Sharon’s government this Monday formally approved 600 new housing units for Maale Adumim, West Bank’s largest illegal Israeli settlement. The initial approval for the plan however was given some two months ago, according to Israeli political sources, shortly after President Bush’s April assurances.

In turn, Israel’s Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz made clear that the separation wall’s new projected route will leave Maale Adumim, together with the Gush Etzion settlement block some 20 km south of Jerusalem, inside Israel. “The security fence is not going back to the 1967 lines” the Minister emphasized while speaking to reporters after his tour of the projected route.

The new plan which aims to add homes to the Maale Adumim settlement, just east of Jerusalem, does so in a manner that effectively straddles the section of territory between the northern and southern West Bank, which is ultimately needed for any viable future Palestinian state.

The plan is not only in contravention of international law prohibiting the movement of the belligerent’s population into occupied territories, it is also clearly in noncompliance of the Internationally-backed roadmap, which explicitly obliges Israel to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the so-called natural growth.

The de-facto annexation of Maale Admumim to Israel, as envisioned by the projected route, is consistent with decades-long Israeli policy of confiscation, effective annexation, and the continuous Israeli practice of establishing irreversible “new facts on the ground.”

While Baroness Symons, British Minister of State, urged Israel to freeze all settlement activity, Israel’s outright contempt for the U.S. engineered roadmap seems not to have irritated the U.S. much. It was left to Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesperson, to lightly note that it “look[s] forward to Israel abiding by that commitment [to freeze settlement activity] and sticking by the road map.”
President Bush who is always so unrelenting and forceful when Palestinians or the PNA are on the receiving end of criticism, has had nothing to say about this matter.

The velvet-glove treatment of Israel by the U.S. leaves little doubt to the partiality and ineffectiveness of U.S. mediation in the pseudo peace process it calls the roadmap. It also leaves little doubt that President Bush’s assurances, made last April, have been swiftly capitalized on by the Israeli government.
While President Bush described a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank as “unrealistic,” it increasingly seems that any significant Israeli withdrawal is unrealistic as well, given the current rate of Israeli annexation and territorial fragmentation.

Interestingly enough, according to an Israeli daily, the Israeli Housing Ministry received clear instructions not to publish public tenders so as to avoid embarrassing the U.S. administration. It should be ironic however, that Israel is capable of showing such consideration to American sensibilities while it is incapable of showing anything near such consideration to its obligations under international law, its commitments under the roadmap and Oslo accords, or even to the humanitarian plight of an occupied population.

Israel’s form of unilateral disengagement will effectively annex 11.5% of occupied Palestinian land by rendering it on Israel’s “side”, allegedly in order to preserve Israeli “territorial” contiguity. This is both tragic and futile, as it further disrupts much needed Palestinian territorial contiguity, while inflicting further suffering by dismembering and ‘ghettoizing’ whole communities.

Both the new and old route of the separation wall, and the almost 130 Israeli settlements (whether expanded or not) together with the intransigence of the Israeli government, continue to make a viable Palestinian state impossible.

While Israel’s unilateral “disengagement” plan may successfully increase the “contiguity” between itself and its settlements, basically a camouflaged land grab, it does so at the cost of peace.

Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.

Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.

Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.

The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.

The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.

What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.

Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.

The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.

That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.

The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.

My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.

Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.

Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.

That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.

This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.

It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.

But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.

We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

When people complain of corruption in the PNA -- and the word is loudly spoken these days – they speak in such vague and sweeping terms as to absolve the vast majority of any wrongdoing at the expense of a precious few.  Clucking noises are made in many quarters about the “need for reform of the security apparatus;” about President Arafat’s “refusal to combat corruption;” and about it being “high time for new leaders to take charge;” but seldom are the sources and uses of corruption specifically discussed; hardly ever are facts connected to faces; and rarely do the rumors that travel the streets translate into any actual indictments of any actual persons in any actual courts of law. 

