five very dangerous chemical factories running in Palestinian areas, one of them in one of the major cities - Tulkarem. You can review reports about the health problems that have developed in that area, such as cancer.
PR: What kind of strategies can be used to fight the construction of this wall?
Jume': We launched a campaign to stop the wall. We know that this wall finalizes the apartheid system in the West Bank. We are shouting, and calling to the whole world, saying that if you are interested in having any peaceful agreement in this area, in the Middle East, which affects the whole world, this wall has to be stopped immediately. It's simply going to enforce the occupation, it's going to make the conflict much worse.
We are still running this campaign and doing lobbying and advocacy issues and meeting decision makers, taking them on tours to the wall. We are now planning on doing speaking tours in Europe, meeting the parliaments and asking them to come here, to see. This is a responsibility not just for the Palestinians, it is the whole world's responsibility. This is going to dismantle the Oslo agreements, and United Nations resolutions 242 and 338.
Unfortunately, Israel is using the right time to implement this, and they are working like crazy. There are 25 big construction companies in Israel working six days a week, 10 hours a day on the wall - more than 250 big heavy machines are working at the same time. This is the right time because nobody is listening to what we are saying. The whole world is busy with other things. This is the time now to stop the Israelis from this madness. Creating another apartheid system won't help them, won't help peace. Palestinians, in the 21st century, won't accept to live in cantons, in open-air prisons.
-Published 26/3/03(c)Palestine Report
2. The soldier is evil, the soldier is Israel
By Amira Hass
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=279569&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Israel has recently come out with a number of humanitarian gestures in the territories, primarily the easing of conditions at checkpoints - such was the announcement made to the United States, and such was the announcement made Monday on one of the television news broadcasts. Perhaps these gestures were put into practice after last Thursday; and perhaps before then, the Americans hadn't had the time to inform the commanders and soldiers in eastern Nablus that they must now adopt a welcoming approach to the pregnant woman who almost slips on the muddy slope, or to the elderly man who, on his way home from the doctor in Nablus, climbs over the piles of asphalt fragments that the Israel Defense Forces bulldozers have crushed. Last Thursday, someone from the village of Salem, east of Nablus, called and said the soldiers had been holding "hundreds of people - women, adults and children - for the past three hours" and were not allowing them to pass. Rifles held at an angle of 60 degrees and fingers on the trigger make the soldiers' intentions clear. It's almost standard practice, say residents of the three villages east of Nablus - Salem, Dir al-Khateb and Azmut: An IDF force positions itself at the foot of the hill of the new Askar refugee camp, alongside what was once a short asphalt road that reaches the three villages and is now a mess of mud and piles of torn-up tarmac. The force holds up people for no apparent reason, the residents say, from both directions - from the west, to Nablus, or from the east, from Nablus to the villages. The soldiers often force people to backtrack; and they frequently accompany their actions with offensive speech and insults. Some even use force. A military source was convinced that the directives are to check only that men between the ages of 16 and 40 have permits from the Civil Administration to move from the villages to Nablus and vice versa, and that there are no intentions to prevent women, the elderly and children from passing through the checkpoints. The reality on the ground is different: Without explanation and without any apparent checks, the soldiers do indeed hold these people up - for 10 minutes, or an hour or two, and more, all day, twice a day - men and women. This is the only thoroughfare for these three villages, and it's only for pedestrians (in fact, it's only for able-bodied pedestrians, as life-threatening danger lurks for anyone who has even a little difficulty walking). The sick and pregnant women also have to make the journey on foot, and go through a series of explanations and attempts to persuade the soldiers to allow them to continue to climb or wait for the ambulance that is slow to arrive. There is no commercial way of ferrying agricultural produce and food to and from the villages because there is no authorized thoroughfare for Palestinian vehicles - contrary, by the way, to an explicit promise made by the IDF to the High Court of Justice some two years ago in response to a petition against the closure policy submitted by an association of doctors: The IDF promised that every blocked and enclosed Palestinian community has a thoroughfare for direct vehicle traffic. In practice, most villages are blocked to rapid movement of emergency vehicles. The IDF is not honoring its promise to the High Court, and the soldiers are operating contrary to what their commanders are promising to the media. At most of the roadblocks that are manned by soldiers and include obstacles (mounds of dirt or ditches designed to prevent vehicular traffic), alongside which army patrols sometimes stop, the soldiers are adding to the institutionalized difficulty - the fruits of a policy from above - and are improvising insults and harassments of various kinds. Assume there are 300 such roadblocks and obstacles between the villages and cities. Through some of them, a thousand people try to pass each day; through others, 10,000 - on foot, in the rain, and in the heat. Assume that each roadblock is manned by between four and 10 soldiers. In other words, some 1,200-3,000 soldiers are positioned at these key points, in constant, daily friction with 20,000-100,000 Palestinian citizens at least. A few months after the outbreak of the bloody conflict, when commanders realized the roadblocks were being accompanied by the personal addition of insults and harassment, they tried to implement a system of internal checks, education and information. One of them admitted a few months ago that this system had failed, that there is in fact no way of preventing very many soldiers from coming up with various personal methods of proving who is "the man" in the field. For us, the Israelis, reports on routine harassment at roadblocks in particular, and the distress of the closures in general, cannot be "news." It is difficult even to describe in words the depressing, degrading topography of the obstacles and roadblocks to those who keep out of the occupied territories. For us, the Israelis, the soldiers are our brothers, and sons, and spouses and neighbors. The answer is that they are afraid, that there are terror attacks, that every pregnant woman could be a ticking bomb, that each child could be holding a knife, that it is hot, cold, rainy and muggy, that they are longing for home. It is difficult to imagine them as being cruel, heartless, just plain evil. But this is the picture they paint at the roadblocks, and this is the picture of Israel. Even if the Palestinians are able to recognize the extraordinary "good soldier," even if only one soldier in every four is abusive, he is the one who determines what the day will be like. He is the one who is etched in memory. He is Israel.
