Connection between the human rights march and West Bank demonstrations?

Palestinian Child in a Cloud of Tear Gas in Nabi Saleh on International Human Rights Day. Photo Credit: Joseph Dana
Posted by Joseph Dana
Before the first heavy rains hit Israel yesterday, thousands people gathered in central Tel Aviv to mark international Human Rights Day. The occasion brought together various Israeli NGO’s and thousands of concerned citizens in the spirit of presenting a face of Israel that supports human rights and progressive values. Placards were carried through the streets supporting gay rights, woman’s rights, African refugees rights and, also, coexistence between Jews and Arabs. Police lined the streets of the demonstration to ensure the safety of the protesters and keep confrontation with the right wing counter protesters at bay (one has to hand it to the right in Israel, a counter protest to human rights?!). If the Tel Aviv Human Rights Day march wanted to have more authenticity in terms of Palestinian/Israeli coexistence, it should have had more connection with the human rights struggle happening simultaneously in the West Bank.

Only 25 kilometers away from this festive scene, Palestinians were holding their weekly protest against the separation wall and for human rights in the village of Ni’ilin. The protest began as usual, with a speech about the wall and the pain that it has caused the community. This was followed by midday prayers and finally a protest march to the wall itself. Among the Palestinians were a handful of Israeli supporters from Tel Aviv.
Once at the wall, protesters banged on the gate with stones and sticks. For a second, the banging sounded like the drummers of Sheikh Jarrah, who engage in ‘joy resistance’ by drumming and blowing whistles in their weekly demonstration. The army, on the other side of the wall, spoke on bullhorn informing everyone that the area was a closed military zone and we must leave. It seems that everywhere for the army is a closed military zone and one day, perhaps in the near future, I expect to hear the same bullhorn in Jaffa or Jerusalem proclaiming that the entire land of Israel is a closed military zone. A soldier continued on the bullhorn, saying that they are present to protect the wall. The wall has been built for security reasons yet it requires its own security. Just like the settlements have been said to improve Israeli security but in effect drain security resources.

Unlike the police presence in Tel Aviv, the army in Ni’ilin is present to attack, not defend. It is there to crush the spirit of unarmed resistance in the West Bank. It is there to reinforce that Palestinians are a controlled people living under constant Israeli occupation. As Naomi Chazan began her speech in Tel Aviv (I was following the updates on Twitter while tweeting my own), the army began covering the area of the protest with tear gas. Wave after wave of gas covered the area. Soldiers fired canisters directly at protesters. There was no restraint. Israel’s recognition of International Human Rights Day was starting to take full shape.

The protest ended quickly, as it often does these days in N’ilin, and the five Israelis present drove to Nabi Saleh. There was little discussion about Human Rights Day among the Israelis. They were engaged in a struggle for human rights on the ground and clearly did not have the energy/time to formulate cleaver theoretical approaches to the issue or grand visions of the future.

The village of Nabi Saleh was under siege by midday. Just as in the recent weeks, Israelis wanting to join the demonstration had to take an extended hike through the rugged hills of the West Bank in order to reach the village. Once in the village, the unarmed demonstration was being crushed with live bullets, rubber-coated steel bullets and clouds of tear gas.

Just as the rain hit Tel Aviv marking the end of the Human Rights march, Nabi Saleh was being invaded by IDF soldiers firing live bullets in three directions. The small village, perched on a tired hilltop, was covered in tear gas. Due to the lack of wind, the tear gas was not escaping into the air thus the entire village was walking around as if in a drunken haze with tears in their eyes.

The siege of Nabi Saleh continued until sunset when the last IDF jeeps pulled out of the village. As soon as the army left small boys were running around collecting the hundreds of spent tear gas canisters. Watching them scramble to collect them, the absurdity of human rights day in Israel sunk in. As thousands of people held signs in Tel Aviv proclaiming peace and co-existence, roughly ten Israelis made the half an hour drive to Nabi Saleh or Ni’ilin (Bil’in held a demo as well which had a number of Israelis in attendance).
Imagine if that number was not ten but fifty Israelis. If fifty people from the thousands who marched in Tel Aviv had shown up in Nabi Saleh, the reality on the ground would have been different. Even thirty would have had a profound effect on the attitude of the soldiers and on the people of Nabi Saleh who draw profound inspiration from their Israeli and international supporters.

Why is it that thousands of leftist Israelis are able to gather under a public umbrella of human rights, joint struggle and value and not think about venturing into the West Bank to struggle with Palestinians? One path of co-existence lies in these joint actions of solidarity and since Palestinians are not allowed to enter Tel Aviv it is the responsibility of Israelis to go to the West Bank.The disconnection between human rights in Tel Aviv and human rights in the Occupied Territories was on display yesterday. While the march was a necessary competent of creating a new political space in Israel, it should be only one part of a larger platform which includes Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Perhaps next year, we will see humans rights demonstrations from Nabi Saleh to Tel Aviv with more Israeli and Palestinians in both places.
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/the-dilemma-of-the-israeli-left/

Yousef Abudayyeh – Zionists' Last Chance

There is not one country in the world that does not recognize that the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and a couple of villages in Southern Lebanon are occupied Arab land, taken by force by the Zionist invaders of Palestine in 1967. Since June 5, 1967 there have been countless UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions demanding “Israel” to end its occupation and return the land to its rightful Arab owners.

Even the United States of America, the main political and financial supporter of "Israel",demanded that occupation ends.

So why is it that after more than forty-two years the occupation still exists there? Why is there even any need to enter into countless fruitless rounds of negotiations, if the end result should of them is to be the return of these occupied lands and there is no real intention of doing it? Why does the world tolerate the internationally condemned continued facts on the ground that “Israel” never stopped doing? Why would a technically rogue and very small “country” called “Israel” with only 6 million people, collected from all over the world keep on doing what it’s doing with no regard to International Law, UN demands and requests from friendly quarters?