There are several reasons for this, all of which boil down, in the end, to the breathtaking extent and magnitude of corruption.  A good many PNA officials have dirty hands, and those that don’t are unable or unwilling to speak in specifics, thereby restricting themselves to imprecise generalizations that do little to bring the guilty to book.  And so, the wild stories circulating on the street as to the complicity of so-and-so in such-and-such affair usually remain just that: wild stories aborted, before they can be proven credible, by the powerful individuals implicated and their many minions.  And thus, while the rumors continue to circulate, while the hand wringing about the “need for reform” and the “need for new faces” and, highly ironic, this - “greater power to the Prime Minister” - continues to be publicly indulged in, reform in the PNA remains just an idea; a collective wishful thought; the punch line of yet another bleak Palestinian joke.

The recently-unearthed cement scandal, however, might change all this.  For months now, anonymously-sourced stories have been circulating about the millions allegedly made by high-ranking PNA officials over the years on illicit cement sales to Israeli construction companies, cement which used to build the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and now, possibly, the separation wall.  But only recently has proof of such deals emerged, and the details, horrendous enough in their own right, constitute merely the tip of an iceberg which may, if fully uncovered, render the word reform less sadly fanciful in the Palestinian context.

To its credit, many of these details have been uncovered by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) itself, which launched an investigation into “cement gate” as early as March 2003.  This investigation, sponsored by several PLC committees (the Budget and Financial Affairs Committee, the Oversight and Human Rights Committees and the Legal Committee), was eventually conducted by three PLC members: Dr Hassan Khreishe,[1] Dr. Sa’di al-Krunz, and Mr. Jamal al-Shati.  Most of the known facts about this case stem from a report authored by these three men, and from various interviews given by them (Dr. Khreishe in particular) to the media.

The Case:

The cement scandal was first uncovered about a year ago, when the Egyptian newspaper Al’arabi al-Nassiri reported on a lucrative business agreement between an Egyptian cement company, Beni Sweif, and an Israeli entrepreneur, Mr. Zeev Belinsky, to purchase and transport 120,000 metric tons of cement from Egypt for sale in the Israeli market.  Mr. Belinsky, a wealthy entrepreneur who owns several businesses (among them the Totman Cement Company) and who holds both Israeli and German citizenship, began to bring the cement into Israel through the Al-Oja border crossing (in Hebrew, the Nitsana crossing).  The Al’arabi story broke around about the time that Israel had begun building the separation wall in earnest, and predictably enough, therefore, caused an uproar in the Arab world.  Buoyed by indignant public opinion, Egyptian anti-normalization groups campaigned successfully to bring an end to all such dealings between Egyptian companies and Israeli contractors.

Belinsky, however, was not at a loss for long.  Astute enough a businessman, he approached several large Palestinian cement companies with lucrative ‘middleman’ contracts.  While the PLC report doesn’t list all the companies with which Belinsky signed deals, two in particular are singled out for mention: the Tarifi Cement Companies group, owned by Jamal Tarifi, the brother of Jamil al-Tarifi, the PNA Minister for Civic Affairs (MCA), and the Barakeh General Trade group, owned by the Barakeh family.[2]  These companies had in common two characteristics which doubtless endeared them to Belinsky: both were owned by powerful families with close ties to the highest rung of the PNA leadership, and both had a history of highly profitable illicit business dealings with Israeli companies.

As Belinsky was busy signing contracts with these Palestinian companies, the Israeli army was also busy razing to the ground entire neighborhoods in Gaza (principally in Rafah) with brutal efficiency.  As part of its support for the PNA and the Palestinian people, the Egyptian government has an ongoing offer to sell to Palestinian companies subsidized cement to be used exclusively in PNA-administered territories to rebuild homes and infrastructure destroyed by the Israeli army.  The Ministry of National Economy (MNE) was tasked with administering the licenses for importing into the PNA territories these goods, and, to ensure that the right amounts reached the right destinations and to ensure, doubly, that every bit brought in was accounted for, the Minister of National Economy, Mr. Maher al-Masri, was charged with personally reviewing and approving each application for every import license. 

