MCC Palestine Update #118
1 February 2006
Greetings to you all. The style of this update is a little different as it follows the recent Palestinian Legislative Council elections and will be focused exclusively on their impact on the people here, lifting up of their voices to speak to some of the misperceptions in North America regarding the whole process. In addition to the following stories, please find the attachments for further reading at the end of the update.
***
Looking out of the window of our Bethlehem apartment, I had been seeing people walking up and down our street since early morning. Walking down that street with my neighbor Bashir, we could see the crowd that had been gathered in front of what most days is a school but that day served as a polling station.
Banners, flags, posters, and robust conversations filled the streets. After scanning a list of the names of registered voters posted outside, Bashir and I entered the building together. After he had cast his ballots, he showed me his finger that was dipped in purple ink to designate his having voted. “Mabruuk,” I told him. “Allah ybaarak fiik, Tim,” he responded, “but why congratulations, congratulations for what?”
“Congratulations for your democracy,” I said.
Democracy?
The elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) that occurred on the 25th of January were the first of their kind since 1996. The PLC is the legislative branch of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and is made up of 132 members from across the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The fact that only 6000 Palestinians in Jerusalem were “allowed” to vote along with the voting difficulties experienced in the rest of the occupied territories due to the Israeli military’s presence at checkpoints and the imposition of closures, making movement even more difficult than it already is for Palestinians belies the claims of the state of Israel to uphold the virtues of democracy in the Middle East.
“Do you see,” one man who noticed that I was a foreigner sparked up a conversation while I was waiting for Bashir, “Do you see, we have democracy, but we do not have freedom. We want peace, we want freedom.”
Freedom?
What this man was referring to was the context in which these elections were taking place, a context of dispossession and occupation that has gone mostly unspoken in the English-speaking media over the past weeks. Despite the optimism that surround such processes as this, the concretization of Israeli domination over Palestinian life and land shows no sign of letting up.
Whether it is more land being expropriated for the construction of the 430-mile or 700-km “separation barrier” (that cuts deeply into the West Bank, deviating from the internationally recognized border known as the “Green Line”), the expansion of illegal settlements and creation of a de-Palestinized “Greater Jerusalem,” checkpoints that obstruct mobility, the demolition of homes and other forms of collective punishment, or the “one big prison” status of Gaza, Palestinian livelihoods continued to be devastated under this occupation and their experience of dispossession unabated.
The virtues of “democracy” can hardly be comforting in such a context.
Indeed many Palestinians point out how dangerous this process can be as it gives the appearance of a “democratized” occupation. They lift up the dangers of an international perspective of “Palestine” as an independent state with a president and a parliament, when in fact it is far from it.
Unfortunately, the trajectory of dispossession points to the completion of the “separation barrier,” becoming the de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. Palestinians will be confined to these “reservations,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels. Absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, what remains will be a reservation life for Palestinians parallel to the Native North American experience in the United States.
Later that evening, I sat around with friends as they discussed the day’s events. The organization and the civility with which this election proceeded could not be criticized by anybody, especially considering the lack of civility with which the Palestinian people here are often treated. Perhaps this gives me hope for whatever does happen next. Knowing that the dignity and the humanity of the people here will persist, despite all attempts to strip them of it by the Israeli occupation or by Western media, provides a sense of hope in the midst of the uncertainty and insecurity that Palestinians are faced with on a daily basis.
***
On our way to a morning meeting in Bethlehem the other day, we decided to pick up some bread often eaten for breakfast called ka’ik from Jerusalem. The ka’ik from Jerusalem is famous and quite a treat, especially for those Palestinians like our colleagues in Bethlehem who are not able to travel the short 6-mile or 10-km distance to Jerusalem due to the system of checkpoints and closures that the Israeli military imposes on them.
As I set the bag down on a chair next to me in our colleague’s office, it accidentally fell to the floor. “I am so sorry,” I said. “Don’t worry,” our Palestinian friend replied, “it was probably Hamas’ fault anyway.” We all burst out laughing.
Here in the occupied Palestinian territories, it is easy to understand why people are cracking jokes like this one. Since the result of the Palestinian Legislative elections last week, whatever congratulatory remarks Palestinians have heard from the rest of the world for being “democratic” has been drowned out by condemnations and demands that Hamas leadership must meet in order to be recognized. In a portrayal devoid of context, Hamas and the Palestinian people are to blame. And unfortunately, this is the story that often gets told in the English-speaking media.
But there are voices like those of Palestinian Christian Samia Khoury that point out that “Before the results were out, we kept hearing official voices from the USA and Israel announcing that there will be no peace process if Hamas wins, and that there is no chance for the Road Map under Hamas. The Europeans sounded worried as well, realizing that a Hamas government in Palestine would force them to face serious change. Yet none of those official voices had the courage to admit that the peace process was already on hold due to the Israeli intransigence.”
“The Road Map that Israeli spokesmen said would not be possible to implement under Hamas was never fully accepted by Israel, which has consistently blocked its implementation and the establishment of a Palestinian State through means such as building an illegal concrete wall eight meters tall to divide the Palestinian territories. So let us not pretend that peace was around the corner before Hamas’ electoral victory, which at most heightened the already astronomical odds against peace barring a major shift in Israeli policy.” (see the link to this article below)
Categorizing Hamas absolutely as a terrorist organization not only ignores that role they have played in providing greatly needed social services to Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip (one of the most densely populated areas in the world), but it now alienates the entire Palestinian people by attaching the same label to them as well. It is dismantling this dehumanization first and foremost that Palestinians want to see. And Palestinians feel that making demands of them or of Hamas at this point is not going to help in that process.
Our attempts at naming violence must be consistent. As one Palestinian friend has told me, we need to be more inclusive with our condemnation of violence in all its forms—whether direct or indirect, personal or structural, suicide-bombings, extra judicial assassinations, home demolitions, or military occupations. Though Hamas has had its role in the violence here, it is not Hamas that stops our friends in Bethlehem from enjoying there own breakfast in Jerusalem, but the structural violence of this occupation that has existed long before Hamas ever did.
Of course there are those voices—both Christian and Muslim—that are more concerned by the turn away from a secular political environment. Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem recognizes those fears that some may be having over “the possibility of the society’s islamization, or potential clash between Hamas and Fatah, or the likelihood of isolating Palestine internationally.” But he urges us to think beyond such observations, to see “the other side of the coin.”
“This is the only time in the Middle East that a one party rule has ended peacefully by democratic elections. We cannot but accept this as the best way to rotate political power. The people decided that enough is enough with Fatah and its rule. They opted for change. This change has not only to do with the power of Hamas but also with a process that is necessary for our society.”
Rev. Raheb goes on to say that as Palestinian Christians “we are called not to be afraid; neither to panic nor to withdraw from the public sphere. We are called not to feel as if we are just spectators but rather to participate with many in this quest for a new Palestinian identity. We are called to replace old and ineffective structures by engaging in this process of building a new political system that is modern, meaningful, and accountable. In a context of commercializing religion, we are called to provide a new sense of deep spirituality. And in a context of disorientation, our vocation is to offer the vision of a new promise and of dynamic identity. This is not only a challenge, but an honor and a privilege to be able to participate. It is at times like these that we are most needed.” (see the link to this article below)
In the end, it is not about Hamas or Fatah but about the Palestinian people, about their freedom and their future. Change is what Palestinians want and perhaps what these elections communicate more than anything else. Indeed, Hamas ran under the name of the party for “change and reform.” And the response that the North has offered seems to reveal a fear regarding any notion of change. But fear of what? Fear of more violence? Fear of an ongoing conflict? Or fear that the status quo that maintains U.S.-backed Israeli control over Palestinian life may be disrupted?
Timothy Seidel
Co-Peace Development Worker
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Chris McGreal, “Israel's shooting of young girl highlights international hypocrisy, say Palestinians,” The Guardian, 30 January 2006
· Mousa Abu Marzook, “What Hamas Is Seeking,” Washington Post, 31 January 2006
· Ian Fisher, “Palestinians Debate Shades of Islamic Law,” New York Times, 1 February 2006
· Khalid Mish'al, “We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid,” The Guardian, 31 January 2006
· Arnon Regular, “Abbas says will meet Hamas in two weeks to discuss forming government,” Haaretz, 30 January 2006
· Saed Bannoura, “Hamas says it's holding secret talks with the US,” International Middle East Media Center, 30 January 2006
· Robert Fisk, “The problem with democracy,” The Independent, 28 January 2006
· Samia Khoury, “Are You Surprised?: A Reflection on the Palestinian Elections,” The Witness, 29 January 2006
· Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, “The other side of the coin: A reading in the Palestinian Elections,” Bethlehem Media Net, 27 January 2006
· Ali Abunimah, “Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity,” The Electronic Intifada, 26 January 2006
· Saree Makdisi, “Illusion of democracy: The Palestinian Elections,” The Electronic Intifada, 23 January 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Only the right can,” Haaretz, 29 January 2006
· Amira Hass, “The obligation of the occupied,” Haaretz, 25 January 2006
· Chris McGreal, “Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto,” The Guardian, 12 January 2006
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The Guardian
Israel's shooting of young girl highlights international hypocrisy, say Palestinians
Chris McGreal
30 January 2006
As the votes were counted in the Palestinian election and the scale of Hamas's landslide became apparent to the world, Aya al-Astal drifted away from her home and wandered towards the fence along the border between the Gaza strip and Israel.
The nine-year-old girl's parents realised she was gone as they watched the election results on television. They do not know precisely what happened, but the Israeli army later said Aya was behaving in a suspicious manner reminiscent of a terrorist - she got too close to the border fence - and so a soldier fired several bullets into the child, hitting her in the neck and blowing open her stomach.
Aya was the second child killed by the Israeli army last week. Soldiers near Ramallah shot 13-year-old Munadel Abu Aaalia in the back as he walked along a road reserved for Jewish settlers with two friends. The army said the boys planned to throw rocks at Israeli cars, which the military defines as terrorism.
The two killings went unnoticed by the outside world amid the political drama, but they made their impact among Palestinians angered by demands from western leaders for Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce its armed struggle.
Some Palestinians see the demands as a rejection of a democratic election and as siding with Israel. Others see hypocrisy. They say Israeli soldiers killed twice as many Palestinians last week alone - both of them children - as the number of Israelis killed by Hamas all last year.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1697825,00.html
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Washington Post
What Hamas Is Seeking
Mousa Abu Marzook
31 January 2006
DAMASCUS, Syria -- A new era in the struggle for Palestinian liberation is upon us. Through historic fair and free elections, the Palestinian people have spoken.
Accordingly, America's long-standing tradition of supporting the oppressed's rights to self-determination should not waver. The United States, the European Union and the rest of the world should welcome the unfolding of the democratic process, and the commitment to aid should not falter. Last week's victory of the Change and Reform Party in the Palestinian legislative elections signals a new hope for an occupied people.
The results of these elections reflect a need for change from the corruption and intransigence of the past government. Since its creation 10 years ago, the Palestinian Legislative Council has been unsuccessful in addressing the needs of the people. As the occupation solidified its grip under the auspices of "peace agreements," quality of life deteriorated for Palestinians in the occupied territories. Poverty levels soared, unemployment rates reached uncharted heights and the lack of basic security approached unbearable depths. A grass-roots alternative grew out of the urgency of this situation. Through its legacy of social work and involvement in the needs of the Palestinian people, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) flourished as a positive social force striving for the welfare of all Palestinians. Alleviating the debilitative conditions of occupation, and not an Islamic state, is at the heart of our mandate (with reform and change as its lifeblood)…
We appeal to the American people's sense of fairness to judge this conflict in light of the great thoughts, principles and ideals you hold dear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the democracy you have built. It is not unreasonable to expect America to practice abroad what it preaches at home. We can but sincerely hope that you use your honest judgment and the blessings of ascendancy God has given you to demand an end to the occupation. Meaningful democracy cannot flourish as long as an external force maintains the balance of power. It is the right of all people to pursue their own destiny.
Please read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013001209_pf.html
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New York Times
Palestinians Debate Shades of Islamic Law
Ian Fisher
1 February 2006
TAYBEH, West Bank, Jan. 30 — This is a village of three churches, a brewer of very good beer, and no small fear — if not yet full panic — about what it means now that Hamas, the radical Islamic party, is in control of Palestinian politics.
"If the whole world and our president are afraid, do you think that we are not?" asked Nima Samaan, 62, a Christian Arab, referring to the current, and secular, Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
There is no certain answer to the question asked apprehensively around the West Bank and Gaza since Hamas swept the parliamentary elections last week: To what extent — by law or by social pressure — will Hamas impose its strong religious beliefs?
So far Hamas leaders, seeking to calm both Palestinians and an anxious outside world, have projected moderation. They say they will not impose on the Palestinians' diverse society any form of Islamic rule.
"You cannot force people to do what they do not want to do," said Sheik Fadil Saleh, 53, a former imam who won a seat in Ramallah for Hamas. "In the Koran it is said: No force in religion."
Please read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/international/middleeast/
01hamas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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The Guardian
We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid
Khalid Mish'al
Palestinians voted for Hamas because of our refusal to give up their rights. But we are ready to make a just peace
31 January 2006
It is widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. There were voices warning them, locally and internationally, not to vote for an organisation branded by the US and EU as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.
The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world's leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognise the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the US and EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment for exercising their right to choose their parliamentary representatives.
