Sick Murder means Bricks and Mortar for Israeli Government

The following article was published in the Andersontown News on Thursday the 24th of March and was written on the 15th of  March in the days following the Itamar Murders near Nablus in the West bank. It questions the moral leadership of a government who would so readily jump on an unsolved murder case to further it's construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank and criticises the journalistic standards across Israel and the world which seem to be entirely complict in a process which aims to demonise Palestinians in the most insidious and cynical fashion.

This weeks bomb in Jerusalem (wihich killed one and injured 30) is on my mind and my heart as I post this, as are the deaths of around 14 in Gaza, in the last 10 days (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/27/c_13800589.htm) and all those deaths happening around the middle east at this time that are not considered "hot topics" by news editors both here and at home.  

Horrific Murders Leads to Misery for Palestinians (15/03/11)

The world views Israel and Palestine through thick and foggy lenses. Horrific and terrifying events close to Nablus in the Northern West Bank brought this to light this week. The stories behind the often bloody events in this most media exposed corners of the earth get condensed and packaged into bite size pieces for easy consumption. Both spin doctors and news editors play on this; a careless-or clever- word here and there changes the complexion of the story and distorts the picture. They rely on others’ natural biases or limited knowledge of context to frame an event in a way that suits purpose. Often, vested interests on both sides use tragedy to give weight to political and social agendas in what can seem like naked opportunism out of step with human grief and suffering. 

In the early hours of Saturday the 12^th of March 5 members of the Fogel family from the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar were murdered in their beds. An attacker entered their home at night and stabbed to death a mother, a father and three children including a 3 month old baby. The result was shock and outrage throughout Israeli society. Israel's most popular daily paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, ran a front page story calling the killers "Human beasts" in the sub-heading that ran beneath the victims' photographs.

While Mahmood Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, described the attacks as inhuman, the main Palestinian news site Maan News, chose to question why the settlers were in the West Bank in the first place; they also asked “where (were) the almost 200,000 Israeli police and soldiers charged with enforcing the occupation were when the attack happened.”? The remark echoed the Palestinian and International consensus and indeed International Law regarding the destructiveness and danger of the settlement project, never the less it seemed callous in the wake of such an atrocity.

This is a place where tribal lenses blind the human dimension to a story time and time again. “United in Grief” is not a viable headline here. Throughout Saturday, in press pages across the world, the Itamar murders made headlines alongside the devastation in Japan. On the BBC News and other pages the attackers were branded “Palestinians”. This was despite the fact that the act was that of an unknown murderer. There were suggestions that it was the work of a Palestinian militant group called Imad Mughniyya Group but a statement from them claiming responsibility did not match incident reports and was followed by a denial. Questioned remained as to how any attacker would have got into the heavily fortified settlement without detection. While the remaining members of the Fogel family grieved, on the streets of Nablus and the Palestinian villages surrounding the city the primary reaction was one of fear and incredulity. In the hours that followed their fears were realised.

During Saturday, all roads in the vicinity were blocked crippling the movement of Palestinians. Between 20-50 Palestinian men were arrested and detained in the villages surrounding Itamar, many houses were ransacked and possessions destroyed. Curfews were imposed on whole villages, with residents not permitted to leave their homes from Saturday on into Monday morning. One of the men arrested was the 16 year old son of Mohammed Kamel Kawareek; the main reason for suspicion was that his brother had been one of two Palestinians killed by either the Israeli Army or settlers in mysterious events which followed his arrest a few months before. No investigation or arrests were made after those killings, with the army and settlers giving conflicting reports as to why the teenagers had been shot multiple times in the head and back.

Mohammed Kamel Kawareek and his wife in the Wake of their son's arrest, behind them a picture of their murdered  son. Photo Petter Lynden

Days before these events on Monday 7^th March, 4 Palestinian villagers close to Itamar were seriously injured from gunfire from both settlers and the Israeli Defence Forces following a settler invasion of Palestinian land. A 15 year old was rushed to hospital with a bullet hole through his kidney and a further 3 had surgery after sustaining bullet wounds. After trouble started the soldiers who were called in the wake of the settler attack and fired live rounds into a group of Palestinians coming to assist those driven from their land and injured by settler violence. Soldiers then stood with settlers as ambulances were called to assist the injured Palestinians.

