It Was All Part of the Plan - Israeli settlement construction and prospects for peace

As talks begin between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, it's important for me to read/listen to our news critically and to seek out other views, since much of what we hear reflects the Israeli government's view, without much attention to what Palestinians want or are thinking. The article below appeared on Aljezeera English and is written from a Palestinian perspective by Joseph Munayyer, the director of the Palestine Center in Washington DC. http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/Home/pid/187 

It is personally frustrating for me to see how Israel has continued to construct settlements on Palestinian land, which seems to me to undermine efforts to create two states. I wonder how two parties can sit at the negotiating table, while one of the parties continues to steal land from the other. What sort of trust can exist as a basis for peace while Israel builds walls on Palestinian land and bulldozes olive trees? And how can the US, which claims to be a "broker for peace," allow this settlement construction, when it clearly is an obstacle to peace? In 1992 there were 110,000 settlers in the West Bank; today there are 600,000. I highly recommend this short article by Joseph Munayyer, which shows how the US has played its part; be sure to click through to read the whole article – it's not long.

It was all part of the plan 

By Yousef Munayyer

An interesting exercise, made easily possible today by the magic of the internet, is a search of news articles on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process over time.

The most central and persistent theme is the construction of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. During intifadas, not during intifadas, during peace talks, not during peace talks, it didn’t matter. For the Israelis, every year was a good year to build more settlements.

What has changed dramatically is the reality on the ground, represented by both the number of settlers and settlements. Another change, clearly traced below, has been in the position of the United States toward the settlement issue.

Click here to read the rest of this analysis. 

This article originally appeared on Aljazeera English/Opinion.

Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center. This policy brief may be used without permission but with proper attribution. 

Another day in the West Bank - Israeli forces shoot B'Tselem spokesperson

972 Magazine reports--

WATCH: Israeli forces shoot B'Tselem spokesperson during West Bank protest

B’Tselem spokesperson and colleague Sarit Michaeli was shot in the leg from close range on Friday by Israeli forces while documenting the weekly protest in Nabi Saleh, as she has been doing for years. She issued a statement Saturday on her understanding of what happened, which I translated below.

Although this is not the first time an Israeli has been wounded by IDF fire at West Bank protests (there are a handful of other cases), it is quite uncommon. It  is certainly not the first time a Palestinian or foreigner has been wounded (there are dozens of such cases). It is important to note that Sarit is a professional NGO worker and her presence at the protests in Nabi Saleh is part of the organization’s work documenting human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.

As of Saturday evening, no Israeli mainstream media outlet reported on the incident. I contacted the IDF Spokesperson for comment and will update accordingly. (Response from a Border Police spokesperson has been added below)

B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli, holds a rubber coated bullet, which was taken out of her leg, in Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv, July 20, 2013. Photo by: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org

Sarit tells about her ordeal: "On Friday I was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet while documenting the demonstration in Nabi Saleh. The demonstration was dispersed by Border Police officers when the protesters were still on the main road that leads out of the village. After the Border Police began to disperse the crowds, some kids threw a few stones in their direction. About 20 minutes after the protest had begun, and after the procession had already been largely dispersed, a group of about nine Border Policemen and IDF soldiers stormed the main road of the village next to the gas station in the direction of a group of demonstrators, who were running away from them up the road.

I stood aside, close to the gas station. At a certain point one of the Border Policeman shot at me from what I estimate was a distance of no more than 15-20 meters. (The legal minimum range for a rubber-coated steel bullet is 50 meters).

I’m not really sure why I was shot at. I wasn’t in the path of the soldiers and I wasn’t doing anything that could be interpreted as a threat to them...."

Read the story and watch the video at 972 Magazine

Why are these men lining up in the dark? (no, it's not a rock concert)

Every morning-- (the part of the morning I never see, BEFORE the sun rises) --all over Palestine, thousands of men are lining up. No, it's not teenagers waiting to plunk down $50 or $100 for tickets to their favorite band. It's fathers, sons, brothers and a few sisters and daughters--just trying to get to work.

Here are some of them at the Eyal checkpoint near Qalquilya, West Bank, Palestine:

Here is a map of their town (it's the brown splotch in the bump):

The green line is the Green Line (1949 armistice line that ended the fighting). The red and purple lines are completed and planned routes for Israel's WALL. Everything to the west (right) of the green line is in West Bank, Palestine.

You can see the problem for workers in Qalquilya and for Qalquilya's economy. (That's also why workers have to leave to find a job.) The WALL is literally strangling Qalqilya's economy.

Watch these men going to work on a typical day - 3:45-7 am on May 11, 2013:

Follow them through the checkpoint as they wait....have breakfast....wait....pray....wait....watch the sun rise over the guard towers and barbed wire....wait....smoke a cigarette.....and wait some more.

Take another five minutes right now to see the rest of the photos, taken by Daniel Tepper, a photographer based in Ramallah specializing in the practices and effects of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

This Week in Palestine...

We might be encouraged by Senator Kerry's visits to Israel and Palestine, but life for Palestinians is only getting more difficult. I'm going to start posting some of the injustices Palestinians are continuing to experience.......every day. It seems like the violations of their human rights and threats to their safety are increasing......and, even though Secretary of State Kerry TALKS about making peace, neither Israel nor the US is doing anything to stop these ongoing attacks against individual Palestinians. No one is doing anything to stop the arrests of adults and children for political actions protesting these attacks and against the continuing theft of their lands.