To understand why this is taking place, one should consider the following factors and facts:

- The Zionist ideology that brought “Israel” into existence says it very clearly that this newly founded state that will be established in Palestine, which according to the Zionist leaders had no inhabitants, would become the homeland for the people – “Jews” who have no land. And to accomplish this, we all heard about the horrific massacres that took place against the Palestinian people in the 30s, 40s and 50s of the last century, carried out by Zionists who came into Palestine from Europe with the help of Britain and other powers – using the excuse of the Holocaust to justify it, as if Arabs had anything to do with it . They were armed, and were allowed to ethnically uproot the Arabs from their homes, villages and towns.

- Most people in the world are loyal to the country they were born and live in, but the loyalty of the Jewish communities worldwide is usually not to the country they were born and live in, but rather it’s for “Israel”. The reason for this is the tremendous pressure the Zionist leaders apply on these communities. Many are forced to go and serve in “Israel” and even join the “Israeli” armed forces. This loyalty question is what needs to be faced, but when it is, attacks launched against the ones voicing thisvery question begin and they are labeled as anti-Semites, a very well-designed plan of silencing that the Zionists have set in place worldwide. This plan has worked for many years, but the tide is turning, and no one can predict what will happen if the Jewish communities do not change with it.

- The unbelievable grip that the Zionists have on all aspects of our lives, everywhere. Just take the United States of America for example: The percentage of the Jewish population is less than 3.5% of the American population, but Jews are in complete control of the Media, the Financial System, the Political system and the Judicial system in the US. It is not a claim others make, it is a fact that the Jews admit is real and is a point of pride for them. This is even more true in the poor countries where the control of the world bank and world media on the daily lives of the people there is much worse and the populations have even less access to positions of power and influence. How this can happen? Are the Jewish people smarter than the rest of the population or is there something else that put them in control of all aspects of life? And for what purpose?

- For the Arab world to be conquered and its richness controlled, the West had to carve it into mini states. They installed kings, Emirs and Presidents whose main tasks in life (if they are to stay in power) are to guard the oil and other wealth for the West and especially the United States and to also hit with a strong hand any popular resistance that will challenge their mission and /or to sabotage any liberation movement that will attract attention to the occupation of Palestine, the wasting of the Arab fortunes or even demanding some basic civil rights. They were also asked that a good relationship and somewhat peaceful co-existence between them and the Zionist leaders of “Israel” be in place. Many times they are asked to broker deals, against their own people’s interest, with the Zionists so their lease on life is extended. Hosni Mubarak is but one example. His selling of the Egyptian Natural Gas to the Zionists at way below market prices, plus the coordination with “Israel” in maintaining the siege on the Gaza Strip are just the beginning of a very long list of how entrenched the US is, how subordinate the Arab leaders are to it and how demoralized the Arab masses are.

- Coming to the aid of this kind of program, the West, and especially Britain, in the early 1950s gave the Muslim Brotherhood a chance to rise and take hold, so it became the main local force against the Arab Nationalist Movement. That was a huge step that placed the struggle for liberation and freedom a bit further from reach. The Arab Nationalist Movement understood early on that to face this aggression from the West, the Arab World needs to get back together as it was before it was partitioned by Sykes-Picot. By its creating and helping to fund the Muslim Brotherhood Movement it introduced a new dimension that put Liberation and Freedom on the shelf, because the new emphasis became something else altogether. This divide and conquer rule was one of the main tools that the West used in making sure that its hold on the region continues. The introduction later on, by the West, and especially the US, of the new fascist Muslim movement, led by Osama Bin Laden and company put the aspiration of the Arab masses even further away, because now they have to fend for themselves from the new weird ideas of these groups, that required a complete cancellation of half of the society, the women, and a complete submission of the other half to the new fascists, for which liberation and freedom is not even their book. This created some sort of a completion between them and less radical Muslim groups, which further took away any talk and action of and for liberation and freedom.


When the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded, the main purpose was to liberate Palestine and bring it back to its natural Arab Atmosphere. The Basis it used, the Nationalist Charter, which was later modified and called the PLO National Charter, is what got Palestinians from all over the world to adopt and declare the PLO to be their main representative. It is the PLO commitment to liberate Palestine and establish a democratic Arab society that rallied Arabs and Palestinians around it. Many stopped supporting the PLO when it started on its sloppy road of recognizing “Israeli” rights to exist on our Arab Land. Actually, there were many warnings early on (1967) that said it very plainly, that the leadership of the PLO will eventually become just like any other Arab leadership were it will depend for it’s very own existence on the enemies of our people. We all remember Yasser Arafat, gutting out the Charter because it was a demand from the US and “Israel” that he needed to fulfill, for them to talk to him and support him in becoming the newest Arab President. Many believe that Arafat, who was willing to go a long way in recognizing “Israel’s” existence on Palestinian Land, noticed late in the game, that the struggle with the Zionists is not about borders, but it’s rather about the very existence of the Arab Palestinians on their homeland, which “Israel” wants to end in any way. They humiliated and killed Arafat, and installed in his position Mahmood Abbas, who’s willing to do whatever the US and the Zionists want, no questions asked. It’s clear now that the PLO leadership does not represent the aspirations of the Palestinian People, and it enlists the help of our enemies to stay in power.

