Month: August 2012

Forced relocations from the West Bank fit decade-old plan

by adminin Palestine, Writing

The National, August 28, 2012

South Africa has decided that anything produced in the West Bank must be labelled as coming from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, rather than Israel, as the labels now read. The ruling suggests that the global movement known as “Boycott Divestment and Sanctions” is picking up speed.

But Israel is also stepping up its process of forced relocations from the land, increasing pressure on Arabs on both sides of the Green Line. The forced transfers most often associated with the 1948 war did not end with the armistice agreements. They continue today, through overt plans to “relocate” Bedouin citizens of Israel using bureaucratic manoeuvring and the manipulation of the law that pushes West Bank Palestinians off their ancestral lands.

The United Nations reports that in the first six months of this year, Israeli demolitions in “Area C” – which makes up 61 per cent of the West Bank – led to the “forced displacement” of 615 Palestinians and Bedouins, more than half of them children. If demolitions continue at this rate, displacements will exceed those of 2011, in which 1,095 people were made homeless by Israel.

In Area C, dozens of Palestinian and Bedouin villages are threatened with demolition, and over 27,000 men, women and children face forced transfer. Most of these people are refugees.

The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem says the Israeli civil administration will begin by relocating those closest to Jerusalem and will work its way out, finishing with those in the Jordan Valley. The 2,300 Bedouin men, women and children who live alongside the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, which many Israelis consider a suburb of Jerusalem and which the state intends to expand, are in the most immediate danger of expulsion. Among other options, the Israeli government is examining the possibility of moving them to the edge of a rubbish dump.

In other cases, Israel is not offering Palestinian and Bedouin residents an alternative location – the state is simply destroying their homes, leaving families to fend for themselves.

That’s the story in Susya, a small village in the south Hebron Hills. Israel claims the structures there are illegal because they were put up without building permits. But for the most part, the civil administration won’t issue building permits to non-Jews in Area C.

And if the state has its way, another 1,500 Palestinians will be displaced from the area that Israel has just recently named Fire Zone 918. Ten Israeli outposts have been built in such fire zones; their residents do not face expulsion.

Israel also has plans for Palestinian citizens of Israel who live inside the Green Line. Under Israel’s Prawer Plan, between 30,000 and 40,000 Bedouin face forced transfer from their villages in the Negev to townships that are little more than ghettos. Before the Prawer Plan was approved by the Israeli cabinet last September, the state had already demolished the unrecognised Bedouin village of Al Araqib dozens of times. At the time of writing, Al Araqib has been destroyed 41 times in two years.

But demolitions and forced transfers are not new to the Negev. In his book Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy, Ben White notes that more than 2,000 Palestinians “were ‘transferred’ to Gaza in 1950” from the Negev and villages near the borders. Between 1949 and 1953 Israel expelled some 17,000 Bedouin from the Negev, White adds. In the decades that followed, Israel demolished thousands of homes in unrecognised Bedouin villages.

Elderly residents of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights recall Israeli soldiers forcing Arabs from their homes during and after the 1967 war. Decades later, witnesses described how Israeli soldiers “forced [Syrians] from their homes … fired their guns into the air and told them to leave”. They also described how those who took refuge from the fighting in neighbouring villages were prevented from returning to their houses. Approximately 120,000 Arabs were expelled or fled the area, which Israel unilaterally annexed in 1981.

The Israeli government also uses other, less direct methods to encourage non-Jewish Arabs to relocate. In the West Bank and Gaza, Israel has purged more than 150,000 Palestinians from the population registry – making it impossible for them to return or to get identification cards.

B’Tselem estimates that nearly 650,000 Palestinians who live in the occupied territories have an immediate family member who is unregistered, and thus paperless. Israel has ignored over 100,000 requests for family reunification.

In the West Bank, Israel restricts Palestinian and Bedouin access to water, crippling agriculture, the traditional livelihood of many residents. And of course there is the separation wall and the system of checkpoints and permits, making it difficult for many – and impossible for some – to reach schools, work, health care, friends and families. The resulting economic and psychological pressures have led some to emigrate.