3. Their enemies' enemy
By Gideon Levy
They were affronted by the length of the American ultimatum that preceded the war. "Forty-eight hours? That is an important number in the history of the Arab people. That is a number we don't like, an insulting number," says Abd al-Jalili Maklouf, the director of the community center in the camp. He's convinced that the president of the United States laid down that particular ultimatum deliberately. The memory of 1948 is pervasive in every dwelling in this place, which is one of the most wretched and squalid of the refugee camps in the West Bank. There are at least 16,000 members of refugee families here - it's been a long time since anyone bothered to do a count - who are crammed into narrow, neglected alleys. Unemployment stands at more than 60 percent; 30 of the camp's residents have been killed in the current intifada; 250 more are inmates in Israeli prisons, and an Israeli tank is almost constantly parked at the end of the main street. Photographs of the people from the camp who have died in the fighting are pasted on the walls. The images of the scowling dead men have now been joined by a poster in memory of a young blonde woman who is smiling - the American volunteer Rachel Corrie, who was run over by an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah and has become a martyr in the muddy lanes of Tul Karm. Corrie, though, is the only American for whom the camp's residents have any sympathy. Residents are now following the war in Iraq, in the hope that salvation will come from there, when those whom they consider good triumph over the bad. As they count their dead and bemoan their joblessness, their poverty and the abject hopelessness of their lives, what do they have left apart from hope for the victory of Saddam Hussein, the enemy of their enemies, who has infused them with pride, if only for a moment. "The people who danced on the rooftops here in 1991 were people under curfew. They did not dance in their independent state," says Ibrahim Abu Awad, a resident of the camp and an official of the Palestinian Authority. "Why don't you Israelis feel for us and our suffering?" asks Taisar Mustafa, the director of the office of the PA's Legislative Council (parliament) in the camp. "Dead end" reads the sign on the road that leads from Netanya to the imprisoned city, as though there is no city and no life at the end of this road. And the truth is that Tul Karm is a dead end - half destroyed, half deserted, totally cut off from its outlying villages, with its two meager refugee camps, Tul Karm and Nur Shams. In the conference room of the Tul Karm camp's popular committee about a dozen camp functionaries are sitting around, discussing politics. Ibrahim Abu Awad: "Saddam is not only a person, Saddam is an Arab thought. He is a leader who is safeguarding his country's independence and sovereignty. He is standing alone and all the Arab states are standing to the side. America considers any government that does not support its policy a dictatorship. Maybe the Americans will succeed in removing Saddam, but they will never succeed in ruling Iraq. If they oust him it will only cause more despair and more hatred of them and of Israel." Adnan Damiri: "The Americans think they have to control every place in the Arab world that has oil, and the only obstacle in the gulf is Iraq. It's not that we like Saddam. It is not a matter of love - there is no love in politics - but he is against imperialism. A dictator is a dictator, the whole Arab world is full of dictatorships. [Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak is a dictator, too, he was also elected with a 99 percent majority. And what about the Saudis? The Kuwaitis? America is not against dictators, only against those who safeguard the independence of their people and country. They have supported and still support all the dictators in the world, so why pick on Saddam? I won't regret it if something happens to Saddam, but I will regret it if something happens to the Arab people. You ask about the parallel between Saddam and [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat? Well, I will draw a parallel between Saddam and [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon. The one is a war criminal and the other is a war criminal. Saddam hasn't yet had a court and a commission of inquiry to find that he is a war criminal. Sharon has. "I think that Israel should be persuaded that all the force, all the bombs and all the American planes will not be able to subdue the Iraqi people. I am convinced that all the pygmies on the Israel side will not be able to subdue the Palestinian people and will not be able to choose our leader for us. There is not going to be a new Kharzi [referring to Afghanistan President Hamid Kharzi], not for Iraq and not for Palestine. All there will be is more hatred for the Americans, the British and the Israelis, and more affection for the French. "Every nation always supports its soldiers, its children, in wartime, even if the people are against the war. So why can't the Arabs also support our children in a war, even if we do not support all the Iraqi positions? We have the right to support our Iraqi children in their war and our Palestinian children in our war. "You Israelis have experience in looking for an alternative leadership for another