- With this bleak picture in favor of the Zionists and their supporters, one can see that “Israel” continues to live on very shaky grounds. The grabbing of most of the West Bank to build settlements, separation walls and more than 650 checkpoints coupled with having a Palestinian leadership that is fulfilling its demands will not help it survive. These are some of the reasons:

- “Israel” is a foreign cancerous body in the Arab World. Its collection of invaders gathered from all over the globe will never be able to survive in the region because they are foreign, arrogant, from so many different cultures with the majority of them being racists. This new law (loyalty to the Jewish state) that they are trying to implement is a clear sign of their racism. The treatment of Black and Middle Eastern Jews is also clear to all but to them.

- The Palestinians will never forget what happened to them. They can be defeated, humiliated and scattered all over the world, but they will never forget, and their kids will also never forget. It’s the Arab culture that no invader or passing of time can change.

- The Arabs are more than 350 million, and all of them, regardless of the oppression their leaders put them under, believe that Palestine is the heart of the Arab World. The Zionists can change what Palestine looks like, but Palestine will remain the heart of the Arab World, that will sooner than later get rid of its corrupt leaders, unite and liberate Palestine.

- Palestine, like of the rest of countries occupied, will be liberated. To think other than that is not reasonable as well as being racist. Many understand the nature of the struggle with the invaders and just like in previous attempts, new ones will appear and will defeat the Zionists. With all that’s happening in the Arab World, Palestine and in the world, one can be sure that liberation will become sooner than later. The only sad thing if the Zionist continue to behave the way they do, is that they will not find a place to go to and call home. Not even where they came from would want to have racist war criminal live within its borders.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/10/14/yousef-abudayyeh-zionists-last-chance/

Rothchild Advocates Divestment From Israel

By Josh Kelly
A small group of people met on Tuesday night for an intimate discussion with Alice Rothchild on the possibility of utilizing a BDS-boycott, divestment, sanctions-strategy in order to counter the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Alice Rothchild is a gynecologist and obstetrician who has been politically active throughout her life, and particularly so in attempting to promote social justice for the Palestinians. She has gone on many trips to Israel to learn about the conditions in the West Bank. Rothchild is also particularly notable for the recent publication of the second edition of her book, "Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: The Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience."

The event was sponsored by Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, and was entitled "Difficult Conversations: Alice Rothchild on BDS." The event started off with Alice speaking about her views on the occupation as well as Israel in general, and then she made her way into speaking about BDS as a method to solve what she sees as a crucial problem. She took a chance at the beginning of her speech to acknowledge the controversy of her ideas.

"So what I'm going to do," she stated, "is invite you to step outside the box. I am speaking to share, not to convince. I don't have to prove that I'm right, but I want to share with you how things look to me." She also acknowledged that "Boycott, divestment, and sanctions is probably the most difficult topic in the Jewish community today." However, she also argued the point that it is not uncommon for ideas which seem radical to be accepted with time.

"I think it's important," Rothchild stated, "to remember that there are a lot of radical ideas that were once really difficult that are now mainstream, like Zionism," which Rothchild characterized today as "the litmus test for being a good Jew."

Throughout her speech, the common theme was one of bemoaning the conditions of the Palestinian people, primarily in the West Bank, but also touching on Gaza and Israel Proper. She described the negative effects of the 500 to 600 checkpoints along the Green Line, as well as within West Bank Borders through explaining how sometimes women going into labor are delayed at the checkpoints and wind up not being able to make it to the hospital. She also talked about how sometimes Palestinians are restricted from walking along certain streets, even if the street in question is in front of their house. Generally, she likens the control of the Palestinians by Israel to any other oppression throughout history, seeing everything as a pattern of one party controlling and oppressing another.

"Change Arab to Native American, African-American and Japanese and obvious parallels emerge with our own legacies of colonialism, slavery, segregation, detention camps and civil rights struggles".

She used all of this description of the plight of the Palestinians in order to show how this is a serious problem which needs to be solved, and she believes it can be solved through BDS. Boycott, divestment and sanctions, as described by Rothchild, is a method of using the economy in order to promote social justice. It could be as simple as not buying hummus made in the West Bank. Perhaps labels could be put on products coming from the West Bank which state their origin explicitly. While Rothchild admitted early on in her speech that it is a controversial idea, she argued that BDS is an integral part of social justice movements and is perfectly acceptable.

"BDS is an old tradition. It is a part of activist tradition. It dates back in the US to the 1700s to the Quakers who refused to do business with slave owners…It's been used against apartheid South Africa…It was used by Jews who boycotted goods made in Nazi Germany."

She then came to the question, as she explained, of "why BDS now?" She responded by saying simply, "and I think what I've heard, over and over again is 'everything else has been tried'."

After Rothchild finished speaking and answered questions the group broke up into smaller discussion groups of a few people each, and people got a chance to have intimate conversations about their views on what Rothchild spoke about and about Israel in general. It was a friendly atmosphere, which seemed to accept any viewpoints.

Following this, the group came back together although some had already started to trickle out, and discussed the issues.

When asked about the event, John Sussman, a senior, had a positive tone.

"I think it was a pretty informative and pretty provocative event. I think it was very balanced. I think it was very conciliatory. I think it was a chance to share an opinion from an American Jew about how we as American Jews can and should care about Israel and care about changing its policies."

Paraska Tolan, another senior, also found it interesting, and yet had a little criticism.

"I thought it was pretty interesting. I wish she had spent more time on talking about specifically boycott, divestment and sanctions because I think that's why a lot of people came. They were here to be shocked."
Overall, it was a very interesting event. Regardless of different beliefs on the subject, it was certainly a very comfortable environment in which everyone was allowed to speak and express their feelings openly on a very controversial issue.--
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http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2010/11/rothchild-advocates-divestment-from.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FLkRU+%28Window+Into+Palestine%29

West Bank boycott campaign impacting settlement economy

Grassroots Palestinian boycott campaigns across the occupied West Bank to take Israeli settlement products off the shelves of local stores have made an impact on the Israeli settlement economy, to the unease of the Israeli government, noted the Israeli daily Haaretz this week ("Palestinians 'adamant about continuing boycott on settlement goods'," 8 August 2010).