We are being punished simply for resisting oppression and striving for justice. Those who threaten to impose sanctions on our people are the same powers that initiated our suffering and continue to support our oppressors almost unconditionally. We, the victims, are being penalised while our oppressors are pampered. The US and EU could have used the success of Hamas to open a new chapter in their relations with the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims and to understand better a movement that has so far been seen largely through the eyes of the Zionist occupiers of our land…
We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1698702,00.html
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Haaretz
Abbas says will meet Hamas in two weeks to discuss forming government
Arnon Regular
30 January 2006
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told CNN on Monday that a long-term truce (hudna) with Israel is possible if Israel retreats to its pre-1967 borders and releases Palestinian prisoners.
"We can expect to establish our independent state on the area before '67 and we can give a long-term hudna," Zahar told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Zahar laid out a series of conditions that he said could lead to years of co-existence alongside Israel. He said that if Israel "is ready to give us the national demand to withdraw from the occupied area [in] '67; to release our detainees; to stop their aggression; to make geographic link between Gaza Strip and West Bank, at that time, with assurance from other sides, we are going to accept to establish our independent state at that time, and give us one or two, 10, 15 years time in order to see what is the real intention of Israel after that."
Asked about Hamas' call for Israel's destruction, Zahar would not say whether that remains the goal. "We are not speaking about the future, we are speaking now," he said.
Zahar argued that Israel has no true intention of accepting a Palestinian state, despite international agreements including the Road Map for Middle East peace.
Until Israel says what its final borders will be, Hamas will not say whether it will ever recognize Israel, Zahar said. "If Israel is ready to tell the people what is the official border, after that we are going to answer this question."
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/676190.html
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International Middle East Media Center
Hamas says it's holding secret talks with the US
Saed Bannoura
30 January 2006
Mousa Abu Marzouq, assistant of the head of Hamas' political bureau reported, on Monday, that the movement has been holding secret talks, in recent period, with the United States on several issues, adding that Hamas prefers direct and formal talks.
Abu Marzouq told an Algerian newspaper that Washington replaced the direct talks with secret ones which were formal in some cases and informal in others.
"Hamas prefers direct talks with the United States in the coming period", Abu Marzouq said, "We will deal with every party in accordance to our strategy".
Also, Abu Marzouq added that as long as there is occupation, Hamas will not recognize Israel and will continue its resistance activities.
"As long as there is occupation, we will resist and regain our rights", Abu Marzouq stated, "In this period, we do not intend to recognize Israel, because it’s a state which expelled our people, and is occupying our land".
Referring to the Israeli decision not to negotiate with any Palestinian government that includes Hamas, Abu Marzouq said that if Israel rejects to negotiate it will "isolate itself".
He added that there is a positive development in the statements of the US president George Bush, who said that he will hold talks with Hamas if its drops its calls to destruct Israel.
Please read more at http://www.imemc.org/content/view/16383/1/
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The Independent
The problem with democracy
Robert Fisk
And now, horror of horrors, the Palestinians have elected the wrong party to power
28 January 2006
Oh no, not more democracy again! Didn't we award this to those Algerians in 1990? And didn't they reward us with that nice gift of an Islamist government - and then they so benevolently cancelled the second round of elections? Thank goodness for that!
True, the Afghans elected a round of representatives, albeit that they included some warlords and murderers. But then the Iraqis last year elected the Dawa party to power in Baghdad, which was responsible - let us not speak this in Washington - for most of the kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut in the 1980s, the car bombing of the (late) Emir and the US and French embassies in Kuwait.
And now, horror of horrors, the Palestinians have elected the wrong party to power. They were supposed to have given their support to the friendly, pro-Western, corrupt, absolutely pro-American Fatah, which had promised to "control" them, rather than to Hamas, which said they would represent them. And, bingo, they have chosen the wrong party again.
Result: 76 out of 132 seats. That just about does it. God damn that democracy. What are we to do with people who don't vote the way they should?
Please read more at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11694.htm or http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article341462.ece
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The Witness
Are You Surprised?: A Reflection on the Palestinian Elections
Samia Khoury
29 January 2006
Before the results were out, we kept hearing official voices from the USA and Israel announcing that there will be no peace process if Hamas wins, and that there is no chance for the Road Map under Hamas. The Europeans sounded worried as well, realizing that a Hamas government in Palestine would force them to face serious change. Yet none of those official voices had the courage to admit that the peace process was already on hold due to the Israeli intransigence.
How ironic that Mr. Shimon Peres has joined the chorus of those expressing grave concern about making peace with Hamas. We all recall how as prime minister he dismally failed to carry out the legacy of peace for which he, the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the late President Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize. Peres and his woeful chorus pretend not to understand the source of the Palestinian people's frstration, but they have been witnessing Israel violating U.N. resolutions and international law as well as using sophisticated and extensive weaponry to wage a relentless war on the Palestinian civilian population, and they share the blame for Fateh's failure, as they stood by passively or offered resources and encouragement to Israel's attempts to erode Fateh's authority.
The Road Map that Israeli spokesmen said would not be possible to implement under Hamas was never fully accepted by Israel, which has consistently blocked its implementation and the establishment of a Palestinian State through means such as building an illegal concrete wall eight meters tall to divide the Palestinian territories. So let us not pretend that peace was around the corner before Hamas' electoral victory, which at most heightened the already astronomical odds against peace barring a major shift in Israeli policy.
Please read more at http://www.thewitness.org/article.php?id=1016
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Bethlehem Media Net
The other side of the coin: A reading in the Palestinian Elections
Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb
27 January 2006
A friend asked me yesterday saying: “You have been always good in talking about the endless opportunities behind the tremendous challenges, can you still see this here too?” My answer to my friend was “Definitely!” My answer does not mean that I am minimizing the threat and danger behind this “green revolution.” Neither do I dismiss the possibility of the society’s islamization, or potential clash between Hamas and Fatah, or the likelihood of isolating Palestine internationally. Yet, one must see the other side of the coin. This is the only time in the Middle East that a one party rule has ended peacefully by democratic elections. We cannot but accept this as the best way to rotate political power. The people decided that enough is enough with Fatah and its rule. They opted for change. This change has not only to do with the power of Hamas but also with a process that is necessary for our society. In reality, this change means the end of the PLO as we know it, since its parties and structures do not relate anymore to the issues of Palestinian society. A new political landscape has to emerge now. This brings with it endless possibilities. The identity of Fatah after Arafat has to be shaped. The leftist parties in Palestine have to wake up from their sweet dreams and ideologies, to unite, restructure and to develop a new vision. Hamas is now obliged to show their capability of delivering what they were promising, and to learn how to build a government rather than being in the “lazy chair” of the opposition. The people of Palestine have to get used to regularly call their representatives to accountability through this medium of democratic elections.
Finally, what about us Palestinian Christians? My answer is that we are called not to be afraid; neither to panic nor to withdraw from the public sphere. We are called not to feel as if we are just spectators but rather to participate with many in this quest for a new Palestinian identity. We are called to replace old and ineffective structures by engaging in this process of building a new political system that is modern, meaningful, and accountable. In a context of commercializing religion, we are called to provide a new sense of deep spirituality. And in a context of disorientation, our vocation is to offer the vision of a new promise and of dynamic identity. This is not only a challenge, but an honor and a privilege to be able to participate. It is at times like these that we are most needed.
Please read more at http://www.bethlehemmedia.net/feat214.htm
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The Electronic Intifada
Hamas Election Victory: A Vote for Clarity
Ali Abunimah
26 January 2006
Hamas' victory in the Palestinian Authority legislative elections has everyone asking "what next"? The answer, and whether the result should be seen as a good or bad thing, depends very much on who is asking the question.
Although a Hamas success was heavily trailed, the scale of the victory has been widely termed a "shock." Several factors explain the dramatic rise of Hamas, including disillusionment and disgust with the corruption, cynicism and lack of strategy of the Fatah faction which has dominated the Palestinian movement for decades and had arrogantly come to view itself as the natural and indisputable leader.
The election result is not entirely surprising, however, and has been foreshadowed by recent events. Take for example the city of Qalqilya in the north of the West Bank. Hemmed in by Israeli settlements and now completely surrounded by a concrete wall, the city's fifty thousand residents are prisoners in a Israeli-controlled giant ghetto. For years Qalqilya's city council was controlled by Fatah but after the completion of the wall, voters in last years' municipal elections awarded every single city council seat to Hamas. The Qalqilya effect has now spread across the occcupied territories, with Hamas reportedly winning virtually all of the seats elected on a geographic basis. Thus Hamas' success is as much an expression of the determination of Palestinians to resist Israel's efforts to force their surrender as it is a rejection of Fatah. It reduces the conflict to its most fundamental elements: there is occupation, and there is resistance…
The instant US demand that Hamas "recognize Israel" is like rewinding the clock twenty-five years to when this same demand was the pretext to ignore and exclude the PLO from peace negotiations. But as Hamas has observed, all the PLO's submission to these demands did not lead to any loosening of Israel's grip or any lessening of US support for Israel. Hamas is unlikely to do as the US demands, and even if it did, it would probably only give rise to new resistance groups responding to the worsening conditions on the ground generated by the occupation.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4425.shtml
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The Electronic Intifada
Illusion of democracy: The Palestinian Elections
Saree Makdisi
23 January 2006
All the talk of elections is part of an attempt to impose a sense of normalcy on a highly abnormal situation: not just the endless occupation, but the unresolved future of the Palestinian people, two-thirds of whom are excluded from the electoral process because they do not live in the occupied territories but rather in refugee camps or in the diaspora, or as second-class citizens of the state of Israel. And none of this will be changed by the elections.
Leaving aside the question of what it means to hold a "national" election when the majority of the nation doesn't have the right to vote, even the process of holding elections while living under military occupation is highly problematic for those who are eligible to vote.
The Israeli army denies Palestinians in the occupied territories the right to free movement, so access to campaign rallies and even voting booths can hardly be taken for granted. Right now, for example, 800,000 Palestinians living in the northern West Bank are banned from traveling outside of their home districts, and a large strand of Route 60, the main West Bank artery, has been off limits to Palestinian traffic since August…
Not only do Wednesday's elections maintain this deception, they also reinforce the sense that they are part of a wider process of Palestinian "reform" and "democratization," which are keys to the future of the so-called peace process.
After all, the United States has decreed that all progress toward peace depends on the behavior of the Palestinians, rather than on the Israelis. Placing that burden on those who never chose to live under military occupation -- while exempting the occupiers -- is hardly likely to yield real results.
But it's not meant to. This is why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser Dov Weisglass describes the situation as "a bottle of formaldehyde." According to Weisglass, maintaining the illusion of a political process guarantees that there will be no resolution of the conflict "until the Palestinians turn into Finns." And that, of course, suits Israel just fine, because as long as the illusion is maintained, it doesn't have to do anything but hang on to the territories it took by force in 1967.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4411.shtml
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Haaretz
Only the right can
Gideon Levy
29 January 2006
There's more good news. Only the right can do it? If that view is true, if only people of the right can bring peace, like Ariel Sharon on our side, then we are now facing a new chance that should not be missed. A peace deal with Hamas will be a lot more stable and viable than any agreement we sign with the PLO, if Hamas were to oppose it. Hamas can make concessions where Fatah would never dare. In any case, the Hamas that forms the government won't be the Hamas that sends suicide bombers. The comparison to international terror organizations is also nonsense: Hamas is a movement fighting for limited national goals. If Israel were to reach out to the extremists among its enemies, then maybe it can reach a real agreement that would put an end to the tumor of the occupation and the curse of terror…
Now is the time to reach out to Hamas, which is desperate for international, and particularly American, recognition, and knows that such recognition goes through Israel. If Israel were to be friendly toward Hamas, it could benefit. Not that Hamas will all at once give up its extremist demands and its unrealistic dreams, but it will know, as some of its leaders have already declared, to set them aside if it serves their interests. Israel, which in any case did not speak with Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, now has an opportunity for surprise. Instead of wasting more years with rejectionism, at the end of which we'll sit down with Hamas in any case, let us reach out now to this extremist group, which was democratically elected. Israel has nothing to lose from such an approach. We've already seen the achievements of the hand that assassinates and demolishes, uproots and jails, we've already seen those policies fulfilled in front of our eyes: Hamas won the elections.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/675837.html
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Haaretz
The obligation of the occupied
Amira Hass
25 January 2006
The elections taking place today in the Palestinian Authority are fluctuating between two poles: The Israeli occupation and its tremendous involvement in Palestinian lives, and the responsibility that the occupied have for their own lives. The world, led by Israel, loves to forget that the Palestinian parliament and government, despite their respectable name, are not state institutions, and that the PA enclaves are not independent.
The Palestinian parliament and government lack the authority and rights their counterparts have in sovereign states. They have no control over the external and internal borders that Israel draws between the various Palestinian districts, to the point where they are cut off from each other.
