MCC Palestine Update #57
August 21, 2002
This week international humanitarian organizations in the occupied territories issued a statement in response to studies showing alarming levels of malnutrition in the occupied territories. This statement, signed by MCC, noted that we are looking not at a "natural disaster" here but at an all-too-human creation of a regime of curfews, closures, restrictions on movement, and subsequently high unemployment. The statement reads as follows:
"As international humanitarian organizations with relief and development programs across the West Bank and Gaza, we ar deeply concerned by the high levels of malnutrition and anemia documented in the recent CARE and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics surveys. These surveys confirm what we have witnessed through our work in Palestinian communities- the steadily declining ability of Palestinian families to access and afford goods to meet their basic human needs, leading to an alarming decline in nutritional status."
"We must emphasize that the cause of this crisis is not a general food shortage. As these surveys document, shortages of high protein foods (meat, fish and dairy) exist as a result of border closures to Gaza, and road closures, checkpoints, curfews and military conflict in the West Bank. Further, where food is available locally, it is inaccessible to the population because of a lack of money or because of closures and curfews which make it impossible for people with money to get to the market. In other words, the cause is strictly a result of political decisions."
"The Geneva Conventions, to which Israel is a signatory, require that people under military occupation must have their basic human needs met by the occupying power. With the alarming malnutrition and anemia levels now extant in the West Bank and Gaza, it is clear that this is not the case."
"We call on Israel to end the curfews and closures which entail collective punishment, illegal under the Geneva Conventions, and which have led to this humanitarian emergency. We call on Israel to give humanitarian agencies safe passage to the populations at risk. We urge the international community to address this situation, including through the use of diplomatic, legal and political action."
Below you will find three pieces by journalists for the leading Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. In the first, Gideon Levy dissects the troubling meaning of new Israeli military coinages such as "pressure cooker" and "neighbor procedure." Meron Benvenisti then issues a warning that Israel might try to use a US attack against Iraq as cover and justification for actions in the occupied territories which it might not otherwise carry out. Finally, Danny Rubinstein examines how Palestinians are managing to cope with record-high unemployment.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Some lives are cheaper than others
Gideon Levy
Which is preferable - "pressure cooker" or "neighbor procedure"? Is it better to detonate a building with the occupants inside - a practice known in the Israel Defense Forces as "pressure cooker" - or to send one of the local neighbors to defend the soldiers bodily, the "neighbor procedure" in IDF argot. In the moral deterioration of the IDF in the territories, which has been greatly accelerated in the past few weeks, the choices that are made by the army's commanding officers are often described as an alternative between two controversial actions, in which the non-use of one automatically validates the other, and both of them together are automatically justified within the framework of the war on terrorism in which just about everything now goes. Thus it was that the IDF tried, at week's end, to justify the appalling use that soldiers made of an innocent neighbor, 19-year-old Nidal Abu Muhsein, who was equipped with a protective vest and sent to his death by soldiers who were engaged in a manhunt for a wanted individual, Nasser Jerar, in the village of Tubas, near Jenin. The other choice the soldiers had, according to the IDF, was to resort to the "pressure cooker" tactic. In fact, in this case the IDF did not balk at using that method as well: after the "neighbor procedure" failed, the army buried the disabled Jerar alive - he lost both legs and an arm a year ago - under the ruins of the building, which IDF bulldozers brought down without knowing whether there was anyone else inside. This act drew no response from anyone in Israel. An innocent neighbor is ordered to go to his death, a bulldozer topples a building on a live wanted person - however cruel and however senior he may have been in his organization -without anyone knowing who else was in the house, and officers and politicians justify the operation without blinking an eye. If we have any desire to know how deep our insensitivity now runs and how morally obtuse we have become, this can make for an excellent case study: the nifty names the IDF has chosen - "pressure cooker" and "neighbor procedure" - can no longer mitigate the serious implications of both actions, which not even the most just war against terrorism can justify. The use of bodies of Palestinians for the IDF's needs is not new. In the first intifada, residents young and old were ordered to climb electricity poles to remove banned Palestinian flags, some of whom died of electrocution, while others were made to clear away barriers made of stones for fear that they might be booby-trapped. There were also cases in which Palestinians were forced to sit on the hoods of jeeps in order to protect the soldiers with their bodies. The exacerbation of the measures being used in the war against the second intifada has also brought about an exacerbation of the use of Palestinians as human shields: Palestinians have been made to enter buildings that were suspected of being booby-trapped, to carry out packages thought to be explosive devices and assist in manhunts for wanted individuals. Nor are these cases departures from the norm: they are part of a declared and fixed policy, so much so that they have become rooted as a "procedure." Underlying all these practices is the fact that the IDF holds Palestinian life to be cheap, and consequently, we can endanger them as much as we like. By the same token, the prevailing notion that in order to protect our soldiers we are allowed to make use of whatever means strikes our fancy, including the lives of innocent Palestinians, is a twisted concept morally and legally. The lives of the soldiers are precious, and it is the IDF's duty to safeguard them to the utmost, but the lives of the Palestinians are precious too. In the operation in which the neighbor was killed, the IDF deceived the High Court of Justice and showed contempt for the State Prosecutor's Office. Only three months ago the state's representative, attorney Michael Balas, told the High Court, "The IDF has decided to issue an unequivocal order to the forces operating in the field according to which it is absolutely forbidden to make use of civilians anywhere as a human shield against shooting or terrorist attacks." This ban applies to buildings, streets and wherever IDF troops are operating." Now comes this operation, which apparently was not the only one of its kind, and proves that in the eyes of the IDF a commitment made to the justices of the Supreme Court is totally worthless. The liquidation in Tubas thus symbolizes another stage in the deterioration of the rule of law in Israel. An army that makes an explicit commitment to justices of the Supreme Court to refrain from making use of a certain procedure, and then ignores its undertaking so flagrantly - as though it had never been made - is an army that poses a danger to democracy. There is no one to put a stop to this tendency today. The liquidation in Tubas may have prevented a "mega-terrorist attack." But like every other liquidation, it did not defeat terrorism. It is extremely doubtful that it deterred the Palestinians, but some of the events in Tubas should be of deep concern to Israelis. The "neighbor procedure" reflects not only what remains of our neighborly relations with the Palestinians, but also what is happening to us.
2. Preemptive warnings of fantastic scenarios
Meron Benvenisti
Day after day and seemingly deliberately, someone else fans the flames of hysteria about the possibility that an American campaign against Iraq will bring a nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC) attack on Israel. After the flaws in the old protective kits were revealed and raised the sense of danger from toxic gases, there followed anxieties about terrible epidemics of anthrax and smallpox and fears of nuclear radiation.
Those fanning the anxiety are doing it in a sophisticated, indirect way, through comments and leaks about "being prepared for the threats." These are ostensibly meant to relieve public fears and prove that the authorities are ready for action in even the worst cases of "existential danger."
After the statements about the need for mass vaccinations and issuing pills against radiation sickness, the public should be catatonic by now. But there seems to be no panic, and there is a distinct lukewarm response to calls to bring protective kits to be refurbished. The decision makers seem more anxious than the public - maybe they are afraid of future complaints about "failures," or maybe there are interests at work beyond the narrow matter of being ready for any threats.
Public hysteria will no doubt peak when the authorities announce a "voluntary inoculation campaign," placing responsibility in the hands of the citizens, and taking it out of the hands of the authorities, who will then be able to say they only provided what the public wanted.
But fanning anxiety with reports of "Home Front readiness" are not only about "defensive" measures. They are also about declarations by the Sharon government that "this time (as opposed to the Gulf War of 1991) Israel will certainly respond to any Iraqi attack." The worse the hysterical fear of an NBC attack - little children crying as nurses administer vaccinations on their arms - the more the pressure will rise to "stick it" to Saddam Hussein, whether it is necessary or not.
According to government statements, Israel might end up as the only American ally in the war - aside perhaps from Britain. The warnings about the destructive ramifications of an attack on Iraq for the entire Middle East are not deterring Israel - they are encouraging it.
Under the cover of George Bush getting even for his father, Ariel Sharon will be able to settle his own old accounts, going back to the days of Beirut. Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan hinted at the strong connection between a war in Iraq and the war against the Palestinians when he said "an American attack on Iraq will also hurt the Palestinian Authority." It makes one wonder if the IDF has operational plans directly linking a reaction to an Iraqi attack with the war in the territories.
Since the Israeli government is coming up with "worst case scenarios" on NBC attacks, here's another one - an American assault on Iraq against Arab and world opposition, and an Israeli involvement, even if only symbolic, leads to the collapse of the Hashemite regime in Jordan. Israel then executes the old "Jordanian option" - expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the Jordan River.
There has never been a better opportunity for that option. The ideology, moral dissolution, and motives of hatred and revenge that already allow collective punishment, curfews, closures, assassinations, house demolitions, expulsions, annulment of Israeli citizenship, and denials of legal defense, have all created a reality in which mass expulsion, wholesale house demolition, and destruction of vegetation are not considered reprehensible steps toward a criminal ethnic cleansing. A state of war - "the threat of nuclear radiation and smallpox" - could justify such "an appropriate" response.
Just as the authorities are getting ready for an NBC attack, worried Israelis should get ready for the possibility of a mass "transfer" of Palestinians in case of war in Iraq. Anyone who regards such ethnic cleansing as a horrible crime must raise their voice now, without any of the "ifs, ands or buts" so typical of the response to the punishment already being meted out in ever more strict steps.
Warnings about ethnic cleansing should not only come from committed leftists, but from people whose patriotism cannot be questioned. And let nobody say it would be unnecessary protest because nobody is plotting "transfer." Immunizations against smallpox, and pills against atomic radiation are based on an even more fantastic scenario.
And last but not least, a word to the Americans. They should also be warned that an assault on Iraq could unleash ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Nobody should be allowed to say they weren't warned.
3. Hardship in the territories
Danny Rubinstein
Almost five months have passed since Operation Defensive Shield, and the change in daily life in the West Bank is clearly evident. Though life before then was difficult in the territories due to restrictions on movement, the closures and encirclements since the operation, which to a certain extent renewed the military occupation of the West Bank, have made the distress much worse.How long can this go on? It is hard to tell. Ghassan Al-Khatib, the labor minister in Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's new cabinet, draws attention to the unemployment level. He says that while five months ago unemployment in the PA areas had reached 40 percent of the work force, recent surveys of the situation put the current figure at 80 percent. This means that unemployment has doubled in this short time. As in the past, the main reason for the unemployment is the restrictions on movement.The closures and the encirclements, which have become tougher in recent months, have been joined by continuous days of curfew in the various towns that the Israel Defense Forces have entered. The situation in the towns changes all the time. Most days last week, for example, there was a curfew in Nablus and life was paralyzed.In Tul Karm, Qalqilyah and Jenin, there was a partial curfew, usually for most of the nighttime hours, which was extended to other towns and villages. In Ramallah, on the other hand, there has been no curfew for a month now and anyone wandering around the center of town can see that life is more or less normal.No one can predict where the IDF will invade next and when the next curfew will be, and this uncertainty basically brings economic life to a standstill. The Al-Ayam newspaper, based in Ramallah, recently published interviews with workers from quarries in Samaria who had stopped working because the quarries' owners had closed them, and with workers who had been laid off from their jobs in sewing workshops in Nablus.The quarries were closed down because it was impossible to remove the quarried building stones from them. Those who buy from quarries in Samaria are contractors from the territories, and from Israel and the Arab world - and if there is a curfew in the Samarian towns and restrictions on movement on the roads between towns, the quarries are paralyzed. The situation is similar in the sewing workshops in Nablus. The workshops manufacture clothing for stores in Israel, and apart from the problems with the curfew and the road blocks, the demand for clothing has dropped sharply, reflecting the economic crisis in Israel and the effect of cheap imports from China. The Palestinian media have lately been reporting harsh descriptions of life on the threshold of hunger in a list of places in the territories. Schools in the Gaza Strip reported a clear increase in dropouts in the second half of the last school year. Children as young as 10 are leaving the classroom and going out to the streets to try to earn a little money. Some stand at street corners trying to sell bottles of water, pencils, dusters and cigarette lighters to passing drivers, while others wash car windows when the drivers stop at traffic lights, in the hope of receiving some payment.The Palestinian law allows children to work only from age 14, but no one takes any notice. Dozens of small workplaces in the territories currently employ children for only a few shekels a day. Many Palestinian children manage to slip past IDF checkpoints and work in Israel, usually in Arab villages. A harsh description of children from the Jenin refugee camp who work in Nazareth, was recently published by the Palestinian press. A 16-year-old boy named Firas led a group of children aged 10-15 across the Green Line near Umm al Fahm and reached Nazareth. They wandered around the streets looking for casual work. Many people take pity on them and helped. The children sleep on the roof of an abandoned building in the city."We are not beggars asking for handouts," said Shadi, 14, to the journalist who interviewed him. "We have come here because there is no food in Jenin, no money and no classes." Then he rolled up his sleeve to show the reporter the Hamas symbol he had scratched onto his arm and added, "After I get a little money, I will go back to Jenin and join the fighters." Such youngsters can also be seen in Jerusalem, where they have come from the Hebron region. Until a short time ago, they had also succeeded in reaching the Jewish neighborhoods of western Jerusalem.Now policemen and security personnel keep them away and they wander around only in the Arab neighborhoods. Sa'id Al-Mudallah, who heads the employment department at the PA Labor Ministry, says that data collected by his office in the West Bank and Gaza shows that there are about 30,000 Palestinian children under the age of 14 who are not going to school and are in the streets, looking for work. "Child labor on this scale affects the whole society," says Al-Mudallah, "because these children grow up exposed to physical and emotional harm."A report by Palestinian educators, based on similar cases throughout the world, indicates that these children who grow up in the streets and adopt street language and behavior will lead lives of misery. How indeed do people in the West Bank and Gaza manage to make a living in spite of everything? The Palestinian work force in the territories numbers about 850,000 (of a population of 3 million). Some 150,000 people are employed by the PA and public institutions, such as local authorities. The PA continues to pay low government wages. Most ministries are late in paying salaries. For example, a few ministries paid May's salaries just last week. The PA receives money for salaries mainly from the assistance fund financed by the Arab states and from loans and grants from Europe.The PA also has revenues from government companies (such as the fuel, cement and cigarette monopolies). In recent weeks Israel has begun to pay the Palestinian treasury some of the tax monies that Israel mainly collected from customs duties for it. At the beginning of the intifada the Israeli government halted the transfer of these payments. Arafat has ordered that 10 percent be deducted from the salaries of all PA employees and that the money be transferred to a fund to support the unemployed. Support payments are made via the offices of the workers' unions, headed by Shaher Saad of Nablus and Rasim Biari in Gaza. Every unemployed person is supposed to receive NIS 500 per month, but the fuss surrounding these payments is tremendous. The workers' unions have no precise lists of those eligible to receive payments and there is not enough money to pay everyone so payments are made only once every two or three months.A short time ago a Palestinian reporter from Nablus described how people crammed into the workers' unions' offices to get those unemployment payments when the curfew was lifted in that city, but only a few were lucky.There are several charitable organizations in the territories that distribute monetary allocations or basic foodstuffs. These are Muslim organizations, both local and foreign (from the Gulf States), Christian organizations from the West and humanitarian organizations from around the world. The United Nations' welfare and employment agencies has renewed distribution of food packages, an activity that had been cut back drastically in previous years. Lately the International Red Cross has also begun distributing food vouchers. The needy families who receive these vouchers take them to their local grocery stores to buy food. The storekeepers then redeem the vouchers for cash from the Red Cross. The vouchers are for up to NIS 300 of food and cannot be used to purchase cigarettes or alcoholic beverages. Many families, particularly in the West Bank, receive financial assistance from their relatives overseas. Over 20 years ago economists determined that about 25 percent of the revenues in the West Bank and Gaza came from money sent by family members working in Arab oil states. After the expulsion of the Palestinians from Kuwait (in 1991, after the Gulf War), revenues from these sources dropped sharply.The economic picture is therefore of a Palestinian population barely getting by on donations and handouts, with even the government salaries considered a gift because most offices are not even operating. What is saving this population is its traditional way of life, with its high level of mutual family assistance. When one (extended) family member is earning something, he shares it with the whole family, so the family manages to survive.
Wednesday, August 21
Wednesday, August 14
MCC Palestine Update #56
MCC Palestine Update #56
August 14, 2002
"I am against violence, completely. If getting a state means violence, if getting justice means violence, then I don't want them." That's what Cedar Duaybis, a board member at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, an MCC partner organization, shared recently in a discussion of a Christian response to the phenomenon of suicide bombers in the context of a military occupation. I found Cedar's words inspiring, prophetic, and troubling, all at once. Inspiring, because it strengthens our resolve as MCC workers to have the privilege to work alongside courageous witnesses for nonviolence and peace like Cedar.
Prophetic, not only in her call to Palestinians to renounce violent struggle, but in the implicit message to all who seek noble aims-- peace, security, freedom, justice--through violent means. Troubling, finally, because regardless of the type of struggle waged by Palestinians, be it violent or nonviolent, I worry about what hope Palestinians can have. The structures which perpetuate Palestinian dispossession, which confiscate land, restrict Palestinian movement, confine Palestinians into increasingly smaller islands, destroy homes, uproot trees, impose collective punishment on millions: these structures grow stronger by the day. For a Palestinian Christian like Cedar, the refusal to use or support violence to secure justice is grounded in the nonviolent witness of the cross and the resurrection. In the grim realities of the occupied territories right now, the hope of resurrection can appear tenuous; praise be to God for the witness of Palestinian Christians and Muslims and of Israeli Jews who proclaim that justice and peace, security and freedom cannot be secured by violence and who live by the hope that, though the powers of injustice, death and dispossession appear strong, that God will in time overcome.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, published in Ha'aretz Monday August 12, is by Catherine Cook, an advocacy coordinator for Defense of Children International-Palestine Section. Cook explores the implications of growing malnutrition among Palestinian children for the future. The second piece, by Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy (whose car was shot at on Sunday, August 11, by Israeli military even after he had coordinated his movements in the West Bank city of Tulkarem with the military), discusses the need to hold Israel accountable for war crimes it perpetrates in the occupied territories. The final piece, by Israeli academic and activist Jeff Halper, looks at the message conveyed to Palestinians by the bulldozers which demolish homes, uproot trees, and pave the way for new Israeli settlements.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Palestinian malnutrition bodes ill for the future
Catherine Cook
Ha'aretz, August 12, 2002
A recently released US Aid funded nutritional assessment indicates that acute and chronic malnutrition rates of Palestinian children under 5 have reached emergency levels. Some 22.5 percent of children suffer moderate or severe acute or chronic malnutrition, and one fifth suffer moderate or severe anemia.