Al Araqib and the Prawer Plan – and the rise in demolitions and displacements – made international headlines, which may give the impression that forced transfers are a new Israeli strategy, or at least one that has been resurrected from the 1948 war. But this is not the case. The current and upcoming relocations must be understood as part of an ethnic cleansing process, taking both overt and bureaucratic forms, that began 64 years ago and that will end only when the international community no longer allows it to continue.

Israeli settlers lured by subsidies

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Al Jazeera English, August 23, 2012

It is the stereotypical image of an Israeli settlement: a man with sidecurls and skullcap, and an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. A mob uproots olive trees and harasses Palestinian farmers. A mosque is set ablaze in a so-called “price tag attack”, retaliation for a slight – real or perceived.

But surveys have found that many, if not most, of those who moved to East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank are not driven by ideology, religion or politics. They have been lured by government subsidies that significantly lower their cost of living.

Bar Malul, 21, lives in the West Bank settlement of Ariel and works at the health food store in the town’s commercial centre. As she weighs freshly ground coffee, Malul explains that her parents moved the family from Israel to the West Bank 15 years ago, “because it was comparatively cheaper than other places”.

A sign in Ariel advertises four-bedroom homes starting from $200,000. In Tel Aviv, the same amount of money buys a two-room apartment in Kiryat Shalom, a poor neighbourhood in the south of the city.

The settlements are also appealing to young families. The Israeli Ministry of Education spends more per pupil there than it does in Israel proper. According to the Israeli non-governmental organisation Peace Now, the ministry invests about 8,000 Israeli new shekels ($2,000) a year on every student over the Green Line – the pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank. That is nearly double what it spends on a pupil inside Israel.

Most of Ariel’s residents are here for economic reasons, Malul says. “There are a lot of Russian [immigrants]; the majority are Mizrachim… a small amount are Ashkenazim.”

Both Mizrachim, Jews from Arab countries, and recent immigrants crowd around the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Ashkenazim, Jews of Eastern European descent, are generally more affluent. Under greater financial pressure, the Mizrachim are pushed toward the settlements and Israel’s less desirable peripherial areas. The Ashkenazim tend to cluster towards the centre of the country. The daughter of a Tunisian father and a Russian mother, Malul reflects on this trend.

Now, Ariel residents say prices are rising. Evgeni Siprmov, 29, emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the Israeli city of Petach Tikva with his parents in 1994. He moved to Ariel four years ago to study at the settlement’s college. He was also drawn by the low cost of living.

“The food was never cheaper but the rent, yes, it was cheaper,” Siprmov says as he sits at a green plastic table outside a kiosk and cracks open a can of beer. “It used to be that you would pay 400,000 [Israeli new shekels, or $99,875] to buy a small house here. It’s 600,000 [$149,813] now – the same as Petach Tikva.”

Siprmov, who just finished a bachelor’s degree in economics and has yet to find a job on either side of the Green Line, adds: “There is no true [free market] competition here … It’s all cartels.”

Inside the Green Line, Israelis struggle to keep up with runaway housing costs, high taxes, and increasing food, gas, and electricity prices on relatively low wages – which sparked last summer’s “social justice” protests. But, rather than investing in affordable housing inside of Israel, the state has instituted austerity measures and is giving more to the settlements.

According to the Israeli financial daily the Calcalist, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has increased spending on settlements by 38 per cent. Peace Now reports that 2011 saw a 20 per cent rise in settlement construction. And the number of settlers has grown by 4.5 per cent in 2012.

While Ariel is quickly becoming unaffordable, it still holds some economic appeal.

Yusuf Jaber, 23, lives in a nearby Palestinian village and works at a restaurant in Ariel. Education and job opportunities are limited for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Many like Jaber are left with no option but to work on the settlements built on Palestinian land, which pose a threat to an independent Palestinian state.

Jaber says he’s less concerned about politics and more worried about making a living. He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter if the [residents] are Palestinian or Jews – it’s work.”