Sixty percent of West Bank land, the primary physical resource of the Palestinian people, are under total Israeli control, and no Palestinian government will be able to do with them what sovereign entities do in their territory: sow and plant, build, develop, maintain. Israel controls the water sources in Israel and in effect sets quotas for the Palestinians. Israel's control of the Palestinian population registry and freedom of movement means that it intervenes in personal decisions like family ties, place of residence, work and study. Through its control of the external and internal borders, Israel also determines how the Palestinian economy will look - the rate of unemployment, the salary cap, the types of economic activity, the location of the factories. And that is only a partial list…
Israelis must not deceive themselves: The Palestinians have not forgotten the occupation. They want to hope that the new candidates, who are supposed to be attentive to their people, will do better than their predecessors in taking advantage of the narrow maneuvering space that even the occupied have in their struggle for freedom. Days will tell whether the new parliament will indeed be able to find methods of struggle that will succeed where negotiations, rifles, explosive belts and unarmed popular activities have failed.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/674639.html
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The Guardian
Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto
Chris McGreal
· Shift comes in lead-up to Palestinian election
· Commitment to armed struggle remains
12 January 2006
Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.
The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still calls for the maintenance of the armed struggle against occupation. But it steps back from Hamas's 1988 charter demanding Israel's eradication and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.
The manifesto makes no mention of the destruction of the Jewish state and instead takes a more ambiguous position by saying that Hamas had decided to compete in the elections because it would contribute to "the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem".
The shift in emphasis comes as Hamas finds itself under pressure from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and from foreign governments to accept Israel's right to exist and to end its violence if it wants to be accepted as a political partner in a future administration.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1684472,00.html
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Wednesday, February 1
Friday, January 13
MCC Palestine Update #117
MCC Palestine Update #117
13 January 2006
Kull sane w-inte saalim
Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox communities have all celebrated Christmas so far. The Church of Nativity, where it is believed Jesus was born, has seen more visitors than usual. But here in Bethlehem, there remains one more celebration. The Armenian Apostolic Church will celebrate Christmas on January 19, with their Christmas Eve midnight service at the Church of the Nativity.
With about 6 million member world wide, the Armenian Apostolic Church, sometimes called the Armenian Orthodox Church, is one of the world’s oldest Christian traditions. Along with other communities that are today represented in the Coptic, Syrian, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, the Armenian Church is referred to as an Oriental or “Non-Chalcedonian” Orthodox Church, referring to their rejection of the decisions of the fourth ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. It was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the Armenians in Turkey suffered a series of massacres and expulsions that led to the death of large numbers of them. It is widely believed that altogether between 1.5 and 2 million Armenians died in the genocide.
Today there are large Armenian Apostolic congregations in many countries outside Armenia, including the United States, France, Russia, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Of particular importance is the Armenian Apostolic Church of Iran where Armenians are the largest Christian ethnic minority. (For more information, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Apostolic_Church and http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-bodypg.aspx?eccpageID=5&IndexView=toc)
For our Muslim friends, this week has been a special time as they celebrate ‘Eid al-Adha. This ‘eid or feast is one of the two great festivals that Muslims celebrate, occurring each year at the end of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. ‘Eid al-Adha commemorates the prophet Ibraham and his faithfulness to God expressed in his willingness to sacrifice his son Isma’il (a story very familiar to us as Christians but told with Abraham’s son Isaac instead of Isma’il). As the story goes, Ibrahim prepared to sacrifice his son but God stopped him and gave him a sheep to sacrifice instead. Muslims who can afford to do so sacrifice domestic animals, usually sheep, as a symbol of this sacrifice. The meat is distributed amongst their neighbors, relatives, and the poor and hungry in a concerted effort to see that no impoverished Muslim is left without sacrificial food during this day. (For more information, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha)
Celebrating Nonviolence
In late December, MCC partner Holy Land Trust (http://www.holylandtrust.org/) along with the U.S.-based Nonviolence International, held a conference here in Bethlehem entitled “Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance” (http://www.celebratingnv.org/). This conference brought together members of the global nonviolent community to discuss the past, present and future of nonviolent resistance and to learn first hand about nonviolent activism in Palestine. It drew participants from the local Palestinian community, internationals, as well as Israelis who, due to Israeli segregation policies that make it illegal for them to travel into the West Bank, had to sneak onto Bethlehem in order to participate. It was great to see so many visitors coming to Bethlehem to see the realities of occupation for themselves.
Lingering Uncertainty
Elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) are scheduled for the 25th of this month, the first of their kind since 1996. The PLC is the legislative branch of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). As these elections are being held in the occupied territories, the PLC only represents those Palestinian living here and not Palestinians living in the Diaspora—most of whom are refugees. This means that besides the 3.8 million Palestinians living in occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, the nearly 5 million Palestinians living outside of historical Palestine are not represented in this or any other body of the PNA, not to mention the 1.4 million Palestinians living inside the state of Israel. (These numbers alone communicate how central a just resolution to the plight of Palestinian refugee issue must be to any durable solution to this conflict.)
As the election process continues to move forward, the question of whether Palestinians living in East Jerusalem will be “allowed” to vote by the state of Israel continues to be uncertain. Due to the participation of groups such as Hamas in these elections, Israel has threatened in the past not only to prohibit Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting, but has also threatened to make voting difficult in the rest of the occupied territories by increasing the Israeli military’s presence at checkpoints or imposing closures, making movement even more difficult than it already is for Palestinians. The consistent campaign of mass arrests that the Israeli military has stepped up over the past months in and of itself has been one way to interfere in this process by simply removing potential legislative candidates from the scene.
This blatant interference in the democratic processes of the Palestinians people belies the claims of the state of Israel to uphold the virtues of democracy in the Middle East. Indeed, there is an unfortunately long history of foreign powers employing the language of democracy in their interference in local affairs in this part of the world, while engaging in actions and supporting structures that are anything but democratic, and undermining those legitimate displays of democracy that do not conform to their own ambitions.
A classic example of this would be the U.K.- and U.S.-backed overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953, and the reinstallation of the brutal dictatorial (and U.K. / U.S.-friendly) regime of the shah (see Rashid Khalidi’s Resurrecting Empire (I.B.Taurus, 2004) for more on this).
Another point of uncertainty that the people of this land are experiencing comes form the recent ill health of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Last week, the prime minister suffered a serious stroke that has left his health in serious danger and his future in serious question. Most recognize that the political career of Sharon is over. This naturally brings into question the future of Israeli politics, as Israelis face an upcoming election later this year. This also has an impact on the Palestinian people, but for Palestinians, not in a manner that most of the reports and discussions about Sharon and his role in the “peace process” tell.
For it should be made clear that there is not and there has not been any “peace process” that Ariel Sharon has overseen. Movements such as the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, in which Israeli colonists were evacuated from their homes in the illegal colonies of the Gaza Strip, were nothing less than unilateral acts dictated and executed by Israel, without any negotiations with the Palestinian people—which is why the state of Gaza continues to be one of occupation, essentially one big prison.
In fact, in the words of Sharon’s close advisor Dov Weisglass, such unilateralism is meant to silence the critics of the Global North so that the “peace process” can be frozen and the question of a Palestinian state placed in formaldehyde indefinitely. Earlier this month, it was reported in the Israeli press that Sharon would move forward with this position and eventually scrap the U.S.-led “road map” plan for peace and instead seek Washington's blessing for unilaterally annexing occupied West Bank land (“Israel’s Sharon aims to scrap peace plan – report,” http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02599635.htm).
Such a trajectory, unfortunately, points to the completion of the 430-mile “separation barrier,” becoming the de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. Palestinians will be confined to these “reservations,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels. Absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, what remains will be a reservation life for Palestinians parallel to the Native North American experience in the United States, a reality that Israeli journalist Amira Hass has reported already exists (see below “IDF cantonizes West Bank, sealing in 800,000 Palestinians,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/669812.html).
And Still the Occupation
The reality of occupation is one thing that is quite certain as this new year begins. Lack of mobility, with new and “improved” checkpoints and wall terminals have already been constructed at the entrances of both the Bethlehem and Ramallah “reservations,” continues to disrupt the day-to-day lives of Palestinians. In a recent photo essay by MCC partner the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (http://www.stopthewall.org/), these fortified checkpoints (“terminals”) and gates are described as
"a key element of the Apartheid Wall and the ghettoization of the Palestinian people. Racist oppression and daily humiliation is intensifying as the Occupation builds a series of fortified checkpoints. Spread throughout Palestine they control and regulate all movement…Humiliation and frustration characterize daily life. With Orwellian control and domination, the Occupation continually subjugates Palestinians to the status of animals being herded through gates and doors…Isolation of Palestinian communities is a cornerstone of the Zionist project to ethnically cleanse the land, to annihilate Palestinian identity and struggle, and to gain complete and totalitarian control over all of Palestine." (“Checkpoints, Gates and Terminals – Driving racist ghettoization in the 21st century,” http://stopthewall.org/photos/1078.shtml)
Colonization of the land also shows no sign of letting up (“Ministry releases tenders for building 228 houses in West Bank,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/662592.html), with more than 6000 new settlers moving into the occupied West Bank in the second half of 2005 alone (“Number of settlers on the rise,” http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3195205,00.html), including many settlers evicted from the occupied Gaza Strip earlier last year (“Gaza evictees settle in West Bank,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4480072.stm), and a more intentional effort to concretize Israeli control over the Jordan Valley (“Israel is trying to push us out of Jordan Valley,” http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1135696362781&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull).
A major part of this project to solidify control over Palestinian territory is the ongoing construction of the “separation barrier” (“Mofaz orders resumption of separation fence around J'lem,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668666.html; “High Court okays construction of West Bank fence near Modi'in,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668067.html), the most recent manifestation in a long history of Palestinian dispossession.
Settler violence continues to be part and parcel of this illegal occupation, especially most recently with the destruction of Palestinian groves of olive trees. According to Israeli police, 733 Palestinian olive trees were vandalized in 2005. But according to a partial list of damaged trees throughout the West Bank compiled by Israeli human rights organizations like B’Tselem (http://www.btselem.org/English/) and Rabbis for Human Rights (http://www.rhr.israel.net/), the real number is much higher. These organizations say that at least 2,750 olive trees were vandalized in various ways last year, including being uprooted and stolen, being torched and being chopped down (“Experts: Palestinian trees were vandalized, not pruned,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668683.html; “Shin Bet: IDF did nothing to stop settlers uprooting olive trees,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668510.html; “Settlers uprooted 2400 olive trees in three years,” http://www.imemc.org/content/view/15987/1/).
Advocacy: Our Active Engagement with the “Burning Issues of Our Time”
MCC’s recent documentary, Children of the Nakba—that takes a look at the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” that led to the Palestinian refugee crisis in which 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and between 700,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands—is now available online in MCC’s Online Resource Catalog: http://www.mcc.org/catalog (search keywords: “Children of the Nakba”). Also available on this new DVD is the award-winning MCC documentary The Dividing Wall. For more information on these refugee issues, please visit MCC’s partners the Badil Resource Center at http://www.badil.org and the Zochrot Association at http://www.nakbainhebrew.org.
Some additional resources that MCC has recently produced to assist in education and advocacy include:
“Peacebuilding in Palestine / Israel: A Discussion Paper” meant to help facilitate a conversation in communities back in North America about stewardship, divestment, and economic justice, online at http://www.mcc.org/papers
What Is Palestine/Israel?: Answers to Common Questions by Sonia Weaver: http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/bridges/paper.pdf
MCC Peace Office newsletter “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land” (July-September 2005): http://www.mcc.org/respub/pon/PON_2005-07-01.pdf
MCC Peace Office newsletter “Walling Off the Future for Palestinians and Israelis” (July-September 2004): http://www.mcc.org/respub/pon/mcc_pon04_03.pdf
How do we respond?
We ask that you would prayerfully consider these issues that continue to weigh heavily in this broken land with discussion and dialogue in your own communities. Suggestions for steps for moving towards action by advocating for a justpeace for Palestinians and Israelis can be found at MCC’s “Bridges Not Walls” website: http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/bridges/whattodo.html.
We also continue to ask all of you to keep our CPT colleagues being held in Iraq in your thoughts and prayers as well as their families and all of those suffering as a result of these occupations.
May a sense of newness this season bring us all hope and renewal for our engagement with and struggle for peace and justice in the coming year.
Peace to you all,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Amira Hass, “IDF cantonizes West Bank, sealing in 800,000 Palestinians,” Haaretz, 13 Jan 2006
· Robert Fisk, “Telling it like it isn’t,” Los Angeles Times, 27 December 2005.
· Ghada Karmi, “With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation,” The Guardian, 31 December 2005
· Henry Siegman, “He never intended an equitable solution in Israel,” The Observer, 8 January 2006.
· Amira Hass, “It’s not the olive trees,” Haaretz, 11 January 2006.
· Amira Hass, “It’s not all in the details,” Haaretz, 28 December 2005.
· Sarah Leah Whitson, “Expanding Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Letter to President George W. Bush,” Human Rights Watch, 27 December 2005
· Akiva Elder, “There's a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel’s state land,” Haaretz, 27 December 2005
· “Judaizing Jerusalem - the Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinian Capital,” The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, 27 December 2005
· Editorial “On apathy,” Haaretz, 23 December 2005.
· Gideon Levy, “Twilight Zone / Dusty trail to death,” Haaretz, 23 December 2005.
· Noura Khouri, “Breaking Down the Wall,” Electronic Intifada, 20 December 2005.
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Haaretz
IDF cantonizes West Bank, sealing in 800,000 Palestinians
Amira Hass
13 January 2006
For a month now, since the second week of December 2005, the Israel Defense Forces has severed the northern part of the West Bank from other parts, and prohibited residents from traveling toward Ramallah and points southward.
The ban applies to some 800,000 people, residents of the Tul Karm, Nablus and Jenin provinces. Until January 2, the ban applied just to residents of Jenin and Tul Karm. Since then it has been extended to Nablus area residents.
