Blog 6

Christmas in Bethlehem

This is a very compact part of the world. You can see Tel-Aviv from the hills of Ramallah, Jerusalem is about 35km away and Bethlehem a further 12km further down the road.

The distances don't speak of the complexity of travel and the time that journeys can take under the occupation. It seems as though everybody has their own favourite backway - down steep valley roads, through tiny villages, round and about, this way and that. This does not mean that one can avoid military checkpoints, they're everywhere, just that everybody has a view about which checkpoint will disrupt their life the least. I have read reports of people having to get up at 2.30 am in order to get to work on time by 7.00.

Going to Bethlehem for Christmas we seemed to go a most circuitous route and still had to pass through two checkpoints, three on the return journey. The questions from the soldiers follow a pattern - "where are you going - where have you been - how did you enter the country - who are you going to see - why are you here?" Tempted to ask them the last question myself. It is not uncommon in the Occupied Territories for Israeli soldiers to ask "what are you doing in Israel?" - at least they're honest about their intentions.

Midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity is the thing to do in Bethlehem at Christmas time. I met up with Henrik from Gaza and an English friend of his in Manger Square at 11.00 pm with every intention of going to the service. As we were early we found a bar and got caught up in discussion until 4.00 am - another time perhaps.

The Church of the Nativity is more like a fortress viewed from the outside. Construction started in 326 AD by Constantine's mum with some of the original mosaics still visible. The complex actually consists of a number of churches and is more like a monastery. To enter, you have to crouch down and pass through a very small opening - this, says the guidebooks was to prevent men on horseback entering the church and cutting up the alter boys - fair enough.

Bethlehem sits on a hill and on the adjacent hill, where until March 1997 there stood a forest , now stands the settlement of Har Homa - a gleaming lime stone modern day walled city. It began life as a small military outpost, followed by a few caravans and is now home to many thousands of Israeli settlers. Construction started at the height of the Oslo peace process, during which period (1993-2000) the number of settlers in the Occupied Territories doubled. That's the way things seem to go here. Last week President Abbas met with Prime Minister Olmert, apparently in spirit of co-operation, shortly after which the Israelis announced they would lift, at some unspecified time, 400 road blocks in the West Bank, to ease living conditions here (400 roadblocks is by no means all of them!). Then, a few short days later, according to the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6213193.stm) Israel has just announced the building of a new settlement in the Jordan Valley, starting with 30 houses. This appears to be an annexation being conducted in slow motion, methodically and to a predetermined script.

I think you would require a seriously robust sense of humour to live here.

Back in Ramallah, cold and covered in snow.

Blog 5

The Wall

The neighbours are putting up a wall.

I took a trip to the village of Be'lin, about a 30 minute drive from Ramallah towards the Green Line. Tight hills, rocky land filled with Olive Groves between here and there. Every Friday members of the village march to the wall which has cut them off from part of their farmland in order to make way for a large settlement. They are joined by an international contingent of English, Danes, Germans, Americans, South Africans, Spaniards etc etc. Today there were about 150 people in total.

The march proceeded about 5 minutes out of the village up a track towards the Wall, which in this locality consists of a trench, coils of barbed wire, a fence, a path, another fence (electric) and a road. All carved out of the village Olive Groves. About 500m- 1000m off in the distance is a collection of 10 story modern settlement apartments, some completed, some being built. At the outskirts of the village there were some Israeli troops that had taken up position on somebody's roof on the Palestinian side of the fence.

The march then proceeded to the wall where it was met by a large contingent of the IDF. There followed some chanting and slight pushing between the two groups. Some demonstraters started to pull at the coils of barbed wire and a few stun grenades were thrown by the military into the crowd.

There was one amusing scene as a young Palestinian boy attempted to tuck a large Palestinian flag into the belt of an Israeli soldier. This went on for about 10 minutes to the amusement of both the demonstrators and the soldiers.