Each week in Palestine there are many violations of basic human rights, but I will highlight only one. Today it's the attack on Palestinian villages and their fields by Jewish settlers who are living in the West Bank (Palestine), near Nablus. This report comes from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which monitors violence against Palestinians and accompanies Palestinians who are being threatened:

After the flames, only determination remains in Burin and Madama

On Monday 3rd June, around a dozen settlers from the illegal colony of Yizhar set fire to Palestinian’s fields in the villages of Burin and Madama, destroying at least 50 acres of arable land with olive trees. The settlers were joined by a jeep of border police when 40-50 Palestinians from the village of Burin came out to attempt to put out the fire, with some being stopped from doing so by the border police present.

As people from the two villages south of Nablus were hoping for an uneventful workday, the settlers from Yizhar, renowned for being one of the worst for settler violence, [Ed. note: if you click on the link you will see a map of these villages--they are almost completely surrounded by Israeli settlements, some illegally built]. (These settlers) set fire to fields in the Khallat al-Injas neighbourhood of Madama. One young person there desribed how, “then I went there quickly with my friends and tried to extinguish it. During that time the settlers went to the eastern area which is between Madama and Burin. They set fire into the hills there”. Before long, the enormous fires spread across the field and towards the olive tree groves of neighbouring Burin. Shortly after, Israeli border police turned up at the scene in Burin’s land, delaying the extinguishing of the fire.

Of the Palestinians that gathered, the Israeli border police only allowed uniformed firemen and those from the Palestinian Authority’s civil volunteer service to put out the raging fires. Those who approached to help were threatened with pepper spray. The fire was eventually slowed down when the border police left and the community was able to help. Areas of the hills still burned when volunteers were leaving at around 6 o’clock in the evening. The Israeli fire service appeared in case the fire spread to settler-occupied land, but did nothing to help the Palestinians nearby.

This level of violence is far from unheard of in the villages of Madama and Burin, which like other villages in proximity to Yizhar, are both subject to regular crop burnings, harassment and serious violencefrom the illegal settlement, that, with the assistance of the Israeli occupation forces, show no signs of stopping their assault on the surrounding Palestinian land and its inhabitants. Residents of Burin also face harassment from the Israeli army, which includes the tear-gassing of a Burin home, with a months old baby inside, during this February’s ‘al-Manatir‘ action. A protest for which the village has received several militaryreprisals since, including destruction of the local cultural centre.

Yizhar is at the forefront of settler violence and operates a strict “price tag” policy, where any action taken by the Israeli government on illegal settlements within the West Bank must be met by carrying out harsh and violent crimes on Palestinian communities.

Read more.

Three years later - justice still waits for Furkan Dogan

Three years ago today I came downstairs for breakfast at the Everest Hotel in Beit Jala. The hotel sits at the top of the hill overlooking Bethlehem. It's gardens are an oasis of beauty and serenity, even though the Israeli wall has been constructed on the street in front of the hotel.  

On this sunny May morning, the owner of the hotel had brought a large TV into the dining room and everyone was clustered around it, watching in horror the reports of the Israeli army's attack on the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, a ship filled with peace activists protesting Israel's blockade of Gaza. The ship was carrying medical and other humanitarian supplies to call the world's attention to Israel's ongoing illegal blockade which was strangling commerce in Gaza. Their mission was humanitarian--both in the supplies they carried and in their intention to call attention to Israel's illegal blockade which cuts Gaza off from the rest of the world. Although Israel claims they "left Gaza" in 2005, Israel still controls everything--goods and people--that enters or leaves Gaza.

Furkan Dogan, an 18-year-old Turkish and American citizen, was one of the nine people killed by Israeli army forces who boarded the ship in the middle of the night, rappelling down ropes from a helicopter, while soldiers fired on the ship from the helicopter. Dogan was shot in the face, apparently while he was lying down on the deck. Details are reported in a UN Human Rights Council report. Their conclusions about what happened on the Mavi Marmara begins on page 25.

On that morning three years ago in our hotel in Beit Jala, our Israeli tour guide was especially distraught – saddened and horrified that her government could perpetrate such violence against unarmed peace activists. So this event is personal for me – and two weeks ago I sat in the roof garden of our hotel in Istanbul, looking out over the blue sea for which the ship was named, remembering Furkan Dogan and the other eight people killed on the ship.

The US has never demanded an in dependent investigation into the death of this American citizen. Israel's military investigated itself and found no wrongdoing (surprise!). And the UN Human Rights Council issued their report, which finds that Israeli forces committed "a series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law. Here is a portion of their report concerning what they determined about the circumstances of Furkan Dogan's death:

"Furkan Doğan, a 19-year-old with dual Turkish and United States citizenship, was on the central area of the top deck filming with a small video camera when he was first hit with live fire. It appears that he was lying on the deck in a conscious, or semi-conscious, state for some time. In total Furkan received five bullet wounds, to the face, head, back thorax, left leg and foot. All of the entry wounds were on the back of his body, except for the face wound which entered to the right of his nose. According to forensic analysis, tattooing around the wound in his face indicates that the shot was delivered at point blank range. Furthermore, the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back."  

Please help Furkan's father (in photo below with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Secretary of State Kerry), who is asking the US to investigate his son's death: Sign the petition here.