The IDF did not issue an order on the new arrangements, which people only found out about at the permanent and so-called flying checkpoints that have prevented them over the past four weeks from traveling southward from the Za'atara junction (the Tapuah checkpoint). They were not informed how long the travel ban would be in effect.
The IDF has also cut off direct traffic links within the northern West Bank. The main artery - Road 60, running from the Shavei Shomron settlement to the road leading to the settlements Mevo Dotan and Homesh, has been closed to all Palestinian traffic since mid-August by means of three steel gates. Military sources have told international organizations that this road will be closed to Palestinian traffic until the construction of an additional security fence around Shavei Shomron is completed.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/669812.html
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Los Angeles Times
Telling it like it isn't
Robert Fisk
27 December 2005
I FIRST REALIZED the enormous pressures on American journalists in the Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where he had obviously enjoyed reporting. I could save my sorrows for someone else, he said. One of the joys of leaving was that he would no longer have to alter the truth to suit his paper's more vociferous readers.
"I used to call the Israeli Likud Party 'right wing,' " he said. "But recently, my editors have been telling me not to use the phrase. A lot of our readers objected." And so now, I asked? "We just don't call it 'right wing' anymore."
Ouch. I knew at once that these "readers" were viewed at his newspaper as Israel's friends, but I also knew that the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu was as right wing as it had ever been.
This is only the tip of the semantic iceberg that has crashed into American journalism in the Middle East. Illegal Jewish settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land are clearly "colonies," and we used to call them that. I cannot trace the moment when we started using the word "settlements." But I can remember the moment around two years ago when the word "settlements" was replaced by "Jewish neighborhoods" — or even, in some cases, "outposts."
Similarly, "occupied" Palestinian land was softened in many American media reports into "disputed" Palestinian land — just after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in 2001, instructed U.S. embassies in the Middle East to refer to the West Bank as "disputed" rather than "occupied" territory.
Then there is the "wall," the massive concrete obstruction whose purpose, according to the Israeli authorities, is to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from killing innocent Israelis. In this, it seems to have had some success. But it does not follow the line of Israel's 1967 border and cuts deeply into Arab land. And all too often these days, journalists call it a "fence" rather than a "wall." Or a "security barrier," which is what Israel prefers them to say. For some of its length, we are told, it is not a wall at all — so we cannot call it a "wall," even though the vast snake of concrete and steel that runs east of Jerusalem is higher than the old Berlin Wall.
The semantic effect of this journalistic obfuscation is clear. If Palestinian land is not occupied but merely part of a legal dispute that might be resolved in law courts or discussions over tea, then a Palestinian child who throws a stone at an Israeli soldier in this territory is clearly acting insanely.
If a Jewish colony built illegally on Arab land is simply a nice friendly "neighborhood," then any Palestinian who attacks it must be carrying out a mindless terrorist act.
Please read more at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-fisk27dec27,0,6099761.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
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The Guardian
With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation
Ghada Karmi
31 December 2005
Israeli policy is the root cause of need in the occupied territories, but donors pay up without challenging it
The donors well know the causes of this desperate situation. At a conference in Ramallah last July, the World Bank's representative, Nigel Roberts, candidly admitted that Israel's occupation was the problem. Yet the funding continues, as if for all the world the Palestinians were victims not of a deliberate Israeli policy, but of some natural disaster. In the context of an occupation that denudes the Palestinians of their land and resources, keeps them imprisoned in ghettoes, and controls every aspect of their lives, what should be the rationale of international aid? Without doubt, emergency relief is vital to Palestinian survival and cannot be lightly withdrawn. But should not the root cause, Israel's occupation, be addressed too? Otherwise aid becomes merely an adjunct to the occupation.
By paying up without caveat, donors in effect relieve Israel of its obligations under international law. As the occupying power, Israel must deliver assistance and services to the Palestinian population. As high contracting parties to the Geneva conventions, the donors are obliged to ensure Israel's compliance with the law. None of this has happened. Instead, international aid has rendered the occupation cost-free. It has even enriched Israel's economy: according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, for every dollar produced in the occupied territories, 45 cents flows back to Israel.
Aside from the recent EU criticism of Israel's policies in Arab Jerusalem, which were quickly downplayed, the donors have made no serious attempt to challenge Israel's actions, not even to demand compensation for its destruction of Palestinian projects they had funded. On the contrary, the process of preparing Palestinians for western-style "statehood" has accelerated. Foreign funded projects for "democratisation", "reform", "capacity building" and other imported buzz words have doubled. In the absence of a Palestinian state or any hope of one, this becomes an exercise in cynicism. The donors' efforts to ensure the Palestinian security services can fight "terrorism" (ie resistance to occupation), while Israel's army freely assassinates Palestinians, bombs them and demolishes their homes, is immoral.
By focusing on the effects of occupation rather than ending it, the donors have made the conflict into a scramble for socio-economic survival. But distancing the Palestinians from their national struggle can only help Israel impose its final terms on them. If that is not to happen, then the donors must resolve their dilemma: not abandoning the Palestinians to their fate, and not challenging Israel, are incompatible. Facing up to the bully is a moral imperative, and, ultimately, the only practical way forward.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/
0,3604,1675672,00.html
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The Observer
He never intended an equitable solution in Israel
Henry Siegman
8 January 2006
If it were true that a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians incorporating these unavoidable 'concessions' were the strategic goal of the 'new' Sharon, his departure from the political scene would be grievous. But Sharon had no intention of making such concessions, nor is there any basis for the expectation that there will ever be a Palestinian leader willing or able to accept an agreement that does not include these provisions.
Many in Israel saw Sharon's decision to disengage from Gaza as evidence of a new determination to end the conflict by dismantling the settlement enterprise, not only in Gaza but in much of the West Bank as well. I believe that to be a misreading.
The precedent Sharon sought to establish was not for additional disengagements from the West Bank (other than from isolated areas and major Palestinian population centres). Rather, he intended Gaza to serve as a precedent for a continuing unilateralism enabling Israel to retain de facto control of the West Bank, even if a nominal Palestinian state were to come into existence. Sharon believed a nominal state was the only way for Israel to deal with the demographic challenge posed by Palestinian population growth and - equally important - the only way to retain US support for its unilateralism.
Sharon's ideas for an imposed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on a narrow conception of security that considers Palestinian national aspirations and Palestinian rights, a notion foreign to Sharon, as irrelevant, constitute a dubious foundation for peacemaking.
Please read more at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/
0,6903,1681758,00.html
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Haaretz
It's not the olive trees
Amira Hass
11 January 2006
There is something very human about these stumps of olive trees, hundreds upon hundreds of them, their amputated branches reaching skyward as if to ask for help. Last Friday, in Tawana in the southern Hebron hills, 120 trees; In Burin, south of Nablus, earlier this week, about 50 trees; another 100 or so in Burin on December 24; and 140 trees, again in Burin, on December 14.
The police have counted 733 trees that were uprooted in 2005. According to the (incomplete) list of 29 incidents of agricultural sabotage documented by the human rights groups Yesh Din and B'Tselem from March to December, a total of 2,616 trees were sabotaged: uprooted, stolen, burned, chopped, sawed. In Salem alone, 900 trees were uprooted four times. Even if those who counted the damaged trees exaggerated, both sides agree that it is Israelis who are damaging vineyards and plantations.
The accumulation over the past few months of images of trees destroyed "by unknown individuals" has been sufficiently shocking to lead the attorney general to attack the helplessness of the authorities, and for Minister Gideon Ezra to convene a special meeting during which it was decided to focus law enforcement activities "on the settlements that are recognized as problematic."
The shock, however, is selective. The Israel Defense Forces has uprooted thousands of olive and fruit trees, cultivated lands and greenhouses, and continues to do so - in order to secure the roads it uses and to increase visibility for soldiers; to build watchtowers, checkpoints and the separation fence; and in order to pave more and more roads and construct security fences around the settlements…
The settlers do not set policy, they are its result. Everyone lives in peace and without prickings of conscience in the face of hundreds of impoverished communities that have effectively turned into prisons, in order to permit the IDF to continue to protect the Israeli state enterprise: to control as much land as possible, to drive out as many Palestinians as possible. A minority of Israelis are not waiting for the IDF and the state to destroy; they destroy on their own. It is easy to be shocked by a minority and to forget the responsibility of the whole.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668697.html
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Haaretz
It's not all in the details
Amira Hass
28 December 2005
What is important is that the army and the Israeli citizens who design all of the details of dispossession - and the roadblocks are an inseparable part of this dispossession - have transformed the term "humanitarian" into a despicable lie.
Through the checkpoints, road closures, movement ban, and traffic restrictions, through the concrete walls and barbed wire fences, through the land expropriations (solely for the purpose of security, as the High Court of Justice, which is part and parcel of the Israeli people, likes to believe), through the disconnecting of villages from their lands and from a connecting road, through the construction of a wall in a residential neighborhood and in the backyards of homes, and through the transformation of the West Bank into a cluster of "territorial cells," in the military jargon, between the expanding settlements - we Israelis have created and continue to create an economic, social, emotional, employment and environmental crisis on the scale of a never-ending tsunami.
And then we offer a little turnstile in a cage, an officer who is briefed to see an old man, a bathroom and a water cooler - and this is described as "humanitarian." In other words, we push an entire people into impossible situations, blatantly inhumane situations, in order to steal its land and time and future and freedom of choice, and then the plantation owner appears and relaxes the iron fist a bit, and is proud of his sense of compassion.
However, even the important matter - that is, the humanitarian deception - is only one detail in a full set of details in which no single detail is representative in itself. Isolated fragments of the reality are read as being tolerable, or understandable (security, security), or may make one angry for a moment and then subside. And among all the details, the reality of colonialism intensifies, without letup or remission, inventing yet more methods of torture of the individual and community; creating more ways to violate international law, robbing land behind the legal camouflage, and encouraging collaboration out of agreement, neglect or torpor.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/663138.html
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Human Rights Watch
Expanding Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Letter to President George W. Bush
Sarah Leah Whitson
27 December 2005
Dear President Bush,
I am writing to you with respect to multiple Israeli announcements of its plans to continue expanding settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). This directly contravenes international law and Israeli commitments under the Road Map.
You recently reiterated Israel’s obligations to stop expanding settlements when you said, on October 20, 2005, following your meeting with Palestinian President Abbas: “Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes its road map obligations, or prejudices the final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. This means that Israel must remove unauthorized outposts and stop settlement expansion.” Israel has acted contrary to these obligations, escalating the building of settlements in 2005. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of 2005, there was a 28% increase in settlement housing starts compared to the same period in 2004. Israel now proposes to further expand West Bank settlements in the coming year.
We urge you to use U.S. diplomatic and financial influence to stop this trend in 2006.
On December 26, the Ministry of Housing released tenders for the construction of 228 housing units in the West Bank settlements of Beitar Ilit and Efrat; on December 19, , the Ministry of Housing published tenders for constructing 137 new housing units in the West Bank settlements of Ariel and Karnei Shomron; and on December 14, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz’s approved the construction of approximately 300 new homes in the West Bank settlements of Maale Adumim, Bracha and Nokdim. Maale Adumim is one of the largest and fastest growing settlements in the West Bank, with some 30,000 inhabitants. The settlement is located east of Jerusalem and adjacent to the much-publicized area of “E-1,” the last remaining site for potential Palestinian development around settlement-encircled East Jerusalem. The Israeli government also has made clear that, despite U.S. opposition, it plans to build 3,500 housing units in E-1 and to include Ma'ale Adumim and E-1 on the western side (the “Israeli side”) of the metal and concrete barrier that Israel is building, mostly inside the OPT (hereinafter, the “wall”). Such actions would effectively sever the West Bank in two by cutting the already limited Palestinian north-south access routes through the West Bank. In addition, a wall encircling E-1 and Ma’ale Adumim would make access to East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian economic and religious life, virtually impossible from the rest of the West Bank, except through limited checkpoint crossings in the wall, most of which Israel has not yet funded or built.
Please read more at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/27/isrlpa12346.htm
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Haaretz
There's a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel's state land
Akiva Elder
27 December 2005
In the process of preparing a new report that deals with the expansion of settlements under cover of the separation fence, researchers from B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and from Bimkom, Planners for Planning Rights were able to lay their hands on the map of "The Master Plan of the Upper Modi'in Area" for the year 2020. The map confirms that it is not only security issues that interested the planners of the route of the fence in the area of the battles for Bil'in. They were so hungry they "forgot" that security needs make it essential to keep a suitable distance between the fence and the nearest Jewish locale. It turns out that in addition to the usual master plans, at the initiative of the Construction and Housing Ministry and in cooperation with the planning bureau of the Civil Administration, in 1998 the Upper Modi'in local council and the Matteh Binyamin regional council drew up a master plan for the whole bloc. The plan does not have statutory validity, but it is a guiding document in the framework of which the planning policy is determined for a given area, and in the light of which the master plans are formulated. The report points out that under the master plan about 600 dunam adjacent to the plan for Matityahu East, which are owned by families from the village of Bil'in, are slated for the construction of 1,200 new housing units. Less than two months ago inhabitants of Bil'in discovered that a new road had been cut through from the Matityahu East neighborhood to a large grove of olive trees that is located in the area.