From the tightly-packed communities in refugee camps, to the sprawling urban areas in major cities, to the rural countryside, Palestinians have galvanized around campaigns to promote locally-made products and locally-harvested food instead of a myriad of items made in illegal settlement colonies on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), for its part, has produced pamphlets listing Israeli settlement-made products and delivered them to thousands of homes across the West Bank, urging Palestinians to buy Palestinian products and warning that trading of settlement products risks legal prosecution. But grassroots, local community initiatives have been working independent of the PA for years as activists have organized to educate and support business owners in making responsible choices in purchasing and selling merchandise.

Haaretz reports that the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor has asked the PA to cancel the boycott, citing supposed violations of international trade rules and feigning concern for Palestinian laborers who work in the settlements.

International trade laws do not apply to consumer boycotts, however, and the Israeli settlements themselves are entirely illegal under international law, including Articles 46 and 55 of the Hague Convention; Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 465. The illegality of Israel's settlements was reaffirmed in the 2004 ruling of the International Court of Justice at the Hague ("Israeli settlements fact sheet," Palestine Monitor, 15 March 2010).

Irish artists pledge to boycott Israel

In international boycott news, more than 150 Irish artists helped to launch a broad-based boycott of Israel, pledging on 13 August to refuse to perform or exhibit their work in Israel, and to refuse to accept funding or grants from institutions connected to the Israeli government. Through this campaign, Ireland has become the first country to enact a nation-wide cultural boycott movement against Israeli apartheid.

In a joint action with the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), artists drafted a statement, published on the IPSC website, that "commits signatories to boycotting the Israeli state until it respects international law" and notes that the artists are responding to a call from Palestinian civil society for a cultural boycott of Israel ("Dublin concert sees launch of 'Irish Cultural Boycott of Israel' pledge," 13 August 2010).

Musician Eoin Dillon was amongst the Irish artists who signed the pledge. IPSC states that his brother was on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in May of this year, and was kidnapped and arrested when Israeli commandos attacked the ships, killing nine and wounding dozens.

Dillon told IPSC, "I encourage all Irish artists to take this pledge and thereby honor not only their own dignity but more importantly, the dignity of the Palestinian people."

The pledge was recognized by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which remarked in a statement on 11 August -- anticipating the artists' boycott action -- that this represents a "groundbreaking strategy in supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice" ("Irish artists make BDS history ...").

"In the last few years, many international cultural figures have come out in support of the cultural boycott of Israel," PACBI added. "A statement authored by John Berger in support of the boycott gathered dozens of signatures, including some celebrities. Montreal, Canada, witnessed a most impressive initiative in this respect, where 500 artists issued a statement this last February committing themselves to 'fighting against [Israeli] apartheid' and calling upon 'all artists and cultural producers across the country and around the world to adopt a similar position in this global struggle' for Palestinian rights. Yet, the Irish artists have raised the bar of solidarity by pioneering the first nation-wide cultural stance in support of the boycott of Israel."

This cultural boycott initiative comes on the heels of last month's consumer boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign by the IPSC to deliver more than 6,000 signatures to a national supermarket chain, as customers demanded that the Dunnes markets stop selling Israeli-made products. Trade union officials, Sinn Fein activists and members of the Palestinian and South African communities in Ireland presented the petitions to the Dunnes stores in multiple locations across the country.

IPSC says that this campaign only took two weeks to gather signatures, and "comes a quarter-century after Dunnes was at the center of a bitter two-year campaign of boycott and pickets, when it sacked a group of workers who refused to handle South African goods" ("Petition: Thousands demand that Dunnes stop stocking Israeli goods," 29 July 2010).

Canadian union supports boat to Gaza

Meanwhile, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) officially called on Canadians to support the Canada Boat to Gaza project. The Canadian boat is to be included in a flotilla led by activists with international human rights organizations planning to deliver humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip in the coming months ("Postal Workers' Union: Get Mail to Gaza on the Boat," 12 August 2010).

The union has a long history of solidarity actions in support of justice for Palestinians, including drafting resolutions calling for an immediate end to the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Following an announcement by Canada Post that Israel Post has suspended mail delivery to Gaza, the union is encouraging people who wish to send mail to Gaza to get their mail onto the Canadian boat bound for the blockaded Palestinian territory," CUPW stated.

The CUPW says that its support of the Canada Boat to Gaza was elevated when Israel Post recently informed Canada Post that Canadian mail would not be delivered to the Gaza Strip due to circumstances "beyond their control," according to the Canadian daily Vancouver Sun ("Canadian postal workers put stamp of approval on bid to break Gaza blockade," 12 August 2010).

Receiving mail in Gaza has been irregular for years, as Israel's illegal blockade against the strip continues. But according to Gaza's Director General of the Communications Ministry, Jalal Ismail, the mail delivery system has been delayed and government mail has remained undelivered for at least four months. Speaking to news agency The Media Line, Ismail said that mail disruptions "are not new" in Gaza. The Gaza-based Palestinian postal employee responsible for mail transfer in Gaza was arrested by Israeli forces, and Israel continues to stall in their "vetting" of a new postal liaison.

Israel has also blocked mail between Gaza and the West Bank, according to Maan News Agency ("Israel blocks mail between Gaza, West Bank," 20 May 2010).

Denis Lemelin, the CUPW's national president, explained the union's move to back the Gaza-bound boat actions: "As postal workers, we know very well that cutting off mail creates suffering and hardship for people, who are isolated from their loved ones. How many more abuses will the people of Gaza have to endure?"