Meanwhile, the demand for cement in Israel was skyrocketing because of the heightened construction activity on the wall and several new settlements.  A bidding process for the import licenses ensued, with two companies coming out on top, the same two, unsurprisingly enough, that were now in business with Mr. Belinsky.  Once they obtained the permits from the MNE, these Palestinian companies began to buy large quantities of high-quality, international grade cement from Egypt at the subsidized prices, which they then channeled illegally into Israel on Belinsky’s – and, more likely than not, the separation wall’s – behalf.  The cement thus transported illegally into Israel was sold at an enormous profit: according to a report recently published in Al-ahram Weekly, it was bought for $12-$15 per ton from Egypt, and sold in Israel at $80-$100 per ton; while the actual prices have been disputed, the overall profit, given the large quantities involved, amounts to millions of dollars.  The PLC report claims that of the 420,000 tons of cement sold by Egypt to the Palestinian companies under the agreement between Egypt and the PNA, at least 390,000 tons ended up in Israel, with only about 30,000 remaining tons going into the Palestinian territories.

While the MNE has denied any complicity in the dealings between the Palestinian companies and Belinsky, certain incriminating facts that implicate the Ministry in the scandal have become known to the public.  For one, Mr. Maher al-Masri, the Minister charged with personally reviewing and approving each import license application, signed the approvals for the Tarifi company in one day – this for a process that is meant to be quite involved and protracted - while a guest at Mr. Jamil Tarifi’s house.[3]  For another, when it was brought to his attention in March last year that cement was being illegally transported to Israel from Egypt by the Tarifis, Mr. al-Masri continued to issue them import licenses for at least for another year.  Worse still, the Director General of Trade of the MNE, Mr. ‘Abd al-Hafiz Naufal, was spotted meeting with Mr. Belinsky, Mr. Jamal al-Tarifi and Mr. Mohammad Rashid “Khaled Slam” (personal economic advisor to President Yasser Afrafat) in the Samir Amiss hotel in Cairo, which clandestine meeting Mr. Naufal has since claimed happened entirely “by chance.”  (According to an interview published in the Arab journal Middle East Transparent on July 20^th 2004, Mr. Khreishe said Mr. Naufal was supposed to be in Dubai at the time, thereby rendering the fortuitous nature of this meeting highly improbable).  Also, according to the PLC report, the permits and licenses issued by the MNE to these Palestinian companies did not have expiration dates, and the open-ended quantities thus allowed in were recorded in numbers and not in letters, which made them easy to manipulate.  Moreover, the MNE did at no time monitor the quantities of cement bought from Egypt and brought into the Palestinian territories; nor did it publish any studies or statistics on the need for cement in the Palestinian market.  Incredibly, according to the same report in Middle East Transparent, a letter was sent from the office of Mr. Naufal (signed by a Mr. Shawan, who also happens to work for Tarifi) to the Egyptian plant at Beni Sweif, attesting that the cement purchased from it reached the Tarifi plants in the West Bank.  At around the same time, the MNE also sent a letter to the Prime Minister’s office, reassuring him that there were no irregularities in the import of cement. 

The complicity of the Prime Minister in this affair is as yet unclear, and the PLC report studiously avoids any allegations to that effect, although Dr. Hassan Khreishe has charged in subsequent interviews that PM Ahmad Qurie and his entire cabinet should resign because of their role in the affair. 

While President Arafat’s economic advisor, Mr. Khaled Slam, was present during the infamous meeting in Cairo, President Arafat’s own personal involvement in the affair remains as yet unclear.  What is known for a fact, however, is that Arafat has been aware for a while of the basics of the case, for a letter was sent to him by the PNA Comptroller Jarrar Al-Kidwa about the open-ended licenses issued to the Tarifis, and about the large amounts of imported cement being diverted into Israel by trucks belonging to a transportation company owned by the Tarifi family.  Interestingly enough, Mr. al-Kidwa, whose appointment has not been approved by the PLC,[4] has refused for undisclosed reasons to divulge to the PLC investigative committees and to the press the facts on which his letter to President Arafat was based.

While the report authored by the investigative committee of the PLC contains strong language calling for the indictment of the persons involved in the scandal, the Attorney General’s office has yet to prosecute anyone, and it is unclear, as usual, what steps will be taken in the future.  Meanwhile, the chain of dirty hands continues to grow longer, as more and more dirty facts about “cement gate” are unearthed by enterprising journalists in the region.  And, dirtiest fact of all, the separation wall continues to go up, strangulating Palestinian towns and people, while simultaneously contributing to the coffers of untold numbers of Palestinian politicians.