Lea Gal, 57, is an alternative medicine practitioner. She lives in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, but spends an hour and a half each day commuting to Ariel. An immigrant from Russia, Gal explains, “I speak two languages [Hebrew and Russian] and that’s needed here.”

While the economy squeezes them out of Israel proper towards work and homes in the West Bank, small numbers of ideological settlers have begun moving back. Some relocate to Jewish-majority areas in hopes of radicalising Israeli society, and harnessing more support for settlements. Others have moved to mixed areas, where Jewish Israelis and Palestinians live in relative harmony, in order to assert a Jewish presence.

In south Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighbourhood, a small group of former West Bank settlers have been instrumental in whipping up anti-African sentiment. Sharon Rothbard, a Shapira resident and historian, says the settlers’ move to the area is an attempt “to build a coalition” on both sides of the Green Line.

As economic pressure grows, settlements expand, and the Israeli public drifts to the right, prospects for an independent Palestinian state fade. When asked if she believes settlements are an obstacle to peace, Malul expresses her disagreement with a curse. “No,” Gal says. “The [Second] Intifada started in 2000 and there was nothing here.”

While Ariel was founded in 1978, nine years before the First Intifada, many of the settlers interviewed echoed Gal’s sentiment: settlements and occupation were both a response to the Intifada.

Ariel residents agree an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is unlikely. But they find a one-state solution just as improbable. Gal says while she is opposed to evacuating Israeli settlements, she is also against the evictions of Palestinians. According to the United Nations, the rate of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian and Bedouin homes and structures in the West Bank has increased in 2012, resulting in the “forced displacement” of more than 600 Palestinians – about half of them children.

The Palestinian villages of Susya and Zanuta are under threat of imminent demolition, and 1,500 Palestinians who live in an area the Israeli army calls Firing Zone 918 face eviction.

When Palestinians are displaced, it is usually to make way for expanding settlements and infrastructure. “What is there to do?” Gal asks. “Throw thousands of people from [the West Bank]? It doesn’t matter [whether they’re Palestinian or Israeli], it’s impossible.”

Malul agrees, adding Palestinians should be able to move freely between Israel and the Occupied Territories. “They were born here and I was born here … they should be able to enter, too.”

Malul admits, however, her views are not necessarily representative of most settlers, or mainstream Israeli society. “It pains me to hear ‘death to the Arabs’ … and at the checkpoints when [soldiers] take them off the buses. [The Palestinians] are good people … they’re people who want to work, who want to make a living for their families.”

Could a new regime in Syria be good for the Golan Heights?

by adminin Middle East, Writing

IRIN, August 21, 2012

While conflict rages just kilometers away in Syria, the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights remains quiet. But there are signs that the 17-month old conflict has touched the areas’ Arab residents. In Majdal Shams, the area’s largest Arab village, blood-red graffiti reads: “Stop killing the Syrian people.”

When the conflict in Syria began last year, the Golan Heights was still largely supportive of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is accused of killing thousands of Syrians in the fight against the rebels. Now, locals say it’s about a 50-50 split. But while the Druze communities become increasingly divided over the conflict in their homeland, they say they are determined to stay united in the face of the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights. And some Arab residents feel that a change in Syria’s government could put the Golan back on the national and regional agenda.

Israel captured the Golan Heights during 1967 war, then unilaterally annexed the territory in 1981, a move that remains unrecognized by the international community and condemned by the UN. (Israel says it needs a presence in the Golan Heights to protect itself, arguing that UN Resolution 242, adopted after the 1967 war, recognizes Israel’s need for “secure” boundaries and does not require Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories. This interpretation is also disputed.)

Al-Marsad Arab Centre for Human Rights in the occupied Golan area reports that Israeli settlers receive five times the amount of water that the area’s Syrian farmers do. Land has been expropriated for Israeli settlements, and Arab residents pay more taxes to Israel than their Israeli counterparts while receiving fewer services.