According to the Israeli Human Rights organisation, B’Tselem; “when Israeli civilians attack Palestinians, the Israeli authorities employ an undeclared policy of leniency and compromise toward the perpetrators.”  Leniency and compromise were not employed in the weekend response to the Itamar murders; dozens of Palestinian men were in prison, and life in many villages was paralysed. Israel has used collective punishment regularly in the past; but in this case, what had any Palestinians done to deserve punishment?

A little reported fact in the world’s press is that since the last fatal attack on settlers in the West Bank in September 2010, at least 41 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Army in the area, while a further 85 Palestinians have been injured and 4 killed by settlers. On Sunday, a day after the murders, the Israeli government announced that as a direct result of the murders 500 new homes are to be built in illegal settlements in the West Bank. Yesha, a settler group called the move a step in the right direction but added “It is deeply troubling that it requires the murder of children in the arms of their parents to achieve such an aim.”

By Sunday evening, many more Palestinians had been detained including all the male inhabitants of an entire village. Settler violence all over the West Bank was on the increase. The Israeli press quoted their prime minister as urging settlers, despite their pain, not to take the law into their own hands. However, reports suggested that in some areas the laws was with them, with the military joining settlers in attacking Palestinian villages under the pretext of intervention in the violence.

On Monday evening, Palestinian news sources reported authorities in Itamar had started rounding up Thai immigrant workers in relation to the case. A Thai worker who was owed 10000 Shekels by the murdered father Udi Fogel had threatened to kill the family if he wasn’t paid. The development went unreported in the Israeli press, and indeed the world press, with millions of people still under the impression that the murder was carried out “Palestinian militants”. Should the murderer turn out not to be Palestinian, will the pain of the remaining members of the Fogel family become less relevant to the Israeli government? Will the government retract its plans for more illegal homes to be built in the West Bank? Will the media (Israeli and worldwide) apologise for jumping to the wrong conclusion? Will the army compensate those Palestinian families whose lives have been turned upside down? It seems unlikely in a place where grief is a politician’s asset. It fell to Motti Fogel, brother of the murdered father Udi Fogel to say by his graveside that his death should not be used “as a symbol or a national event”, but no one was listening anymore. In a propaganda war, it seems that those who stoop lowest get the spoils.

Jerusalem: The Suffocation of Shared Space

 A New and Old Jerusalem

In Jerusalem, tourist buses cart their cargos around, the faces behind the glass take in the sights and a lifetime of dreams of the holy city gets realised before their eyes. The EAPPI group took a tour of the city this week, but we are not tourists and this was not your normal tourist bus tour.

East Jerusalem lies in the West Bank, to the east of the green line which marks the limit of the Israeli state prior to the 1967 war. The area to the east of the Green line is still classified as occupied, but take a walk in the historic centre of Jerusalem and you could walk over the Green line without even noticing. Today part of it is marked by a brand new tram line -not unlike the Luas in Dublin- which runs by the walls of the Old City and out into the suburbs.

East Jerusalem is supposed be the capital of any future Palestinian state. Today it lies completely within the municipality of Greater Jerusalem and under Israeli control. A Palestinian living elsewhere in the West Bank needs a permit to travel into it. The vast majority are unable to obtain this. If you are a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem must carry a permit at all times while walking the streets of your hometown or run the risk of being arrested and detained by the police or the military, but this is not really news, it happens all the time.  

Our bus tour took us from the affluent, manicured West Jerusalem City Centre into the heart of East Jerusalem. Our tour guide, Angela Godfrey Goldstein (an Israeli peace activist) would have liked to take us into the Al Bustan district but safety concerns meant that we could not go. Al Bustan is currently a pretty tense place; it is subject to 1500 house demolition orders for homes the Israeli government claims are illegal, this is despite the fact that many of the homes were built pre 1967 when Israel had no authority over the area. Tensions are particularly high this week because a demonstration a few days earlier had resulted in the death of a 2 year old girl through tear gas inhalation.