The village council filed a complaint with the Shai (Samaria-Judea) police about the uprooting of about 100 trees and their theft. The cutting through of the road reinforces the suspicion that under cover of the fence, there is a plan for a takeover of the land adjacent to the East Matityahu neighborhood, which is already in the process of construction.
Similarly, cultivated lands owned by the villagers of Dir Qadis and Ni'alin on an area of about 1,000 dunams, adjacent to the plan for Matityahu North C, have been added in the framework of the master plan to the plan for the neighborhood.
The authors of the report note that the master plan for Upper Modi'in arouses a strong suspicion that one of the covert aims of the fence is to cause Palestinian inhabitants to stop cultivating lands that are intended for the expansion of the Jewish settlements, to enable the declaration of them as state lands. Hence, as described above, the way to the building companies is very short.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/662729.html
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The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
Judaizing Jerusalem - the Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinian Capital
27 December 2005
Once the wall is finished throughout Jerusalem it will total 181km. By December 2005, over 130km of the 8-meter high concrete structure had been constructed. Completion in early 2006 will leave the majority of Palestinians in and around Jerusalem – around 190,000 people - facing two options. To stay in Jerusalem's ghetto neighborhoods, subjected to high Occupation taxes, imprisoned by Walls and a life under siege. Secondly, exile into what remains of the West Bank and Gaza or abroad, and permanent loss of the right to live in the Palestinian capital.
Given that Palestinians rely on Jerusalem for employment, basic services and education, the Wall is beginning to depopulate these villages as well as tearing families and communities apart.
In the last few months 80% of the population of West Ezawiya village have deserted their homes in order to remain in Jerusalem. Out of a population of 5000 people, only around 1000 Palestinians now remain in this village and with the wall's completion they will be prevented fromentering Jerusalem.
The Wall around Jerusalem ensures the annexation of all the settlement blocs around the city (also known as "the Jerusalem Envelope") and their expansion on the Palestinian lands stolen by the Wall.
A chain of 181 Km, the concrete Wall forms a series of ghettoised Palestinian neighborhood Palestinians are being shut in by the Wall and the settler roads into 4 main ghettos…
Please read more at http://stopthewall.org/maps/1068.shtml
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Haaretz
On apathy
Editorial
23 December 2005
In today's Haaretz Magazine, Gideon Levy tells the story of Mahmoud Shawara, a 43-year-old father of nine, who left for work on his donkey one day from his house in the village of Nuaman, near Bethlehem, was arrested by border policemen, and, after he refused to accompany the soldiers without his donkey, was tied to the donkey. The frightened donkey then galloped toward the village; Shawara sustained serious injuries all over his body, and ultimately died in great pain in the hospital to which he was taken by eyewitnesses. Although the Department for Investigating Policemen found no relationship between the border policemen's behavior and Shawara's death,testimony indicates that this is an abusive practice well known to Palestinians. It even has a nickname: "the donkey procedure."
On Wednesday, Haaretz located another man, Maamoun Abu Ali, who underwent similar abuse at the hands of border policemen two months ago, not far from the place where Shawara was arrested and tied to his donkey. Abu Ali, according to his testimony, was also tied to a donkey. A concrete block was placed on his back, his hands were tied, and the border police then prodded the donkey to run. Luckily for him, however, his donkey refused to budge, so Abu Ali was saved from death.
Cases of abuse of Palestinians, whether by soldiers or by settlers, have stopped making headlines in the press or eliciting shock. Nor do investigations of these incidents appear to be serious, and complaints are ignored until the story is either published in the media or dealt with by one of the human rights organizations active in the territories. This growing apathy can perhaps be attributed to the continuous satisfaction felt over the disengagement from Gaza, following which Israelis feel that the occupation is about to end. But, meanwhile, the occupation is continuing in all its severity, with all the abuses that have characterized it throughout the years.
This apathy is a stain on the face of Israeli society that it will find hard to remove.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?
itemNo=661708&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID
=0&listSrc=Y
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Haaretz
Twilight Zone / Dusty trail to death
Gideon Levy
23 December 2005
On Sunday morning of last week Mahmoud Shawara, a laborer, mounted his mule and set out from his home in the village of Nuaman to look for work in the neighboring village of Umm Touba. At about 9 A.M., he was arrested by a Border Police unit that detains workers who do not have an entry permit to Israel every morning.
The Border Police ordered Shawara to get into their jeep. He refused. He did not want to leave his mule unattended. At 9:30 his brother saw him for the last time, healthy and sound. At 4 P.M. a resident of Umm Touba named Mohammed Hamadan noticed a mule galloping toward the village and dragging something behind it. From a distance, Hamadan thought it might be scrap metal. As the mule came closer, Hamadan saw that it was dragging an injured, battered man. The mule, he says, was galloping down the slope and looked frightened. He stopped the animal and then discovered that the person being dragged across the ground was Mahmoud Shawara, from the neighboring village, whom he knew well. Shawara's left hand was roped to the mule's neck. He was unconscious and barely breathing. His skull and face were smashed on the left side and blood was pouring from him. He managed to utter a few broken, unclear words or parts of words and then stopped breathing.
Hamadan untied Shawara, laid him on the ground and pressed on his chest to restart his breathing. He then summoned an ambulance from the clinic of the Meuhedet health maintenance organization in the village. Shawara was taken to Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, where he was admitted to the neurosurgical section of the intensive care unit. At the end of the week, during which he did not regain consciousness, Shawara died of his wounds. He was 43, a laborer and the father of nine children, who went to look for work in the neighboring village.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/661473.html
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The Electronic Intifada
Breaking Down the Wall
Noura Khouri
20 December 2005
It is estimated that Israel's Annexation Wall will be completed in the early part of 2006. When it is finished it will annex 47% of the West Bank, and hand it over to the settler population. At least 15% of Palestinians will be left outside the wall1, completely isolated from the rest of society, and over 222,098 refugees for the second or third times will experience, "land confiscation, destruction of property, and denial of access to their lands thus directly affecting their means of livelihood"2. In the end, it is not an over exaggeration to say that the entire Palestinian society will directly suffer by its completion, in addition to the seemingly unstoppable illegal Israeli practices that continue unhindered.
Still the question is often asked by critics and supporters alike, why don't Palestinians resist non-violently, and continue to do so even if in the face of overwhelming military force. During this time of intensive Israeli expansionism, and growing Palestinian isolationism, internationals and Israelis alike want to know where the next Gandhi or MLK is. Many may not be aware that Palestinians have in fact engaged in ongoing organized, nonviolent resistance since the beginning of the century (request detailed Palestinian history/timeline). As well, there is too often confusion and questions about the issues of history, religion and who is right, or more deserving of a homeland. The issue however, is simply one of equality, human rights and international law.
On October 28th, 2005, eleven year old Ahmad was celebrating the Muslim holiday, Eid, while playing with his friends in a Jenin refugee camp. He was shot dead in the head by an Israeli sniper. The soldier admitted he shot the boy while "mistaking" his toy gun for the real thing. Did it ever cross the mind of this soldier with the best military technology in the world available to him, to take a closer look? In response, the parents of the boy who was accidentally murdered - donated his organs to an Israeli family. At least three young Israeli girls were saved as a result. Ahmad's father said that the action he took in donating his son's organs was meant as "a message of peace to the world, stating that Palestinians want real peace, and the only way of achieving that is by ending the illegal Israeli occupation." Sadly, the difference between Gandhi & MLK, versus Ahmad's family's brave acts is that they were Palestinian; and for them was nether a whisper from within the oppressive Israeli system, nor the rest of the world community. In fact, the soldier that killed him like so many others guilty of the same crime, was found 'not guilty' of any charges. Equally disturbing, is an Israeli man present at the newly united Palestinian and Israeli family's home, who had the nerve to tell Palestinians that they need to learn to stop their violence!
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4355.shtml
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13 January 2006
Kull sane w-inte saalim
Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox communities have all celebrated Christmas so far. The Church of Nativity, where it is believed Jesus was born, has seen more visitors than usual. But here in Bethlehem, there remains one more celebration. The Armenian Apostolic Church will celebrate Christmas on January 19, with their Christmas Eve midnight service at the Church of the Nativity.
With about 6 million member world wide, the Armenian Apostolic Church, sometimes called the Armenian Orthodox Church, is one of the world’s oldest Christian traditions. Along with other communities that are today represented in the Coptic, Syrian, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, the Armenian Church is referred to as an Oriental or “Non-Chalcedonian” Orthodox Church, referring to their rejection of the decisions of the fourth ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. It was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the Armenians in Turkey suffered a series of massacres and expulsions that led to the death of large numbers of them. It is widely believed that altogether between 1.5 and 2 million Armenians died in the genocide.
Today there are large Armenian Apostolic congregations in many countries outside Armenia, including the United States, France, Russia, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Of particular importance is the Armenian Apostolic Church of Iran where Armenians are the largest Christian ethnic minority. (For more information, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Apostolic_Church and http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-bodypg.aspx?eccpageID=5&IndexView=toc)
For our Muslim friends, this week has been a special time as they celebrate ‘Eid al-Adha. This ‘eid or feast is one of the two great festivals that Muslims celebrate, occurring each year at the end of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. ‘Eid al-Adha commemorates the prophet Ibraham and his faithfulness to God expressed in his willingness to sacrifice his son Isma’il (a story very familiar to us as Christians but told with Abraham’s son Isaac instead of Isma’il). As the story goes, Ibrahim prepared to sacrifice his son but God stopped him and gave him a sheep to sacrifice instead. Muslims who can afford to do so sacrifice domestic animals, usually sheep, as a symbol of this sacrifice. The meat is distributed amongst their neighbors, relatives, and the poor and hungry in a concerted effort to see that no impoverished Muslim is left without sacrificial food during this day. (For more information, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha)
Celebrating Nonviolence
In late December, MCC partner Holy Land Trust (http://www.holylandtrust.org/) along with the U.S.-based Nonviolence International, held a conference here in Bethlehem entitled “Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance” (http://www.celebratingnv.org/). This conference brought together members of the global nonviolent community to discuss the past, present and future of nonviolent resistance and to learn first hand about nonviolent activism in Palestine. It drew participants from the local Palestinian community, internationals, as well as Israelis who, due to Israeli segregation policies that make it illegal for them to travel into the West Bank, had to sneak onto Bethlehem in order to participate. It was great to see so many visitors coming to Bethlehem to see the realities of occupation for themselves.
Lingering Uncertainty
Elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) are scheduled for the 25th of this month, the first of their kind since 1996. The PLC is the legislative branch of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). As these elections are being held in the occupied territories, the PLC only represents those Palestinian living here and not Palestinians living in the Diaspora—most of whom are refugees. This means that besides the 3.8 million Palestinians living in occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, the nearly 5 million Palestinians living outside of historical Palestine are not represented in this or any other body of the PNA, not to mention the 1.4 million Palestinians living inside the state of Israel. (These numbers alone communicate how central a just resolution to the plight of Palestinian refugee issue must be to any durable solution to this conflict.)
As the election process continues to move forward, the question of whether Palestinians living in East Jerusalem will be “allowed” to vote by the state of Israel continues to be uncertain. Due to the participation of groups such as Hamas in these elections, Israel has threatened in the past not only to prohibit Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting, but has also threatened to make voting difficult in the rest of the occupied territories by increasing the Israeli military’s presence at checkpoints or imposing closures, making movement even more difficult than it already is for Palestinians. The consistent campaign of mass arrests that the Israeli military has stepped up over the past months in and of itself has been one way to interfere in this process by simply removing potential legislative candidates from the scene.
This blatant interference in the democratic processes of the Palestinians people belies the claims of the state of Israel to uphold the virtues of democracy in the Middle East. Indeed, there is an unfortunately long history of foreign powers employing the language of democracy in their interference in local affairs in this part of the world, while engaging in actions and supporting structures that are anything but democratic, and undermining those legitimate displays of democracy that do not conform to their own ambitions.
A classic example of this would be the U.K.- and U.S.-backed overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953, and the reinstallation of the brutal dictatorial (and U.K. / U.S.-friendly) regime of the shah (see Rashid Khalidi’s Resurrecting Empire (I.B.Taurus, 2004) for more on this).
Another point of uncertainty that the people of this land are experiencing comes form the recent ill health of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Last week, the prime minister suffered a serious stroke that has left his health in serious danger and his future in serious question. Most recognize that the political career of Sharon is over. This naturally brings into question the future of Israeli politics, as Israelis face an upcoming election later this year. This also has an impact on the Palestinian people, but for Palestinians, not in a manner that most of the reports and discussions about Sharon and his role in the “peace process” tell.
For it should be made clear that there is not and there has not been any “peace process” that Ariel Sharon has overseen. Movements such as the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, in which Israeli colonists were evacuated from their homes in the illegal colonies of the Gaza Strip, were nothing less than unilateral acts dictated and executed by Israel, without any negotiations with the Palestinian people—which is why the state of Gaza continues to be one of occupation, essentially one big prison.
In fact, in the words of Sharon’s close advisor Dov Weisglass, such unilateralism is meant to silence the critics of the Global North so that the “peace process” can be frozen and the question of a Palestinian state placed in formaldehyde indefinitely. Earlier this month, it was reported in the Israeli press that Sharon would move forward with this position and eventually scrap the U.S.-led “road map” plan for peace and instead seek Washington's blessing for unilaterally annexing occupied West Bank land (“Israel’s Sharon aims to scrap peace plan – report,” http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02599635.htm).