Yet the Golan Heights “was not on the Syrian agenda for years,” according to Eyal Zisser, a professor in Tel Aviv University’s Department of Middle Eastern and African History and the author of four books about Syria and al-Assad. “Maybe a new regime in Damascus that will be more pro-Western will be ready to challenge Israel [and its occupation of] the Golan for real peace, something al-Assad did not dare to do,” he told IRIN.

Salman Fakhr Aldin, a coordinator at Al-Marsad, says a new government in Syria “whose primary concern is not the repression of its people” will not give up on either the Golan Heights or the occupied Palestinian territories.

But if Syrian rebels succeed in overthrowing al-Assad, they will face many challenges, analysts say, and confrontation with Israel may not be top of their priority list.

The Arab residents of the Golan, most of whom belong to the Druze faith, still consider themselves Syrian. In the past, loyalty to Syria was often expressed by supporting al-Assad. Along with Syrian flags, residents carried framed pictures of al-Assad at protests against the Israeli occupation.

But Fakhr Aldin points out that not everyone carried those photos. He says he was always against al-Assad.

He says he opposes the Syrian leader for the same reasons that he opposes the Israeli occupation of the Golan and the Palestinian territories: “For me, [the central Syrian city of] Homs is like Gaza… People are demanding their basic human rights,” he says, “the right to live in honor, freedom and democracy. Who can say no?”

But like many locals, Fakhr Aldin is against Western intervention in Syria.

Some of the area’s regime supporters say it is less about al-Assad himself and more about concerns that an Islamist government – which some Druze fear would further oppress their minority group – could rise in his place.

Others warn against reducing the conflict to religious and sectarian differences, pointing out that minority groups, including the Druze, are participating in the rebellion, just as minorities are supporting al-Assad. “If it was just Alawites supporting al-Assad,” one Golan resident observed, “he wouldn’t still be in power.”

The Golan’s divided communities are trying to stay quiet about their opinions to keep peace in the area.

Still, protests against al-Assad have led to small skirmishes here in Majdal Shams. Several weeks ago, al-Assad supporters clashed with those supporting the rebellion. The two sides initially threw eggs at each other, which escalated into stone throwing. Village elders separated the groups and suggested that those who support the rebellion take their Friday protest elsewhere for a week so that the two sides could cool off.

A prominent member of the community, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he has a number of close relatives in Syria, said: “In some houses, fathers aren’t speaking to sons and brothers aren’t talking to each other,” because they disagree about the conflict in Syria. But he denied media reports that locals who support the rebels were facing ostracism.

Beyond inflaming differences among the Golan’s residents, a new regime in Damascus could introduce several risk factors for the Golan – and for Israel.

“Under al-Assad, there was a strong regime [in Syria],” Zisser explains. “The fall of his regime may lead to the spread of chaos… Some terrorist groups, mainly al-Qaeda, might look for new adventures once al-Assad is not there.”

Zisser likens a possible power vacuum in Syria to that in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power, militants have attacked pipelines carrying gas from Egypt to Israel. On two occasions, they have also breached Israel’s border with Egypt. Last summer’s cross-border attack left eight Israelis dead.

But locals are less concerned about attacks on the Golan or the possibility that fighting in Syria could spill over the border. What they are troubled by is the possibility of an Israeli strike on Syria’s ally, Iran – and the regional war that could provoke.

A restaurant owner, who asked to remain anonymous, told IRIN that some locals are stocking up on non-perishable goods and water in case fighting breaks out. “We have seen so much fighting here,” he said with a sigh.

Even if such a war could result in the Golan being returned to Syria, he remarked: “We want the occupation to end. But violence is not our way.”

Palestinians step again towards nationhood

by adminin Miscellaneous, Writing

Inter Press Service, August 18, 2012

A year after their bid for statehood flopped in the United Nations’ Security Council, the Palestine Liberation Organisation is again planning to seek an upgrade in UN status. On Sep. 27, the PLO will approach the UN General Assembly in hopes of becoming a non-member observer state. If their bid is successful, the Palestinians will be eligible to join various UN agencies and will also be able to bring allegations of Israeli war crimes to the International Criminal Court.