The study, designed by Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health, surveyed nutrition levels, availability of food in the market and household consumption, and found that the factors affecting the dangerous rise in malnutrition directly relates to Israeli imposed movement restrictions and the dismal economic situation in the occupied territories.
Major food shortages were caused primarily by Israeli imposed road closures, checkpoints, and curfews, while the economic situation and subsequent loss in purchasing power was the main factor inhibiting people's ability to buy food. Fifty-six percent of surveyed families indicated that they had been forced to the amount of food consumed for more than one day in the previous two week period.
Of those, two-thirds cited lack of money and one-third cited Israeli imposed curfews and closures as the reason. The study found that 36.6 percent of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip lack the purchasing power to consistently feed their families. The number of families affected was highest in Gaza City, where 41.3 percent of families reported selling assets to buy food.
This is how collective punishment works - Israel implements restrictions on freedom of movement, Palestinians lose their jobs inside Israel or can no longer reach their places of work in the occupied territories, and their level of income decreases.
As of December 2001, unemployment had reached 35 percent in the occupied territories according to the World Bank. Figures released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in April indicate that in the first two months of the year 2002, more than two-thirds of Palestinian households were living below the poverty line, set at US $340 a month (less than $1.90 a day). PCBS also reports that more than half of Palestinian households have lost more than 50 percent of their income since September 2000.
How does this affect children? The US AID study tells us the answer - Palestinian wholesalers and retailers are facing difficulty getting food into the market, particularly fresh meat and dairy products, such as powdered milk and infant formula. Once they do, many families are either unable to reach the store, due to Israeli imposed
restrictions on freedom of movement or they cannot afford to buy adequate food, both in terms of quality and quantity.
The lack of purchasing power has forced Palestinians to buy less of more expensive high protein foods, such as fish, beef, and chicken. Lack of protein is one of the direct causes of malnutrition and anemia.
This situation is not the result of a natural disaster or a lack of natural resources, it is a result of Israeli government sanctioned policies implemented by an occupying power against civilians, a government which is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, totaling some five billion annually.
These policies are an integral part of the 35 year long Israeli occupation. What the nutritional assessment illustrates clearly is that the Israeli occupation is more than a soldier with a gun - it is a system of control that impacts every aspect of the lives of three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 53 percent of whom are children.
Israeli actions are having a similarly devastating impact on other areas related to children's well being. The reality for Palestinian children is that they live in an environment where they suffer collective and concurrent violations of their rights at all times.
Israeli occupation policies simultaneously prevent Palestinian children from receiving adequate nutrition, interrupt the educational process, deprive children of homes, parents and siblings, lead to the death, injury, and arrest of thousands of Palestinian children, and imprison hundreds of thousands of children in their homes for days on end, under the policy of curfew.
The cumulative psychological effects of the last two years on Palestinian children have been immense and will take many years of intensive, serious work to treat. These factors not only impact the child's daily life, they constitute a major obstacle to the child's healthy development, and, thus, rob the child of prospects for a decent future.
The Israeli government repeatedly asserts that it is not targeting the Palestinian civilian population, but you cannot implement policies such as these without bringing a society to its knees. You certainly cannot do it for two years and claim that the results are unintentional. And the international community cannot continue to turn a blind eye.
On August 5, the UN General Assembly passed yet another watered-down resolution calling for an end to the violence on both sides. However, another resolution is not what is called for, but rather concrete action on the part of the international community to intervene to end the Israeli occupation is needed.
The US AID study pointed out in its conclusion that "today's acute malnutrition will be tomorrow's chronic malnutrition unless a variety of interventions - economic, political and health related - take place."
The international community would be well advised to open its eyes and take this a step further - Palestinian children today make up 53 percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.What will the situation look like in 10 - 20 years when this generation of children reach adulthood?
The author is International Advocacy Coordinator for Defense for Children International - Palestine Section, a child rights NGO based in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
2. The last recourse
Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz, August 2002
To what was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referring when he stated at last week's cabinet meeting, "It is inconceivable for such phenomena to occur here in Israel"?
Was it the situation in which, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development, 13.2 percent of Palestinian children are suffering from prolonged malnutrition and 9.3 percent from temporary malnutrition? The dropping of a one-ton bomb on a residential neighborhood, killing 15 people? The withholding of medical aid? The daily liquidations of "wanted" Palestinians? The jailing of hundreds of thousands of people for two years within the framework of collective punishment? The deportation and demolition of the homes of the families of terrorists? The culture of racist manifestations with regard to the Arabs who are Israeli citizens?
We haven't heard an expression of shock from Sharon or his cabinet ministers about any of these phenomena. But the prime minister, and, in his wake, a uniform chorus of spokespersons - from Reuven Rivlin to Yossi Beilin - were shocked by the initiative of the Gush Shalom peace activists who wrote letters to 15 Israel Defense Forces officers, warning them that material evidence was being collected against them relating to their activity in the territories, with the intention of submitting it to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on suspicion that the officers are guilty of war crimes. "That is worse than a refusal [to serve in the territories],"the prime minister asserted.
Indeed, for a political movement to collect incriminating material about army personnel, with the goal of submitting the material to international courts, is problematic: Are there not enough authorities in Israel that have the task of collecting material if the suspicion of war crimes arises, and then placing those responsible on
trial? Why the need for actions of a kind usually attributed to informers?
But before we rush to attack Gush Shalom, we would do well to consider a few questions. First: Are the soldiers and officers of the IDF in fact carrying out operations that could be suspected of constituting war crimes? If so, they should be stopped, even if doing so entails controversial means. The very fact of the outcry raised by the IDF and the government is cause for suspecting that we do have something to hide. Lately the IDF Spokesman's apparatus has made several moves that are intended to persuade the media and the officer corps from making public the names and photographs of soldiers and commanding officers who are serving in the territories, for fear of the court at The Hague. The need to conceal the faces of the soldiers, as though they were criminals hiding their faces from the cameras in a court of law, raises the question of whether the IDF is convinced that it is acting with what was once known as "purity of arms."
Beyond this, some of the actions undertaken by Israel in the past few months as part of its war on terrorism need to be subjected to a moral and judicial test; but there is no chance of that being done here. These actions include depriving hundreds of thousands of people of normal supplies and of the possibility of making a living, to the point where malnutrition has been caused; dozens of liquidations of people and not only of "ticking bombs;" the demolition of the homes of people who have done no wrong; blocking medical treatment; and deportation. Is there no suspicion here of war crimes for which someone should perhaps be accountable?
But who is going to place anyone on trial? Unfortunately, in the past two years it has become clear, even more so than in the past, that there is no one to turn to in Israel in connection with these subjects. The IDF has almost completely ceased to investigate instances of killing in the territories, in contrast to its policy in the first intifada. If someone suspects that IDF soldiers killed someone with no justification and in violation of the law, what recourse does he have? Who will investigate the death of newborn infants and sick people caused by the refusal of soldiers to allow ambulances or people in distress to pass by checkpoints, if the IDF does not do so seriously? Can we entrust this task to the High Court of Justice? After all, its voice, too, has become almost mute in connection with security issues. The High Court justices have declared in the past that it is not within their purview to apply the rules of war to the liquidation policy; and last week, they ruled that the IDF no longer had the duty to warn Palestinians that their homes were going to be demolished. So another vital force for restraint in Israeli society has been eroded.
If people believe that the liquidations are causing Israeli serious damage and are contrary to international law, to whom will they appeal? If the IDF were to order proper investigations of suspected violations of human rights and were to place proven violators on trial, and if the High Court were ready to fulfill its duty and intervene in cases of the infraction of the law in the territories, no Israeli organization would consider turning to international bodies. In the present situation, though, there are political movements, human rights groups and individuals for whom Israel's moral image is precious enough that they are willing to take exceptional steps to preserve it. They are no less patriotic than anyone else.
Nor should we condemn those who think that sanctions should be imposed on Israel. The apartheid regime in South Africa came to an end, in part, because of the sanctions that were imposed on the country. Unlike South Africa, Israel does not have to replace its regime, only to put an end to the occupation - and for that, it needs the world's help. The caution that soldiers must now employ could turn out to be beneficial: Perhaps the IDF will henceforth consider matters a little more deeply before dropping another mega-bomb in the heart of a residential neighborhood.
In a situation in which the legislative branch, the Supreme Court, he attorney general, parts of the media and the majority of the public are being derelict in their duty, turning away from what is going on and refusing to see what we are perpetrating on others and on ourselves, too, the appeal to the world is the last recourse. Those who are making use of it want only the good of an Israel that has right on its side.
3. The Message of the Bulldozers
Jeff Halper
August 9, 2002
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) deplores this week’s decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice against permitting judicial review for families of Palestinians whose homes are targeted for demolition because a family member has been involved in (or even suspected of) terror attacks. True to the pattern of many years, the Court has accepted the argument of the army that such demolitions take place as integral parts of military operations. Israel’s High Court thus permits the setting aside of fundamental human rights infavor of military considerations (which are but extensions of the government’s political goals).
What human rights are violated by this decision?
1· The right of innocent individuals not to be held legally accountable for the actions of relatives. “Blood tie” cannot be the basis of demolition someone’s home. The notion that individuals may be punished for crimes of others without any criminal charge being made against them forfeits the elementary protection that the legal system owes to every person.
2 The right of every person to due process and judicial review. Punishing individuals not charged with any crime, or denying them recourse to the court if they are faced with punitive actions, constitutes extra-judicial punishment. When an entire family is punished for the suspected deeds of one of its members, this is collective punishment. Both violate the essence of both Israeli civil law and international humanitarian law.
3 The demolition of houses or destruction of other private property of individuals residing in occupied territories is explicitly forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 53), as is collective punishment (Article 33).
This sad decision, which immediately effects 49 Palestinian families whose homes may be demolished at any time, represents the steady erosion of Israeli democracy as it tries to cope with popular resistance to an illegal Occupation. In its decision, the High Court itself subordinates the rule of law, not to mention human rights, to the requirements of military repression. In the simplest terms, it condones and permits war crimes. Absolute rule over another people is possible only by denying them fundamental legal protection. In the end, this must destroy the very moral and legal basis underlying democracy and law.
For the past six years ICAHD has been working on the issue of house demolitions. Every time we think: “OK, we’ve exhausted the subject, let’s go on to other, perhaps more pressing issues,” the systematic destruction of Palestinian homes returns to the center of the conflict with a vengeance. It happened in the Jenin refugee camp, where the indomitable drivers of the massive D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers labored for three straight days and nights demolishing more than 300 homes in the densely packed camp, thereby becoming the heroes of the invasion. And it is happening today as Israel demolishes dozens of houses belonging to families of terrorists, a form of collective punishment that is clearly a war crime.
Why? Why does house demolitions remain at the center of the conflict? Why has it been at the center of the Israeli struggle against the Palestinians since 1948? There are many specific reasons given: security, deterrence, punishment, self-defense, warfare, “illegal” construction, enforcement of the law and on and on. But one element remains throughout: The Message. Sharon, like his predecessors, never tire of warning that Israeli attacks on the Palestinians will continue “until they get The Message.” What is The Message? As stated by Sharon and the others (going back some 80 years to the “Iron Wall” concept of Jabotinsky and Ben Gurion), The Message is: “Submit. Only when you abandon your dreams for an independent state of your own, and accept that Palestine has become the Land of Israel, will we relent.” But The Message goes even deeper, is more sinister than that. The Message of the Bulldozers is: “You do not belong here. We uprooted you from your homes in 1948 and prevented your return, and now we will uproot you from all of the Land of Israel. “Transfer” has become an acceptable topic of television talk shows. And that is why house demolitions remain so prominent, the bulldozer beside the tank. Because in the end this process of reoccupation is one of displacement.
The bulldozer certainly deserves to take its rightful place alongside the tank as a symbol of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians. The two deserve to be on the national flag. The tank as symbol of an Israel “fighting for its existence,” and for its prowess on the battlefield. And the bulldozer for the dark underside of Israel’s struggle for existence, its ongoing struggle to displace the Palestinians from the country. For Israel has always treated the Palestinians as an enemy, never as a people with collective rights and legitimate claims to the country with which it might someday live in peace. In 1948 Israel played an active role in driving 75% of the Palestinians from the Land. Over the next four or five years the bulldozer, following the tank, systematically demolished 418 Palestinian villages. Since 1967, as Israel’s tanks suppress Palestinian resistance to the Occupation with increasing frequency and ferocity, its bulldozers (aided by artillery and missiles) have demolished more than 9000 Palestinian homes and counting. Even as I write this, a day after the Israeli High Court of Justice gave its consent to demolishing houses of families of terrorists without warning or a chance to appeal to the court, houses are being bulldozed in Bethlehem and Gaza with dozens more threatened throughout the Occupied Territories. And not only. Throughout Israel proper, in the “unrecognized villages” and Palestinian neighborhoods of Ramle, Lod and elsewhere, houses continue to be demolished 54 years later. Jews now live in Palestinian houses in Israel’s major cities and Palestinian villages have long disappeared under the agricultural fields of kibbutzim and moshavs. Amidst this destruction 150,000 housing units have been built for the 400,000 Jews living across the 1967 border.
The bulldozer remains at the center of the “action” for the simple reason that repression and control alone do not secure the country for those the Jews whose claim excludes all others. Those with competing claims the Palestinians must be displaced if the Jews are really going to take possession, or at least confined to small islands where they cannot interfere with or challenge Israeli dominion. (The announcement this week by the Ministry of the Interior that Palestinian Israelis would be stripped of their citizenship if proven “unloyal” to the State extends the work of bulldozers.)
But just as Israel cannot insulate itself from the Occupation, so too it cannot escape the ravages of its own house demolitions policy. Fear that the displaced might yet rise again and claim their patrimony prevents Israelis from enjoying the fruits of their power. The country has been seized by rising xenophobia and national- religious fanaticism. Polarization characterizes the relations between the right and left, Jewish and Arab citizens, Jews of European and Middle East origin, the working and middle classes, religious and secular. Israelis are “hunkering down,” increasingly isolated from the world. Young Israeli men and women are themselves brutalized as they are sent as soldiers to evict Palestinian families from their homes. Even the beauty of the land is destroyed as the authorities rush to construct ugly, sprawling suburbs and massive highways in order to “claim” the land before Palestinians creep back in. Aesthetics, human rights, environmental concerns, education, social justice these are the finer things of life that cannot coexist with displacement and occupation. “Fortress Israel,” as we call it, is by necessity based on a culture of strength, violence and crudity.
In the final analysis, it will be the bulldozer that razes the structure that once was Israel.
(Jeff Halper, an anthropologist, is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions http://www.icahd.org/eng/. He can be reached at <icahd@zahav.net.il>.)
August 14, 2002
"I am against violence, completely. If getting a state means violence, if getting justice means violence, then I don't want them." That's what Cedar Duaybis, a board member at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, an MCC partner organization, shared recently in a discussion of a Christian response to the phenomenon of suicide bombers in the context of a military occupation. I found Cedar's words inspiring, prophetic, and troubling, all at once. Inspiring, because it strengthens our resolve as MCC workers to have the privilege to work alongside courageous witnesses for nonviolence and peace like Cedar.
Prophetic, not only in her call to Palestinians to renounce violent struggle, but in the implicit message to all who seek noble aims-- peace, security, freedom, justice--through violent means. Troubling, finally, because regardless of the type of struggle waged by Palestinians, be it violent or nonviolent, I worry about what hope Palestinians can have. The structures which perpetuate Palestinian dispossession, which confiscate land, restrict Palestinian movement, confine Palestinians into increasingly smaller islands, destroy homes, uproot trees, impose collective punishment on millions: these structures grow stronger by the day. For a Palestinian Christian like Cedar, the refusal to use or support violence to secure justice is grounded in the nonviolent witness of the cross and the resurrection. In the grim realities of the occupied territories right now, the hope of resurrection can appear tenuous; praise be to God for the witness of Palestinian Christians and Muslims and of Israeli Jews who proclaim that justice and peace, security and freedom cannot be secured by violence and who live by the hope that, though the powers of injustice, death and dispossession appear strong, that God will in time overcome.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, published in Ha'aretz Monday August 12, is by Catherine Cook, an advocacy coordinator for Defense of Children International-Palestine Section. Cook explores the implications of growing malnutrition among Palestinian children for the future. The second piece, by Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy (whose car was shot at on Sunday, August 11, by Israeli military even after he had coordinated his movements in the West Bank city of Tulkarem with the military), discusses the need to hold Israel accountable for war crimes it perpetrates in the occupied territories. The final piece, by Israeli academic and activist Jeff Halper, looks at the message conveyed to Palestinians by the bulldozers which demolish homes, uproot trees, and pave the way for new Israeli settlements.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Palestinian malnutrition bodes ill for the future
Catherine Cook
Ha'aretz, August 12, 2002
A recently released US Aid funded nutritional assessment indicates that acute and chronic malnutrition rates of Palestinian children under 5 have reached emergency levels. Some 22.5 percent of children suffer moderate or severe acute or chronic malnutrition, and one fifth suffer moderate or severe anemia.