On the way back to the village the relatively light hearted mood changed. The military on the roof in the village started firing tear gas and stun grenades at the 10 year olds 100m away, it appeared in order to provoke them - which worked and they started throwing stones. The military responded with more tear gas, stun grenades and somesort of rounds, either rubber or live ammunition - I could not tell and didn't see anybody hit but there were reports in the media that a number of boys were taken to a local hospital - that seems to be Friday's in Be'lin.

Back in the village I saw a map of the West Bank showing the Wall and the settlements. There are walls and fences all over the place including one that cuts right across the middle and one which separates the entire Jordan valley (fertile farmland) from the rest of the West Bank - checkpoints and ghettos.

Some facts and figures:

• In July 2001 the Israeli Cabinet approved the first phase of the construction of the Wall and in October 2003 approved plans for the continuous route along the entire 720 Km length of the West Bank.



• 10,000 hectares of Olive trees, orchards, citrus , wells and hothouses have been confiscated by the Israeli military in order to construct the Wall.

Israel claims that the wall is being built for security reasons and that as soon as the "terror stops, the fence will no longer be necessary." However:

• The wall is not being built along the Green Line, the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank. Instead it encroaches from 2 km to 16 km into Palestinian territory. This represents a loss of 675 sq. km or 16.6% of the West Bank.



• The area between the Green Line and the Wall has been declared a "closed zone" by the Israeli military. Some 237,000 Palestinians live in this "closed zone" and require restrictive permits to come and go through the various checkpoints and gates. Israeli settlers in the "closed zone" require no permit and are free to come and go as they please. If the Wall was built purely for security reasons to protect Israel from Palestinians, it is odd that 237,000 Palestinians have been included on the Israeli side of the Wall.



• The wall will incorporate 80% of the settlers in the West Bank (320,000 people).



• According to the UN Special Rapporteur, much of the Palestinian land on the Israeli side of the wall consists of fertile agricultural land and some of the most important water wells in the region. The route of the wall effectively annexes most of the western aquifer system which provides the West Bank with 51% of its water resources.



• Approximately 160,000 Palestinians reside in completely surrounded communities, enclosed in by the Wall. The Palestinian town of Qalqiliya (pop. 40,000) is one such example. Entry and exit is gained through one military checkpoint which is open between 7 am and 7 pm. Since the construction of the wall, some 600 businesses have shut down and between 6,000 and 8,000 people have left the region. The UN Special Rapporteur has observed that "with the wall cutting communities off from their land and water without other means of subsistence, many of the Palestinians living in these areas will be forced to leave."

On 9 July 2004 the International Court of Justice ("ICJ") handed down an advisory opinion holding that the Wall was illegal and contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Court held that:

"To sum up, the Court is of the opinion that the construction of the wall and its associated régime impede the liberty of movement of the inhabitants of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (with the exception of Israeli citizens and those assimilated thereto) as guaranteed under
Article 12, paragraph 1, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. They also impede the exercise by the persons concerned of the right to work, to health, to education and to an
adequate standard of living as proclaimed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Lastly, the construction of the wall and its associated régime, by contributing to the demographic changes referred to ... contravene Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Security Council resolutions ..."

The ICJ rejected Israel's argument based on self-defence (Article 51 of the UN Charter) on the grounds that the threat was internal as Israel controls the Occupied Territories. The ICJ also rejected Israel's defence of necessity as this defence is only available in the most extreme of circumstances. Whilst the ICJ recognized that Israel faced indescriminate threats of violence against its civilians, it held that any measures must be in accordance with international law. Based on the evidence before it, the ICJ was not persuaded that the construction of a Wall along the route chosen was the only means to safeguard the interests of Israel against the perils it faces.

Through a system of walls, checkpoints, permits and administrative detention, the idea appears to force Palestinians to live in small ghettos and make life as difficult as possible until they simply give up and leave or are in prison. Looks like annexation with a spot of ethnic cleansing thrown in for good measure.

Merry Christmas for some.

(See also http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/brain.html)

Blog 4

The second ceasefire in as many days was announced yesterday - good, the more the merrier.