Responding to news of the Palestinians’ upcoming UN bid, Israeli Knesset Member (MK) Danny Danon said that Israel should unilaterally annex Israeli-controlled Area C, which makes up more than 60 percent of the West Bank and includes more than 200 Israeli settlements and outposts.

The idea of an annexation seems to be gaining currency. Danon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, promoted a Knesset bill calling for such a move. MK Uri Ariel has called for the application of Israeli civil law to Area C – a move that analysts say would amount to a de facto annexation.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Ariel’s proposal has garnered the support of “more than half” of Likud’s parliamentary representatives. And last month a number of Likud MKs participated in a conference organized around annexing not just Area C but the whole of the West Bank.

Despite the fact that Knesset Members are active in the drive towards an annexation, government spokesman Mark Regev has said that talk of an Israeli annexation of Area C is “ludicrous.”

Whatever the end goal, the Israel government continues to establish “facts on the ground” in Area C. According to the Israeli non-governmental organisation Peace Now, 2011 saw a 20 percent increase in West Bank settlement construction with work beginning on more than 1,850 new units. This year, Israel has approved over 1,400 new housing units in settlements – suggesting that 2012 will be a record-breaking year of settlement growth – and the number of West Bank settlers has risen by 4.5 percent.

As the state facilitates the transfer of Jewish Israelis to Area C with one hand, it uses the other to push the indigenous Palestinian residents out. Between January and June of 2012, the UN reports, Israel destroyed 384 Palestinian and Bedouin homes and structures in East Jerusalem and Area C. According to the UN, this led to the “forced displacement” of 615 Palestinians and Bedouins, more than half of who are children.

The UN notes that 2012 has seen a “significant increase” in both demolitions and displacements, “On average, 103 people have been displaced every month in 2012, compared to 91 in 2011, 51 in 2010, 52 in 2009 and 26 in 2008.”

Both the state and Israeli settlers are increasingly using “lawfare” against the Palestinian population in Area C – deeming Palestinian structures and villages that often pre-date the Israeli occupation itself as “illegal” and, therefore, subject to demolition.

According to Tamar Feldman of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, there are more than 14 Palestinian villages in the South Hebron Hills that are caught up in legal battles – waged by the state and right-wing organizations like Regavim – to hang on to their land.

The Palestinian villages of Zanuta and Susya, which are both under threat of imminent demolition, are two situations in which Regavim revived frozen demolition orders by petitioning the court, essentially forcing judges to rule on the cases. There are also the 12 villages in Firing Zone 918. If the state has its way, 1,500 Palestinians will be expelled from the area.

The state has no plans to relocate the families or to compensate them for taking their land.

Speaking to IPS, Feldman comments, “The Jordan Valley and the South Hebron Hills area have a lot of (Israeli-declared) firing zones and nature reserves that have restrictions on entry and residency. Most of the firing zones are not really being used for live fire training and (Zone 918) has not been used for live ammunition training. In fact, it has been used very little in the last 15 years.”

She calls the state’s sudden claim that it needs to use the area for military exercises, “very strange.”

The firing zones and nature reserves that dot Area C – as well as the demolitions, lopsided allocation of resources, and restrictions on freedom of movement – all function together to block Palestinian growth or drive Palestinians out altogether by making life unbearable. Is it a matter of grabbing more land or is it about creating a Jewish demographic majority on that land? Either way, both are crucial issues to annexation.

Feldman adds that the state’s expropriation of Palestinian land to create firing zones and nature reserves is “very problematic from an international law point of view. You’re not supposed to use an area within the occupied territory for any general purpose that serves you.”

But the recent Levy Commission report denies that Israel is occupying the West Bank. While the committee recommended that the government legalise all settlements and outposts, some observers say the Levy report constitutes an attempt to lay the legal groundwork for an Israeli annexation.

