Palestine- updated 13 August 2007

ISRAEL: Flying its Kite

                                                The Power of the GUN
                       The view facing   peace campaigners gathered at The Ambassador
                       Hotel in east Jerusalem to commiserate on Israel’s 40 years of illegal
                       Occupation. Wednesday, June 5th, 2007.

Israel’s defeat of the Arab armies in June 1967 after a brief six day battle was to radically alter the map of the region. Namely, it brought the onset of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands- Gaza, the West bank, and East Jerusalem.. During those six days 240,000 Palestinians fled in fear of their lives, [60,000 were abroad at the time] and some 100,000 who traveled in subsequent years were later to be denied the right of return. This was only the beginning.
It is often reported that the period between 1967-1991 witnessed almost a benign Israeli presence whereby freedom of movement between the Occupied Territories was relatively relaxed. The Occupation as such was causally defined but any respite  quickly came to an end. The Jewish leadership had not for one moment overlooked its Zionist ambitions, mainly to establish a homeland in all of Palestine. However, the  'security' of the Jew who fled from Europe- landless and persecuted to 'the land of milk and honey’ was dependent upon his ability to ensure that the Palestinian in turn became landless, stateless and persecuted. With this as a main objective Israel has achieved enormous success.
In the years leading up to the first Intifada (uprising) in 1987 Israel had in place a series of measures both military and civil that were to lay down the future nature of its Occupation. A system of permits severely restricting the movement of people and goods; house demolitions, summary arrests and imprisonment without trial all combined to govern every facet of Palestinian life. Above all the illegal confiscation of Palestinian land used to build illegal Jewish settlements which today dominant the landscape.
Everything Israel has destroyed has been totally dependent upon the power of the gun, the violation of international laws and the open collaboration of successive American administrations.
The pattern set in the late 1970’s laid the foundation for what is happening now. In 1973 there were some 1,500. illegal settlers, today there are over 460,000. Their so called ‘security’ is given as the raison d’etre for some 543 permanent checkpoints and 600 'flying' checkpoints that appear from nowhere. The settlers are openly protected by the IOF as they carry out messianic rampages. Settlements are an act of provocation. They stand on stolen Palestinian lands; they demand civilized resources-such as water [2400 m3 water per year compared to just 50 m3 for Palestinians] and good roads. Exclusive settler roads are carved through virgin mountain sides all on land taken from the Palestinian. They need to expand thus more mountain sides-more fields turned to concrete and more precious trees uprooted. The once magnificent landscape of Palestine is being slowly and surely despoiled, and the ecological life of the region placed under grave threat.
The land sleeps alone, divorced from its history, from the precious tender care of its owners, now turning into dust. If only the olive trees could sing!
Israel’s illegal Separation Wall built in the name of Israeli security rather than Palestinian which is far more fragile, should have been entered as one of the new seven wonders of the world so unbelievable is it in its dimension and ramifications. Some 436 miles long,  in sections 25ft in height, it crawls from northern Palestine southwards, gorging on land and villages.
Jerusalem and Bethlehem, holy places once recommended for international status have become the saddest places. The city of Jerusalem the target of years of relentless ethnic cleansing is now a prohibited city to all residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Bethlehem and the surrounding villages to the south  holding some of the richest agricultural land bordering the Gush Etzion settlement bloc are diminishing in order to make way for the completion of the Wall.
A new United Nations  map [published June 5, 2007] of the West Bank gives the most definitive picture so far of a territory in which 2.5m Palestinians are confined to dozens of enclaves separated by Israeli roads, settlements, fences and military zones. The impact of Israeli civilian and military infrastructure is to render 40% of the West Bank which is roughly the size of the US state of Delaware or the English county of Norfolk, off-limits to Palestinians.
The Israeli Ministry of Justice branded the report as "one-sided, immoral and riddled with mistakes."
In 2004, taking unilateral action Israel withdrew from Gaza to its northern border [where some 8,000 illegal settlers  amidst 1.4. million Palestinians were controlling 40% of the land, and 60% of the water]. The world and his wife, including the United States welcomed the move whereas Israel reinvaded in 2006 pulverizing the area aided at one point by dropping a 1 ton bomb on a residential area. It continues to reinvent reasons for reinvasion on a large scale. The news clip below is normal daily reading:-

“June 1 2007 Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have continued their military operations in the Gaza Strip for more than three weeks. IOF killed two Palestinian children and wounded a third one in the northern Gaza Strip, and extra-judicially executed a member of the Islamic Jihad in the south. Since the beginning of this latest IOF offensive 55 Palestinians, including 23 civilians, have been killed and dozens of others, mostly civilians, have been wounded."