The residents of East Jerusalem are mostly Palestinians, except for a number of pre-existing Jews and new Jewish settlers who live in heavily fortified houses built on the site of homes owned by evicted Palestinian tenants.  Those Palestinians who work pay taxes and national insurance to the Israeli state, they are entitled to benefits but according to Angela Godfrey Goldstein anything they get they usually pay back in fines. She continued; “despite the fact that (the Palestinians) pay rates and taxes not a single new road has been built in East Jerusalem since 1967”. The streets of East Jerusalem are littered with skips filled with the smoldering remnants of burnt rubbish. Many Israelis and tourists who find themselves in the area assume the Palestinians like to burn their own rubbish. In fact they are not provided with sufficient refuse collection to cope with the waste. They also cope with erratic water supply and are compelled to construct black water storage tanks on the tops of the houses so they can live when the water is turned off. According to the mayor of Jerusalem, there’s no problem, since the Palestinians like the security of “water on the roof over their heads”. The reality is that Jerusalem doesn’t seem that interested in providing basic services for the Palestinian populace.

The same Mayor, Nir Barkut aims to turn the Al Bustan district into a tourist amusement park themed on King David. A recent opinion piece in the main stream Israeli paper Jerusalem Post applauds the mayor for his vision for the economy despite the “always tough” demolition of homes.  Some within Israeli society think that the people in East Jerusalem need roofs over their heads more than they need an amusement park. For the Palestinians, it is just another chapter in a process that has been ongoing since 1967. According to the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, the organization Angela Godfrey Goldstein works for, 24,000 homes have been demolished in the West Bank since the start of the occupation.



A Palestinian Girl faces a bulldozer on its way to a demolition



The bus moved out of East Jerusalem and onto a new highway which took us even further into occupied Palestinian Territory and into the new settlement of Ma’ale Adumim (The Hill of Olives). This area, planned by the Israeli government, built in large part by Palestinian labour and illegal under international law is an impressive suburb replete with lush green gardens; wide, palm lined avenues; sparkling new apartments and an educational institution which works with organisations such as NASA in the development of space age war technology. Its name resonates in the beautiful thousand year old olive trees which adorn roundabouts in the settlement. These we’re uprooted from confiscated Palestinian land and transplanted to give the area that all important touch of heritage.

The development is populated by Israelis who are economically incentivised to live there. It is part of a plan to encircle Palestinian East Jerusalem with new settlements and create “facts on the ground” which separate the Eastern part of the city from the rest of the West Bank.

In the distance beyond the Ma’ale Adumim the separation barrier winds its way along hilltops, creating to ultimate obstacle to movement between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, beyond that, in the far distance you can see the hills of Jordan and the Dead Sea basin. Ma’ale Adumim is one of the last stops on the brand new, soon to be operational tram line which runs along part of the green line by the walls of the old city some miles to the West.

Uprooted Olive Tree in Ma ale Adummim

Former Israeli Prime minister and notorious military commander Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying over 30 years ago “we’ll make a Pastrami Sandwich out of (the Palestinians). We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years' time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart."

Today Ariel Sharon lies in a sick bed (comatose since suffering a stroke in January 2006) but his vision for a fragmented West Bank has been realised in bricks, mortar and Israeli only highways. In pursuing their policy of fragmentation of the West Bank, Israel has repeatedly broken the articles 49 and 53 of the 4th Geneva Convention relating to the transfer of populations and destruction of property in an occupied territory. However, without political pressure these laws are meaningless. The hope that Jerusalem will one day be a shared city for Jews, Muslims and Christians alike is getting strangled.  Meanwhile the Palestinian proportion of the population of the city (current at around 35%) continues to rise; without permission to build houses, and with the threat of existing homes being torn down, the future of the Palestinian community in a shared Jerusalem looks bleak and tubulent.

Mohammed and the Distant Ocean

Ireland has a heart for Israel and Palestine. It is written on the walls, it flies from the flag posts, it is in the minds and mouths of Irish people. The two areas have something common; an understanding of conflict and a desire for a just peace which in the case of Northern Ireland often seemed long way off. In Israel and Palestine today peace seems a very long way off; it is a heavily militarized area with stark social divisions and immense hatred and resentment between Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians are victims in an ongoing political power struggle which aims to define the limits of the Israeli state and the shape of any future Palestinians one.  They do not live on an equal footing. Israelis enjoy much greater economic circumstances, powers of self determination and much wider range of rights and freedoms. One message I have taken from the Palestinians I have spoken to since coming here was that if they could have one desire in their quest for justice in the Holy lands it would be that all the people in the world could visit and experience the reality of life under occupation. That way, they are sure, people would do more to try and help them live freely and fairly with their neighbors in Israel.