The study, designed by Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health, surveyed nutrition levels, availability of food in the market and household consumption, and found that the factors affecting the dangerous rise in malnutrition directly relates to Israeli imposed movement restrictions and the dismal economic situation in the occupied territories.
Major food shortages were caused primarily by Israeli imposed road closures, checkpoints, and curfews, while the economic situation and subsequent loss in purchasing power was the main factor inhibiting people's ability to buy food. Fifty-six percent of surveyed families indicated that they had been forced to the amount of food consumed for more than one day in the previous two week period.
Of those, two-thirds cited lack of money and one-third cited Israeli imposed curfews and closures as the reason. The study found that 36.6 percent of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip lack the purchasing power to consistently feed their families. The number of families affected was highest in Gaza City, where 41.3 percent of families reported selling assets to buy food.
This is how collective punishment works - Israel implements restrictions on freedom of movement, Palestinians lose their jobs inside Israel or can no longer reach their places of work in the occupied territories, and their level of income decreases.
As of December 2001, unemployment had reached 35 percent in the occupied territories according to the World Bank. Figures released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in April indicate that in the first two months of the year 2002, more than two-thirds of Palestinian households were living below the poverty line, set at US $340 a month (less than $1.90 a day). PCBS also reports that more than half of Palestinian households have lost more than 50 percent of their income since September 2000.
How does this affect children? The US AID study tells us the answer - Palestinian wholesalers and retailers are facing difficulty getting food into the market, particularly fresh meat and dairy products, such as powdered milk and infant formula. Once they do, many families are either unable to reach the store, due to Israeli imposed
restrictions on freedom of movement or they cannot afford to buy adequate food, both in terms of quality and quantity.
The lack of purchasing power has forced Palestinians to buy less of more expensive high protein foods, such as fish, beef, and chicken. Lack of protein is one of the direct causes of malnutrition and anemia.
This situation is not the result of a natural disaster or a lack of natural resources, it is a result of Israeli government sanctioned policies implemented by an occupying power against civilians, a government which is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, totaling some five billion annually.
These policies are an integral part of the 35 year long Israeli occupation. What the nutritional assessment illustrates clearly is that the Israeli occupation is more than a soldier with a gun - it is a system of control that impacts every aspect of the lives of three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 53 percent of whom are children.
Israeli actions are having a similarly devastating impact on other areas related to children's well being. The reality for Palestinian children is that they live in an environment where they suffer collective and concurrent violations of their rights at all times.
Israeli occupation policies simultaneously prevent Palestinian children from receiving adequate nutrition, interrupt the educational process, deprive children of homes, parents and siblings, lead to the death, injury, and arrest of thousands of Palestinian children, and imprison hundreds of thousands of children in their homes for days on end, under the policy of curfew.
The cumulative psychological effects of the last two years on Palestinian children have been immense and will take many years of intensive, serious work to treat. These factors not only impact the child's daily life, they constitute a major obstacle to the child's healthy development, and, thus, rob the child of prospects for a decent future.
The Israeli government repeatedly asserts that it is not targeting the Palestinian civilian population, but you cannot implement policies such as these without bringing a society to its knees. You certainly cannot do it for two years and claim that the results are unintentional. And the international community cannot continue to turn a blind eye.
On August 5, the UN General Assembly passed yet another watered-down resolution calling for an end to the violence on both sides. However, another resolution is not what is called for, but rather concrete action on the part of the international community to intervene to end the Israeli occupation is needed.
The US AID study pointed out in its conclusion that "today's acute malnutrition will be tomorrow's chronic malnutrition unless a variety of interventions - economic, political and health related - take place."
The international community would be well advised to open its eyes and take this a step further - Palestinian children today make up 53 percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.What will the situation look like in 10 - 20 years when this generation of children reach adulthood?
The author is International Advocacy Coordinator for Defense for Children International - Palestine Section, a child rights NGO based in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
2. The last recourse
Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz, August 2002
To what was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referring when he stated at last week's cabinet meeting, "It is inconceivable for such phenomena to occur here in Israel"?
Was it the situation in which, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development, 13.2 percent of Palestinian children are suffering from prolonged malnutrition and 9.3 percent from temporary malnutrition? The dropping of a one-ton bomb on a residential neighborhood, killing 15 people? The withholding of medical aid? The daily liquidations of "wanted" Palestinians? The jailing of hundreds of thousands of people for two years within the framework of collective punishment? The deportation and demolition of the homes of the families of terrorists? The culture of racist manifestations with regard to the Arabs who are Israeli citizens?
We haven't heard an expression of shock from Sharon or his cabinet ministers about any of these phenomena. But the prime minister, and, in his wake, a uniform chorus of spokespersons - from Reuven Rivlin to Yossi Beilin - were shocked by the initiative of the Gush Shalom peace activists who wrote letters to 15 Israel Defense Forces officers, warning them that material evidence was being collected against them relating to their activity in the territories, with the intention of submitting it to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on suspicion that the officers are guilty of war crimes. "That is worse than a refusal [to serve in the territories],"the prime minister asserted.
Indeed, for a political movement to collect incriminating material about army personnel, with the goal of submitting the material to international courts, is problematic: Are there not enough authorities in Israel that have the task of collecting material if the suspicion of war crimes arises, and then placing those responsible on
trial? Why the need for actions of a kind usually attributed to informers?
But before we rush to attack Gush Shalom, we would do well to consider a few questions. First: Are the soldiers and officers of the IDF in fact carrying out operations that could be suspected of constituting war crimes? If so, they should be stopped, even if doing so entails controversial means. The very fact of the outcry raised by the IDF and the government is cause for suspecting that we do have something to hide. Lately the IDF Spokesman's apparatus has made several moves that are intended to persuade the media and the officer corps from making public the names and photographs of soldiers and commanding officers who are serving in the territories, for fear of the court at The Hague. The need to conceal the faces of the soldiers, as though they were criminals hiding their faces from the cameras in a court of law, raises the question of whether the IDF is convinced that it is acting with what was once known as "purity of arms."
Beyond this, some of the actions undertaken by Israel in the past few months as part of its war on terrorism need to be subjected to a moral and judicial test; but there is no chance of that being done here. These actions include depriving hundreds of thousands of people of normal supplies and of the possibility of making a living, to the point where malnutrition has been caused; dozens of liquidations of people and not only of "ticking bombs;" the demolition of the homes of people who have done no wrong; blocking medical treatment; and deportation. Is there no suspicion here of war crimes for which someone should perhaps be accountable?
But who is going to place anyone on trial? Unfortunately, in the past two years it has become clear, even more so than in the past, that there is no one to turn to in Israel in connection with these subjects. The IDF has almost completely ceased to investigate instances of killing in the territories, in contrast to its policy in the first intifada. If someone suspects that IDF soldiers killed someone with no justification and in violation of the law, what recourse does he have? Who will investigate the death of newborn infants and sick people caused by the refusal of soldiers to allow ambulances or people in distress to pass by checkpoints, if the IDF does not do so seriously? Can we entrust this task to the High Court of Justice? After all, its voice, too, has become almost mute in connection with security issues. The High Court justices have declared in the past that it is not within their purview to apply the rules of war to the liquidation policy; and last week, they ruled that the IDF no longer had the duty to warn Palestinians that their homes were going to be demolished. So another vital force for restraint in Israeli society has been eroded.
If people believe that the liquidations are causing Israeli serious damage and are contrary to international law, to whom will they appeal? If the IDF were to order proper investigations of suspected violations of human rights and were to place proven violators on trial, and if the High Court were ready to fulfill its duty and intervene in cases of the infraction of the law in the territories, no Israeli organization would consider turning to international bodies. In the present situation, though, there are political movements, human rights groups and individuals for whom Israel's moral image is precious enough that they are willing to take exceptional steps to preserve it. They are no less patriotic than anyone else.
Nor should we condemn those who think that sanctions should be imposed on Israel. The apartheid regime in South Africa came to an end, in part, because of the sanctions that were imposed on the country. Unlike South Africa, Israel does not have to replace its regime, only to put an end to the occupation - and for that, it needs the world's help. The caution that soldiers must now employ could turn out to be beneficial: Perhaps the IDF will henceforth consider matters a little more deeply before dropping another mega-bomb in the heart of a residential neighborhood.
In a situation in which the legislative branch, the Supreme Court, he attorney general, parts of the media and the majority of the public are being derelict in their duty, turning away from what is going on and refusing to see what we are perpetrating on others and on ourselves, too, the appeal to the world is the last recourse. Those who are making use of it want only the good of an Israel that has right on its side.
3. The Message of the Bulldozers
Jeff Halper
August 9, 2002
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) deplores this week’s decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice against permitting judicial review for families of Palestinians whose homes are targeted for demolition because a family member has been involved in (or even suspected of) terror attacks. True to the pattern of many years, the Court has accepted the argument of the army that such demolitions take place as integral parts of military operations. Israel’s High Court thus permits the setting aside of fundamental human rights infavor of military considerations (which are but extensions of the government’s political goals).
What human rights are violated by this decision?
1· The right of innocent individuals not to be held legally accountable for the actions of relatives. “Blood tie” cannot be the basis of demolition someone’s home. The notion that individuals may be punished for crimes of others without any criminal charge being made against them forfeits the elementary protection that the legal system owes to every person.
2 The right of every person to due process and judicial review. Punishing individuals not charged with any crime, or denying them recourse to the court if they are faced with punitive actions, constitutes extra-judicial punishment. When an entire family is punished for the suspected deeds of one of its members, this is collective punishment. Both violate the essence of both Israeli civil law and international humanitarian law.
3 The demolition of houses or destruction of other private property of individuals residing in occupied territories is explicitly forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 53), as is collective punishment (Article 33).
This sad decision, which immediately effects 49 Palestinian families whose homes may be demolished at any time, represents the steady erosion of Israeli democracy as it tries to cope with popular resistance to an illegal Occupation. In its decision, the High Court itself subordinates the rule of law, not to mention human rights, to the requirements of military repression. In the simplest terms, it condones and permits war crimes. Absolute rule over another people is possible only by denying them fundamental legal protection. In the end, this must destroy the very moral and legal basis underlying democracy and law.
For the past six years ICAHD has been working on the issue of house demolitions. Every time we think: “OK, we’ve exhausted the subject, let’s go on to other, perhaps more pressing issues,” the systematic destruction of Palestinian homes returns to the center of the conflict with a vengeance. It happened in the Jenin refugee camp, where the indomitable drivers of the massive D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers labored for three straight days and nights demolishing more than 300 homes in the densely packed camp, thereby becoming the heroes of the invasion. And it is happening today as Israel demolishes dozens of houses belonging to families of terrorists, a form of collective punishment that is clearly a war crime.
Why? Why does house demolitions remain at the center of the conflict? Why has it been at the center of the Israeli struggle against the Palestinians since 1948? There are many specific reasons given: security, deterrence, punishment, self-defense, warfare, “illegal” construction, enforcement of the law and on and on. But one element remains throughout: The Message. Sharon, like his predecessors, never tire of warning that Israeli attacks on the Palestinians will continue “until they get The Message.” What is The Message? As stated by Sharon and the others (going back some 80 years to the “Iron Wall” concept of Jabotinsky and Ben Gurion), The Message is: “Submit. Only when you abandon your dreams for an independent state of your own, and accept that Palestine has become the Land of Israel, will we relent.” But The Message goes even deeper, is more sinister than that. The Message of the Bulldozers is: “You do not belong here. We uprooted you from your homes in 1948 and prevented your return, and now we will uproot you from all of the Land of Israel. “Transfer” has become an acceptable topic of television talk shows. And that is why house demolitions remain so prominent, the bulldozer beside the tank. Because in the end this process of reoccupation is one of displacement.
The bulldozer certainly deserves to take its rightful place alongside the tank as a symbol of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians. The two deserve to be on the national flag. The tank as symbol of an Israel “fighting for its existence,” and for its prowess on the battlefield. And the bulldozer for the dark underside of Israel’s struggle for existence, its ongoing struggle to displace the Palestinians from the country. For Israel has always treated the Palestinians as an enemy, never as a people with collective rights and legitimate claims to the country with which it might someday live in peace. In 1948 Israel played an active role in driving 75% of the Palestinians from the Land. Over the next four or five years the bulldozer, following the tank, systematically demolished 418 Palestinian villages. Since 1967, as Israel’s tanks suppress Palestinian resistance to the Occupation with increasing frequency and ferocity, its bulldozers (aided by artillery and missiles) have demolished more than 9000 Palestinian homes and counting. Even as I write this, a day after the Israeli High Court of Justice gave its consent to demolishing houses of families of terrorists without warning or a chance to appeal to the court, houses are being bulldozed in Bethlehem and Gaza with dozens more threatened throughout the Occupied Territories. And not only. Throughout Israel proper, in the “unrecognized villages” and Palestinian neighborhoods of Ramle, Lod and elsewhere, houses continue to be demolished 54 years later. Jews now live in Palestinian houses in Israel’s major cities and Palestinian villages have long disappeared under the agricultural fields of kibbutzim and moshavs. Amidst this destruction 150,000 housing units have been built for the 400,000 Jews living across the 1967 border.
The bulldozer remains at the center of the “action” for the simple reason that repression and control alone do not secure the country for those the Jews whose claim excludes all others. Those with competing claims the Palestinians must be displaced if the Jews are really going to take possession, or at least confined to small islands where they cannot interfere with or challenge Israeli dominion. (The announcement this week by the Ministry of the Interior that Palestinian Israelis would be stripped of their citizenship if proven “unloyal” to the State extends the work of bulldozers.)
But just as Israel cannot insulate itself from the Occupation, so too it cannot escape the ravages of its own house demolitions policy. Fear that the displaced might yet rise again and claim their patrimony prevents Israelis from enjoying the fruits of their power. The country has been seized by rising xenophobia and national- religious fanaticism. Polarization characterizes the relations between the right and left, Jewish and Arab citizens, Jews of European and Middle East origin, the working and middle classes, religious and secular. Israelis are “hunkering down,” increasingly isolated from the world. Young Israeli men and women are themselves brutalized as they are sent as soldiers to evict Palestinian families from their homes. Even the beauty of the land is destroyed as the authorities rush to construct ugly, sprawling suburbs and massive highways in order to “claim” the land before Palestinians creep back in. Aesthetics, human rights, environmental concerns, education, social justice these are the finer things of life that cannot coexist with displacement and occupation. “Fortress Israel,” as we call it, is by necessity based on a culture of strength, violence and crudity.
In the final analysis, it will be the bulldozer that razes the structure that once was Israel.
(Jeff Halper, an anthropologist, is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions http://www.icahd.org/eng/. He can be reached at <icahd@zahav.net.il>.)
Wednesday, August 7
MCC Palestine Update #55
MCC Palestine Update #55
August 7, 2002
“Without being able to read, women can’t participate fully in society,” says Nawal Ghussein, the director of al-Majd Women’s Society in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. “They can’t help their children with homework, their job prospects are limited. That’s why, as an organization dedicated to strengthening women’s role in Palestinian society, we promote women’s literacy.”
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has supported al-Majd’s literacy program for three years. This past school year, thirty-five women, ranging from young women in their late teens to middle-age women close to fifty, participated in the program, all sharing a determination to learn to read. The women are divided into four ability levels, with those in the highest level preparing to take exams which will allow them to enter the regular school system.
Zahwa Immasara, seventeen (17) years old, has never attended school. School was five kilometers away, and because Zahwa suffered from a variety of health problems during her early childhood, her parents feared to have her walk such a great distance. Zahwa is one of three women in al-Majd’s literacy program who sat in July for a test administered by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education which will allow them to enter the seventh grade. “My hope is eventually to take the tawjihi,” Zahwa shares, smiling, referring to the high school matriculation exam required for entering university.
The women in the literacy program have varied histories. Some, like Zahwa, never attended school because of health problems or because of their distance from the school. Others couldn’t attend school because of family problems. Intisar al-Rabayah, now twenty (20), was in second grade when she was pulled out of school while her parents went through a divorce. In the years following the divorce Intisar and her siblings worked hard inside and outside the home
Siham Haroun, a lively woman in her late twenties with a bachelor’s degree from al-Azhar University in Gaza, teaches the literacy courses at al-Majd. Having been born, like her students, in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Siham can relate to the challenges her students face: crowded living conditions, poor job prospects, and the denial of the right of the refugees to return to their former homes in what is now Israel. “We know that we face many difficulties, as women and as refugees,” shares Siham. “But at al-Majd we challenge each other to overcome these difficulties.”
Al-Majd has a good track record of helping refugee women overcome obstacles. Twenty women who received training in yoghurt production in 1995 through an MCC sponsored program continue to work together as a cooperative, marketing their product throughout the Gaza Strip. At a time of record-high unemployment, these women are some of the few in the Gaza Strip continuing to bring in an income.
“Empowering women helps whole families,” notes Ghussein. For young women like Zahwa and Intisar, learning to read is central to their hopes for the future, hopes which are nurtured and encouraged at al-Majd.
Below you will find two pieces, both on Israeli checkpoints in the occupied territories. In the first, Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy comments on the scene at a checkpoint on the outskerts of the West Bank city of Jenin. In the second account, Ghassan Andoni, the director of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples in Beit Sahour and a professor at Bir Zeit University, relates a frightening--but sadly not isolated--incident he experienced while traveling between Beit Sahour (his home) and Bir Zeit (where he works). A note: Ghassan relays some of the graphic language used by the soldier on guard at the checkpoint.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Jenin checkpoint, 4 P.M.
