On February 8, a ceasefire agreement between the state of Israel and the Palestinians was announced and celebrated. The news media tell us the ceasefire is holding. In July the Israelis will evacuate Gaza, which has been occupied since 1967, along with its illegal colonies there, housing around 8,000 Jewish settlers. If necessary, the settlers will be evacuated by force. The world is waiting with baited breath to see what will happen. But these are, in reality, more smokescreens than reflections of essential developments. The big news is unfolding so slowly, in such a multifaceted and seemingly disjointed way, that the news media do not take much notice. Only the history books will record this development with a context that connects events into a full picture, and by the time they are written and published, it will be too late to do anything to halt or reverse the current development.
It includes demolitions of two Palestinian homes yesterday and the killings of three Palestinian children last Saturday. It also includes, among other things, a recent decision by the Israeli government to add another 3,500 Jewish homes on occupied land despite its obligations under international law and the road map to peace in the Middle East, as well as the merciless construction of the Annexation Wall in defiance of last year’s international court ruling. It also includes a giant illegal waste dump for Israeli garbage, which is being constructed near the occupied Palestinian city of Nablus. The slow expansion of the Jewish state, the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the expropriation of their land have continued almost unbroken since 1948.
Israel is the only state in the world that does not have internationally declared borders. It is also the only state that declares itself to be the home of an ethnic group rather than the home of its citizens. Nearly eighty percent of Israelis are Jews, and they are and have been treated preferentially by each Israeli government, in terms of housing, social services, employment, etc. The Israeli Basic Law proclaims the “Jewish character of the state” as does its Basic Law of Return, which guarantees Israeli citizenship for any Jew who wishes to immigrate. People of other ethnicities are not easily accepted. Palestinians from the territories militarily occupied by Israel are even forbidden from immigrating, even if they are married to Israeli citizens.
Over the last fifty-seven years Israel has turned a majority of the non-Jewish people who lived in Palestine prior to the establishment of the Jewish state into refugees now scattered around the world. Some three-and-a-half million Palestinians left in half of the area reserved for a future Palestinian state by the United Nations since 1948 are still unable to declare independence due to Israel’s illegal military occupation. Moreover, their land is still continuously being stolen from them, literally from under their feet, by the state of Israel. Whereas small blue dots representing Jewish settlements peppered the West Bank maps two decades ago, the situation has now reversed. There are instead small green dots of Palestinian National Authority areas, separated by settlements now housing nearly 400,000 illegal Jewish immigrants in Palestine, immigrants who do not even pay rent, and a constantly growing array of ‘security’-related army confiscations, including border zones, road networks, army bases, army prisons, army checkpoints and Wall zones. Like the Native Americans in Israel’s role model country, Palestinians are being pushed into constantly shrinking and increasingly disconnected reservations.
The Zionist project has gradually changed character in ideological terms since its inception in Central Europe during the late nineteenth century. During its first 100 years, Zionism was a predominantly secular and pragmatic movement, basing its definition of Jewry on a biological or racial understanding, much like the other European nationalisms that sprouted during that time. A Jew was someone who had a Jewish mother. Today, the state of Israel defines Jews much more widely, as anyone who has a Jewish grandparent, plus those who have converted to the religion. Judaism has thus become a missionary religion. The present target of the territorial expansion of the Jewish state is the West Bank, where there are archaeological traces of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judea, small states that appeared, disappeared and reappeared in Palestine during the first millennium prior to the Christian era. The western part of Palestine, the state of Israel in 1948, was the pivot for the ongoing conquest. It provided harbors for immigrant ships and international trade. Since then the territorial state has doubled in size, mainly in an eastward direction. Current Israeli policy is a continuation of this trend. In the meantime, Zionism has become more de-secularized, mainly perhaps in order to provide ideological ammunition for the Israeli claims to Palestinian land in the West Bank, i.e. east of the present state of Israel. This also means that Zionists have become even more zealous than before.
This is not conducive to peace, tolerance or a culture of human rights that are all so desperately needed in this conflict-torn region. The Zionist project continues to destabilize the region and the world. It is actively preventing and postponing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on permanent status issues. It is high time for the world to finally force Israel to decide on its borders, not unilaterally, but as a result of negotiations with those most affected by the decision – the Palestinian people. It is high time for Israel to compensate and recognize Palestinian refugees’ right to return back home after 57 years of forced exile, as required by international law. It is high time to stop all settlement activity and dismantle every settlement on occupied territory, as demanded by the international community and the Geneva Convention. It is high time for Israeli soldiers to really cease firing at and killing defenseless, unarmed and innocent Palestinian civilians. It is high time to put an end to Israeli expansionism and all of its ugly by-products.
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.