With the democratic election of a new  Palestinian government in January 2006, led by the political party Hamas  (in June 2007 Israel  arrested some 45 Parliamentary Hamas members, who remain incarcerated) American policy has dedicated itself to destabilizing it through military and financial aid to the political opposition. It led the freeze on all international aid, began in 2006, doubtless with the aim of being able to install a new regime acquiescent to its and Israel’s demands. All borders are closed and hundreds of Palestinians remain stranded on the Egyptian side; some 32 Palestinians have already died in that no man's land. In Gaza itself, one of the most impoverished areas in the world, there are reported serious shortage of acceptable drinking water, basic food and medical supplies.
American policy has failed to freeze Hamas and starve the people of Gaza has failed. The Hamas leadership (still the democratically elected government) has  imposed  a framework of law and order yet so called new peace initiatives arrogantly assume that a negotiated settlement can be achieved, a two State solution found without Gaza which in itself is in violation of all past agreements committed to the contiguity of Palestinian territory!.

We have now reached a point of insanity bringing Israeli policies of such incredible brutality and cruelty. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) announced in March 2007, that 3,235 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the Al-Aqsa or second Intifada, began in September 2000 including 141 women, 25 medics, 10 journalists, 6 of whom were foreigners, and 764 children. In addition  614  were the victims of targeted assassinations, 412 of whom were 'wanted' and 212 who were innocent civilians. The report added that 11,030 Palestinians were injured in the Gaza Strip and 13,100 in the West Bank. Many of those who survive an Israeli bullet, most frequently shot in the head or back, spend painful months in rehabilitation. Some remain disabled for life. The question to be asked is who sleeps better at night?

11,000 Palestinians are currently illegally imprisoned in Israeli jails. This puts Israel's recent and much acclaimed release of 250 into its true perspective. Human joy or grief often blurs the bigger picture.