Gideon Levy
At the Jenin checkpoint, Checkpoint 250, a few days ago. This is the barrier that blocks the entrance to the city. The place is deserted and derelict. Hardly anyone is allowed to leave or enter the "city of the suicide bombers." Nor is anyone trying to approach the checkpoint, which is made of spikes and concrete blocks. Next to it is a small army base in which soldiers man observation posts. The checkpoint itself is generally not manned - the soldiers come down from their positions only when a car pulls up.
At four in the afternoon, on the sandy road, in front of the first group of concrete cubes, far from the soldiers' position, stands an ambulance of the Red Crescent organization, the flashing of its red lights visible from afar. In the ambulance are two Palestinian paramedics and a woman volunteer from the United States. The ambulance was summoned from Jenin in order to take a woman in labor from the village of Jalma to the hospital in Jenin. It's a 10- minute trip in normal times. The ambulance driver says that the woman tried to become pregnant for six years. It's not difficult to imagine what she and her family are feeling as they wait forthe ambulance.
We are behind the ambulance. Waiting. A quarter of an hour passes. No soldier approaches the vehicle. Another half-hour goes by. Still nothing. The ambulance driver, Mahmoud Karmi, does not lose his cool. He always waits here between an hour and two hours before the soldiers come over. So far, an hour and a quarter has passed since he arrived at the checkpoint.
Following a phone call to the office of the IDF Spokesperson and a further wait, two soldiers descend from their position. In a lordly manner, they gesture for the ambulance to approach. The driver says he is afraid the soldiers will get back at him because we phoned the IDF Spokesperson. A brief check by the soldiers and the ambulance is allowed to proceed. It's worth keeping in mind that this is the road between Jenin and Jalma, not a road to Israel (between Jenin and Israel there is another checkpoint, at Jalma). The soldiers, of course, did not know the destination of the waiting ambulance or who it was carrying - an injured child, a dying man, a woman in labor.
One of the soldiers afterward told us that this was the order they had been given: to delay ambulances. The endless complaints about ambulances being delayed are more than confirmed by an eyewitness account. A few days later, the IDF Spokesperson stated in response, "The ambulance was held up needlessly. The checkpoint commander was admonished by his superiors. The debriefing of the event and its conclusions were conveyed to all the commanding officers in the brigade so that the proper lessons can be learned."
Red Crescent drivers in Jenin related at week's end that the situation at this checkpoint was now in fact better. However, last Thursday, the same driver, Karmi, was delayed for about 20 minutes at another checkpoint, near the settlement of Shavei Shomron, and then told by the soldiers to turn around and go back;there were two patients in the ambulance, who were being taken from Rafidiyeh Hospital in Nablus to Jenin. Karmi had to make the trip to Jenin through Tul Karm via dirt roads.
In some cases, tanks chase off ambulances without the ambulance drivers managing to explain their mission to the soldiers. Delaying paramedics on the way to give first aid to people who have been hurt has also become a widespread phenomenon. In one recent case, about three weeks ago, journalist Imad Abu Zahra bled to death after being shot by soldiers in Jenin, who then kept firing, preventing his evacuation for about half an hour. Similar events are described in the United Nations report about the Jenin refugee camp that was released last week.
In a period of targeted liquidations and mass terrorist attacks, the delay of an ambulance seems an almost marginal phenomenon. The woman in labor from Jalma made it to the hospital in time, unlike other cases. Still, the story should not be ignored, precisely because of its almost banal appearance. Whether an explicit order was given to delay ambulances or not, this behavior is an ordinary phenomenon,not an exception, and it has nothing to do with security risks, as no one
questions the need to check the ambulances.
This ugly and inhumane phenomenon of hazing and harassing ambulances stems from a deeper source: from the soldiers' basic attitude toward the Palestinian population. It's doubtful that the soldiers at the Jenin checkpoint delayed the ambulance because they were ordered to do so by their commanders. It's more likely that they thought this was the way Palestinian ambulances should be treated.
In the perception of the soldiers at the checkpoint, a Palestinian is not a person like them, he is part "human dust" and part potential enemy, so they have the right to do with him almost anything that strikes their fancy. It is likely that none of the soldiers tried to imagine a similar situation in which an ambulance carrying his mother or his father was being delayed. Nor, by the same token, did any of them consider how he would feel toward whoever was responsible for the delay.
We have regressed to dark days. If, after the Oslo Accords, the IDF started to become aware that the Palestinian population should be treated differently and did not consist entirely of "troublemakers," we have now returned to the old and bad conceptions - that a good Palestinian is one who is humiliated, harassed and ground into the dirt.
2. Almost Killed at Atara military check point
Ghassan Andoni
Sunday August 4th, myself and four friends of mine started our trip from Bethlehem to Birzeit University. Being away from the university for two weeks, I decided to come to the university, stay in Birzeit for ten days, finish the final exams, and go on a vacation until October 1st.
As our driver was experienced in driving the way forth and back, he knew how to go around road blocks, drive in the fields, and find alternative roads anytime we reached a deadlock. In general, and as this was not my first time, the road did not look strange to me.
In about 40 minutes, we arrived at the first (must go through) military checkpoint. We were delayed for 40 minutes and then ordered to drive through without being checked. As the two
teenage soldiers handling the checkpoint were in the midst of a conversation about the girl friend of one of them, we had to wait until they were finished. Knowing Hebrew is definitely an advantage. Honestly, I can not deny that I enjoyed at least
parts of their conversation.
After driving for 2 hours through, roads, fields, and small villages, we arrived at Attara bridge, a bottleneck without passing through you can not arrive at Birzeit. As the main road leading to the bridge was totally destroyed by army bulldozers, we had to drive through the fields, climb a steep hill to arrive at the other end of the bridge.
Driving up the hill, and as we approached the top, we saw a huge pile of dirt almost blocking the road. Suddenly the car in front of us started a U-turn back, and our driver started doing the same. Our conclusion was that we need to hit the road back to Bethlehem.
Suddenly, we found our selves surrounded by five soldiers pointing their guns at us and getting ready to fire. I can not explain to you how terrified we were. During those little moments, in which we expected to be shot at, I thought of all the people that I love and care for, and how sad they will be if I am shot dead.
An army officer approached us shouting, cursing in Hebrew, and moving his gun in a way that made us feel that this is the end. With the soldiers pointing the guns to our heads we were ordered to park aside and step out of the car.
The officer came close to me, pointed his gun at my head and said: As you have been trying to flee away from an army checkpoint, I have the full right to kill you all and no one will give a damn. Pulling all the strength I could I replied, in an assuring tone, that as we saw a huge pile of dirt and as the car ahead of us was turning back, we assumed that the road is blocked and were turning to go back.
The army officer looked in the eyes, brought his gun closer to my head and said: I do not give a fu... damn shit to the lies you are telling. And added: the only reason that I did not shoot you so far is to avoid two weeks of filling forms for the army inquiry. As well I do not want for my gun to get dirty, he added, for each bullet we shoot the army asks us to draw a mark on our gun, so if I shoot you my gun will look
ugly.
At this point I was not sure if he was trying to tell me that the army have the norms of investigating shootings or trying to tell me how much we are all worth for him. What worried me more than anything else is his hyperactive behavior and his continued attempts to provoke a reaction from our side.
I decided to keep communicating with him. So I said, is it really that you do not care about us being killed. Here I think I managed to communicate with the little human that is still inside him. He said: if you stand here for two or three hours
You will go nuts and start talking Japanese.
I said, hoping to still be able to communicate, but you are not the only one under pressure here, I am as well talking Japanese. He said: yeah.. yeah tell me a Japanese word and I said Yokohama. He sort of smiled but he managed to hide it.
I guess to step out of this position he turned into being sarcastic. He asked in a low and warm voice: to where are you going? I replied to Birzeit. He said, This little sweet town, but then started shouting: in fact it is not sweet it is a piece of shit, I will not give a fu.. damn if it is wiped out.
Then he asked in a low voice: where do you come from? I replied from Bethlehem. He said in the same low and warm voice: the sweet little town where the sweet baby was born, and before me saying yes, he shouted: in fact I do not give a shit to the town or to the baby.
He then went joking with our driver who smiled to him. suddenly the officer shouted at him: what are you laughing at? what the hell causes you to smile at a military check point?
All of this sarcasm was combined with nervous movements and regularly pointing the gun to the head of one of us. As he was getting more dragged into his sarcastic behavior, he became more threatening and dangerous.
At this point I pulled all of my strength and said: it does not help being sarcastic. He closed to me, pointed his gun to my head and said: yeah.. yeah.. I am the most sarcastic person you will ever meet in your short lifetime. Then he shouted: you need to tell me right now what is it that it does not help, just one thing. I said it does not help you feel better. At this point he halted for a while. I guess to get out of this position he acted more official and shouted: you need to bring all of your bags out and unload them so that I can see the bottom of each of them. So we did.
After saying some nasty comments at some items in the bag in the same sarcastic way, he ordered us back to the car and said you can pass through. We stepped back into the car. We were extremely worried that we might be shot at the minute we move the car. But what other choices did we have? We moved out physically safe but not emotionally.
By the way, we were never been asked about our IDs or checked if we were on the wanted list or not. Anyway, I am happy to be sitting in my office in Birzeit and will only worry about my trip back after nine days.
August 7, 2002
“Without being able to read, women can’t participate fully in society,” says Nawal Ghussein, the director of al-Majd Women’s Society in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. “They can’t help their children with homework, their job prospects are limited. That’s why, as an organization dedicated to strengthening women’s role in Palestinian society, we promote women’s literacy.”
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has supported al-Majd’s literacy program for three years. This past school year, thirty-five women, ranging from young women in their late teens to middle-age women close to fifty, participated in the program, all sharing a determination to learn to read. The women are divided into four ability levels, with those in the highest level preparing to take exams which will allow them to enter the regular school system.
Zahwa Immasara, seventeen (17) years old, has never attended school. School was five kilometers away, and because Zahwa suffered from a variety of health problems during her early childhood, her parents feared to have her walk such a great distance. Zahwa is one of three women in al-Majd’s literacy program who sat in July for a test administered by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education which will allow them to enter the seventh grade. “My hope is eventually to take the tawjihi,” Zahwa shares, smiling, referring to the high school matriculation exam required for entering university.
The women in the literacy program have varied histories. Some, like Zahwa, never attended school because of health problems or because of their distance from the school. Others couldn’t attend school because of family problems. Intisar al-Rabayah, now twenty (20), was in second grade when she was pulled out of school while her parents went through a divorce. In the years following the divorce Intisar and her siblings worked hard inside and outside the home
Siham Haroun, a lively woman in her late twenties with a bachelor’s degree from al-Azhar University in Gaza, teaches the literacy courses at al-Majd. Having been born, like her students, in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Siham can relate to the challenges her students face: crowded living conditions, poor job prospects, and the denial of the right of the refugees to return to their former homes in what is now Israel. “We know that we face many difficulties, as women and as refugees,” shares Siham. “But at al-Majd we challenge each other to overcome these difficulties.”
Al-Majd has a good track record of helping refugee women overcome obstacles. Twenty women who received training in yoghurt production in 1995 through an MCC sponsored program continue to work together as a cooperative, marketing their product throughout the Gaza Strip. At a time of record-high unemployment, these women are some of the few in the Gaza Strip continuing to bring in an income.
“Empowering women helps whole families,” notes Ghussein. For young women like Zahwa and Intisar, learning to read is central to their hopes for the future, hopes which are nurtured and encouraged at al-Majd.
Below you will find two pieces, both on Israeli checkpoints in the occupied territories. In the first, Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy comments on the scene at a checkpoint on the outskerts of the West Bank city of Jenin. In the second account, Ghassan Andoni, the director of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples in Beit Sahour and a professor at Bir Zeit University, relates a frightening--but sadly not isolated--incident he experienced while traveling between Beit Sahour (his home) and Bir Zeit (where he works). A note: Ghassan relays some of the graphic language used by the soldier on guard at the checkpoint.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Jenin checkpoint, 4 P.M.
Gideon Levy
At the Jenin checkpoint, Checkpoint 250, a few days ago. This is the barrier that blocks the entrance to the city. The place is deserted and derelict. Hardly anyone is allowed to leave or enter the "city of the suicide bombers." Nor is anyone trying to approach the checkpoint, which is made of spikes and concrete blocks. Next to it is a small army base in which soldiers man observation posts. The checkpoint itself is generally not manned - the soldiers come down from their positions only when a car pulls up.
At four in the afternoon, on the sandy road, in front of the first group of concrete cubes, far from the soldiers' position, stands an ambulance of the Red Crescent organization, the flashing of its red lights visible from afar. In the ambulance are two Palestinian paramedics and a woman volunteer from the United States. The ambulance was summoned from Jenin in order to take a woman in labor from the village of Jalma to the hospital in Jenin. It's a 10- minute trip in normal times. The ambulance driver says that the woman tried to become pregnant for six years. It's not difficult to imagine what she and her family are feeling as they wait forthe ambulance.
We are behind the ambulance. Waiting. A quarter of an hour passes. No soldier approaches the vehicle. Another half-hour goes by. Still nothing. The ambulance driver, Mahmoud Karmi, does not lose his cool. He always waits here between an hour and two hours before the soldiers come over. So far, an hour and a quarter has passed since he arrived at the checkpoint.
Following a phone call to the office of the IDF Spokesperson and a further wait, two soldiers descend from their position. In a lordly manner, they gesture for the ambulance to approach. The driver says he is afraid the soldiers will get back at him because we phoned the IDF Spokesperson. A brief check by the soldiers and the ambulance is allowed to proceed. It's worth keeping in mind that this is the road between Jenin and Jalma, not a road to Israel (between Jenin and Israel there is another checkpoint, at Jalma). The soldiers, of course, did not know the destination of the waiting ambulance or who it was carrying - an injured child, a dying man, a woman in labor.
One of the soldiers afterward told us that this was the order they had been given: to delay ambulances. The endless complaints about ambulances being delayed are more than confirmed by an eyewitness account. A few days later, the IDF Spokesperson stated in response, "The ambulance was held up needlessly. The checkpoint commander was admonished by his superiors. The debriefing of the event and its conclusions were conveyed to all the commanding officers in the brigade so that the proper lessons can be learned."
Red Crescent drivers in Jenin related at week's end that the situation at this checkpoint was now in fact better. However, last Thursday, the same driver, Karmi, was delayed for about 20 minutes at another checkpoint, near the settlement of Shavei Shomron, and then told by the soldiers to turn around and go back;there were two patients in the ambulance, who were being taken from Rafidiyeh Hospital in Nablus to Jenin. Karmi had to make the trip to Jenin through Tul Karm via dirt roads.
In some cases, tanks chase off ambulances without the ambulance drivers managing to explain their mission to the soldiers. Delaying paramedics on the way to give first aid to people who have been hurt has also become a widespread phenomenon. In one recent case, about three weeks ago, journalist Imad Abu Zahra bled to death after being shot by soldiers in Jenin, who then kept firing, preventing his evacuation for about half an hour. Similar events are described in the United Nations report about the Jenin refugee camp that was released last week.
In a period of targeted liquidations and mass terrorist attacks, the delay of an ambulance seems an almost marginal phenomenon. The woman in labor from Jalma made it to the hospital in time, unlike other cases. Still, the story should not be ignored, precisely because of its almost banal appearance. Whether an explicit order was given to delay ambulances or not, this behavior is an ordinary phenomenon,not an exception, and it has nothing to do with security risks, as no one
questions the need to check the ambulances.
This ugly and inhumane phenomenon of hazing and harassing ambulances stems from a deeper source: from the soldiers' basic attitude toward the Palestinian population. It's doubtful that the soldiers at the Jenin checkpoint delayed the ambulance because they were ordered to do so by their commanders. It's more likely that they thought this was the way Palestinian ambulances should be treated.
In the perception of the soldiers at the checkpoint, a Palestinian is not a person like them, he is part "human dust" and part potential enemy, so they have the right to do with him almost anything that strikes their fancy. It is likely that none of the soldiers tried to imagine a similar situation in which an ambulance carrying his mother or his father was being delayed. Nor, by the same token, did any of them consider how he would feel toward whoever was responsible for the delay.
We have regressed to dark days. If, after the Oslo Accords, the IDF started to become aware that the Palestinian population should be treated differently and did not consist entirely of "troublemakers," we have now returned to the old and bad conceptions - that a good Palestinian is one who is humiliated, harassed and ground into the dirt.
2. Almost Killed at Atara military check point
Ghassan Andoni
Sunday August 4th, myself and four friends of mine started our trip from Bethlehem to Birzeit University. Being away from the university for two weeks, I decided to come to the university, stay in Birzeit for ten days, finish the final exams, and go on a vacation until October 1st.
As our driver was experienced in driving the way forth and back, he knew how to go around road blocks, drive in the fields, and find alternative roads anytime we reached a deadlock. In general, and as this was not my first time, the road did not look strange to me.
In about 40 minutes, we arrived at the first (must go through) military checkpoint. We were delayed for 40 minutes and then ordered to drive through without being checked. As the two
teenage soldiers handling the checkpoint were in the midst of a conversation about the girl friend of one of them, we had to wait until they were finished. Knowing Hebrew is definitely an advantage. Honestly, I can not deny that I enjoyed at least
parts of their conversation.
After driving for 2 hours through, roads, fields, and small villages, we arrived at Attara bridge, a bottleneck without passing through you can not arrive at Birzeit. As the main road leading to the bridge was totally destroyed by army bulldozers, we had to drive through the fields, climb a steep hill to arrive at the other end of the bridge.
Driving up the hill, and as we approached the top, we saw a huge pile of dirt almost blocking the road. Suddenly the car in front of us started a U-turn back, and our driver started doing the same. Our conclusion was that we need to hit the road back to Bethlehem.
Suddenly, we found our selves surrounded by five soldiers pointing their guns at us and getting ready to fire. I can not explain to you how terrified we were. During those little moments, in which we expected to be shot at, I thought of all the people that I love and care for, and how sad they will be if I am shot dead.
