Dozens of foreign peace activists were denied entry into the West Bank by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Bridge crossing on Sunday evening, organizers of the third 'Welcome to Palestine' initiative said. "The Welcome to Palestine Campaign decries the Israeli denial of entry via the Allenby Bridge to over 100 internationals who wanted to visit us in the occupied Palestinian Territories," organizers said in a statement. The group of around 100 activists had finished passport checks at the Jordanian side of the Allenby crossing but were denied entry at the first Israeli checkpoint and told to return to where they had come from, a spokesman for WTP told Ma'an. No explanation was provided by Israeli crossing authorities as to why the group was denied entry, but the delegation will try to enter the West Bank again on Monday, the spokesman added. "The denial of entry today at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan shows that the previous policies of siege and isolation continue," organizers said. "We thus will continue to initiate more Welcome to Palestine campaigns. We insist on the freedom of entry. As Israel persists in these unjust policies, it is only fair to ask all countries to reciprocate by denying Israelis entry to these countries." Since Friday, around 100 activists have arrived in Jordan, with the intention of crossing the Israeli-controlled border with the West Bank on Sunday. The group included French, British, German and American supporters, campaigners told Ma'an. Political figures were due to greet the delegation in Bethlehem and the group was then scheduled to spend five days visiting Jerusalem, refugee camps, the Negev and villages in Hebron that are struggling against Israel's separation wall. Welcome to Palestine had previously organized two "flytillas," when foreigners stated their intention to visit Palestine on entry to Israeli airport Ben Gurion, drawing Israel to deny entry to many of the passengers and distribute blacklists to airlines.
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By: Amira Hass
Date: 27/05/2013
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Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them. In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B. The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians. Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories). In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long. The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.
By: Phoebe Greenwood
Date: 27/05/2013
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John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector. The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace. Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago. Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid. Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority". Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations. "Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."
By: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Date: 27/05/2013
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Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops. “All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive. Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him. “I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.” Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay. “It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.” He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?” Illegal annexation Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect. “After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote. Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation. Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. Extreme poverty Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower. While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line. “How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”. “Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked. “You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS. Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities. Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn. Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent. “Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found. Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population. To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones. It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services. “Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER). Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”
By the Same Author
Date: 21/03/2012
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Christian Leaders: Israeli Ambassador 'Masks Reality'