Jeff Halper, co-founder and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, tells IPS, “A lot of the settlements are built on private Palestinian land. And the Supreme Court isn’t letting (the state) expropriate the land. An annexation would mean that it all becomes Israeli land…it cuts through that Gordian knot of legal hassle and the issue of criticism of the settlements…”

“If Israel annexes Area C,” Halper continues, “the world will complain for a day…after the yelling and screaming, it will be normalised.”

Despite the fact that Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and the Golan Heights in 1981 – and faced no real repercussions from the international community for either move – some analysts say that Israel won’t take Area C.

Neve Gordon, author of Israel’s Occupation, says Israel is too worried about “demographic concerns” to annex Area C and that “the political cost is considered too high…at this point, Israel is happy with a de facto annexation of parts of the West Bank without legally annexing the region as a whole.”

Is greater food security in the OPT an illusion?

by adminin Middle East, Writing

IRIN, August 2, 2012

At a glance, the latest data on post-assistance food security in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) last week – seems to warrant optimism.

2011 was the second straight year in which the number of those living in food insecurity declined in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). In the Gaza Strip, the percentage dropped from 60 in 2009 to 44 in 2011; in the West Bank, food insecurity rates have decreased 5 percent in the same two-year period to 17 percent.

But, as UNRWA itself admits, a deeper look into the numbers is less encouraging.

In the West Bank, Palestinians who live in refugee camps have actually experienced a rise in food insecurity – from 25 percent in 2009 to 29 percent in 2011. One quarter of Palestinian households in Israeli-controlled Area C are food insecure – 8 percent more than the West Bank average. Herders’ families in Area C are in a precarious situation, with 34 percent suffering from food insecurity.

And while food insecurity stands at just under 30 percent in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip combined, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported in May 2012 that 50 percent of infants and children under two in oPt have iron deficiency anaemia. According to the same WHO report, malnutrition and stunting in children under five “is not improving” and could actually be “deteriorating”.

The Second Intifada saw dramatic changes in Palestinians’ eating habits. Israeli-imposed movement restrictions on both people and goods strangled the economy; Palestinians’ inability to access farmland due to Israeli prohibitions and the separation barrier led to reduced agricultural output. Under these pressures, Palestinians increasingly came to rely on cereals, pulses, potatoes, vegetable oil and sugar rather than more costly and more nutritious foods like protein-rich fish and meat, fresh fruits and vegetables.

In 2003, at the height of the Second Intifada, FAO reported that meals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip often consisted of just tea and bread. Despite these dire circumstances, FAO did not recommend increased food aid. Instead, the organization stated that the most pressing issue, economic access – or the ability to buy food – must be addressed. In the short term, that meant job creation; in the long term, it meant investment in agriculture.

Yet, almost a decade later, critics say that most aid organizations remain focused on temporary, short-term solutions rather than the underlying problems.

Haneen Ghazawneh, a researcher at the Palestinian Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah, said international aid was still “going [more] to emergency assistance and food aid and less to development projects,” contributing to “the decline in agriculture”.

Ghazawneh also takes issue with the latest food security data.

“When we talk about economic access [to food] that means having permanent jobs,” she explained. “My worry about these recent reports is that they exclude East Jerusalem, [where] people have very limited [work opportunities]. It’s Area C.”

She also said the apparent gains in Areas A and B may be illusory.

In the West Bank, many of those who are food secure are on the Palestinian Authority (PA) payroll, said Ghazawneh. But much of the PA’s funding comes from foreign aid, leaving employees vulnerable to changes in the political climate and the global economy – as was the case in July, when the PA could pay only half of employees’ salaries.

“We’re talking about the workers who are the most secure, who have permanent jobs, and they are uncertain,” she said. “The situation is not sustainable at all.”

As many Palestinians have increasingly embraced a culture of consumption and debt, some have bought houses and cars they cannot afford. If salaries suddenly stop coming and people fall behind on their loan payments, the banks could have problems. And this, perhaps, could fuel a larger financial crisis that would impact food security.