Such a trajectory, unfortunately, points to the completion of the 430-mile “separation barrier,” becoming the de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. Palestinians will be confined to these “reservations,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels. Absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, what remains will be a reservation life for Palestinians parallel to the Native North American experience in the United States, a reality that Israeli journalist Amira Hass has reported already exists (see below “IDF cantonizes West Bank, sealing in 800,000 Palestinians,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/669812.html).
And Still the Occupation
The reality of occupation is one thing that is quite certain as this new year begins. Lack of mobility, with new and “improved” checkpoints and wall terminals have already been constructed at the entrances of both the Bethlehem and Ramallah “reservations,” continues to disrupt the day-to-day lives of Palestinians. In a recent photo essay by MCC partner the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (http://www.stopthewall.org/), these fortified checkpoints (“terminals”) and gates are described as
"a key element of the Apartheid Wall and the ghettoization of the Palestinian people. Racist oppression and daily humiliation is intensifying as the Occupation builds a series of fortified checkpoints. Spread throughout Palestine they control and regulate all movement…Humiliation and frustration characterize daily life. With Orwellian control and domination, the Occupation continually subjugates Palestinians to the status of animals being herded through gates and doors…Isolation of Palestinian communities is a cornerstone of the Zionist project to ethnically cleanse the land, to annihilate Palestinian identity and struggle, and to gain complete and totalitarian control over all of Palestine." (“Checkpoints, Gates and Terminals – Driving racist ghettoization in the 21st century,” http://stopthewall.org/photos/1078.shtml)
Colonization of the land also shows no sign of letting up (“Ministry releases tenders for building 228 houses in West Bank,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/662592.html), with more than 6000 new settlers moving into the occupied West Bank in the second half of 2005 alone (“Number of settlers on the rise,” http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3195205,00.html), including many settlers evicted from the occupied Gaza Strip earlier last year (“Gaza evictees settle in West Bank,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4480072.stm), and a more intentional effort to concretize Israeli control over the Jordan Valley (“Israel is trying to push us out of Jordan Valley,” http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1135696362781&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull).
A major part of this project to solidify control over Palestinian territory is the ongoing construction of the “separation barrier” (“Mofaz orders resumption of separation fence around J'lem,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668666.html; “High Court okays construction of West Bank fence near Modi'in,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668067.html), the most recent manifestation in a long history of Palestinian dispossession.
Settler violence continues to be part and parcel of this illegal occupation, especially most recently with the destruction of Palestinian groves of olive trees. According to Israeli police, 733 Palestinian olive trees were vandalized in 2005. But according to a partial list of damaged trees throughout the West Bank compiled by Israeli human rights organizations like B’Tselem (http://www.btselem.org/English/) and Rabbis for Human Rights (http://www.rhr.israel.net/), the real number is much higher. These organizations say that at least 2,750 olive trees were vandalized in various ways last year, including being uprooted and stolen, being torched and being chopped down (“Experts: Palestinian trees were vandalized, not pruned,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668683.html; “Shin Bet: IDF did nothing to stop settlers uprooting olive trees,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668510.html; “Settlers uprooted 2400 olive trees in three years,” http://www.imemc.org/content/view/15987/1/).
Advocacy: Our Active Engagement with the “Burning Issues of Our Time”
MCC’s recent documentary, Children of the Nakba—that takes a look at the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” that led to the Palestinian refugee crisis in which 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and between 700,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands—is now available online in MCC’s Online Resource Catalog: http://www.mcc.org/catalog (search keywords: “Children of the Nakba”). Also available on this new DVD is the award-winning MCC documentary The Dividing Wall. For more information on these refugee issues, please visit MCC’s partners the Badil Resource Center at http://www.badil.org and the Zochrot Association at http://www.nakbainhebrew.org.
Some additional resources that MCC has recently produced to assist in education and advocacy include:
“Peacebuilding in Palestine / Israel: A Discussion Paper” meant to help facilitate a conversation in communities back in North America about stewardship, divestment, and economic justice, online at http://www.mcc.org/papers
What Is Palestine/Israel?: Answers to Common Questions by Sonia Weaver: http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/bridges/paper.pdf
MCC Peace Office newsletter “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land” (July-September 2005): http://www.mcc.org/respub/pon/PON_2005-07-01.pdf
MCC Peace Office newsletter “Walling Off the Future for Palestinians and Israelis” (July-September 2004): http://www.mcc.org/respub/pon/mcc_pon04_03.pdf
How do we respond?
We ask that you would prayerfully consider these issues that continue to weigh heavily in this broken land with discussion and dialogue in your own communities. Suggestions for steps for moving towards action by advocating for a justpeace for Palestinians and Israelis can be found at MCC’s “Bridges Not Walls” website: http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/bridges/whattodo.html.
We also continue to ask all of you to keep our CPT colleagues being held in Iraq in your thoughts and prayers as well as their families and all of those suffering as a result of these occupations.
May a sense of newness this season bring us all hope and renewal for our engagement with and struggle for peace and justice in the coming year.
Peace to you all,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Amira Hass, “IDF cantonizes West Bank, sealing in 800,000 Palestinians,” Haaretz, 13 Jan 2006
· Robert Fisk, “Telling it like it isn’t,” Los Angeles Times, 27 December 2005.
· Ghada Karmi, “With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation,” The Guardian, 31 December 2005
· Henry Siegman, “He never intended an equitable solution in Israel,” The Observer, 8 January 2006.
· Amira Hass, “It’s not the olive trees,” Haaretz, 11 January 2006.
· Amira Hass, “It’s not all in the details,” Haaretz, 28 December 2005.
· Sarah Leah Whitson, “Expanding Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Letter to President George W. Bush,” Human Rights Watch, 27 December 2005
· Akiva Elder, “There's a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel’s state land,” Haaretz, 27 December 2005
· “Judaizing Jerusalem - the Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinian Capital,” The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, 27 December 2005
· Editorial “On apathy,” Haaretz, 23 December 2005.
· Gideon Levy, “Twilight Zone / Dusty trail to death,” Haaretz, 23 December 2005.
· Noura Khouri, “Breaking Down the Wall,” Electronic Intifada, 20 December 2005.
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Haaretz
IDF cantonizes West Bank, sealing in 800,000 Palestinians
Amira Hass
13 January 2006
For a month now, since the second week of December 2005, the Israel Defense Forces has severed the northern part of the West Bank from other parts, and prohibited residents from traveling toward Ramallah and points southward.
The ban applies to some 800,000 people, residents of the Tul Karm, Nablus and Jenin provinces. Until January 2, the ban applied just to residents of Jenin and Tul Karm. Since then it has been extended to Nablus area residents.
The IDF did not issue an order on the new arrangements, which people only found out about at the permanent and so-called flying checkpoints that have prevented them over the past four weeks from traveling southward from the Za'atara junction (the Tapuah checkpoint). They were not informed how long the travel ban would be in effect.
The IDF has also cut off direct traffic links within the northern West Bank. The main artery - Road 60, running from the Shavei Shomron settlement to the road leading to the settlements Mevo Dotan and Homesh, has been closed to all Palestinian traffic since mid-August by means of three steel gates. Military sources have told international organizations that this road will be closed to Palestinian traffic until the construction of an additional security fence around Shavei Shomron is completed.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/669812.html
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Los Angeles Times
Telling it like it isn't
Robert Fisk
27 December 2005
I FIRST REALIZED the enormous pressures on American journalists in the Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where he had obviously enjoyed reporting. I could save my sorrows for someone else, he said. One of the joys of leaving was that he would no longer have to alter the truth to suit his paper's more vociferous readers.
"I used to call the Israeli Likud Party 'right wing,' " he said. "But recently, my editors have been telling me not to use the phrase. A lot of our readers objected." And so now, I asked? "We just don't call it 'right wing' anymore."
Ouch. I knew at once that these "readers" were viewed at his newspaper as Israel's friends, but I also knew that the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu was as right wing as it had ever been.
This is only the tip of the semantic iceberg that has crashed into American journalism in the Middle East. Illegal Jewish settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land are clearly "colonies," and we used to call them that. I cannot trace the moment when we started using the word "settlements." But I can remember the moment around two years ago when the word "settlements" was replaced by "Jewish neighborhoods" — or even, in some cases, "outposts."
Similarly, "occupied" Palestinian land was softened in many American media reports into "disputed" Palestinian land — just after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in 2001, instructed U.S. embassies in the Middle East to refer to the West Bank as "disputed" rather than "occupied" territory.
Then there is the "wall," the massive concrete obstruction whose purpose, according to the Israeli authorities, is to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from killing innocent Israelis. In this, it seems to have had some success. But it does not follow the line of Israel's 1967 border and cuts deeply into Arab land. And all too often these days, journalists call it a "fence" rather than a "wall." Or a "security barrier," which is what Israel prefers them to say. For some of its length, we are told, it is not a wall at all — so we cannot call it a "wall," even though the vast snake of concrete and steel that runs east of Jerusalem is higher than the old Berlin Wall.
The semantic effect of this journalistic obfuscation is clear. If Palestinian land is not occupied but merely part of a legal dispute that might be resolved in law courts or discussions over tea, then a Palestinian child who throws a stone at an Israeli soldier in this territory is clearly acting insanely.
If a Jewish colony built illegally on Arab land is simply a nice friendly "neighborhood," then any Palestinian who attacks it must be carrying out a mindless terrorist act.
Please read more at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-fisk27dec27,0,6099761.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
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The Guardian
With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation
Ghada Karmi
31 December 2005
Israeli policy is the root cause of need in the occupied territories, but donors pay up without challenging it
The donors well know the causes of this desperate situation. At a conference in Ramallah last July, the World Bank's representative, Nigel Roberts, candidly admitted that Israel's occupation was the problem. Yet the funding continues, as if for all the world the Palestinians were victims not of a deliberate Israeli policy, but of some natural disaster. In the context of an occupation that denudes the Palestinians of their land and resources, keeps them imprisoned in ghettoes, and controls every aspect of their lives, what should be the rationale of international aid? Without doubt, emergency relief is vital to Palestinian survival and cannot be lightly withdrawn. But should not the root cause, Israel's occupation, be addressed too? Otherwise aid becomes merely an adjunct to the occupation.
By paying up without caveat, donors in effect relieve Israel of its obligations under international law. As the occupying power, Israel must deliver assistance and services to the Palestinian population. As high contracting parties to the Geneva conventions, the donors are obliged to ensure Israel's compliance with the law. None of this has happened. Instead, international aid has rendered the occupation cost-free. It has even enriched Israel's economy: according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, for every dollar produced in the occupied territories, 45 cents flows back to Israel.
Aside from the recent EU criticism of Israel's policies in Arab Jerusalem, which were quickly downplayed, the donors have made no serious attempt to challenge Israel's actions, not even to demand compensation for its destruction of Palestinian projects they had funded. On the contrary, the process of preparing Palestinians for western-style "statehood" has accelerated. Foreign funded projects for "democratisation", "reform", "capacity building" and other imported buzz words have doubled. In the absence of a Palestinian state or any hope of one, this becomes an exercise in cynicism. The donors' efforts to ensure the Palestinian security services can fight "terrorism" (ie resistance to occupation), while Israel's army freely assassinates Palestinians, bombs them and demolishes their homes, is immoral.
By focusing on the effects of occupation rather than ending it, the donors have made the conflict into a scramble for socio-economic survival. But distancing the Palestinians from their national struggle can only help Israel impose its final terms on them. If that is not to happen, then the donors must resolve their dilemma: not abandoning the Palestinians to their fate, and not challenging Israel, are incompatible. Facing up to the bully is a moral imperative, and, ultimately, the only practical way forward.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/
0,3604,1675672,00.html
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The Observer
He never intended an equitable solution in Israel
Henry Siegman
8 January 2006
If it were true that a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians incorporating these unavoidable 'concessions' were the strategic goal of the 'new' Sharon, his departure from the political scene would be grievous. But Sharon had no intention of making such concessions, nor is there any basis for the expectation that there will ever be a Palestinian leader willing or able to accept an agreement that does not include these provisions.
Many in Israel saw Sharon's decision to disengage from Gaza as evidence of a new determination to end the conflict by dismantling the settlement enterprise, not only in Gaza but in much of the West Bank as well. I believe that to be a misreading.
The precedent Sharon sought to establish was not for additional disengagements from the West Bank (other than from isolated areas and major Palestinian population centres). Rather, he intended Gaza to serve as a precedent for a continuing unilateralism enabling Israel to retain de facto control of the West Bank, even if a nominal Palestinian state were to come into existence. Sharon believed a nominal state was the only way for Israel to deal with the demographic challenge posed by Palestinian population growth and - equally important - the only way to retain US support for its unilateralism.
Sharon's ideas for an imposed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on a narrow conception of security that considers Palestinian national aspirations and Palestinian rights, a notion foreign to Sharon, as irrelevant, constitute a dubious foundation for peacemaking.
Please read more at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/
0,6903,1681758,00.html
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Haaretz
It's not the olive trees
Amira Hass
11 January 2006
There is something very human about these stumps of olive trees, hundreds upon hundreds of them, their amputated branches reaching skyward as if to ask for help. Last Friday, in Tawana in the southern Hebron hills, 120 trees; In Burin, south of Nablus, earlier this week, about 50 trees; another 100 or so in Burin on December 24; and 140 trees, again in Burin, on December 14.