Kairos Palestine, a group of Palestinian Christians, denounces Michael Oren's recent op-ed "Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians," published in The Wall Street Journal. In this inaccurate and manipulative text, Oren, Israel's ambassador to the US, blames the plight of Palestinian Christians on oppression at the hands of Palestinian Muslims -- rather than at the hands of the illegal Israeli occupation itself, as is our reality. We add our voices to several other responses that have emphasized this reality and the ways in which Oren's op-ed attempts to mask it. Indeed, contrary to his assertions, Christian persecution is caused mainly by the occupation that systematically degrades all Palestinians, restricts our movement, confiscates our land, devastates our economy, and violates our rights -- including the very basic right to a decent life. We are particularly troubled by Oren's attribution of migration within the Palestinian Christian community to ill-treatment by Palestinian Muslims. This damaging analysis willfully ignores the underlying political oppression that afflicts Christians and Muslims alike. In the case of Bethlehem, for instance, it is in fact the rampant construction of Israeli settlements, the choke-hold imposed by the separation wall, and the Israeli government's confiscation of Palestinian land -- largely Christian-owned land in the Bethlehem area -- that has driven many Christians to leave. At present, a mere 13 percent of Bethlehem-area land is left to its Palestinian inhabitants. Oren’s article also reveals a disturbing conception of democracy itself, especially as he insists on emphasizing Israel's democratic character. In attempting to highlight ways in which Israel supposedly seeks to protect the survival and encourage the prosperity of the Christian community, Oren implies the Israeli state's lack of interest in ensuring the same for Muslims. Democracy is not selective. Any democratic state that bothered to implement its own ideals -- and, moreover, any ambassador to such a state -- would be ashamed of such an evidently distorted attitude toward its inhabitants and their rights. We are equally amazed by Oren's ludicrous boast that Israel, "in spite of its need to safeguard its borders from terrorists, allows holiday access to Jerusalem's churches to Christians." Indeed, one of occupation's chief outrages is the fact that anyone would need a permit to visit the city to begin with: restricted freedom of movement is among the fundamental injustices constricting our lives. Furthermore, permits are not granted to everyone (including on religious holidays); even when granted, the Israeli military may void them at any time. We also question the timing of Oren’s article and its dogged attempt to portray the state of Israel as tolerant of Christians -- an assertion whose fallacy we experience on a daily basis. Oren begins his text with a description of Hamas graffiti on the walls of a Bethlehem church in 1994. But he certainly doesn’t mention the Hebrew graffiti ("death to Christians," "Jesus is dead," and "price tag,") sprayed on the walls of churches in Jerusalem just a few days ago, and again last month. The writing, so to speak, is on the wall, and it will take much more than Oren's whitewashing to mask the hostility to which Palestinian Christians -- and all Palestinians -- are subjected in the contemporary reality of occupation. At every level, Oren's finger-pointing must be analyzed with an eye to the root causes he refuses to expose. For one thing, when he mentions the Church of the Nativity being inhabited and looted by gunmen, he neglects to mention the Israeli tanks shooting at the church from the outside. For another, while he goes on about present-day religious tension, he neglects to say that Christians and Muslims lived together for the past 1,500 years without major problems -- and that, upon the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, we lost more than 100,000 Christians virtually overnight. And the strongest, deepest roots of all -- the roots of empire and colonialism? These, too, go unacknowledged. The US invasion of Iraq, for instance, has done graver damage to Christian-Muslim relations across the world than anything that appears in Oren's article. As Kairos Palestine, we refuse to be marginalized in the way Oren defines our marginalization. We refuse to be pitted against our Palestinian Muslim neighbors and friends. And we refuse to let our collective oppression be manipulated in a way that fragments us, obscures us, or masks the oppression's true cause, which is the Israeli occupation. Kairos Palestine is a group of Palestinian Christian leaders who co-authored the document "A Moment of Truth" to galvanize Christian communities around the world to end the Israeli occupation.
Date: 13/12/2011
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PLO Official Invites Gingrich to Palestine
PLO official Hanan Ashrawi on Monday invited US Republican Newt Gingrich to visit Palestine as her guest, after the presidential candidate said the Palestinian people were "invented." "I personally offer to host Mr. Gingrich," Ashrawi said in a statement. In an interview Friday with the Jewish Channel, Gingrich said Palestinians were an "invented" people "who are in fact Arabs." On Saturday, he added: "These people are terrorists." Ashrawi invited the presidential hopeful "to re-learn his history and come to Palestine to see for himself, not only the suffering the Palestinian people face on a daily basis due to the Israeli military occupation, but also to experience the rich culture and history of the Palestinian people" She added: "it is unbelievable that Mr. Gingrich, who studied history at two outstanding American universities and even taught history, could make such a misguided comment, solely for the sake of political pandering." She noted that Gingrich labeled Palestinians as terrorists "on the same day that we mourned the loss of a young Palestinian peacefully protesting the military occupation of his land." Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad also urged Gingrich to open a history book. "Even the most extremist settlers of Israel wouldn’t talk in such a ridiculous way," Fayyad told reporters on Saturday. Such remarks would be better suited for a politician adhering to "a Nazi ideology, a source of suffering for humanity, and the Jews topped the list of victims” of that ideology, he added.