An army officer approached us shouting, cursing in Hebrew, and moving his gun in a way that made us feel that this is the end. With the soldiers pointing the guns to our heads we were ordered to park aside and step out of the car.
The officer came close to me, pointed his gun at my head and said: As you have been trying to flee away from an army checkpoint, I have the full right to kill you all and no one will give a damn. Pulling all the strength I could I replied, in an assuring tone, that as we saw a huge pile of dirt and as the car ahead of us was turning back, we assumed that the road is blocked and were turning to go back.
The army officer looked in the eyes, brought his gun closer to my head and said: I do not give a fu... damn shit to the lies you are telling. And added: the only reason that I did not shoot you so far is to avoid two weeks of filling forms for the army inquiry. As well I do not want for my gun to get dirty, he added, for each bullet we shoot the army asks us to draw a mark on our gun, so if I shoot you my gun will look
ugly.
At this point I was not sure if he was trying to tell me that the army have the norms of investigating shootings or trying to tell me how much we are all worth for him. What worried me more than anything else is his hyperactive behavior and his continued attempts to provoke a reaction from our side.
I decided to keep communicating with him. So I said, is it really that you do not care about us being killed. Here I think I managed to communicate with the little human that is still inside him. He said: if you stand here for two or three hours
You will go nuts and start talking Japanese.
I said, hoping to still be able to communicate, but you are not the only one under pressure here, I am as well talking Japanese. He said: yeah.. yeah tell me a Japanese word and I said Yokohama. He sort of smiled but he managed to hide it.
I guess to step out of this position he turned into being sarcastic. He asked in a low and warm voice: to where are you going? I replied to Birzeit. He said, This little sweet town, but then started shouting: in fact it is not sweet it is a piece of shit, I will not give a fu.. damn if it is wiped out.
Then he asked in a low voice: where do you come from? I replied from Bethlehem. He said in the same low and warm voice: the sweet little town where the sweet baby was born, and before me saying yes, he shouted: in fact I do not give a shit to the town or to the baby.
He then went joking with our driver who smiled to him. suddenly the officer shouted at him: what are you laughing at? what the hell causes you to smile at a military check point?
All of this sarcasm was combined with nervous movements and regularly pointing the gun to the head of one of us. As he was getting more dragged into his sarcastic behavior, he became more threatening and dangerous.
At this point I pulled all of my strength and said: it does not help being sarcastic. He closed to me, pointed his gun to my head and said: yeah.. yeah.. I am the most sarcastic person you will ever meet in your short lifetime. Then he shouted: you need to tell me right now what is it that it does not help, just one thing. I said it does not help you feel better. At this point he halted for a while. I guess to get out of this position he acted more official and shouted: you need to bring all of your bags out and unload them so that I can see the bottom of each of them. So we did.
After saying some nasty comments at some items in the bag in the same sarcastic way, he ordered us back to the car and said you can pass through. We stepped back into the car. We were extremely worried that we might be shot at the minute we move the car. But what other choices did we have? We moved out physically safe but not emotionally.
By the way, we were never been asked about our IDs or checked if we were on the wanted list or not. Anyway, I am happy to be sitting in my office in Birzeit and will only worry about my trip back after nine days.
Saturday, July 20
MCC Palestine Update #54
MCC Palestine Update #54
July 20, 2002
Thirty minutes to cross the checkpoint dividing the north of the Gaza Strip (itself only 38 km long) from the south. Over one hour to cross the same checkpoint returning north. All in all, our group of MCC workers and visitors counted ourselves lucky that the wait was so "short"-- after all, we knew many others who have had to wait two, three, four, even more hours to pass through the checkpoint.
On our weekend visit to Rafah and Khan Younis to visit kindergartens and children's clubs supported by MCC, the Israeli settlement enterprise in the Gaza Strip seemed more entrenched than ever. A bridge had been constructed to connect the Gush Qatif block of settlements in the south of the Gaza Strip with the road leading out to Israel proper. Palestinians were still unable, however, to drive along the main north-south highway, thanks to pressure from settlers at the Kfar Darom settlement south of Deir el- Balah on the Israeli army to close that road. No more than 6000 Israeli settlers thus determine that 1.2 million Palestinians are unable to travel freely from the north to the south of this tiny piece of land.The restrictions on travel between the north and the south of the Strip mean the disruption of Palestinian higher education, of health care, and of the economy, and separates family members from each other.
Despite the frustrations of travel, our group was inspired by the dedicated work of the Culture and Free Thought Association in the Khan Younis refugee camp. CFTA staffers empower children and teenagers in their summer camps, working with the children and teens to design, implement and evaluate camp activities. This year, with MCC support, CFTA staff trained the staff of 16 other grassroots organizations in the south of the Gaza Strip in ways to design summer camps which strengthen and empower children.
Before heading back to Gaza city from Khan Younis, our group went out to the edge of Khan Younis to look at tens of apartment blocks demolished by Israeli military bulldozers during the past year, actions which left hundreds scrambling for makeshift dwellings elsewhere. Tomato plants were sprouting out of the rubble, the seeds having come from the tomatoes people had kept in their kitchens. Less than a quarter of a kilometer from us a small group of Palestinians living in the Mawasi region west of Khan Younis, an area completely surrounded by Israeli settlements and military outposts, waited to be allowed back to their homes by Israeli soldiers.
As we turned around to leave, thoroughly depressed by the destruction and the domination we'd seen, Majeda, a program coordinator for CFTA pointed into the sky and with a smile on her face said, "Look! Sunshine and a kite!" MCC is privileged to work Majeda and other inspiring individuals and organizations.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, by MCC worker Ed Nyce, explores the realities of burying one's dead while under curfew. The second piece, by Tania Nassir, gives a telling description of the chaotic scramble that reigns when the curfews are briefly lifted. The final piece, by Ishai Rosen Zvi, appeared in the Israeli paper Yediot Ahranot, provides a caustic commentary on attempts to put a "humane" face on occupation.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. What If He Had Died on Friday?
Ed Nyce
A sense of urgency attached itself to the solemn act of burial. Time was getting short. The weather was clear on this Tuesday in July. Rain would likely not come for another three or four months, much less on this afternoon. Daylight would be around for hours. The natural elements were not a problem. But people worked quickly under the hot sun to finish the digging of the grave. Three o'clock was not far away. Bethlehem and its environs, like most West Bank cities and villages, are under Israeli curfew. Some days, the Israelis lift the curfew for four or six hours. Other times, the curfew remains in place for 24, 48, 72 consecutive hours. From one day to the next, Palestinians wonder whether they will get to go to work if they still have jobs, to buy food if they still have money, to see friends other than the people who live in their immediate vicinity.
And what if somebody dies? Sometimes, when there is no curfew break, Israel grants permission for the body to be taken away. Other times, such permission is not forthcoming, and the whole house begins to smell of a decomposing body.
The elderly Muslim gentleman being buried on this July day died suddenly of natural causes at 10:30 in the morning. Custom dictates that the dead should be buried on the same day as their passing, as a sign of respect and dignity. That was one reason for the quick work this early afternoon. There was, of course, another reason: Who knew if the curfew would be lifted tomorrow? Meanwhile, the crowd of Palestinian Muslim and Christian mourners was smaller than it would have been under more normal conditions. Relatives from outlying villages reportedly guaged that the trip to the family's home, to the mosque, and then to the graveyard would take too much time, that they might still be returning home at the time the curfew break was ending. They may also have needed the entire time to obtain food for their families. Those who live closer may have feared, as sometimes happens, a sudden shortening of the previously announced curfew break, leaving them to try to make their ways home in danger.
As I watched the man's two adult sons at the burial, one a water company employee, the other a dentist, I thought of the standard emotions accompanying the loss of a loved one. What if I were in their shoes? What if, on top of those standard emotions, I had to deal with additional involuntary feelings toward some power which has occupied the land on which I live and tells me when I can be indoors and outdoors, even on such an occasion as this? What if I was getting married, and my wedding had to be held at 10:00 instead of the traditional 4:00 or 5:00, with the reception way too early in the afternoon, all on a moment's notice, upon learning of a curfew break?
Regarding freedom of religion, what if, were I a Palestinian Christian, my baptism or confirmation was postponed because none of us could go to church on the appointed Sunday? How would I explain to a questioner from afar that even though things are more "quiet" in Palestine and Israel during this or that period of time, humiliating and dehumanizing violence happens every day?
As for the rest of the week, Wednesday dawned with word that there was to be no curfew break that day, though suddenly there was a short one after all. A six-hour break was granted on Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, no breaks were forthcoming. If the man had died on Friday, in which room of the house would his family have chosen to store his body?
2. When the Curfew is Lifted
Tania Nasir, Birzeit
July 6, 2002.
Today I was a witness to a harrowing experience on the Birzeit- Ramallah road - an experience that buttressed my conviction of the immorality of the Israeli occupation and the inhumanity of its army.
After frustratingly waiting for days on end, I set off from my home in Birzeit heading towards Ramallah seven kilometers away. I planned to visit my ninety year old mother and my sister, something I did almost daily before the recent Israeli army incursions in the area. The ensuing state of blanket curfews on Ramallah have made it impossible for me to go and see them for the past few weeks.
Today the curfew was to be lifted from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. and this was an opportunity for me to visit them as usual. But it was not as simple as that! We are under siege and before heading for Ramallah I made sure to ask about the situation on the road. I was assured that it was safe. The soldiers manning the military check post, usually prohibiting or supervising passage, were gone. It was a signal that one could go without the hazards and intimidations, although cement blocks remained in place and as usual, preventing cars from passing.
The only way to get to Ramallah was to walk part of the way through the check post area - a distance of about one kilometer. I joined the walking crowd. There was close to what one might call a normal cross traffic flow on that hot summer morning from Birzeit to Ramallah and the other way round. Birzeit is almost a suburb of Ramallah, the big city, where most services are available and where one can resume contact with the energy of activities and encounters.
So it was with excitement yet cautious anxiety that most of us took to the road. We were happy at the chance of living once again, an ordinary day, taking a familiar route. After living the stagnation and prison-like conditions of the past few weeks, there was a sigh of relief on everyone's lips and a reluctant hope in the heart. Hurriedly we moved along, aware of precious time. The hours will pass quickly and the curfew will be back in no time. Apprehensively and with a light gait we set off to visit relatives and friends, keep appointments, shop at favorite stores or simply enjoy a casual walk downtown.
Likewise, there was the crowd from Ramallah, mostly students, faculty and staff of Birzeit University, heading for their campus in the town of Birzeit. Foremost on their minds was the need for the resumption of the much interrupted academic life, finishing the semester for some and graduation and celebration for others. Watching the young people, I felt the vibrant energy of youth, the determination to go on regardless of hardships, and of a life edging on despair. Their resilience is contagious.
We have a future to live for, I remind myself. I reached Ramallah almost forgetting the perils of our days. I visited my mother and enjoyed the reunion with her and my sister. My mother smiled doubtfully when I promised her a daily visit like before. She knows how difficult it is to keep such promises under the prevalent conditions. Sadly the time passed quickly and it was getting close to 1 p.m. The hours of freedom have almost come to an end. I had to hasten and leave before the curfew is re-imposed at 2 p.m.
Once more I found myself part of the milling crowd, returning with heavy hearts. The excitement of the morning hours was almost gone, the optimism reduced as we got closer to the check post area - a tangible reminder that we are under occupation and that our lives are monitored by the dictates of curfews and siege. We moved along burdened but at least relieved that the passage seemed smooth. How terribly mistaken we were!
Suddenly from around the bend an army jeep appeared, speeding crazily through the peaceful crowd. Instantly the quiet road became almost like a battlefield. There were intangible ferocious sounds coming from the chasing jeep - words and orders that no one seemed able to understand. All I knew was that we were being chased and dispersed and that there was panic and fear on the faces of all around me.
Hundreds like me running and scared and wondering what was happening; men carrying goods, women with shopping bags, their children confused, traumatized, clutching at their mothers skirts, others holding babies or trying to push prams, students with books, old people pleading for someone to guide them along. All were desperately trying to avoid confrontation with this solitary army jeep, zigzagging its way in all directions, seeking innocent victims like a demented ogre on the loose. We ran. Some took to the nearby rocky terraced hills, others took refuge in the vineyards and fruit orchards below and some like me opted to remain on the main road. All the time, gas bombs hurled from the jeep were chasing us like vultures hunting their prey.
The tender loving landscape was transformed to the ugliness of fear and rage. Heart beating, muscles aching, I ran for dear life. Why this all of a sudden? We had left our homes this morning without the presence of a manned check post, and now we are faced with the threatening presence of soldiers. Was this perhaps a trick for the army to remove check posts and then whimsically reinstall them and thus trap us like now creating this horrific pandemonium?
May be far-fetched, but reminiscent thoughts of the horrors of the Kufr Qassem massacre, years ago, came to my mind. I could not help but painfully remember the bloody events of that day when farmers of this northern Palestinian village were returning home after a long day in the fields, not knowing that a curfew was imposed on their village by the Israeli army. Without any warning they were shot in cold blood as they approached their homes in the evening.
Could something like this happen again? Scared more than ever before, I keep on running. The road is uphill. I struggled amongst the scrambling crowd, the unbearable heat suffocating me. The contemptible military jeep, that kaki green object of terror and intimidation, screeched to a halt next to me. I see a soldier jumping down, nervously, threateningly waving a grenade in his hand. I wanted to scream at him, but fear got the better of me and I continued running. A young woman pulled me ahead, warning me that the soldier is about to throw the grenade. I ducked as I heard the explosion behind me and I choked on the poisonous gas. I am coughing and running, coughing and running I desperately needed water, my throat was on fire and dry as sun-scorched earth but I kept on running, fleeing, until after what seemed like an eternity, I stumbled into the safety of a passing car that took me home.
Behind me the madness continued. I am over whelmed by this experience and I desperately seek an explanation. More than the physical pain and terror that I have experienced, I am angry and humiliated by the arrogance, the immorality, the inhumanity of the insolent power of Israel. This traumatic incident that I was a part of, happens almost everyday, everywhere in Palestine.
The injustice is unbearable. I try to recapture what really happened today. There was no provocation. There was no threat. There was no danger to the security of Israel. To me, the only explanation to what happened was that we, simple and ordinary civilians, dared to go on with our lives as ordinary human beings do everywhere else in the world.
Yes, despite thirty five years of occupation and despite attempts by Israel to crush us as a people and as a society, our only crime was that we dared to be ordinary citizens, living ordinary lives in our ordinary land. Sadly, knowingly, I remember the poignant words of our renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, "...we do not seek to be victims nor do we seek to be heroes. All that we want is to be ORDINARY."
3. The Enlightened Conqueror
Ishai Rosen Zvi
Yediot Ahronot, July 6, 2002
Last Saturday we were shown the human face of the Israeli Occupation ("From the Diary of a Humanitarian Officer," Yediot Ahronot, 2002-06-28). The face was that of A.S., "a Jerusalem leftist" as the article put it, "a humanitarian officer" at the Kalandia checkpoint. A.S. is responsible for the fair and courteous treatment of everyone who passes through the checkpoint. The checkpoint is not so bad, A.S. tells us; it's somewhat like lining up at U.S. Customs or at the Social Security Office. Altogether, it never takes more than three minutes for women and eight for men. He has timed it. At the Paris airport it takes much longer. In fact, there is no queue at the checkpoint. Our sensitive officer forgot to mention one detail: the reason there is no queue is that the checkpoint is only for the population of three small towns within the limits of Jerusalem.
Most of the residents of the (occupied) territories are under total curfew; no one comes and no one goes. For weeks, people have not been able to leave their homes; for months, they have been confined to their towns and cities under terrifying closures.
This is a situation we have tried in vain to impress upon the coarse heart of the self-justifying, self- satisfied Israeli. Fifty percent unemployment, a million people earning less than two dollars a day, living amid sewage; we have run out of adjectives to describe conditions in the (occupied) territories.
The Palestinians no doubt long for the days when there were lengthy lines at the Kalandia checkpoint with humiliating checks that meant hours standing under the burning sun in order to get to work, to school, to visit relatives. Because then there was still a way, slow and oppressive as it was, to move.
Today this is all a distant dream. But why complain? After all, A.S., the enlightened occupier, a leftist by birth and by conviction, does say good morning to the inhabitants of the few Jerusalem villages who pass through the Kalandia checkpoint and he even speaks Arabic. He brings them Paradise itself. There is such obtuseness in the story of A.S.!
He says he knew about checkpoints only from Gideon Levy's horror stories in Haaretz, and now it turns out that it's not like that at all. Well, he's right. These are not Gideon Levy's horror stories, this is the real story of the Israeli occupation and it is much more horrific.
It is a story of such vast obtuseness that you can no longer see the devastated world of a million people who have been living without any rights for an entire generation, and whose plight has worsened immeasurably in the last year and a half. Such obtuseness does not ask why people have to live surrounded by prison walls, under military rule, but is satisfied instead to note a bit of courtesy in the way the prison guard addresses an 80-year- old prisoner.
This is the story of a man who oppresses millions of people and steals their world by force of arms, and then goes home and tells himself about his own morality and the courtesy in his soul. Look what an enlightened occupier I am! The story of the Israeli occupation is not that of the sadistic soldier. There are those too, and many of them.
But the real story is the story of people like A.S., the courteous leftist, who doesn't beat or curse but just stands at the checkpoint, at the entrance to towns, at the exit from villages, and imposes total closure. And thus, gently and politely, he deprives others of their freedom.
Why do they hate us, he wonders, after all I am so nice. They hate us, A.S., because you are their jailer and it doesn't matter how many Arabic words you practise. And there is so much racism in this story! Like the occupation itself, it is entirely invisible, unseen. The checkpoint is in "an odd place," the innocent A.S. tells us: inside Jerusalem (East Jerusalem -- trans.), with a few Palestinian villages on the other side.