"We are heartened by the growing international response to Israel's cruel treatment of the Palestinian people," continued Lemelin. "We stand in solidarity with all efforts to break the blockade and end the indignities imposed on the Palestinian people by the state of Israel."
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11474.shtml

Settler Sewage Ruins Palestinian Crops, Drinking Water

By Mel Frykberg
Residents of this Palestinian village refuse to buy the idea that the flood of raw sewage from the adjacent Israeli settlement of Kfar Etzion, that destroyed vineyards and contaminated their drinking water, was an accident.

The Israeli Civil Administration, which administers the occupied West Bank, claims the spillage was the result of an accidental power malfunction which caused excess settlement sewage to overflow onto Palestinian land.

“This was no mistake,” says a British activist who has been documenting life in the village for several months. “The pipe was deliberately unscrewed by hand so that the sewage would spill over into Beit Ummar. That has nothing to do with an electricity cut,” he told IPS.

Villagers standing near a completely destroyed 70,000 sq m vineyard belonging to the Sabarneh family said they believe it was a deliberate act of sabotage and part of a concerted campaign by the settlers to harass their Palestinian neighbours and vandalise their property.

Beit Ummar has been the target of a number of Israeli military raids at night last month. Activists who have been organising non-violent protests against the expropriation of their land for the settlements have been arrested and the village blockaded.

In a similar incident last week the Palestinian village of Bruqin, in the northern West Bank, was flooded with sewage from the nearby Ariel settlement, causing contamination of underground water and springs and damaging crops.

These incidents are part of a larger problem of scarce water resources where a Palestinian population of 2.5 million survives on 17 percent of the West Bank’s main underground aquifer.

The remaining water is channelled towards the West Bank’s (including East Jerusalem) 500,000 Israeli settlers, and into Israel proper.

The water shortage is compounded by the lack of wastewater treatment plants and inefficient treatment of waste and sewage in the Palestinian territory which fouls its water sources.

Israeli rights group B’tselem released a study last year called ‘Foul Play: Neglect of wastewater treatment in the West Bank’.

According to the organisation, more than 90 percent of Palestinian wastewater is not treated while only 20 percent of Palestinian homes, primarily in towns and cities, are connected to sewerage systems.

Furthermore, only 81 of 121 illegal Israeli settlements are connected to wastewater treatment facilities. Over half of the settlements’ treatment plants are too small to treat waste effectively and are ill-equipped to handle the burgeoning settler population.

The result is continual technical breakdowns and sewage overflow. Most of the settlements are situated on ridges and hilltops so sewage flows down towards the Palestinian villages and towns in the valleys below, contaminating their drinking water supplies and destroying their crops.

The Israeli settlers are not affected by this as they are connected to Israel’s water supply.

The planning and building authorities in the settlements and Israeli industrial areas also ignore Jordanian building and planning laws which govern how wastewater is to be treated in the West Bank.

The B’tselem report further outlines the neglect of the territory’s water treatment plants by the Israeli Civil Administration during the decades of occupation and the current difficulties faced by Palestinian Authority (PA) water officials in trying to build new wastewater treatment plants or repair the old ones.

There is currently only one wastewater treatment plant operating in the West Bank in Ramallah. Three others have ceased to function and the PA has been unable to repair them or build new ones.

The West Bank is divided into Area A, which is under Palestinian control, Area B under joint Palestinian and Israeli control, and Area C which is under full Israeli control.

Area C comprises 60 percent of the West Bank. Areas A and B are mostly built up with little free land available.

However, in order to move around or build new wastewater treatment plants in Area C Palestinian officials from the PA Environment Authority require building permits from the Israeli Civil Administration.

B’tselem and PA officials complain of the delays these officials face in getting building approval if they get them at all.

“There is an enormous amount of red tape and bureaucracy that Palestinian officials have to overcome before they get the permits,” says Eyal Hareuveni, the author of the B’tselem report.

“The Israeli Civil Administration says that the Palestinians don’t provide the necessary detailed building plans as they have been instructed but I think the administration is being deliberately difficult,” Hareuveni told IPS.

Issa Moussa from the PA’s Environmental Authority denied that the PA provided insufficient details.

“We have the case of wanting to build a new wastewater treatment plant in Tulkarem in the northern West Bank. We provided absolutely everything requested but we were still waiting for a permit,” Moussa told IPS.xxxxx

Other difficulties facing the more efficient handling of wastewater are the restrictions placed on Palestinian movement in the West Bank by the Israeli military. This has led to increased costs for donors who support wastewater projects and who in turn have cut down on their expenditure.

A Joint Water Committee between Israel and the PA was established following the Oslo Peace Accord of 1993, to address water issues.

One of the disputes between the sides is the Israeli insistence that settlement sewage be connected to future Palestinian wastewater treatment plants.

The Palestinians reject this as this implies that the settlements are permanent and say their refusal to approve this condition is one of the reasons for approval being withheld on the construction of wastewater plants.

With no higher authority to settle the disagreement the situation will only worsen in the future.

“Neither side seems to be making the urgent issue of water and waste treatment a priority,” Hareuveni told IPS.
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/palestine-the-cesspool-of-israel/

Beit Sahour: a microcosm of Israeli colonization

Forced by Israeli construction in East Jerusalem, the US president delivers a "rare rebuke" of an ally. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu begins "construction of a new housing project in East Jerusalem" despite the risk of drawing "fierce, and possibly violent, Palestinian protest, along with international denunciations," as reported by The New York Times. While this may sound like a news summary from the last month, these are in fact news reports from 1997, as Israel began work on Har Homa colony.