Date: 09/12/2009
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EU Foreign Ministers Statement on Middle East
The following is the full text of the conclusions of the Council of the European Union’s foreign ministers, adopted at their meeting in Brussels on 8 December. Council conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process (FAC, 8 December 2009) 1. The Council of the European Union is seriously concerned about the lack of progress in the Middle East peace process. The European Union calls for the urgent resumption of negotiations that will lead, within an agreed time-frame, to a two-state solution with the State of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. A comprehensive peace, which is a fundamental interest of the parties in the region and the EU, must be achieved on the basis of the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, the Madrid principles including land for peace, the Roadmap, the agreements previously reached by the parties and the Arab Peace Initiative. 2. The Council reconfirms its support for the United States' efforts to resume negotiations on all final status issues, including borders, Jerusalem, refugees, security and water, respecting previous agreements and understandings. The European Union will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties. The Council reiterates the EU's readiness to contribute substantially to post-conflict arrangements, aimed at ensuring the sustainability of peace agreements, and will continue the work undertaken on EU contributions on state-building, regional issues, refugees, security and Jerusalem. The Council underlines the need for a reinvigorated Quartet engagement and notes the crucial importance of an active Arab contribution building on the Arab Peace Initiative. 3. The EU stands ready to further develop its bilateral relations with the Palestinian Authority reflecting shared interests, including in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Recalling the Berlin declaration, the Council also reiterates its support for negotiations leading to Palestinian statehood, all efforts and steps to that end and its readiness, when appropriate, to recognise a Palestinian state. It will continue to assist Palestinian state-building, including through its CSDP missions and within the Quartet. The EU fully supports the implementation of the Palestinian Authority's Government Plan "Palestine, Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State" as an important contribution to this end and will work for enhanced international support for this plan. 4. Recalling the EU's position as expressed at the Association Council in June 2009, the Council reaffirms its readiness to further develop its bilateral relations with Israel within the framework of the ENP. The EU reiterates its commitment towards the security of Israel and its full integration into the region, which is best guaranteed through peace between Israel and its neighbours. 5. Encouraging further concrete confidence building measures, the Council takes positive note of the recent decision of the Government of Israel on a partial and temporary settlement freeze as a first step in the right direction and hopes that it will contribute towards a resumption of meaningful negotiations. 6. Developments on the ground play a crucial part in creating the context for successful negotiations. The Council reiterates that settlements, the separation barrier where built on occupied land, demolition of homes and evictions are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. The Council urges the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities, in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank and including natural growth, and to dismantle all outposts erected since March 2001. 7. The EU welcomes Israel’s steps to ease restrictions of movement in the West Bank which have made a contribution to economic growth. The Council calls for further and sustained improvements of movement and access, noting that many check points and road blocks remain in place. The Council also calls on the Palestinian Authority to build on its efforts to improve law and order. 8. The Council is deeply concerned about the situation in East Jerusalem. In view of recent incidents, it calls on all parties to refrain from provocative actions. The Council recalls that it has never recognised the annexation of East Jerusalem. If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. The Council calls for the reopening of Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem in accordance with the Roadmap. It also calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. 9. Gravely concerned about the situation in Gaza, the Council urges the full implementation of UNSCR 1860 and the full respect of international humanitarian law. In this context, the continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive. It has devastated the private sector economy and damaged the natural environment, notably water and other natural resources. The EU again reiterates its calls for an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza. In this context, the Council calls for the full implementation of the Agreement on Movement and Access. While extremists stand to gain from the current situation, the civilian population, half of which are under the age of 18, suffers. Fully recognising Israel's legitimate security needs, the Council continues to call for a complete stop to all violence and arms smuggling into Gaza. The Council calls on those holding the abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to release him without delay. 10. The Council calls on all Palestinians to promote reconciliation behind President Mahmoud Abbas, support for the mediation efforts by Egypt and the Arab League and the prevention of a permanent division between the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. The Council would welcome the organisation of free and fair Palestinian elections when conditions permit. 11. A comprehensive peace must include a settlement between Israel and Syria and Israel and Lebanon. Concerning the Syrian track, the EU welcomes recent statements by Israel and Syria confirming their willingness to advance towards peace and supports all efforts aimed at the reactivation of the talks between the two countries. 12. The EU recalls that a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict requires a regional approach and will continue its work on this in line with the June 2009 Council Conclusions using all its instruments to this effect. The EU also calls on all regional actors to take confidence building measures in order to stimulate mutual trust and encourages Arab countries to be forthcoming, both politically and financially, in assisting the Palestinian Authority and to Palestinian refugees through UNRWA.
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