How strange. After all, we are talking about regular residents of Israel, "citizens with equal rights." Why are they on the other side of the checkpoint? Probably a matter of "field requirements," as he puts it. Must residents of Ramot or Gilo also pass through the checkpoint, because of "field requirements"? Will they have to wait at every exit from their homes for humiliating checks? But why disturb the reader with trifles? After all, when it comes down to it, we're dealing with Arabs. No, A.S., you are not preventing terror attacks, you are creating them.
The oppression, frustration, destruction and killing which you inflict (while trying to paint it in a positive light) - this is the fuel that stokes the attacks day by day. The question is not whether there are a few madmen who will consent to commit suicide in the future. It seems there will always be those.
The question is why support for suicide attacks has climbed to 80% among inhabitants of the territories in the past year. This is not preordained by fate, this is not metaphysics: we are forging this with our own hands. Israeli policies in the territories today are planting the seeds of terrorism in the future. Only total blindness prevents us from seeing this. Operation Determined Path will be no more successful in stopping the attacks than was Operation Defensive Shield (or than the next, probably even more grandiose and sophisticated operation will be).
How much more spilling of blood will our blindness cause? If only the story were just an innocent tale about the obtuseness of one Israeli officer with a compassionate heart. But we are not innocent. The voice is the voice of A.S., but the hands are the hands of the IDF spokesman. (see Genesis 27:22 -- trans.) A.S., whether willingly or not, is a plaything in the hands of the vulgar propaganda of the powers that be.
Operation "Humanitarian Officer" is nothing but more media spin, designed like its predecessors to cover up atrocities and neutralize criticism. To go with but feel without. And in fact the task isn't hard. The media are happy to collaborate, as are the readers. Who has energy for all those nudniks who remind us that in 2002 Israel is still keeping in its backyard millions of people living like dogs, without rights.
Let us sleep in peace. Stories of the enlightened occupier, which were always false, become laughable at this time, when all the territories have been reconquered and men, women and children remain under total curfew for weeks. Now, when the occupation is in one of its cruellest periods, a story like this turns from empty self-justification to real farce.
At a time when we are hiding our faces, one must shout out in a loud voice: a checkpoint is not a matter of polite and decent behaviour. The question is not who says good morning to whom but who holds the rifle. The entire world of the Palestinians is in the hands of A.S., the enlightened despot: their time, liberty, freedom of movement, their livelihood, and at times their lives. And he, from the heights of his majesty, brightens their lives.
If I were a Palestinian, I would spit in the enlightened face of A.S., the courteous checker, the epitome of the Israeli occupation.
translated by Edeet Ravel
July 20, 2002
Thirty minutes to cross the checkpoint dividing the north of the Gaza Strip (itself only 38 km long) from the south. Over one hour to cross the same checkpoint returning north. All in all, our group of MCC workers and visitors counted ourselves lucky that the wait was so "short"-- after all, we knew many others who have had to wait two, three, four, even more hours to pass through the checkpoint.
On our weekend visit to Rafah and Khan Younis to visit kindergartens and children's clubs supported by MCC, the Israeli settlement enterprise in the Gaza Strip seemed more entrenched than ever. A bridge had been constructed to connect the Gush Qatif block of settlements in the south of the Gaza Strip with the road leading out to Israel proper. Palestinians were still unable, however, to drive along the main north-south highway, thanks to pressure from settlers at the Kfar Darom settlement south of Deir el- Balah on the Israeli army to close that road. No more than 6000 Israeli settlers thus determine that 1.2 million Palestinians are unable to travel freely from the north to the south of this tiny piece of land.The restrictions on travel between the north and the south of the Strip mean the disruption of Palestinian higher education, of health care, and of the economy, and separates family members from each other.
Despite the frustrations of travel, our group was inspired by the dedicated work of the Culture and Free Thought Association in the Khan Younis refugee camp. CFTA staffers empower children and teenagers in their summer camps, working with the children and teens to design, implement and evaluate camp activities. This year, with MCC support, CFTA staff trained the staff of 16 other grassroots organizations in the south of the Gaza Strip in ways to design summer camps which strengthen and empower children.
Before heading back to Gaza city from Khan Younis, our group went out to the edge of Khan Younis to look at tens of apartment blocks demolished by Israeli military bulldozers during the past year, actions which left hundreds scrambling for makeshift dwellings elsewhere. Tomato plants were sprouting out of the rubble, the seeds having come from the tomatoes people had kept in their kitchens. Less than a quarter of a kilometer from us a small group of Palestinians living in the Mawasi region west of Khan Younis, an area completely surrounded by Israeli settlements and military outposts, waited to be allowed back to their homes by Israeli soldiers.
As we turned around to leave, thoroughly depressed by the destruction and the domination we'd seen, Majeda, a program coordinator for CFTA pointed into the sky and with a smile on her face said, "Look! Sunshine and a kite!" MCC is privileged to work Majeda and other inspiring individuals and organizations.
Below you will find three pieces. The first, by MCC worker Ed Nyce, explores the realities of burying one's dead while under curfew. The second piece, by Tania Nassir, gives a telling description of the chaotic scramble that reigns when the curfews are briefly lifted. The final piece, by Ishai Rosen Zvi, appeared in the Israeli paper Yediot Ahranot, provides a caustic commentary on attempts to put a "humane" face on occupation.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. What If He Had Died on Friday?
Ed Nyce
A sense of urgency attached itself to the solemn act of burial. Time was getting short. The weather was clear on this Tuesday in July. Rain would likely not come for another three or four months, much less on this afternoon. Daylight would be around for hours. The natural elements were not a problem. But people worked quickly under the hot sun to finish the digging of the grave. Three o'clock was not far away. Bethlehem and its environs, like most West Bank cities and villages, are under Israeli curfew. Some days, the Israelis lift the curfew for four or six hours. Other times, the curfew remains in place for 24, 48, 72 consecutive hours. From one day to the next, Palestinians wonder whether they will get to go to work if they still have jobs, to buy food if they still have money, to see friends other than the people who live in their immediate vicinity.
And what if somebody dies? Sometimes, when there is no curfew break, Israel grants permission for the body to be taken away. Other times, such permission is not forthcoming, and the whole house begins to smell of a decomposing body.
The elderly Muslim gentleman being buried on this July day died suddenly of natural causes at 10:30 in the morning. Custom dictates that the dead should be buried on the same day as their passing, as a sign of respect and dignity. That was one reason for the quick work this early afternoon. There was, of course, another reason: Who knew if the curfew would be lifted tomorrow? Meanwhile, the crowd of Palestinian Muslim and Christian mourners was smaller than it would have been under more normal conditions. Relatives from outlying villages reportedly guaged that the trip to the family's home, to the mosque, and then to the graveyard would take too much time, that they might still be returning home at the time the curfew break was ending. They may also have needed the entire time to obtain food for their families. Those who live closer may have feared, as sometimes happens, a sudden shortening of the previously announced curfew break, leaving them to try to make their ways home in danger.
As I watched the man's two adult sons at the burial, one a water company employee, the other a dentist, I thought of the standard emotions accompanying the loss of a loved one. What if I were in their shoes? What if, on top of those standard emotions, I had to deal with additional involuntary feelings toward some power which has occupied the land on which I live and tells me when I can be indoors and outdoors, even on such an occasion as this? What if I was getting married, and my wedding had to be held at 10:00 instead of the traditional 4:00 or 5:00, with the reception way too early in the afternoon, all on a moment's notice, upon learning of a curfew break?
Regarding freedom of religion, what if, were I a Palestinian Christian, my baptism or confirmation was postponed because none of us could go to church on the appointed Sunday? How would I explain to a questioner from afar that even though things are more "quiet" in Palestine and Israel during this or that period of time, humiliating and dehumanizing violence happens every day?
As for the rest of the week, Wednesday dawned with word that there was to be no curfew break that day, though suddenly there was a short one after all. A six-hour break was granted on Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, no breaks were forthcoming. If the man had died on Friday, in which room of the house would his family have chosen to store his body?
2. When the Curfew is Lifted
Tania Nasir, Birzeit
July 6, 2002.
Today I was a witness to a harrowing experience on the Birzeit- Ramallah road - an experience that buttressed my conviction of the immorality of the Israeli occupation and the inhumanity of its army.
After frustratingly waiting for days on end, I set off from my home in Birzeit heading towards Ramallah seven kilometers away. I planned to visit my ninety year old mother and my sister, something I did almost daily before the recent Israeli army incursions in the area. The ensuing state of blanket curfews on Ramallah have made it impossible for me to go and see them for the past few weeks.
Today the curfew was to be lifted from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. and this was an opportunity for me to visit them as usual. But it was not as simple as that! We are under siege and before heading for Ramallah I made sure to ask about the situation on the road. I was assured that it was safe. The soldiers manning the military check post, usually prohibiting or supervising passage, were gone. It was a signal that one could go without the hazards and intimidations, although cement blocks remained in place and as usual, preventing cars from passing.
The only way to get to Ramallah was to walk part of the way through the check post area - a distance of about one kilometer. I joined the walking crowd. There was close to what one might call a normal cross traffic flow on that hot summer morning from Birzeit to Ramallah and the other way round. Birzeit is almost a suburb of Ramallah, the big city, where most services are available and where one can resume contact with the energy of activities and encounters.
So it was with excitement yet cautious anxiety that most of us took to the road. We were happy at the chance of living once again, an ordinary day, taking a familiar route. After living the stagnation and prison-like conditions of the past few weeks, there was a sigh of relief on everyone's lips and a reluctant hope in the heart. Hurriedly we moved along, aware of precious time. The hours will pass quickly and the curfew will be back in no time. Apprehensively and with a light gait we set off to visit relatives and friends, keep appointments, shop at favorite stores or simply enjoy a casual walk downtown.
Likewise, there was the crowd from Ramallah, mostly students, faculty and staff of Birzeit University, heading for their campus in the town of Birzeit. Foremost on their minds was the need for the resumption of the much interrupted academic life, finishing the semester for some and graduation and celebration for others. Watching the young people, I felt the vibrant energy of youth, the determination to go on regardless of hardships, and of a life edging on despair. Their resilience is contagious.
We have a future to live for, I remind myself. I reached Ramallah almost forgetting the perils of our days. I visited my mother and enjoyed the reunion with her and my sister. My mother smiled doubtfully when I promised her a daily visit like before. She knows how difficult it is to keep such promises under the prevalent conditions. Sadly the time passed quickly and it was getting close to 1 p.m. The hours of freedom have almost come to an end. I had to hasten and leave before the curfew is re-imposed at 2 p.m.
Once more I found myself part of the milling crowd, returning with heavy hearts. The excitement of the morning hours was almost gone, the optimism reduced as we got closer to the check post area - a tangible reminder that we are under occupation and that our lives are monitored by the dictates of curfews and siege. We moved along burdened but at least relieved that the passage seemed smooth. How terribly mistaken we were!
Suddenly from around the bend an army jeep appeared, speeding crazily through the peaceful crowd. Instantly the quiet road became almost like a battlefield. There were intangible ferocious sounds coming from the chasing jeep - words and orders that no one seemed able to understand. All I knew was that we were being chased and dispersed and that there was panic and fear on the faces of all around me.
Hundreds like me running and scared and wondering what was happening; men carrying goods, women with shopping bags, their children confused, traumatized, clutching at their mothers skirts, others holding babies or trying to push prams, students with books, old people pleading for someone to guide them along. All were desperately trying to avoid confrontation with this solitary army jeep, zigzagging its way in all directions, seeking innocent victims like a demented ogre on the loose. We ran. Some took to the nearby rocky terraced hills, others took refuge in the vineyards and fruit orchards below and some like me opted to remain on the main road. All the time, gas bombs hurled from the jeep were chasing us like vultures hunting their prey.
The tender loving landscape was transformed to the ugliness of fear and rage. Heart beating, muscles aching, I ran for dear life. Why this all of a sudden? We had left our homes this morning without the presence of a manned check post, and now we are faced with the threatening presence of soldiers. Was this perhaps a trick for the army to remove check posts and then whimsically reinstall them and thus trap us like now creating this horrific pandemonium?
May be far-fetched, but reminiscent thoughts of the horrors of the Kufr Qassem massacre, years ago, came to my mind. I could not help but painfully remember the bloody events of that day when farmers of this northern Palestinian village were returning home after a long day in the fields, not knowing that a curfew was imposed on their village by the Israeli army. Without any warning they were shot in cold blood as they approached their homes in the evening.
Could something like this happen again? Scared more than ever before, I keep on running. The road is uphill. I struggled amongst the scrambling crowd, the unbearable heat suffocating me. The contemptible military jeep, that kaki green object of terror and intimidation, screeched to a halt next to me. I see a soldier jumping down, nervously, threateningly waving a grenade in his hand. I wanted to scream at him, but fear got the better of me and I continued running. A young woman pulled me ahead, warning me that the soldier is about to throw the grenade. I ducked as I heard the explosion behind me and I choked on the poisonous gas. I am coughing and running, coughing and running I desperately needed water, my throat was on fire and dry as sun-scorched earth but I kept on running, fleeing, until after what seemed like an eternity, I stumbled into the safety of a passing car that took me home.
Behind me the madness continued. I am over whelmed by this experience and I desperately seek an explanation. More than the physical pain and terror that I have experienced, I am angry and humiliated by the arrogance, the immorality, the inhumanity of the insolent power of Israel. This traumatic incident that I was a part of, happens almost everyday, everywhere in Palestine.
The injustice is unbearable. I try to recapture what really happened today. There was no provocation. There was no threat. There was no danger to the security of Israel. To me, the only explanation to what happened was that we, simple and ordinary civilians, dared to go on with our lives as ordinary human beings do everywhere else in the world.
Yes, despite thirty five years of occupation and despite attempts by Israel to crush us as a people and as a society, our only crime was that we dared to be ordinary citizens, living ordinary lives in our ordinary land. Sadly, knowingly, I remember the poignant words of our renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, "...we do not seek to be victims nor do we seek to be heroes. All that we want is to be ORDINARY."
3. The Enlightened Conqueror
Ishai Rosen Zvi
Yediot Ahronot, July 6, 2002
Last Saturday we were shown the human face of the Israeli Occupation ("From the Diary of a Humanitarian Officer," Yediot Ahronot, 2002-06-28). The face was that of A.S., "a Jerusalem leftist" as the article put it, "a humanitarian officer" at the Kalandia checkpoint. A.S. is responsible for the fair and courteous treatment of everyone who passes through the checkpoint. The checkpoint is not so bad, A.S. tells us; it's somewhat like lining up at U.S. Customs or at the Social Security Office. Altogether, it never takes more than three minutes for women and eight for men. He has timed it. At the Paris airport it takes much longer. In fact, there is no queue at the checkpoint. Our sensitive officer forgot to mention one detail: the reason there is no queue is that the checkpoint is only for the population of three small towns within the limits of Jerusalem.
Most of the residents of the (occupied) territories are under total curfew; no one comes and no one goes. For weeks, people have not been able to leave their homes; for months, they have been confined to their towns and cities under terrifying closures.
This is a situation we have tried in vain to impress upon the coarse heart of the self-justifying, self- satisfied Israeli. Fifty percent unemployment, a million people earning less than two dollars a day, living amid sewage; we have run out of adjectives to describe conditions in the (occupied) territories.
The Palestinians no doubt long for the days when there were lengthy lines at the Kalandia checkpoint with humiliating checks that meant hours standing under the burning sun in order to get to work, to school, to visit relatives. Because then there was still a way, slow and oppressive as it was, to move.
Today this is all a distant dream. But why complain? After all, A.S., the enlightened occupier, a leftist by birth and by conviction, does say good morning to the inhabitants of the few Jerusalem villages who pass through the Kalandia checkpoint and he even speaks Arabic. He brings them Paradise itself. There is such obtuseness in the story of A.S.!
He says he knew about checkpoints only from Gideon Levy's horror stories in Haaretz, and now it turns out that it's not like that at all. Well, he's right. These are not Gideon Levy's horror stories, this is the real story of the Israeli occupation and it is much more horrific.
It is a story of such vast obtuseness that you can no longer see the devastated world of a million people who have been living without any rights for an entire generation, and whose plight has worsened immeasurably in the last year and a half. Such obtuseness does not ask why people have to live surrounded by prison walls, under military rule, but is satisfied instead to note a bit of courtesy in the way the prison guard addresses an 80-year- old prisoner.
This is the story of a man who oppresses millions of people and steals their world by force of arms, and then goes home and tells himself about his own morality and the courtesy in his soul. Look what an enlightened occupier I am! The story of the Israeli occupation is not that of the sadistic soldier. There are those too, and many of them.
But the real story is the story of people like A.S., the courteous leftist, who doesn't beat or curse but just stands at the checkpoint, at the entrance to towns, at the exit from villages, and imposes total closure. And thus, gently and politely, he deprives others of their freedom.
Why do they hate us, he wonders, after all I am so nice. They hate us, A.S., because you are their jailer and it doesn't matter how many Arabic words you practise. And there is so much racism in this story! Like the occupation itself, it is entirely invisible, unseen. The checkpoint is in "an odd place," the innocent A.S. tells us: inside Jerusalem (East Jerusalem -- trans.), with a few Palestinian villages on the other side.
How strange. After all, we are talking about regular residents of Israel, "citizens with equal rights." Why are they on the other side of the checkpoint? Probably a matter of "field requirements," as he puts it. Must residents of Ramot or Gilo also pass through the checkpoint, because of "field requirements"? Will they have to wait at every exit from their homes for humiliating checks? But why disturb the reader with trifles? After all, when it comes down to it, we're dealing with Arabs. No, A.S., you are not preventing terror attacks, you are creating them.