A number of commentators have pointed out a sense of déjà-vu about Netanyahu's current premiership. But while today's gaze is fixed on colonies like Ramat Shlomo -- home to the 1,600 new housing units announced during US Vice President Joe Biden's visit -- or right-wing settler expansion in Sheikh Jarrah, little has been said about what has since happened to Har Homa, the colony which caused a stir during Netanyahu's previous time in office.

Har Homa's impact on the Palestinian community has been devastating, with the town of Beit Sahour now dominated by the ever-expanding settlement. While many are aware of Beit Sahour's famous nonviolent resistance during the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993), less well-known is how Israeli rule continues to choke the town. Har Homa has been instrumental in that respect, and it plays a role in the latest settler-driven attempts to take over more land at Ush al-Ghrab, the site of a vacated Israeli military base. Located on the edge of Beit Sahour, the Israeli military has returned to the site while right-wing settlers campaign for the area to become the new settlement of Shdema.

A strategic colony

After 1967, Israel moved quickly to unilaterally and illegally expand the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, expropriating land from West Bank villages in order to do so. As reported in the Israeli daily Haaretz on 13 February, Beit Sahour lost 1,200 of its 7,000 dunams (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square meters), or 17 percent of its total land. Moreover, a May 2009 report by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) entitled "Shrinking Space: Urban contraction and rural fragmentation in the Bethlehem governorate," found that the Bethlehem governorate, which includes Beit Sahour, lost around 10 square kilometers to Israel's land confiscation.

In his book, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, the ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, stated that for Israel the "determining consideration" in the "delineation of the borders" of occupied East Jerusalem was "'a maximum of vacant space with a minimum of Arabs." He argues that this logically led planners to Palestinian land "on the outskirts of the city and surrounding it" (154-55). Further land loss would follow -- meaning that the amount of non-built-up land available for Beit Sahour for development and growth has been reduced to around 600 dunams.

Israel's creation of the Har Homa colony in the 1990s and its ongoing expansion has been instrumental not just in the direct expropriation of land from Beit Sahour residents, but also in restricting the community's ability to naturally expand. According to Separate and Unequal: The inside story of Israeli rule in East Jerusalem by Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, the allocation of land for the establishment of Har Homa -- a third of which was owned by Palestinians from Beit Sahour and nearby Um Taba -- was "never connected with the planning of the neighborhood." Instead, the goal was to "expropriate as much undeveloped land as possible in the area, to prevent Palestinians from building." In particular, Israel was "concerned that Palestinian construction would eventually link up Palestinian villages in southern Jerusalem with the nearby West Bank towns of Beit Sahour and Bethlehem" (p. 58).

Separate and Unequal also reveals that in April 1992, a senior official close to then-mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek wrote to then housing minister Ariel Sharon, explaining how the land confiscated for Har Homa would "'straighten the line' of the Jerusalem municipal border." The letter explained that the "immediate battle" was over connecting the Jewish settlements of Gilo, East Talpiot and Givat Hamatos. Otherwise, it warned that Beit Sahour and the nearby Palestinian town of Sur Baher would be connected (p. 59).

Indeed, Har Homa has continued to expand over the years, with further residential units being added. Currently, a new expansion of hundreds of homes referred to as "Har Homa C" is awaiting implementation, having been submitted for public review in 2008.
The same strategy to connect Israeli settlements and deny Palestinian villages the ability to expand is now being applied in Ush al-Ghrab. Establishing a settlement at Ush al-Ghrab will serve to consolidate Israel's Judaization of the area between Jerusalem and the Bethlehem-Beit Jala-Beit Sahour urban triangle and prevent the possibility of Palestinian territorial contiguity.

Nor is the strategy a secret. Haaretz reported on 4 February that Herzl Yechezel, the leader of the Har Homa "local committee," spoke at a settlers' ceremony about the importance of contiguity of Shdema, and Har Homa in order to prevent "the spread of Arab construction." Yechezel has previously described Har Homa "as a thorn" sitting between Palestinian villages and towns.

An apartheid regime

The loss of land and establishment of settlements has been "complemented" by Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank, checkpoints and bypass road 356. This matrix of control has further defined the boundaries of this Palestinian enclave. According OCHA's "Shrinking Space" report, the path of Israel's wall has placed olive groves belonging to Palestinians from Beit Sahour on the "wrong side." It stated that these groves are "now only accessible through two gates" that are opened "for limited periods during the annual olive harvest." According to an 11 April 2009 Reuters report, Israel's wall has also meant that residents in a Beit Sahour housing project -- having narrowly avoided outright demolitions -- will be completely encircled, thus "forcing residents to enter and leave via a gate controlled by Israelis."

Like the wall, bypass road 356 is designed to contain the growth of Beit Sahour. The road connects Har Homa and occupied East Jerusalem with the Israeli settlement of Teqoa in the southeast. Opened in 2007, the road stretches for 19 kilometers in the Bethlehem governorate and onwards to Israeli settlements in the southern West Bank near Hebron. As Nate Wright described in a 7 October article for the Middle East Report, bypass road 356 is "effectively demarcating the city limits" of Beit Sahour while strengthening the eastern Gush Etzion settlements. Therefore, it is imposing limitations on "prospects for growth and the larger socio-economic future of the Bethlehem area."

Beit Sahour is emblematic of the situation across the occupied Palestinian territories. According to a May 2008 report by OCHA entitled ''Lack of Permit: Demolitions and Resultant Displacement in Area C," two-thirds of the Bethlehem governorate remains designated as "Area C" under the Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Under total Israeli control, Palestinian construction and development is almost completely impossible in "Area C." Moreover, "Area C" accounts for over 60 percent of the occupied West Bank's territory.

