Last weekend saw some of the most self-contradictory statements to date on the U.S. ‘stance’ on Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Dan Kurtzer, the U.S. ambassador to Israel and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice both initially criticized the latest major expansion move by Israel, and then, gradually or immediately retracted with statements such as “What we asked the Israelis some time ago was ‘can you explain to us what it is you're really doing?’ There is so much information, misinformation, who said this, who said that, no, it's just a tender, that the picture was just too confusing” (Rice to Washington Post, 26 March). On Monday, the Israeli prime minister (consequently?) announced that Israel has its own policy on settlements and does not really care what the U.S. says or thinks about it. This opportunistic move is now set to strengthen the Sharon government’s latest scandalous move regarding the settlements: the construction of 3,500 new housing units for illegal Jewish settlers on strategically chosen land – stolen land.
There was absolutely no need for the U.S. confusion. To begin with, international law, as well as the U.S.-sponsored road map to peace in the Middle East, is unambiguous: the first says settlements on Occupied Territories are illegal; the second says Israel should freeze settlement activity. Since the U.S. and Israel do not often consider themselves or each other subject to international law, especially with regard to the settlement issue, we should concentrate here on the diluted international opposition to the settlements as stated in the road map.
The 2003 road map, sponsored by the U.S., the UN, the EU, and Russia has two things to say about the settlements: (1) “Israel [must] immediately dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001,” and (2) in keeping “[c]onsistent with the Mitchell Report, the government of Israel [must] freeze all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).” These are not conditional statements. They are demands—demands that Israel ignores. Therefore, the initial statements by Kurtzer and Rice at the end of last week were entirely consistent with the road map: there is no understanding between Israel and the U.S. on the annexation of settlement blocs for a future expansion of Israel; Israel is endangering peace with its settlement expansions; and Israel is at odds with U.S. policy.
The Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz stated in an analysis on Sunday: “Officially, the Americans continue to oppose construction over the Green Line [the internationally accepted 1967 borders of Israel]. At the same time, they are not working too hard to prevent the strengthening of the settlement blocs.” This is not a policy; it is a contradiction in terms. That is why Sharon said on Sunday: “We can’t expect to receive explicit American agreement to build freely in the settlements.” Israel already has an implicit go-ahead from its Washington patron, one which flies in the face of international law, as well as the road map.
The history of this hair-raising hypocrisy goes back to an open letter that U.S. President Bush sent to Sharon a year ago. This letter, dated 14 April 2004, is treated by the two countries as if it were international law. It is, on the contrary, an invitation to Israel to ignore international law. Bush wrote: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949…”
Furthermore, halfway through her 180 degree sweep through U.S. policy on Israeli settlements this weekend Rice referred to this letter in the interview with the Washington Post on Saturday, saying “there has been a change in circumstances on the ground, large population centers have grown up.” Incidentally, this statement is not true. They have not grown up. They are not normal population centers. They are imposed on a population already there by an invading military power. They are placed according to strategic priorities on stolen land. They are illegal. Their inhabitants are not normal civilians. They are armed by the invading occupying force, and they enjoy many other legal and social privileges that the Palestinians driven out in the process do not enjoy, e.g., widespread impunity for violent crimes (as long as the crimes are carried out against Palestinians).
With the peace process now intensifying, it is high time for the other three sponsors of the road map, i.e. for the international community, to remind Israel and the U.S. that the 2004 letter, along with its concomitant diplomatic and logical acrobatics, negate the road map as well as international law, and they constitute a serious threat to the entire process. The developments this week have proven this. Furthermore, the road map itself is now in danger of becoming irrelevant. Therefore proactive measures must be considered. For example, a new Mideast Quartet meeting should establish new implementation mechanisms. The old ones are obviously not working in a satisfactory or acceptable manner.
Believing in Jerusalem
Date posted: May 27, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
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.
Let Mohammed rest in peace
Date posted: May 20, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
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.
Recognition and justice is our demand
Date posted: May 13, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
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.