Israel shows itself brilliant in the detail. No measure is left unattended-not at the checkpoints, at schools, hospitals or religious sites where anyone maybe targeted. Every individual Palestinian is suspect-every act of resistance to its policies of occupation is punishable. Every day, every night, there is an ‘incursion’ into some town or village; invariable some one is killed. Every day or night someone’s land is taken or despoiled Every day or night- some home is raided and the family often made to stand in the darkened street, young children and babies included, whilst possessions inside are pillaged and destroyed.
With all these 'achievements' under its belt, Israel is truly able to fly its kite, to blazon its national colours of blue and white and the Star of David. A Canadian commentator remarking on Russia's recent claim to an area of Antarctica, "this is not the 15th century- you simply  can't go round the world planting flags wherever you wish!." Well, welcome to occupied Palestine  where even  roads in the most rural Palestinian areas sport the Israeli flag. However, over this past forty years Israel has had experienced extreme good fortune and a lot of help for its friends
Assisted by the American public in general whom we are told remain amazingly ignorant of affairs in this part of the world (some may believe it is the Jews who are under occupation and the Palestinians led by terrorists). By both Houses of Congress whose members remain fearful of any criticism for Israel for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. How successful has the American Jewish lobby [AIPAC) has been on that count.
Aided and abetted by successive American governments unquestioning support of Israel   especially in the aftermath of 9/11-2001 when the Palestinian struggle was swept up by George Bush’s war on terror and itself became allied with terrorism. The then Israeli Prime Minister Sharon could clearly announce he had his very own terrorist in Arafat-and would imprison him to his dying day. By any definition of ' terror" both American and Israel aptly fit the criteria.
Assisted by the collusion of the Israeli public who also have had the fear of Arabs drilled into them (an Arab terrorist at every corner) and who are daily assisted in managing their lives totally divorced from the reality of their neighbour a checkpoint away.
Clearly assisted by the impotence of the Arab countries who when earlier this year all 22 States offered Israel normal relations if Israel compiled with UN Security Council Resolution 242 and 191 (right of return) and withdrew to its pre-1967 borders.  The original proposal was made in March 2002 but distracted by the military attack on ex President’s Yasser Arafat’s compound. Israel refused even to discuss the proposal. Given  that the Arab States  had no alternative strategy it  disappeared.
Clearly assisted by a weak United Nations with its repeated and dismal failure to act to enforce so many vital UN Security Council Resolutions, uppermost Resolution 242 (1967) which emphasizes  the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the principle of withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied Territories. Of  338 (October 1973) which calls for the implementation of 242 and again ratified at Camp David (1978).
As with many other peace accords, such as Oslo, they merely seek to improve the conditions of Occupation rather than eliminate it, whilst simultaneously enhancing Israeli 'facts on the ground'.'
Clearly assisted by a powerless European Quartet (The USA, the UN, Russia, and the European Union) which apes the language of Israel’s cohorts. In April 2003 a peace agreement  known as the Road Map to end the Occupation based on the principle land for peace. However,Israel introduced 14 caveats including the waiver of any right of return of refugees to Israel. No discussion of Israeli settlements in ‘Judea and Samaria (what happened to settlements are an obstacle to peace) and No reference to key provision of UN Resolution 242. In one blow, Israel decried and rejected every peace agreement signed since 1967. The European Quartet remained silent.
Over the past 40 years Israel has performed  in a very consistent, predictable way, but so well beyond the horizon of civilization that very few are able to imagine the end product. Mere passionate unswerving loyalty to an exclusive Jewish State on as much stolen Palestinian land as is possible, sealing itself behind Walls, a self imposed ghetto, and occupying the Palestinians as a subjugated and impoverished entity that it has not quite(to-date) summed up the ‘chutzpah’  to expel  in large numbers.

Finally, Israel is assisted by each and every one of us who adopt  a silent voice when faced with the question of Palestine and freedom for the Palestinian people. Had Condolezza Rice before she embarks upon the rhetoric of peace troubled herself to read Arafat’s, February 3, 2002, New York Times Op Ed, she would have read:
“The Palestinians have a vision of peace: it is a peace based on the complete end of the occupation and a return to Israel's 1967 borders, the sharing of all Jerusalem as one open city and as the capital of two states, Palestine and Israel. It is a warm peace between two equals enjoying mutually beneficial economic and social cooperation. Despite the brutal repression of Palestinians over the last four decades, I believe when Israel sees Palestinians as equals, and not as a subjugated people upon whom it can impose its will, such a vision can come true. Indeed it must.”
Such a vision draws grave doubts as Israel exerts increasing hegemony over the region, and Palestinians fight for their very survival.
At approximately 12:00 on Friday, 1 June 2007, an Israeli Occupation Force [IOF] infantry] unit positioned on a woodland in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, nearly 100 meters away from the beach, opened fire at four Palestinian children, who were playing with their kite near the beach. Three children were wounded, whereas the fourth one was able to escape According to the third child who was wounded, 16-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim al-'Atawna, from Jabalya refugee camp, a kite fell near the area where IOF soldiers were hiding, and when they went to retrieve it, IOF soldiers opened fire at them. Soon after, the soldiers moved towards the children. They asked al-'Atwana, who was wounded by a gunshot to the back, about the condition of the other two children who were wounded by several gunshots. He told them that the children were in a critical condition. They left the two children bleeding to death and evacuated al-'Atawna to an Israeli hospital, where he received medical treatment before he was transferred to a hospital in Beit Lahia. The two children who were killed were identified as:
1).    Zaher Jaber Mohammed al-Majdalawi, 14; and
2)    Ahmed Sabri Aba Zbaida, 14, both from Jabalya refugee camp.

Zaher and Ahmed were also flying their kite but of a different hue.

Christine Lane: Information Officer,
WILPF Palestine Section,
Jerusalem, Palestine.

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