The Palestinians understand our recent troubles, as do the volunteers from all over the world who comprise this group of human rights observers of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme to Israel and Palestine. To them, we are an example of how peace can be won, we are an example that gives hope. Hope is a scarce commodity in the Occupied West Bank at the present time, but as Samar, a Palestinian lady from the town of Tulkarm put it to me, “we hope that one day we will have hope”.

Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) provide protective presence to vulnerable communities, monitor and report human rights abuses and support Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace. The programme is coordinated by the World Council of Churches and has been present n the area since 2003 when the second Intifada was claiming many lives on both sides of the divide. When they return home, EAs campaign for a just and peaceful resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through an end to the occupation, respect for international law and implementation of UN resolutions. In our advocacy we aim to tell the stories of people under occupation, here is the first one

Last night we had a welcome/farewell party for departing EAs, the new group and the local contacts we rely on to do our job. One of the many people we met there was Mohammad. Mohammad is 15 and is a resident of Tulkarm refugee camp which is run by the United Nations Relief Works agency. Three generations ago his family were forced from their homes by a war which created 700,000 refugees. His family lived in Haifa, a former Palestinian town on the Mediterranean. Mohammad would like to be a nurse when he grows up and possibly travel to Russia where he hears they need nurses. From the hills above his refugee camp home, on a clear day you can barely see the ocean 9 miles away beyond the high rise buildings which line the sunny coast. He would one day like to go there, but can’t.

As a Palestinian Mohammad doesn’t have the right to cross the border between Israel and the West Bank. The West Bank has no coastline. The high-rise buildings, the beaches, and the sea all lie in Israel. Some refugees return to Israel but only as daily economic migrants. Those  who do make the trip face heavy restrictions on movement, often bewildering obstacles to obtaining the necessary permit and humiliating checkpoint procedures as they travel each day to generally low paid jobs which they need to feed their families. They don’t get to the beach on their days off. Mohammad cannot even realistically expect to return to the seaside home from which his forefathers were driven from, not even for a visit. Israelis live in or on the site of the house that used to belong to his family. He has no right of return.

In Jerusalem, town planners and legislators plan on clearing large swathes of East Jerusalem, the area of the city inhabited by Palestinians , so that Israelis can return to where they say their forefathers used to live to help cement the dream of a Greater Jerusalem in a Jewish state. The EAPPI programme and the people who work on it recognize this injustice and want to do what they can to make it possible for Mohammed to have his rights recognized in a solution arrived at through inclusive, peaceful negotiation. This way, we hope to bring the ocean a little closer to him.  





Some Kids from the nearby village of Kufr al abad, barred from the beach by Israeli Security measures





Donkeys: Generally peaceful



Welcome Rain Blows in from the Mediterreanean 10 miles to the west of the Hills above Tulkarm

Facts:
• The EAPPI programme originated from an invitation from the Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem following the tightening of security after the 2^nd Intifada

• Their presence is required following a US veto of an UN resolution to send peace keeping troops to the region and civil society considered that a protective presence for civilians was necessary.

• The programme works in 6 areas in the West Bank, Jerusalem (the Palestinians know the city as Al Quds), Jayous, Bethlehem, Yanoun, Hebron and Tulkarm, I will be based in Tulkarm, a Palestinian town in North of the West Bank close to the separation barrier.

Some of the issues to be touched on in the coming weeks:

The separation barrier and it’s consequences for Palestinians; prisoners, ex prisoners and their families; Palestinian reaction to unrest and revolution in the Islamic World; The Increase in settler violence in Hebron and elsewhere; Israeli activists and their role in supporting human rights at their own personal cost; Local issues in Tulkarm; The lives of those in Refugee camps in the West Bank; The lives of farmers whose livelihood are under threat due to security restrictions, and more