nation. You always looked for a different leadership, but had no success. You tried Antoine Lahad in Lebanon and the Village Leagues here, you tried with all your collaborators, you tried but didn't succeed. Do you think the Americans are going to be able to bring a nation of 25 million people a government of collaborators?" Are you disappointed that Iraq hasn't fired Scud missiles at Israel? Damiri: "An English journalist once asked me whether we danced on the rooftops [in 1991]. I told him, yes, we danced, I danced with my children and we were very happy. Why, he asked me. Because they are killing Israeli children? No, I told him, we are not happy when Israeli children are killed. But when someone has been slapping you around for 35 years, every day a slap, every day a blow, and suddenly someone comes and gives him a slap, should I be pleased or should I be angry at him? But no, I am not disappointed that there are no Scuds. I will be disappointed if the Americans are able to rule in Baghdad. What interests me is for the Iraqi people to win this war, so the Americans will not achieve their goals." Damiri said that he is "afraid that the Israelis still do not understand us well. After 35 years of occupation, they still don't understand us. We will not be happy to see an Israeli killed on the street or on a bus. That does not make us feel good. Believe me, it hurts us. A people that suffers like us is very sensitive to the suffering of another people. I will not be happy if someone is killed in Costa Rica, either. The problem is that there is hatred of the Israeli occupation, not of the Israeli people, and we will be happy at anything that is a setback for the occupation." Damiri relates that he was incarcerated by Israel in 1975. "There were three, four, maybe ten activists of the revolution in the camp, no more. I didn't think then that my people in this refugee camp would be part of the Palestinian revolution. Never. The Israelis said we were a `handful of terrorists.' Yet today, today we are the leaders of the Palestinian people - I was part of the security liaison for the Palestinian Authority and I sat across from those who interrogated me back then. "We in Fatah gambled on peace with the Israelis, on removing the occupation peacefully. We were the ones who signed at Oslo, not the [Popular] Front and not Hamas, only us in Fatah, and then came the Israelis and supported Sharon as their leader, and now 90 percent of the Israelis, even [Meretz MK] Yossi Sarid, say that Arafat is not relevant. People at soccer games in Jerusalem chant `Death to the Arabs,' and we do not have the face to come to our friends in Hamas and the Front and Islamic Jihad and tell them that we were right. They always said, `A dead infant was born at Oslo'; and we always said, `A disabled infant, a Mongoloid, was born, so what are we supposed to do, throw it out?' In the history of nations anything can happen, but in the end right is stronger than might. And the right of the Iraqis is stronger than the technology of the Americans." In the afternoon, Basil Abbas, who has been deaf and mute from birth, walked down the main street of the camp with his friend Rajah Nasrallah, who is also unable to hear. This was at the beginning of the month. Now Nasrallah, using sign language, is reconstructing what happened next to the camp's drugstore. The tank approached but Abbas didn't hear it. The soldiers began shooting. Abbas was hit in the leg and signaled to them with his hands that he was a mute, but the soldiers thought he was threatening them and they went on shooting, pumping six bullets into him. He died there, on the main street of his refugee camp. More than three weeks after the incident, four of his friends, all of them hard of hearing, are wandering through the alley around the house, their expressions downcast, still mourning. The bereaved mother, Amina, says that her son was killed as he was on his way to buy a milk substitute at the drugstore. Nasrallah says, in his language, that he tried to pull his dying friend off the street, but the soldiers wouldn't let him approach. Here is Abbas' deaf-mute card, serial number 75: "The bearer of this card is deaf. Thanks to anyone who helps him." An egg peddler goes from house to house in the narrow path, pushing a supermarket cart. Here is the home of a wanted man, Basil Shihab. The soldiers are constantly hunting him and lying in wait for him. Four palm seedlings behind a small fence are a monument to Omar Kassam, who died some time ago, after spending 25 years in an Israeli prison. And here is the home of the international soccer referee Kamal Abad, who was killed in an ambulance of the United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) exactly a year ago. Also killed on the same day, in another ambulance, belonging to the Red Crescent, was Ibrahim Assad. He was trying to rush a badly wounded man, Shadi Abbas, to hospital. A small marble plaque by the side of the street commemorates Abbas, who died. He was the cousin of the mute Abbas who was killed a year later. In the club run by the Popular Front, a group of men sit in a circle and mourn Hamed Abed Rabbo, who worked for UNRWA. He died just the other day. He was sitting in his house watching television, saw the news from Iraq; collapsed and died.
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