The oppression, frustration, destruction and killing which you inflict (while trying to paint it in a positive light) - this is the fuel that stokes the attacks day by day. The question is not whether there are a few madmen who will consent to commit suicide in the future. It seems there will always be those.
The question is why support for suicide attacks has climbed to 80% among inhabitants of the territories in the past year. This is not preordained by fate, this is not metaphysics: we are forging this with our own hands. Israeli policies in the territories today are planting the seeds of terrorism in the future. Only total blindness prevents us from seeing this. Operation Determined Path will be no more successful in stopping the attacks than was Operation Defensive Shield (or than the next, probably even more grandiose and sophisticated operation will be).
How much more spilling of blood will our blindness cause? If only the story were just an innocent tale about the obtuseness of one Israeli officer with a compassionate heart. But we are not innocent. The voice is the voice of A.S., but the hands are the hands of the IDF spokesman. (see Genesis 27:22 -- trans.) A.S., whether willingly or not, is a plaything in the hands of the vulgar propaganda of the powers that be.
Operation "Humanitarian Officer" is nothing but more media spin, designed like its predecessors to cover up atrocities and neutralize criticism. To go with but feel without. And in fact the task isn't hard. The media are happy to collaborate, as are the readers. Who has energy for all those nudniks who remind us that in 2002 Israel is still keeping in its backyard millions of people living like dogs, without rights.
Let us sleep in peace. Stories of the enlightened occupier, which were always false, become laughable at this time, when all the territories have been reconquered and men, women and children remain under total curfew for weeks. Now, when the occupation is in one of its cruellest periods, a story like this turns from empty self-justification to real farce.
At a time when we are hiding our faces, one must shout out in a loud voice: a checkpoint is not a matter of polite and decent behaviour. The question is not who says good morning to whom but who holds the rifle. The entire world of the Palestinians is in the hands of A.S., the enlightened despot: their time, liberty, freedom of movement, their livelihood, and at times their lives. And he, from the heights of his majesty, brightens their lives.
If I were a Palestinian, I would spit in the enlightened face of A.S., the courteous checker, the epitome of the Israeli occupation.
translated by Edeet Ravel
Friday, July 5
MCC Palestine Update #53
MCC Palestine Update #53
July 5, 2002
“Our hopes are in our children,” says Naimeh Abu Freyah, director of al-Najda Children’s Club in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. “They’re growing up in a climate of war and violence, but we need to provide them a space where they can run, play, and show their initiative.”
Children fourteen and under make up nearly half of the population in the Gaza Strip. Those children growing up in camps like Jabalia experience overcrowding (Jabalia has one of the highest population densities in the world), poverty (unemployment is at 60%), and refugee status, their families denied the right to return to their ancestral lands in what is now Israel. Sadly, violence and fear also are integral parts of their lives as the Israeli military routinely bombs and raids parts of Gaza in its campaign against the Palestinian uprising against military occupation.
Al-Najda Children’s Club provides a year-round venue for over 100 children, ages eight to fourteen, to play, learn, and discover their creative talents. Children pay a nominal fee to become members of the club, where they can come when school is not in session. Because most Gaza schools operate two, or even three, shifts, to accommodate the large number of students in limited classroom space, the children’s club runs morning and afternoon shifts.
During July and August 2002, four teachers and seven volunteers at the children’s club are receiving comprehensive training, sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), in teaching art, music, reading, computer skills, and physical education. Most of these trainees have already completed various levels of post-high school education: the training courses build on their existing skills and experience.
“What’s exciting for us about this training program is that it’s strengthening the capacity of the children’s club as a whole, helping its teachers better respond to children’s needs in their work,” shares Alain Epp Weaver, MCC Palestine country representative. “This is MCC strives for—to be able to assist Palestinian organizations to build up their capacity to respond to local needs.”
The training is hands-on, as the eleven trainees work with the educators while the club is in session. A walk through the club sees trainers, trainees, and scores of children intensely focused on painting, various crafts, signing, gymnastics, computer lessons, and singing. Shouting to visiting MCC workers over the loud singing of a group of children in the club’s courtyard, Rifka al-Hamalawi, supervisor of all of al-Najda’s women’s and children’s programs in the Gaza Strip, exclaims: “That! That’s the sound we want—happy, active children.”
--compiled by MCC Palestine staff, July 2002
Below you will find three pieces. In the first, lay Palestinian church leaders respond to President Bush's speech on the Middle East. Secondly Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy then writes about the fate of one million people living under curfew. Thirdly Amira Hass, finally, provides an incisive analysis of the changes in the Israeli means of controlling the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during 35 years of occupation.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Update and Appeal on the Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in Light of President Bush Speech
Palestinian Church Related Organizations Jerusalem
June 28, 2002
With the reoccupation of Hebron on the morning of June 25th, practically all towns and cities in the Palestinian Territories, with the exception of Jericho, have come under direct Israeli army occupation. Well over two million inhabitants live under Israeli army imposed curfew for most of the time. In some localities, the Israeli army allows the inhabitants a couple of hours every two to three days in order to stock up on food and other basic commodities. Reports from all parts of the West Bank and Gaza indicate increased and abject poverty among the population and one friend who visited Nablus recently told us that he had never seen such poverty among the population and that what he saw reminded him of the spoken of poverty-stricken Nablus of decades ago. Another friend informed us that in Bethlehem there are families who practically beg for a loaf of bread for their children. But aside from wanting to meet the basic necessities that would ensure survival, the Palestinian population is held hostage by the Israeli government, as this latter wants to barter the end of suicide bombings with withdrawal from Palestinian towns and cities.
President Bush in his speech of June 24th 2002 put the entire burden on the Palestinian side in order to get out of the present impasse. By so doing, he absolved the Sharon-led Israeli government from its responsibilities of presenting a political program that would spell out or at least indicate its plans to end occupation not simply that which started in September 2000 but the original occupation of June 1967. While all of us would like to see an end to suicide bombings, achieving this could not be simply a one-sided affair, as it needs to be paralleled by Israeli expressed willingness to end occupation and live as good neighbors, and not as hegemonic occupiers and oppressors, to Palestinians. An agreed upon political framework is of paramount importance as a basis that would commit the two sides in an equitable manner as they progress towards eventual resolution of the present deadlock.
Granted, we Palestinians are in dire need of genuine reform. But such reform cannot be undertaken under the barrels of Israeli guns and tanks. The impromptu discussions that Palestinians engage in on side streets and in sitting rooms all indicate an overwhelming consensus that things need to change, not to please Mr. Bush or anybody else, but in order to spell out our own vision for our society and its future. Unfortunately, this is something we have not done since the Oslo accords and we should have. Hence a grave responsibility lies on all of us as we examine the prospects for reconstruction and rehabilitation in all areas of government and society. But as important we need to decide ourselves on our own program and political agenda whether as they relate to issues and concerns internal to Palestinian society or whether as they deal with the thorny relationships with the Israelis.
The Israelis cannot escape their responsibilities either. The absence of a clear political program by the Israeli government is tantamount to saying that military occupation would continue. The Israeli policy of destroying the Palestinian governmental and civil society infrastructure is accompanied by continued settlement activity on Palestinian lands. The Israeli government claims that it is fighting potential suicide bombers when it places hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Palestinians all over the West Bank and Gaza under house arrest for days on end. Even relief and emergency efforts are hindered by the Israeli military from reaching the besieged population, despite claims by the Israeli government that it facilitates and does not obstruct such efforts. The trigger- happy Israeli soldiers often demolish personal and public property, cause injury and death and prohibit ordinary people as well as the sick and elderly from crossing from one locality to another within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By blaming the National Authority for all the ills of the current situation, the Israeli government lifts off the responsibility that lies squarely on the shoulders of its Prime Minister and other Ministers for the human rights infractions that are committed on a daily and continuous basis against innocent Palestinian civilians by the Israeli occupying army. President Bush putting the entire burden on the Palestinians to find a way out of the present deadlock mirrors the Israeli blame of the Palestinian Authority and Palestinians, in general.
Given the current situation and in light of President Bush speech, we the undersigned call on our partners and friends worldwide to: Address your governments and various constituencies on the need for the Israeli government to come up with a clear plan that specifies its intention to vacate the occupied territories not simply those occupied since September 2000 but also those occupied since June 1967. Ask your governments, particularly the EU governments, to adopt one stand that would insist on the need to have an Israeli commitment to ending the occupation, and to an immediate pullout from the occupied Palestinian cities and towns, as part of the process and deliberations that would lead to the creation of a democratic and pluralistic Palestinian state, in accordance with all UN relevant resolutions. Stress on the Israeli government and/or its representatives abroad that the infractions that its army is carrying out in the occupied Palestinian territories and at the military checkpoints throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip go contrary to basic human rights as reflected in international declarations and conventions. The Palestinian people, in light of these continuous infractions, are in need of an international force of protection. Ask the Israeli government and its representatives abroad to honor its own claims that it does not hinder relief and emergency efforts by local and international aid organizations to the besieged and curfewed Palestinian population. Note that Israel's actual behavior on the ground on this matter is contrary to the Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response and the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief based on International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention to which a majority of countries were signatories, including Israel.Emphasize to the Israeli government and its representatives abroad that continued curfews and closures imposed on the Palestinian population not only affect adversely the economic and social welfare of the population but also contribute to psychological and pedagogical damage that would obstruct tremendously the prospects for eventual peace making between Palestinians and Israelis. Address your governments and the various media on the need for the American Administration to adopt a balanced and even-handed policy towards the two parties in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and especially to emphasize that its present policy is causing extreme human suffering to the whole Palestinian people, and is engendering ever-lasting hatred between East and West. Indicate to them your willingness to support them as they contemplate the important questions pertaining to their society and the challenges of transformations they are likely to experience in the coming couple of years. Continue your support to your Palestinian partners as they strive to serve their people amidst most difficult circumstances. Join hands with all those willing to work for an immediate end of Israeli occupation.
Only then can an environment conducive to the eventual resumption of negotiations between the two sides be created. We aspire for your prayers, good thoughts and action, as our country appears destined to continue experiencing the vicious cycle of occupation and counter occupation. One inspiring thought to those who not only do not see the light at the end of the tunnel but also do not see the tunnel itself in our present tragic situation: there is always light to those who care to see it and work to make it shine on the lives of the oppressed, occupied, besieged and all those who suffer because of the injustice of our situation. May all our
efforts add up to end injustice!
* Judge Khalil Aboud International Christian Committee in Israel Nazareth
* Mr. Constantine Dabbagh Near East Council of Churches Committee Gaza
* Mr. Rifat Kassis YMCA Beit Sahour
* Dr. Bernard Sabella Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches Jerusalem
* Mr. Ramzi Zananiri International Christian Committee Jerusalem West Bank
* Commission Justice and Peace Jerusalem
* Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center Jerusalem
2. A million people under curfew
Gideon Levy
Few if any Israelis can understand what it means to be under full curfew for 10 days, incarcerated with the children in a crowded house, usually without an air conditioner or a computer or games to play, maybe a barely functioning television set. But the worst thing is the unnerving density of the close quarters.
Even Israeli parents - who as of today have to figure out how to get through their children's endless summer vacation and are worried about having to keep them cooped up at home for fear of terrorist attacks - are also incapable of grasping how intolerable it is for the Palestinians to be imprisoned for days and weeks at a time with the children in their meagerly furnished homes, while threatening tanks continually rumble by and every sortie outside is liable to end in disaster.
Very few Israelis have experienced curfew and it is very unlikely that many of them are spending their time thinking about the fact that within an hour's drive from their homes nearly a million people - some 800,000 in the cities of the West Bank along with the residents of some of the surrounding localities - have been locked into their homes for days under severe conditions. Not far from Tel Aviv, which on Friday hosted its annual Gay Pride parade, with all the color and merriment of past years, increasing numbers of Palestinian detainees, some of them innocent, were made to walk in a procession of humiliation. While the cafes in our cities were packed with people relaxing on the weekend, even if in the back of their minds they were afraid of terrorists, people in the West Bank can only dream of sitting in a coffee shop these days.
The protracted curfew that has been imposed in the West Bank within the framework of Operation Determined Path, which is a more comprehensive curfew than any in the past, is not present in the Israeli consciousness. The media barely reports on it and no one is moved to speak out against the situation. Immersed in our justified concerns, we do no more than take note of the fact that since curfew was imposed there have been no terrorist attacks.
However, this is ultra-short-term thinking that is also morally flawed. The test of the war against terrorism is not 10 days of quiet but the eradication of terrorism. It is difficult to believe that after the failure of Operation Defensive Shield, which failed to bring even a month of quiet, there is anyone who still seriously believes that these invasions of the cities in the West Bank provide a true answer to terrorism. The day after the Israeli forces leave the cities - and Israel maintains that it is not planning a permanent occupation – the terrorist attacks will be renewed in full force.
The collective punishment that we are imposing on a million people is only postponing the next wave of attacks slightly, and may even have the effect of intensifying it. It is not hard to guess the plans that are being hatched in the curfew period by those who have been condemned to such a hard life: One thing we can be sure of is that no one there is planning to absorb a further 35 years of occupation without resistance.
We have to remember that even without the curfew, these are people who in the past year and a half have been deprived of their basic freedom and are living in conditions of soaring unemployment and dire poverty. A.F., a resident of the Deheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, related at the end of the week that for the majority of the camp's residents the hardest time is during the few hours when the curfew is lifted so they can buy food and other basic items, because then they discover that there is nothing to buy.
From the moral point of view, the question arises again whether anything goes in the name of the war against terrorism. If it does, as most Israelis now seem to think, we have to ask why we should not expel all the Arabs from the country. Such a move would undoubtedly be more effective in the battle against terrorism. But if there are moral constraints on what is permissible even in the justified war against terrorism, collective punishment in the form of a curfew imposed on an entire nation and locking up that nation indefinitely by means of siege and closures are immoral methods that must not be resorted to under any circumstances.
This curfew is also exacting a price in blood from the Palestinians, yet it is scarcely creating echoes in Israel. In Jenin, four children were killed in two separate incidents when they ventured outside. Most Palestinian children are by now cued to run when they hear the sound of a tank approaching in the terrible silence of the curfew and feel the earth tremble under the tank treads - but they don't always succeed in getting away. The mourning in Israel for the five victims of the terrorist attack at the settlement of Itamar, including, horrifically, three children from one family, need not diminish the scale of the tragedy that occurred in Jenin the next day: three small children, two of them brothers, were killed by a tank shell as they rode their bicycles, only because they were under the mistaken impression that the curfew had been lifted for a moment and they could go outside for a little while.
3. The Civil Administration was never disbanded
Amira Hass
Two truths are lost in the agitated discussion about "the return or non-return of the civil administration" on the West Bank. Senior Palestinian Authority officials warn about Israel's covert plans to revive the administration's work, at the expense of PA institutions. Senior Israeli officials reiterate that Israel has no intention of reactivating the civil administration; in the same breath, they talk about the effective collapse of the PA. In so doing, they hint that there soon will be no choice but to revive the civil administration; despite our desire not to do so, they say, we will be compelled to reactivate it as "a humanitarian step."
The first truth that is being obscured here is that the civil administration, the Israeli government's operational arm in the occupied territories, was never dismantled. When the PA was established in 1994, Israel was relieved of responsibility for directly providing health and social services to the Palestinians. (Such services were fully funded by taxes collected from Palestinians. Contrary to legends about the enlightened occupier, the large surplus that remained in Israeli hands from these taxes was not allocated for infrastructure development in the territories, or for the development of social services; rather, the surplus filled up Israel's coffers.)
Israeli officials who served as "junior ministers" in health, education, agriculture, industry and other spheres turned over their ministries and powers to the PA, but they continued to serve in parallel offices as "liaison officers." The "civil administration" changed its name and became the "coordination and liaison office" - in the Gaza Strip. On the West Bank, where until the intifada Israel continued to control 60 percent of the territory, the two names, civil administration and coordination and liaison offices, are both used.
Since 1994, the civil administration on the West Bank has continued with same mixed tasks it has been carrying out since 981. On the one hand, it supervises and limits Palestinian development, and confers licenses or permits - or, phrased more accurately, it throws up red tape to delay the conferral of permits for Palestinian private and public construction in C areas, and for the construction of roads and other items. On the other hand, it coordinates construction, expansion and development plans for the settlements, by means of planning and building committees that retain total command of land resources.
At first glance, as far as civilian matters in Area A (land fully controlled by the PA) are concerned, the coordination and liaison office's work is limited to the conferral of travel permits for Palestinians (VIPs, laborers, businessmen), whereas senior officials in the civil administration have been involved in protracted negotiations about water quotas, family reunification policies, and the return or non-return of 1967 refugees.
But this Israeli control over the movement of Palestinians should not be underestimated - the civil administration (or, to use its upscale name, the coordination and liaison office) has since 1994 remained a powerful body, and continues to influence, and intervene in, major aspects of Palestinian life.
Freedom of movement is essential to all development, to the growth of an individual and to that of a community. And to that of an economy, a culture and a society. This staple of life has been
proffered, or not, by the civil administration/coordination and liaison offices, which act as policy implementers for Israel's governments. A large share of Palestinian frustration that accumulated before the intifada stemmed from the significant share of power which remained in the hands of this Israeli institution.
Thus, Palestinian spokesmen are misleading their constituencies when they warn about the "resumption of the civil administration." If the administration is felt more heavily today than before, this feeling results from the segregation of the West Bank into sealed-off Palestinian
enclaves, and from the toughening up of Israeli control of Palestinian movement. The principle of Israeli control of Palestinian space and time via the imposition of limitations on movement was in effect before the intifada erupted. The change since then is quantitative, not qualitative.
The second forgotten truth is that the PA, as the supplier of civil services to the Palestinians, rather than as a political leadership, continues to function. It does so to an extent which surprises, when one takes into account current circumstances of continuing economic paralysis, and the clamp on normal activity caused by IDF activity and closures, as well as the loss of income (unemployment stands at 50 percent, and hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian taxes have not been transferred to their lawful recipient, the Palestinian treasury, and are instead being held by Israel).