The police have counted 733 trees that were uprooted in 2005. According to the (incomplete) list of 29 incidents of agricultural sabotage documented by the human rights groups Yesh Din and B'Tselem from March to December, a total of 2,616 trees were sabotaged: uprooted, stolen, burned, chopped, sawed. In Salem alone, 900 trees were uprooted four times. Even if those who counted the damaged trees exaggerated, both sides agree that it is Israelis who are damaging vineyards and plantations.
The accumulation over the past few months of images of trees destroyed "by unknown individuals" has been sufficiently shocking to lead the attorney general to attack the helplessness of the authorities, and for Minister Gideon Ezra to convene a special meeting during which it was decided to focus law enforcement activities "on the settlements that are recognized as problematic."
The shock, however, is selective. The Israel Defense Forces has uprooted thousands of olive and fruit trees, cultivated lands and greenhouses, and continues to do so - in order to secure the roads it uses and to increase visibility for soldiers; to build watchtowers, checkpoints and the separation fence; and in order to pave more and more roads and construct security fences around the settlements…
The settlers do not set policy, they are its result. Everyone lives in peace and without prickings of conscience in the face of hundreds of impoverished communities that have effectively turned into prisons, in order to permit the IDF to continue to protect the Israeli state enterprise: to control as much land as possible, to drive out as many Palestinians as possible. A minority of Israelis are not waiting for the IDF and the state to destroy; they destroy on their own. It is easy to be shocked by a minority and to forget the responsibility of the whole.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/668697.html
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Haaretz
It's not all in the details
Amira Hass
28 December 2005
What is important is that the army and the Israeli citizens who design all of the details of dispossession - and the roadblocks are an inseparable part of this dispossession - have transformed the term "humanitarian" into a despicable lie.
Through the checkpoints, road closures, movement ban, and traffic restrictions, through the concrete walls and barbed wire fences, through the land expropriations (solely for the purpose of security, as the High Court of Justice, which is part and parcel of the Israeli people, likes to believe), through the disconnecting of villages from their lands and from a connecting road, through the construction of a wall in a residential neighborhood and in the backyards of homes, and through the transformation of the West Bank into a cluster of "territorial cells," in the military jargon, between the expanding settlements - we Israelis have created and continue to create an economic, social, emotional, employment and environmental crisis on the scale of a never-ending tsunami.
And then we offer a little turnstile in a cage, an officer who is briefed to see an old man, a bathroom and a water cooler - and this is described as "humanitarian." In other words, we push an entire people into impossible situations, blatantly inhumane situations, in order to steal its land and time and future and freedom of choice, and then the plantation owner appears and relaxes the iron fist a bit, and is proud of his sense of compassion.
However, even the important matter - that is, the humanitarian deception - is only one detail in a full set of details in which no single detail is representative in itself. Isolated fragments of the reality are read as being tolerable, or understandable (security, security), or may make one angry for a moment and then subside. And among all the details, the reality of colonialism intensifies, without letup or remission, inventing yet more methods of torture of the individual and community; creating more ways to violate international law, robbing land behind the legal camouflage, and encouraging collaboration out of agreement, neglect or torpor.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/663138.html
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Human Rights Watch
Expanding Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Letter to President George W. Bush
Sarah Leah Whitson
27 December 2005
Dear President Bush,
I am writing to you with respect to multiple Israeli announcements of its plans to continue expanding settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). This directly contravenes international law and Israeli commitments under the Road Map.
You recently reiterated Israel’s obligations to stop expanding settlements when you said, on October 20, 2005, following your meeting with Palestinian President Abbas: “Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes its road map obligations, or prejudices the final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. This means that Israel must remove unauthorized outposts and stop settlement expansion.” Israel has acted contrary to these obligations, escalating the building of settlements in 2005. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of 2005, there was a 28% increase in settlement housing starts compared to the same period in 2004. Israel now proposes to further expand West Bank settlements in the coming year.
We urge you to use U.S. diplomatic and financial influence to stop this trend in 2006.
On December 26, the Ministry of Housing released tenders for the construction of 228 housing units in the West Bank settlements of Beitar Ilit and Efrat; on December 19, , the Ministry of Housing published tenders for constructing 137 new housing units in the West Bank settlements of Ariel and Karnei Shomron; and on December 14, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz’s approved the construction of approximately 300 new homes in the West Bank settlements of Maale Adumim, Bracha and Nokdim. Maale Adumim is one of the largest and fastest growing settlements in the West Bank, with some 30,000 inhabitants. The settlement is located east of Jerusalem and adjacent to the much-publicized area of “E-1,” the last remaining site for potential Palestinian development around settlement-encircled East Jerusalem. The Israeli government also has made clear that, despite U.S. opposition, it plans to build 3,500 housing units in E-1 and to include Ma'ale Adumim and E-1 on the western side (the “Israeli side”) of the metal and concrete barrier that Israel is building, mostly inside the OPT (hereinafter, the “wall”). Such actions would effectively sever the West Bank in two by cutting the already limited Palestinian north-south access routes through the West Bank. In addition, a wall encircling E-1 and Ma’ale Adumim would make access to East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian economic and religious life, virtually impossible from the rest of the West Bank, except through limited checkpoint crossings in the wall, most of which Israel has not yet funded or built.
Please read more at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/27/isrlpa12346.htm
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Haaretz
There's a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel's state land
Akiva Elder
27 December 2005
In the process of preparing a new report that deals with the expansion of settlements under cover of the separation fence, researchers from B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and from Bimkom, Planners for Planning Rights were able to lay their hands on the map of "The Master Plan of the Upper Modi'in Area" for the year 2020. The map confirms that it is not only security issues that interested the planners of the route of the fence in the area of the battles for Bil'in. They were so hungry they "forgot" that security needs make it essential to keep a suitable distance between the fence and the nearest Jewish locale. It turns out that in addition to the usual master plans, at the initiative of the Construction and Housing Ministry and in cooperation with the planning bureau of the Civil Administration, in 1998 the Upper Modi'in local council and the Matteh Binyamin regional council drew up a master plan for the whole bloc. The plan does not have statutory validity, but it is a guiding document in the framework of which the planning policy is determined for a given area, and in the light of which the master plans are formulated. The report points out that under the master plan about 600 dunam adjacent to the plan for Matityahu East, which are owned by families from the village of Bil'in, are slated for the construction of 1,200 new housing units. Less than two months ago inhabitants of Bil'in discovered that a new road had been cut through from the Matityahu East neighborhood to a large grove of olive trees that is located in the area.
The village council filed a complaint with the Shai (Samaria-Judea) police about the uprooting of about 100 trees and their theft. The cutting through of the road reinforces the suspicion that under cover of the fence, there is a plan for a takeover of the land adjacent to the East Matityahu neighborhood, which is already in the process of construction.
Similarly, cultivated lands owned by the villagers of Dir Qadis and Ni'alin on an area of about 1,000 dunams, adjacent to the plan for Matityahu North C, have been added in the framework of the master plan to the plan for the neighborhood.
The authors of the report note that the master plan for Upper Modi'in arouses a strong suspicion that one of the covert aims of the fence is to cause Palestinian inhabitants to stop cultivating lands that are intended for the expansion of the Jewish settlements, to enable the declaration of them as state lands. Hence, as described above, the way to the building companies is very short.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/662729.html
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The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
Judaizing Jerusalem - the Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinian Capital
27 December 2005
Once the wall is finished throughout Jerusalem it will total 181km. By December 2005, over 130km of the 8-meter high concrete structure had been constructed. Completion in early 2006 will leave the majority of Palestinians in and around Jerusalem – around 190,000 people - facing two options. To stay in Jerusalem's ghetto neighborhoods, subjected to high Occupation taxes, imprisoned by Walls and a life under siege. Secondly, exile into what remains of the West Bank and Gaza or abroad, and permanent loss of the right to live in the Palestinian capital.
Given that Palestinians rely on Jerusalem for employment, basic services and education, the Wall is beginning to depopulate these villages as well as tearing families and communities apart.
In the last few months 80% of the population of West Ezawiya village have deserted their homes in order to remain in Jerusalem. Out of a population of 5000 people, only around 1000 Palestinians now remain in this village and with the wall's completion they will be prevented fromentering Jerusalem.
The Wall around Jerusalem ensures the annexation of all the settlement blocs around the city (also known as "the Jerusalem Envelope") and their expansion on the Palestinian lands stolen by the Wall.
A chain of 181 Km, the concrete Wall forms a series of ghettoised Palestinian neighborhood Palestinians are being shut in by the Wall and the settler roads into 4 main ghettos…
Please read more at http://stopthewall.org/maps/1068.shtml
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Haaretz
On apathy
Editorial
23 December 2005
In today's Haaretz Magazine, Gideon Levy tells the story of Mahmoud Shawara, a 43-year-old father of nine, who left for work on his donkey one day from his house in the village of Nuaman, near Bethlehem, was arrested by border policemen, and, after he refused to accompany the soldiers without his donkey, was tied to the donkey. The frightened donkey then galloped toward the village; Shawara sustained serious injuries all over his body, and ultimately died in great pain in the hospital to which he was taken by eyewitnesses. Although the Department for Investigating Policemen found no relationship between the border policemen's behavior and Shawara's death,testimony indicates that this is an abusive practice well known to Palestinians. It even has a nickname: "the donkey procedure."
On Wednesday, Haaretz located another man, Maamoun Abu Ali, who underwent similar abuse at the hands of border policemen two months ago, not far from the place where Shawara was arrested and tied to his donkey. Abu Ali, according to his testimony, was also tied to a donkey. A concrete block was placed on his back, his hands were tied, and the border police then prodded the donkey to run. Luckily for him, however, his donkey refused to budge, so Abu Ali was saved from death.
Cases of abuse of Palestinians, whether by soldiers or by settlers, have stopped making headlines in the press or eliciting shock. Nor do investigations of these incidents appear to be serious, and complaints are ignored until the story is either published in the media or dealt with by one of the human rights organizations active in the territories. This growing apathy can perhaps be attributed to the continuous satisfaction felt over the disengagement from Gaza, following which Israelis feel that the occupation is about to end. But, meanwhile, the occupation is continuing in all its severity, with all the abuses that have characterized it throughout the years.
This apathy is a stain on the face of Israeli society that it will find hard to remove.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?
itemNo=661708&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID
=0&listSrc=Y
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Haaretz
Twilight Zone / Dusty trail to death
Gideon Levy
23 December 2005
On Sunday morning of last week Mahmoud Shawara, a laborer, mounted his mule and set out from his home in the village of Nuaman to look for work in the neighboring village of Umm Touba. At about 9 A.M., he was arrested by a Border Police unit that detains workers who do not have an entry permit to Israel every morning.
The Border Police ordered Shawara to get into their jeep. He refused. He did not want to leave his mule unattended. At 9:30 his brother saw him for the last time, healthy and sound. At 4 P.M. a resident of Umm Touba named Mohammed Hamadan noticed a mule galloping toward the village and dragging something behind it. From a distance, Hamadan thought it might be scrap metal. As the mule came closer, Hamadan saw that it was dragging an injured, battered man. The mule, he says, was galloping down the slope and looked frightened. He stopped the animal and then discovered that the person being dragged across the ground was Mahmoud Shawara, from the neighboring village, whom he knew well. Shawara's left hand was roped to the mule's neck. He was unconscious and barely breathing. His skull and face were smashed on the left side and blood was pouring from him. He managed to utter a few broken, unclear words or parts of words and then stopped breathing.
Hamadan untied Shawara, laid him on the ground and pressed on his chest to restart his breathing. He then summoned an ambulance from the clinic of the Meuhedet health maintenance organization in the village. Shawara was taken to Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, where he was admitted to the neurosurgical section of the intensive care unit. At the end of the week, during which he did not regain consciousness, Shawara died of his wounds. He was 43, a laborer and the father of nine children, who went to look for work in the neighboring village.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/661473.html
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The Electronic Intifada
Breaking Down the Wall
Noura Khouri
20 December 2005
It is estimated that Israel's Annexation Wall will be completed in the early part of 2006. When it is finished it will annex 47% of the West Bank, and hand it over to the settler population. At least 15% of Palestinians will be left outside the wall1, completely isolated from the rest of society, and over 222,098 refugees for the second or third times will experience, "land confiscation, destruction of property, and denial of access to their lands thus directly affecting their means of livelihood"2. In the end, it is not an over exaggeration to say that the entire Palestinian society will directly suffer by its completion, in addition to the seemingly unstoppable illegal Israeli practices that continue unhindered.
Still the question is often asked by critics and supporters alike, why don't Palestinians resist non-violently, and continue to do so even if in the face of overwhelming military force. During this time of intensive Israeli expansionism, and growing Palestinian isolationism, internationals and Israelis alike want to know where the next Gandhi or MLK is. Many may not be aware that Palestinians have in fact engaged in ongoing organized, nonviolent resistance since the beginning of the century (request detailed Palestinian history/timeline). As well, there is too often confusion and questions about the issues of history, religion and who is right, or more deserving of a homeland. The issue however, is simply one of equality, human rights and international law.