While settlement expansion -- or creation -- announcements make the news for a few weeks, before being forgotten, the impact of Israeli colonization continues devastate Palestinian communities. Diplomatic gestures mean nothing for towns like Beit Sahour, struggling to breathe under an apartheid regime that forces Palestinians into increasingly small, unsustainable pockets of land, policies intended to make normal life -- and a continued Palestinian presence -- untenable.

http://electronicintifada.net/

West Bank: ‘no protection and no options’

An Oxfam project is helping farmers in the West Bank’s ‘Area C’, where politics is preventing many from making a living off their own land. Willow Heske reports.The building of the new Palestinian Agricultural Ministry’s office in Jiftlik isn’t very new. In fact, it’s a one room, run-down old shack in the middle of a dusty field. The office’s generator is used to power the computer (there is no other form of electricity here) and a standing fan creates a distracting noise that makes one wonder how any work can get done at all.

Not for lack of will

Looking around at the barren landscape it quickly becomes apparent that work here, in fact, rarely does get done. Not for lack of will, but from lack of means.

“This area faces a lot of problems,” Awad Daraghmeh, an agronomist with the Agricultural Ministry explains. “The purpose of opening this office is to offer support for the farmers, but it is very difficult for the Palestinian Authority to have any real control.”

He continues to tell me that the Ministry is not allowed to invest in any building or rehabilitation projects in the area as a result of the Israeli Civil Administration’s tight control of this part of the occupied West Bank, known as ‘Area C.’

“Most of the farmers throughout this region are living in tents. They have no water, no electricity, no paved roads or grazing lands - we can’t even build new schools,” Daraghmeh adds.

The Palestinian breadbasket

Jerusalem has long been considered the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but far away from the tensions of the crowded Old City streets, Area C is also vital to Palestinian statehood and self-sufficiency. It is commonly known as the ‘Palestinian breadbasket’, situated on 61 percent of the West Bank and 95 percent of the Palestinian Jordan Valley’s most fertile, arable land.

Despite being classified as Palestinian land under the Oslo Accords, which called for Israel to transfer complete control over the territory to the Palestinian Authority (PA) by 1999, Area C has never switched hands. As a result, planning, zoning, and building remain at the sole discretion of the Israeli Civil Administration, which has issued a freeze on building permits for the Palestinians who live here.

There has been much ado about the significance of this ‘new’ office, which has been seen by many as a move towards resisting Israeli annexation of this strategic territory. But the Palestinian Agricultural Ministry in Jiftlik also epitomizes all of the entrenched problems associated with living and working in Area C. Just to build a new office in this area of the West Bank, the PA would need permission from the Israeli Civil Administration, and such permission is almost never granted.

Restrictions

Farmers are particularly hard hit by restrictions on building access roads and storage centres, and have been barred by the Israeli Civil Administration from building new water wells. Of the estimated 150,000 Palestinians living here, 60,000 are not connected to a water network, and only 4,000 have access to sanitation services.

Many farmers complain that the lack of electricity also causes heavy losses because, without refrigerators, the vegetables rot quickly in the dry desert heat.

“We have no protection and we have no options. The Israeli Civil Administration has implemented policies that make Palestinian farming unprofitable,” said Harbi Abdullah, Chairman of the Al Aardh Agricultural Cooperative, who also told me he thought the Israeli Civil Administration wanted farmers like him to work as labourers on Israeli settlement farms instead of cultivating their own land.

Making a living off their own land

Recently Oxfam joined forces with local partners Economic and Social Development Center and the Palestinian Authority’s Agricultural Ministry in Jiftlik to deliver a project designed to help farmers in Area C continue to earn a living from farming their own land rather than relying on a wage earned working as labourers on settlement farms which are illegal under international law. With funding from the European Commission Directorate for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) the project distributed rain-fed seeds such as wheat, sweet peas, and chick peas, and helped farmers with ploughing, fertilizing, and greenhouse repairs.Mahmoud Dias, a farmer who benefited from the Oxfam project, said that it improved his income this year. But despite this help, there is still that much remains to be done to improve his life.

“I live in a tent because I can’t get a building permit for a house. I built a simple house, just poured some concrete walls and a put on a tin roof. The Israeli military demolished it because I didn’t have a permit. Last year, the military confiscated my agricultural land twice. I can’t take my sheep out into the hills to graze because the green land is a closed military zone,” Mahmoud explained.

“I want to be strong. I want to stay here, but how can I continue when I keep losing everything over and over again?”

Where we work: occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/pressoffice/?p=12048&v=newsblog

Association for Civil Rights in Israel State of Human Rights Report 2009: Rights on Condition

In its annual survey of the protection of human rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories, ACRI reveals an alarming trend: the conditioning of rights.

The complete report is now available.

The realization of the entire spectrum of rights is now, more than ever, dependent on what we say or believe, what ethnic group we belong to, how much money we have, and more. We have the freedom to express ourselves and demonstrate - only if we don’t say anything displeasing; we have the right to equal treatment and opportunities - only if we are “loyal” to the State; we have the right to health care - only if we have enough money to afford treatments and medications; and we have the right to adequate housing - only if our ideologies and lifestyles are acceptable.

According to ACRI, the conditioning of rights is contrary to the principle of the universality of human rights.

“Every individual has basic rights as a human being and these rights are inalienable,” said ACRI President and renowned author Sammi Michael. “Just as rights cannot be conditioned, neither can democracy. As such, the conditioning of rights undermines the very foundations of Israeli democracy.”

Below are highlights of the 2009 State of Human Rights Report:

Freedom of Expression - If they like what you say: In 2009, there has been a disturbing increase in infringements on freedom of expression, specifically when individuals and organizations criticized the government.