All pretty quiet here, most of the trouble seems to be centred on Gaza. Gaza is that thin strip on the coast, approximately 40km long and 10 km wide with a population of 1.2 million. It is apparently the most densely populated spot on earth. From all accounts it is essentially an open prison, Israel strictly controls who goes in and who leaves. I was reading a report yesterday which gave a number of examples of Palestinians being deported from the West Bank to Gaza, either because they were accused of a "security offence", or somebody in their family was accused of a "security offence". Once in Gaza, they cannot leave.

One of the women in the office, Zicra, is from Gaza. If she were to return home, she would not be able to return to the West Bank. She has not seen her family for six years.

Blog 3

Politics with humus

Yesterday's newspaper is spread across a desk, add bread and three dishes of humus and that's lunch for six or so.

Today was slightly different as no one spoke much, instead listening to President Abbas's voice live over the radio as he gave a speech a few blocks away. The President likes to take his time so I was in fact out shopping for lunch with Zeid when the speech started. It seemed that all of Ramallah was listening to this speech, every car radio and in every shop the same slow measured voice could be heard

I couldn't understand a word that was being said but could tell from the intense expressions on everbody's faces over lunch, visible through the clouds of cigarette smoke, that it was an important speech given in response to the increasing tension between Fatah and Hamas. It was also obvious that Abbas left the punchline to last because the room erupted with those last few sentences in which he promised fresh elections - which for Hamas is seen as an attempt by Fatah to take last year's election victory away from them.

Some say this will mean civil war in Gaza and an increase in arrests in the West Bank. Others say "who knows, uncertain times?" (I think one can safely place a bet on the last option)

Interesting lunch at the office today consisting of Avocado, Tuna, something white, bread, tobacco and some politics.

Blog 2

Sabah al-kheir (good morning),

Some commotion in town yesterday to mark Hamas's 19th anniversary. Although Hamas won the elections, Fatah control security - and they don't much like each other. After Friday prayers, Hamas supporters wanted to march from the mosque through town, Fatah said no and fired into the crowd - reports say several killed and 35 injured.

There is a strange blend of the everyday here, much as any town anywhere, punctuated by sudden and violent flare ups. And as these internal squabbles are occuring, the occupation continues.

It is not altogether clear to see how this will end happily.

A crystal clear slightly nippy morning with a clear view of Tel-Aviv and the Med beyond. Morning coffee has just been served - should keep me vibrating until humus time.

Bog 1

I'm currently living close to at least two mosques. I discovered this at around 5 am this morning with the call to prayers. I awoke to a clear, beautiful but somewhat haunting voice which although lovely and evocative, was beginning to make me a bit sad after about 5 minutes. Luckily, just before me and the neighbourhood dogs started howling, the competition opened up - the strategy, I believe, was contrast. Imagine the sound of a large truck trying to start on a cold morning and you get an idea of the competition - a perfect foil to singer number one.

The office coffee gets the heart going and then some - very strong, very thick and tasting of cardamom seeds - not even tempted to sleep under my desk after that!

I think the Temperance Society is going to need a new constitution - 700 clauses no longer impresses. The military code governing the west bank actually runs to 1500 rules and the slackers in Gaza make do with 1400.

There's a thing here called administrative detention - basically its a way of locking up bad people without having to tell them, or anybody else, exactly why they are being locked up. This can last for up to 6 months, and can then be extended if you are still a bad person (I thought I heard about something like this going on in the Caribbean?). Apparently a typical exchange between defence lawyer and tribunal at the hearing goes something like this:

Q. Is any of the evidence open?
A. No.
Q. What is my client accused of?
A. Activities to help terrorism.
Q. How did he help terrorism?
A. He's in an organization.
Q. Which organization?
A. That is part of the secret evidence.
Q. Who else is in the organization with him?
A. That is part of the secret evidence.

You can see the Mediterranean from Ramallah on a clear day - so that's nice.