Education and health ministries and their officials, along with local town and regional council officials, and workers from water and electricity companies continue to do considerable work, frequently with guns pointing at them, and with shots being fired from machine guns mounted on Israeli tanks. They go about their tasks in order to preserve a civil sphere, and provide a plausible, consistent flow of services. True, this does not happen everywhere.
True, the disease of discriminatory, unfair distribution of revenue and resources which afflicts the PA (and other regimes, democratic or not) has done more damage and been felt more strongly during the current crisis. But no Israeli knight, wearing a uniform and riding in a white Civil Administration jeep, will teach the "natives" how to forestall total social collapse. Whoever in Israel believes that the "civil administration" can provide a solution to prevent such a downfall is mistaken. That is because the "civil administration" that was not dismantled is part of the problem; it is symptomatic of Israel's determination, during the Oslo years as well, to control the Palestinian territories and their residents.
July 5, 2002
“Our hopes are in our children,” says Naimeh Abu Freyah, director of al-Najda Children’s Club in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. “They’re growing up in a climate of war and violence, but we need to provide them a space where they can run, play, and show their initiative.”
Children fourteen and under make up nearly half of the population in the Gaza Strip. Those children growing up in camps like Jabalia experience overcrowding (Jabalia has one of the highest population densities in the world), poverty (unemployment is at 60%), and refugee status, their families denied the right to return to their ancestral lands in what is now Israel. Sadly, violence and fear also are integral parts of their lives as the Israeli military routinely bombs and raids parts of Gaza in its campaign against the Palestinian uprising against military occupation.
Al-Najda Children’s Club provides a year-round venue for over 100 children, ages eight to fourteen, to play, learn, and discover their creative talents. Children pay a nominal fee to become members of the club, where they can come when school is not in session. Because most Gaza schools operate two, or even three, shifts, to accommodate the large number of students in limited classroom space, the children’s club runs morning and afternoon shifts.
During July and August 2002, four teachers and seven volunteers at the children’s club are receiving comprehensive training, sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), in teaching art, music, reading, computer skills, and physical education. Most of these trainees have already completed various levels of post-high school education: the training courses build on their existing skills and experience.
“What’s exciting for us about this training program is that it’s strengthening the capacity of the children’s club as a whole, helping its teachers better respond to children’s needs in their work,” shares Alain Epp Weaver, MCC Palestine country representative. “This is MCC strives for—to be able to assist Palestinian organizations to build up their capacity to respond to local needs.”
The training is hands-on, as the eleven trainees work with the educators while the club is in session. A walk through the club sees trainers, trainees, and scores of children intensely focused on painting, various crafts, signing, gymnastics, computer lessons, and singing. Shouting to visiting MCC workers over the loud singing of a group of children in the club’s courtyard, Rifka al-Hamalawi, supervisor of all of al-Najda’s women’s and children’s programs in the Gaza Strip, exclaims: “That! That’s the sound we want—happy, active children.”
--compiled by MCC Palestine staff, July 2002
Below you will find three pieces. In the first, lay Palestinian church leaders respond to President Bush's speech on the Middle East. Secondly Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy then writes about the fate of one million people living under curfew. Thirdly Amira Hass, finally, provides an incisive analysis of the changes in the Israeli means of controlling the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during 35 years of occupation.
--Alain Epp Weaver
1. Update and Appeal on the Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in Light of President Bush Speech
Palestinian Church Related Organizations Jerusalem
June 28, 2002
With the reoccupation of Hebron on the morning of June 25th, practically all towns and cities in the Palestinian Territories, with the exception of Jericho, have come under direct Israeli army occupation. Well over two million inhabitants live under Israeli army imposed curfew for most of the time. In some localities, the Israeli army allows the inhabitants a couple of hours every two to three days in order to stock up on food and other basic commodities. Reports from all parts of the West Bank and Gaza indicate increased and abject poverty among the population and one friend who visited Nablus recently told us that he had never seen such poverty among the population and that what he saw reminded him of the spoken of poverty-stricken Nablus of decades ago. Another friend informed us that in Bethlehem there are families who practically beg for a loaf of bread for their children. But aside from wanting to meet the basic necessities that would ensure survival, the Palestinian population is held hostage by the Israeli government, as this latter wants to barter the end of suicide bombings with withdrawal from Palestinian towns and cities.
President Bush in his speech of June 24th 2002 put the entire burden on the Palestinian side in order to get out of the present impasse. By so doing, he absolved the Sharon-led Israeli government from its responsibilities of presenting a political program that would spell out or at least indicate its plans to end occupation not simply that which started in September 2000 but the original occupation of June 1967. While all of us would like to see an end to suicide bombings, achieving this could not be simply a one-sided affair, as it needs to be paralleled by Israeli expressed willingness to end occupation and live as good neighbors, and not as hegemonic occupiers and oppressors, to Palestinians. An agreed upon political framework is of paramount importance as a basis that would commit the two sides in an equitable manner as they progress towards eventual resolution of the present deadlock.
Granted, we Palestinians are in dire need of genuine reform. But such reform cannot be undertaken under the barrels of Israeli guns and tanks. The impromptu discussions that Palestinians engage in on side streets and in sitting rooms all indicate an overwhelming consensus that things need to change, not to please Mr. Bush or anybody else, but in order to spell out our own vision for our society and its future. Unfortunately, this is something we have not done since the Oslo accords and we should have. Hence a grave responsibility lies on all of us as we examine the prospects for reconstruction and rehabilitation in all areas of government and society. But as important we need to decide ourselves on our own program and political agenda whether as they relate to issues and concerns internal to Palestinian society or whether as they deal with the thorny relationships with the Israelis.
The Israelis cannot escape their responsibilities either. The absence of a clear political program by the Israeli government is tantamount to saying that military occupation would continue. The Israeli policy of destroying the Palestinian governmental and civil society infrastructure is accompanied by continued settlement activity on Palestinian lands. The Israeli government claims that it is fighting potential suicide bombers when it places hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Palestinians all over the West Bank and Gaza under house arrest for days on end. Even relief and emergency efforts are hindered by the Israeli military from reaching the besieged population, despite claims by the Israeli government that it facilitates and does not obstruct such efforts. The trigger- happy Israeli soldiers often demolish personal and public property, cause injury and death and prohibit ordinary people as well as the sick and elderly from crossing from one locality to another within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By blaming the National Authority for all the ills of the current situation, the Israeli government lifts off the responsibility that lies squarely on the shoulders of its Prime Minister and other Ministers for the human rights infractions that are committed on a daily and continuous basis against innocent Palestinian civilians by the Israeli occupying army. President Bush putting the entire burden on the Palestinians to find a way out of the present deadlock mirrors the Israeli blame of the Palestinian Authority and Palestinians, in general.
Given the current situation and in light of President Bush speech, we the undersigned call on our partners and friends worldwide to: Address your governments and various constituencies on the need for the Israeli government to come up with a clear plan that specifies its intention to vacate the occupied territories not simply those occupied since September 2000 but also those occupied since June 1967. Ask your governments, particularly the EU governments, to adopt one stand that would insist on the need to have an Israeli commitment to ending the occupation, and to an immediate pullout from the occupied Palestinian cities and towns, as part of the process and deliberations that would lead to the creation of a democratic and pluralistic Palestinian state, in accordance with all UN relevant resolutions. Stress on the Israeli government and/or its representatives abroad that the infractions that its army is carrying out in the occupied Palestinian territories and at the military checkpoints throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip go contrary to basic human rights as reflected in international declarations and conventions. The Palestinian people, in light of these continuous infractions, are in need of an international force of protection. Ask the Israeli government and its representatives abroad to honor its own claims that it does not hinder relief and emergency efforts by local and international aid organizations to the besieged and curfewed Palestinian population. Note that Israel's actual behavior on the ground on this matter is contrary to the Sphere Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response and the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief based on International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention to which a majority of countries were signatories, including Israel.Emphasize to the Israeli government and its representatives abroad that continued curfews and closures imposed on the Palestinian population not only affect adversely the economic and social welfare of the population but also contribute to psychological and pedagogical damage that would obstruct tremendously the prospects for eventual peace making between Palestinians and Israelis. Address your governments and the various media on the need for the American Administration to adopt a balanced and even-handed policy towards the two parties in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and especially to emphasize that its present policy is causing extreme human suffering to the whole Palestinian people, and is engendering ever-lasting hatred between East and West. Indicate to them your willingness to support them as they contemplate the important questions pertaining to their society and the challenges of transformations they are likely to experience in the coming couple of years. Continue your support to your Palestinian partners as they strive to serve their people amidst most difficult circumstances. Join hands with all those willing to work for an immediate end of Israeli occupation.
Only then can an environment conducive to the eventual resumption of negotiations between the two sides be created. We aspire for your prayers, good thoughts and action, as our country appears destined to continue experiencing the vicious cycle of occupation and counter occupation. One inspiring thought to those who not only do not see the light at the end of the tunnel but also do not see the tunnel itself in our present tragic situation: there is always light to those who care to see it and work to make it shine on the lives of the oppressed, occupied, besieged and all those who suffer because of the injustice of our situation. May all our
efforts add up to end injustice!
* Judge Khalil Aboud International Christian Committee in Israel Nazareth
* Mr. Constantine Dabbagh Near East Council of Churches Committee Gaza
* Mr. Rifat Kassis YMCA Beit Sahour
* Dr. Bernard Sabella Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches Jerusalem
* Mr. Ramzi Zananiri International Christian Committee Jerusalem West Bank
* Commission Justice and Peace Jerusalem
* Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center Jerusalem
2. A million people under curfew
Gideon Levy
Few if any Israelis can understand what it means to be under full curfew for 10 days, incarcerated with the children in a crowded house, usually without an air conditioner or a computer or games to play, maybe a barely functioning television set. But the worst thing is the unnerving density of the close quarters.
Even Israeli parents - who as of today have to figure out how to get through their children's endless summer vacation and are worried about having to keep them cooped up at home for fear of terrorist attacks - are also incapable of grasping how intolerable it is for the Palestinians to be imprisoned for days and weeks at a time with the children in their meagerly furnished homes, while threatening tanks continually rumble by and every sortie outside is liable to end in disaster.
Very few Israelis have experienced curfew and it is very unlikely that many of them are spending their time thinking about the fact that within an hour's drive from their homes nearly a million people - some 800,000 in the cities of the West Bank along with the residents of some of the surrounding localities - have been locked into their homes for days under severe conditions. Not far from Tel Aviv, which on Friday hosted its annual Gay Pride parade, with all the color and merriment of past years, increasing numbers of Palestinian detainees, some of them innocent, were made to walk in a procession of humiliation. While the cafes in our cities were packed with people relaxing on the weekend, even if in the back of their minds they were afraid of terrorists, people in the West Bank can only dream of sitting in a coffee shop these days.
The protracted curfew that has been imposed in the West Bank within the framework of Operation Determined Path, which is a more comprehensive curfew than any in the past, is not present in the Israeli consciousness. The media barely reports on it and no one is moved to speak out against the situation. Immersed in our justified concerns, we do no more than take note of the fact that since curfew was imposed there have been no terrorist attacks.
However, this is ultra-short-term thinking that is also morally flawed. The test of the war against terrorism is not 10 days of quiet but the eradication of terrorism. It is difficult to believe that after the failure of Operation Defensive Shield, which failed to bring even a month of quiet, there is anyone who still seriously believes that these invasions of the cities in the West Bank provide a true answer to terrorism. The day after the Israeli forces leave the cities - and Israel maintains that it is not planning a permanent occupation – the terrorist attacks will be renewed in full force.
The collective punishment that we are imposing on a million people is only postponing the next wave of attacks slightly, and may even have the effect of intensifying it. It is not hard to guess the plans that are being hatched in the curfew period by those who have been condemned to such a hard life: One thing we can be sure of is that no one there is planning to absorb a further 35 years of occupation without resistance.
We have to remember that even without the curfew, these are people who in the past year and a half have been deprived of their basic freedom and are living in conditions of soaring unemployment and dire poverty. A.F., a resident of the Deheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, related at the end of the week that for the majority of the camp's residents the hardest time is during the few hours when the curfew is lifted so they can buy food and other basic items, because then they discover that there is nothing to buy.
From the moral point of view, the question arises again whether anything goes in the name of the war against terrorism. If it does, as most Israelis now seem to think, we have to ask why we should not expel all the Arabs from the country. Such a move would undoubtedly be more effective in the battle against terrorism. But if there are moral constraints on what is permissible even in the justified war against terrorism, collective punishment in the form of a curfew imposed on an entire nation and locking up that nation indefinitely by means of siege and closures are immoral methods that must not be resorted to under any circumstances.
This curfew is also exacting a price in blood from the Palestinians, yet it is scarcely creating echoes in Israel. In Jenin, four children were killed in two separate incidents when they ventured outside. Most Palestinian children are by now cued to run when they hear the sound of a tank approaching in the terrible silence of the curfew and feel the earth tremble under the tank treads - but they don't always succeed in getting away. The mourning in Israel for the five victims of the terrorist attack at the settlement of Itamar, including, horrifically, three children from one family, need not diminish the scale of the tragedy that occurred in Jenin the next day: three small children, two of them brothers, were killed by a tank shell as they rode their bicycles, only because they were under the mistaken impression that the curfew had been lifted for a moment and they could go outside for a little while.
3. The Civil Administration was never disbanded
Amira Hass
Two truths are lost in the agitated discussion about "the return or non-return of the civil administration" on the West Bank. Senior Palestinian Authority officials warn about Israel's covert plans to revive the administration's work, at the expense of PA institutions. Senior Israeli officials reiterate that Israel has no intention of reactivating the civil administration; in the same breath, they talk about the effective collapse of the PA. In so doing, they hint that there soon will be no choice but to revive the civil administration; despite our desire not to do so, they say, we will be compelled to reactivate it as "a humanitarian step."
The first truth that is being obscured here is that the civil administration, the Israeli government's operational arm in the occupied territories, was never dismantled. When the PA was established in 1994, Israel was relieved of responsibility for directly providing health and social services to the Palestinians. (Such services were fully funded by taxes collected from Palestinians. Contrary to legends about the enlightened occupier, the large surplus that remained in Israeli hands from these taxes was not allocated for infrastructure development in the territories, or for the development of social services; rather, the surplus filled up Israel's coffers.)
Israeli officials who served as "junior ministers" in health, education, agriculture, industry and other spheres turned over their ministries and powers to the PA, but they continued to serve in parallel offices as "liaison officers." The "civil administration" changed its name and became the "coordination and liaison office" - in the Gaza Strip. On the West Bank, where until the intifada Israel continued to control 60 percent of the territory, the two names, civil administration and coordination and liaison offices, are both used.
Since 1994, the civil administration on the West Bank has continued with same mixed tasks it has been carrying out since 981. On the one hand, it supervises and limits Palestinian development, and confers licenses or permits - or, phrased more accurately, it throws up red tape to delay the conferral of permits for Palestinian private and public construction in C areas, and for the construction of roads and other items. On the other hand, it coordinates construction, expansion and development plans for the settlements, by means of planning and building committees that retain total command of land resources.
At first glance, as far as civilian matters in Area A (land fully controlled by the PA) are concerned, the coordination and liaison office's work is limited to the conferral of travel permits for Palestinians (VIPs, laborers, businessmen), whereas senior officials in the civil administration have been involved in protracted negotiations about water quotas, family reunification policies, and the return or non-return of 1967 refugees.
But this Israeli control over the movement of Palestinians should not be underestimated - the civil administration (or, to use its upscale name, the coordination and liaison office) has since 1994 remained a powerful body, and continues to influence, and intervene in, major aspects of Palestinian life.
Freedom of movement is essential to all development, to the growth of an individual and to that of a community. And to that of an economy, a culture and a society. This staple of life has been
proffered, or not, by the civil administration/coordination and liaison offices, which act as policy implementers for Israel's governments. A large share of Palestinian frustration that accumulated before the intifada stemmed from the significant share of power which remained in the hands of this Israeli institution.
Thus, Palestinian spokesmen are misleading their constituencies when they warn about the "resumption of the civil administration." If the administration is felt more heavily today than before, this feeling results from the segregation of the West Bank into sealed-off Palestinian
enclaves, and from the toughening up of Israeli control of Palestinian movement. The principle of Israeli control of Palestinian space and time via the imposition of limitations on movement was in effect before the intifada erupted. The change since then is quantitative, not qualitative.
The second forgotten truth is that the PA, as the supplier of civil services to the Palestinians, rather than as a political leadership, continues to function. It does so to an extent which surprises, when one takes into account current circumstances of continuing economic paralysis, and the clamp on normal activity caused by IDF activity and closures, as well as the loss of income (unemployment stands at 50 percent, and hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian taxes have not been transferred to their lawful recipient, the Palestinian treasury, and are instead being held by Israel).
Education and health ministries and their officials, along with local town and regional council officials, and workers from water and electricity companies continue to do considerable work, frequently with guns pointing at them, and with shots being fired from machine guns mounted on Israeli tanks. They go about their tasks in order to preserve a civil sphere, and provide a plausible, consistent flow of services. True, this does not happen everywhere.
True, the disease of discriminatory, unfair distribution of revenue and resources which afflicts the PA (and other regimes, democratic or not) has done more damage and been felt more strongly during the current crisis. But no Israeli knight, wearing a uniform and riding in a white Civil Administration jeep, will teach the "natives" how to forestall total social collapse. Whoever in Israel believes that the "civil administration" can provide a solution to prevent such a downfall is mistaken. That is because the "civil administration" that was not dismantled is part of the problem; it is symptomatic of Israel's determination, during the Oslo years as well, to control the Palestinian territories and their residents.
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