• In the context of the legal and non-violent campaign against “Operation Cast Lead”, demonstrations were diffused, protesters arrested for no valid reason, and some requests to hold demonstrations not granted - because of the messages conveyed.
• Several legislative bills attempted to limit freedom of expression in an unprecedented manner: the “Nakba Law” would have rendered marking Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning (many members of the Arab minority mark this day as the "Nakba" or catastrophe) punishable with imprisonment and the “Loyalty Law” would have ordered the cancellation of the citizenship of those who do not pledge loyalty to the State.

Delegitimization of Human Rights Defenders and Activists: Decision-makers and senior officials within the Israeli government have worked to silence activists and members of social change organizations, whose messages do not correspond to their own. This included aggressive media campaigns, demonization, the diffusion of false information, and attempts to sabotage their funding. Earlier this year, for example, the IDF Spokesperson savagely attacked “Breaking the Silence,” a group which collects testimonies from soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories. In another instance among many, Interior Ministry Eli Yishai called organizations defending migrant workers’ rights a “threat to the Zionist enterprise.”

Arab Citizens of Israel - Rights, if you are loyal: Though Arab citizens of Israel have suffered entrenched discrimination since the establishment of the State, they have faced particularly vicious attacks on their political and civil rights in the past year. Many of the trends mentioned above have affected Israel’s minority most acutely such as the proposed “Nakba Law” and “Loyalty Law.” Moreover, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that whoever did not serve in the military or complete national service would not be accepted to the Foreign Ministry’s training course; Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced plans to offer financial incentives for schools with high military induction rates. These conditions blatantly infringe on the rights of Arab citizens to equality because they generally do not serve in the army but the conditions also discriminate against Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews), people with disabilities, and others. The proposals also reinforce the notion - held among many - that Arab citizens constitute a fifth column.

Increased Racism among Different Groups: A survey in the daily Haaretz reported a high level of intolerance of, and among, virtually all sub-groups in Israeli society. These include: Arabs, Israelis of Russian and Ethiopian origin, Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) and settlers. The horrifying attack on the “Barnoar” gay and lesbian youth club in Tel Aviv elicited widespread condemnation by public officials, but Web forums and talkbacks revealed deep-rooted hatred and disgust for the homosexual community among the general public.

The Right to Adequate Housing - If you are “one of us”: ACRI has documented many instances of illegal discrimination in various housing projects against Arabs, religious groups, members of lower socio-economic classes, and others through acceptance committees, acquisition groups, and other mechanisms.

The Right to Health Care - If you can pay: With the increasing privatization of health care and the increase in the cost of co-payments, members of weaker socio-economic classes are surrendering health care and treatments because they cannot afford them. As a result, doctors and pharmacists are forced to find loopholes to ensure their patients receive proper treatment and medication and even pay for these out of their own pockets.

Occupied Territories - Rights, if you are Israeli: During “Operation Cast Lead”, Israel was responsible for the widespread killing of civilians and continues to view the entire population of Gaza, including minors, as an enemy population, worthy of collective punishment. Despite the repeated pleas of human rights organizations in Israel and abroad and concrete suspicions of breaches of law, Israel has yet to conduct an independent inquiry into its actions.

In the West Bank, Israelis and Palestinians continue to live in two separate and unequal realities: Palestinians are forbidden from travelling on certain main thoroughfares for the purported benefit of Israelis; Israelis and Palestinians are subject to two separate justice systems, where the military law to which Palestinians are subject is much harsher and neglects their due process rights; Palestinians in the West Bank suffer from a grave shortage of water, again for the benefit of Israelis; and Palestinians continue to be victims of attacks by Israelis in the West Bank, with the Police and military not sufficiently protecting Palestinians as required by law and not punishing the perpetrators adequately.

The Deterioration of Democracy: In 2009, lawmakers repeatedly attempted to pass harmful laws in a secretive and hasty manner, purposely trying to circumvent public debate. This was true in the cases of the biometric database bill, the land reform bill, and several radical changes to the State’s social and economic policies. Moreover, ACRI has documented a worrying trend in which the State increasingly ignores Supreme Court rulings, continuing to implement illegal policies, which violate a range of rights, and challenging the basic tenets of Israel’s democratic institutions.
http://www.alternativenews.org/

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Yatta, Hebron - a Palestinian farmer checking his olive trees after Israeli settlers had uprooted them

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Continue to Impose a Total Blockade on the Gaza Strip

· Three civilians in the West bank and the Gaza Strip sustained bullet wounds when IOF fired at them.

· 12 civilians, including 2 cameramen, 8 women, sustained injuries and bruises when IOF used force against peaceful demonstrations in the West Bank.

· IOF conducted 15 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and a one into the Gaza Strip.

· IOF arrested 13 Palestinian civilians, including one child, in the West Bank, and a wounded civilian from the Gaza Strip.

· Israeli naval troops continued to attack Palestinian fishermen and boats in the Gaza Strip.

· IOF have increased measures aimed at creating a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.

· IOF demolished 4 houses in Jerusalem and displaced 34 individuals.

· IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.

· IOF razed 14 donums of agricultural land and destroyed 1,000 meters of retaining walls surrounding Palestinian lands and 300 meters of irrigation networks in Hebron.

· IOF delivered new demolition notices to Palestinian houses in Hebron.

· IOF have continued to impose a total blockade on the OPT and have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.

· IOF deported a Palestinian student from Bethlehem University to the Gaza Strip.

· IOF troops positioned at military checkpoints and border crossings in the West Bank arrested 2 Palestinian civilians at least.

· IOF have continued to maltreat Palestinian civilians at military checkpoints in the West Bank.

http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2008/05-11-2009.htm