On October 28th, 2005, eleven year old Ahmad was celebrating the Muslim holiday, Eid, while playing with his friends in a Jenin refugee camp. He was shot dead in the head by an Israeli sniper. The soldier admitted he shot the boy while "mistaking" his toy gun for the real thing. Did it ever cross the mind of this soldier with the best military technology in the world available to him, to take a closer look? In response, the parents of the boy who was accidentally murdered - donated his organs to an Israeli family. At least three young Israeli girls were saved as a result. Ahmad's father said that the action he took in donating his son's organs was meant as "a message of peace to the world, stating that Palestinians want real peace, and the only way of achieving that is by ending the illegal Israeli occupation." Sadly, the difference between Gandhi & MLK, versus Ahmad's family's brave acts is that they were Palestinian; and for them was nether a whisper from within the oppressive Israeli system, nor the rest of the world community. In fact, the soldier that killed him like so many others guilty of the same crime, was found 'not guilty' of any charges. Equally disturbing, is an Israeli man present at the newly united Palestinian and Israeli family's home, who had the nerve to tell Palestinians that they need to learn to stop their violence!
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4355.shtml
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Saturday, December 24
Advent Reflection: Through the Eyes of Rachel - Christmas in Bethlehem
Advent Reflection: Through the Eyes of Rachel - Christmas in Bethlehem
December 2005
“Herod was furious when he learned that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, because the wise men had told him the star first appeared to them about two years earlier. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah:
‘A cry of anguish is heard in Ramah-
weeping and mourning unrestrained,
Rachel weeps for her children,
Refusing to be comforted-
For they are dead.’”
– Matthew 2:16-18
The Church of the Nativity, where it is agreed that the birth of Jesus took place, is right “up the hill” from our apartment here in Bethlehem. The church, which actually houses three churches- Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Roman Catholic, has one special spot marked by a silver fourteen-point star marking the birthplace. People often kneel and pray there, touching and kissing this holy place. I remember the first time I saw it-in the presence of decorative linens, candles and the smell of incense, trying to remember the miracle that took place there-picturing the baby wrapped in common linens, probably light from a fire somewhere in the cave, and the smell of animals nearby. It’s difficult to wrap one’s mind around it all.
What was not so pronounced in my mind during my first visit, was when the guide pointed to the Tomb of the Innocents, holding many skeletons of babies that were found, most likely from the two-year-old and younger children who were killed at the hands of soldiers by the order of King Herod. But living here in Bethlehem, surrounded by the pain and suffering that is the daily reality for people here, this part of the story has taken on new meaning for me.
When I read this passage in Matthew, I consider the feelings of three people-Herod, Rachel, and the reader. What caused Herod to give such a horrendous order was his fury at being outsmarted, preceded by his fear of a new king and his greed for power. He was feeling threatened-so threatened that it resulted in a disregard for lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of small babies.
Rachel represents all of the mothers who held the lifeless bodies of their babies. Their feelings of anguish run deep and are summed up in one word for me-devastation. I appreciated the way this anguish is described so bluntly in the Scriptures-“weeping and mourning unrestrained”…."refusing to be comforted." Any mother or father could probably sympathize with such feelings.
Then there is the reader. I wonder if many of us who read this part of the story every Christmas, read it somewhat quickly and relatively absent-minded to it’s meaning. Do we tend to view the death of these babies as “collateral damage” in the midst of the Miracle that came to save every human being? Does that justify it for us? The Scripture puts the anguish of Rachel in the context of the prophetic voice of Jeremiah being fulfilled. Perhaps we feel that it was “just meant to be” or perhaps even “all part of God’s plan.”
What would Rachel say to that? Would she yield herself to the idea that the God that she worshiped faithfully, who brought such a miracle of life to Mary, desired for her to experience this nightmare? Would she accept the paradox of the God of miraculous life being the God who simultaneously approved of baby murder? From what I read in the Scripture, I don’t think so.
Rachel has become a role model for me. My inspiration is largely found in the phrase “refusing to be comforted.” In fact, I think that she held so strongly to her belief that God is the God of Life, that when she found herself in the middle of the nightmare, she refused to take any comfort, even during the birth of the Prince of Peace, while she held in her arms the lifeless bodies of her children. She knew that this death was not from God, but a result of the fear, greed and the abused power of man.
And I wonder also, if years later, Jesus himself went to visit some of these women that Rachel represents, and wept with them, understanding that his birth brought them such grief. If Jesus walked through the Church of the Nativity today, where would he spend his time reflecting? If he were walking in Bethlehem now, what would he think of the circumstances? Would he say that the unemployment, the children in poverty, and the destruction of homes are all a part of God’s will?
Ironically, today in Bethlehem you will find many babies the age of three and younger, a result of the forty-day twenty-four hour curfew placed on Bethlehem when Israeli soldiers held it under siege in 2002. Destruction to the Church of the Nativity can still be seen from shelling of the soldiers upon Palestinian men taking refuge inside.
Christmas in Bethlehem has quite a different meaning than past Christmases. I can’t escape the devastating realities around me. I cannot ignore the pain simply because I’m celebrating the birth of Jesus – especially because I’m celebrating the birth of Jesus. Like Rachel, I’m refusing to take comfort when it comes to the devastation. But what I’m holding to more tightly than ever is my belief that God is a God of Life, and that he wills life for all people.
Christi Seidel
Co-Peace Development Worker
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
________________________________
December 2005
“Herod was furious when he learned that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, because the wise men had told him the star first appeared to them about two years earlier. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah:
‘A cry of anguish is heard in Ramah-
weeping and mourning unrestrained,
Rachel weeps for her children,
Refusing to be comforted-
For they are dead.’”
– Matthew 2:16-18
The Church of the Nativity, where it is agreed that the birth of Jesus took place, is right “up the hill” from our apartment here in Bethlehem. The church, which actually houses three churches- Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Roman Catholic, has one special spot marked by a silver fourteen-point star marking the birthplace. People often kneel and pray there, touching and kissing this holy place. I remember the first time I saw it-in the presence of decorative linens, candles and the smell of incense, trying to remember the miracle that took place there-picturing the baby wrapped in common linens, probably light from a fire somewhere in the cave, and the smell of animals nearby. It’s difficult to wrap one’s mind around it all.
What was not so pronounced in my mind during my first visit, was when the guide pointed to the Tomb of the Innocents, holding many skeletons of babies that were found, most likely from the two-year-old and younger children who were killed at the hands of soldiers by the order of King Herod. But living here in Bethlehem, surrounded by the pain and suffering that is the daily reality for people here, this part of the story has taken on new meaning for me.
When I read this passage in Matthew, I consider the feelings of three people-Herod, Rachel, and the reader. What caused Herod to give such a horrendous order was his fury at being outsmarted, preceded by his fear of a new king and his greed for power. He was feeling threatened-so threatened that it resulted in a disregard for lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of small babies.
Rachel represents all of the mothers who held the lifeless bodies of their babies. Their feelings of anguish run deep and are summed up in one word for me-devastation. I appreciated the way this anguish is described so bluntly in the Scriptures-“weeping and mourning unrestrained”…."refusing to be comforted." Any mother or father could probably sympathize with such feelings.
Then there is the reader. I wonder if many of us who read this part of the story every Christmas, read it somewhat quickly and relatively absent-minded to it’s meaning. Do we tend to view the death of these babies as “collateral damage” in the midst of the Miracle that came to save every human being? Does that justify it for us? The Scripture puts the anguish of Rachel in the context of the prophetic voice of Jeremiah being fulfilled. Perhaps we feel that it was “just meant to be” or perhaps even “all part of God’s plan.”
What would Rachel say to that? Would she yield herself to the idea that the God that she worshiped faithfully, who brought such a miracle of life to Mary, desired for her to experience this nightmare? Would she accept the paradox of the God of miraculous life being the God who simultaneously approved of baby murder? From what I read in the Scripture, I don’t think so.
Rachel has become a role model for me. My inspiration is largely found in the phrase “refusing to be comforted.” In fact, I think that she held so strongly to her belief that God is the God of Life, that when she found herself in the middle of the nightmare, she refused to take any comfort, even during the birth of the Prince of Peace, while she held in her arms the lifeless bodies of her children. She knew that this death was not from God, but a result of the fear, greed and the abused power of man.
And I wonder also, if years later, Jesus himself went to visit some of these women that Rachel represents, and wept with them, understanding that his birth brought them such grief. If Jesus walked through the Church of the Nativity today, where would he spend his time reflecting? If he were walking in Bethlehem now, what would he think of the circumstances? Would he say that the unemployment, the children in poverty, and the destruction of homes are all a part of God’s will?
Ironically, today in Bethlehem you will find many babies the age of three and younger, a result of the forty-day twenty-four hour curfew placed on Bethlehem when Israeli soldiers held it under siege in 2002. Destruction to the Church of the Nativity can still be seen from shelling of the soldiers upon Palestinian men taking refuge inside.
Christmas in Bethlehem has quite a different meaning than past Christmases. I can’t escape the devastating realities around me. I cannot ignore the pain simply because I’m celebrating the birth of Jesus – especially because I’m celebrating the birth of Jesus. Like Rachel, I’m refusing to take comfort when it comes to the devastation. But what I’m holding to more tightly than ever is my belief that God is a God of Life, and that he wills life for all people.
Christi Seidel
Co-Peace Development Worker
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
________________________________
Advent Reflection: Waiting, Hope, and Action
Advent Reflection: Waiting, Hope, and Action
24 December 2005
Dear Friends,
As this advent season comes to an end, we wanted to share with you the following reflection from a friend with Christian Peacemaker Teams who just arrived in Baghdad. It is a good reminder that although we wait with patience and expectation for the coming of God’s reign—and that for many in this world that sense of expectant waiting continues on long after the Christmas season—our waiting should be characterized by an active engagement in the lives of those around us that embodies that reality today.
Peace to you all this Christmas season.
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
________________________________
Advent reflection
December 15, 2005
Waiting, Hope, and Action
By Peggy Gish
It's always hard to wait. It's especially hard now, as we are hoping and waiting for the safe release Jim Loney, Tom Fox, Harmeet Sooden, and Norman Kember, colleagues of ours in the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. They were taken by force in Baghdad on November 26 after attending a meeting with an Iraqi organization to collaborate on documenting the abuses of Iraqi detainees under the Iraqi prison system.
It is hard for their families. It is hard for us not knowing where our four colleagues are, how they are holding up during this time, or when they will be released. We pray, we cry, we wake up in the night feeling tense with worry. We ask God for more faith and trust as we call for their release and work to share the stories of who these men are, of the work of CPT in Iraq and other places of conflict and injustice. We care about these four men, yet we also feel the same urgency for all Iraqis and their families who are suffering fear and pain because their family members have disappeared or been killed or imprisoned.
Advent is a time of waiting and longing for something to happen. Perhaps the time before Jesus was born was a time when people felt the same kind of urgency and cried out for release, wholeness and healing from the oppression or captivity they knew. They, too, had heard God's promises, yet didn't know how it would all turn out. Some were able to keep walking ahead in faith, expectant of God breaking in and working in seemingly impossible situations.
Waiting does not mean being passive. Our calling is to an active waiting. We can act boldly, taking risks, because God is with us giving us hope. Even death, persecutions, or violent forces of power will not separate us from the love of God! If we follow the way of Jesus, we will expect hardships and suffering. We can expect to die, but we don't give up the way of the cross. We may need to cull away the things in our lives that hold us back and weigh us down. We may have to grieve and cry together, and support each other more deeply, but we keep going and working where God leads us.
________________________________
24 December 2005
Dear Friends,
As this advent season comes to an end, we wanted to share with you the following reflection from a friend with Christian Peacemaker Teams who just arrived in Baghdad. It is a good reminder that although we wait with patience and expectation for the coming of God’s reign—and that for many in this world that sense of expectant waiting continues on long after the Christmas season—our waiting should be characterized by an active engagement in the lives of those around us that embodies that reality today.
Peace to you all this Christmas season.
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
________________________________
Advent reflection
December 15, 2005
Waiting, Hope, and Action
By Peggy Gish
It's always hard to wait. It's especially hard now, as we are hoping and waiting for the safe release Jim Loney, Tom Fox, Harmeet Sooden, and Norman Kember, colleagues of ours in the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. They were taken by force in Baghdad on November 26 after attending a meeting with an Iraqi organization to collaborate on documenting the abuses of Iraqi detainees under the Iraqi prison system.
It is hard for their families. It is hard for us not knowing where our four colleagues are, how they are holding up during this time, or when they will be released. We pray, we cry, we wake up in the night feeling tense with worry. We ask God for more faith and trust as we call for their release and work to share the stories of who these men are, of the work of CPT in Iraq and other places of conflict and injustice. We care about these four men, yet we also feel the same urgency for all Iraqis and their families who are suffering fear and pain because their family members have disappeared or been killed or imprisoned.
Advent is a time of waiting and longing for something to happen. Perhaps the time before Jesus was born was a time when people felt the same kind of urgency and cried out for release, wholeness and healing from the oppression or captivity they knew. They, too, had heard God's promises, yet didn't know how it would all turn out. Some were able to keep walking ahead in faith, expectant of God breaking in and working in seemingly impossible situations.
Waiting does not mean being passive. Our calling is to an active waiting. We can act boldly, taking risks, because God is with us giving us hope. Even death, persecutions, or violent forces of power will not separate us from the love of God! If we follow the way of Jesus, we will expect hardships and suffering. We can expect to die, but we don't give up the way of the cross. We may need to cull away the things in our lives that hold us back and weigh us down. We may have to grieve and cry together, and support each other more deeply, but we keep going and working where God leads us.
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