Cages and Dreams: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession in Palestine

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Special National Program:
Date:		Sunday, June 10, 2007
Time:		6:00 - 7:00 PM central time
		Pacifica National Special:		Cages and Dreams: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession in Palestine
		Sunday, June 10th marks four decades of Israel's illegal military occupation of Palestine, against a backdrop of nearly sixty years of ethnic transfer and displacement. Tune in to a Pacifica national special, "Cages and Dreams: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession in Palestine." Hear Palestinian voices from the older generation and today's youth movements, from refugee camps and the Palestinian Diaspora. That's "Cages and Dreams" from Pacifica radio. When: Sunday, June 10, 2007 Time: 6 p.m. central time Where: KPFT 90.1 FM Radio in Houston and all other national Pacifica radio stations. (LIVE streaming online)

Images from Al-Awda Rally in Washington DC, September 2000

Images from Al-Awda Rally in Wahsington DC, September 2000

www.al-awda.org/events/photos.html

umkahlil: Israeli troops shoot Hebron family - 05 June 07

umkahlil: Israeli troops shoot Hebron family - 05 June 07

Palestinian demonstrators hold placards next to a section of Israel's separation barrier during a protest marking the 40th annivesary of the 1967 Six Day War at the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Saturday, June 9, 2007. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

A Palestinian demonstrator hold up a placard next to a section of Israel's separation barrier during a protest marking the 40th annivesary of the 1967 Six Day War at the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Saturday, June 9, 2007. The 40th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war in which Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, is marked this week.(AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Ismail Shammout's 'Cold & Worry' depicting Palestinian refugees in 1948-49

Ismail Shammout's 'Cold & Worry' depicting Palestinian refugees in 1948-49
(exhibited in Cairo, 1952)

From Gaza, with Love: DR. MONA EL FARRA's statement in the UN on the 40th anniversary of Israeli Occupation

From Gaza, with Love

Saturday, June 09, 2007

on the 40th anniversary of occupation my statement in the UN

SPECIAL MEETING TO MARK 40 YEARS OF OCCUPATION
BY ISRAEL OF THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORY,
INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM

UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
7 June 2007

STATEMENT BY

DR. MONA EL FARRA
PROJECTS DIRECTOR
MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN’S ALLIANCE

Red Crescent Society For Gaza Strip
GAZA

 Your Excellency Mr. Paul Badji, Chairman of the Committee,
Distinguished guests and Excellencies,

It is my honour to be amongst you today, despite the gravity of the occasion being commemorated, on this 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

First, let me say that 2007 is the 40th anniversary of 59 years of the brutal occupation of the Palestinian people.

As we called for an end to apartheid in South Africa and the right of all people to live together and have equal rights, we must now, before it is too late, call for true justice for the Palestinians ...[more]

Time Magazine Blog: Why Do Israelis Hate the U.N.? Posted by Tim McGirk

"... The truth is, Israelis should be a tad more grateful. After all, the UN is saving Israel boodles of cash. Imagine if the UN pulled out of Gaza and the West Bank territories, and Israel had to fulfill its duties as occupier of conquered lands. That would mean feeding over a million Palestinian refugees every day, and running schools and hospitals, jobs which the UN is doing today. It wouldn’t come cheap...."

June 8, 2007 5:18

Why Do Israelis Hate the U.N.?

Posted by Tim McGirk | Comments (23) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

A friend of mine who works in Jerusalem for the UN was getting a new car.

“This time, I don’t want it with ‘UN’ markings,” he said, referring to the distinctive black letters on a creamy white background that graces the doors of every United Nations vehicle.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if the vehicle has ‘UN’ lettering, the car gets vandalized when I park it in Jewish neighborhoods,” he replied....[more]

Regarding : Cleaning Up the Mideast (1 Letter) by Seymour D. Reich, President, Israel Policy Forum

RE: Cleaning Up the Mideast (1 Letter) by Seymour D. Reich, President, Israel Policy Forum http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/l09friedman.html

Dear Editor,

The so called "Jewish State" has created one of the most powerful miltaries on planet earth in order to systematically segregate, imprison and starve one of the most vulnerable populations on earth.

"Israel" Policy Forum is way off track and distracting US all from the rock solid truth: " The only one capable of cleaning up the mess " is not the president of the United States as Reich asserts: The only one capable is the Jewish Community itself- in rising up to righteously condemn the blatant bigotry, injustice and ongoing economic crimes of modern man made Apartheid "Israel".

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

my letter published Detroit Free Press 6-9-2007 : Ongoing pain and loss

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070609/OPINION04/706090320/1072

Ongoing pain and loss

I am grateful to be able to read firsthand testimonies from Palestinian survivors. Terry Ahwal's personal account was a welcome addition to the growing body of evidence that political Zionism is quite simply wrong and will continue to become more and more monstrously wrong as long as the "Israel Industry" is allowed to profit from Palestinian pain and loss ("War's end marked beginning of a cruel occupation," June 8).

Anne Selden Annab
Mechanicsburg, Pa.

The Six Day War | Survivor bears the wounds of conflict and occupation- Seattle Times

"....The United States influences both Israelis and Palestinians. To be an ally of freedom and security in the world, the U.S. government needs to support a just approach that ends violent oppression...."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003738907_sixdaywarz08.html

The Six Day War | Survivor bears the wounds of conflict and occupation

By Ibtisam Barakat

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

PREV of NEXT Ibtisam Barakat

In June 5, 1967, when the Six Day War between Israel and Arab countries broke out, I was 3 years old.

I was separated from my family that night because I could not put my shoes on quickly enough. I found my family the next day, but my sense of safety in the world had been shattered.

I continued to put on my shoes every evening for many years after that because living under occupation, I was always worried that the war might start suddenly again.

Despite 40 years of media coverage about the Israeli occupation, many Americans seem not to know the story of the Palestinians or what the occupation means. Because misinformation about the humanity of others often fuels war, one of the ways we can heal is to share stories about our experiences. Here is my story...[more]

BBC News: Jordan's refugees long to return

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6735583.stm

BBC News: Jordan's refugees long to return

By Paul Moss The World Tonight, BBC News

The 1967 Middle East war left the West Bank occupied by Israel, and prompted tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee the West Bank for what was left of neighbouring Jordan. Forty years on, many are still there:

Baqaa is Jordan's biggest Palestinian refugee camp

There is an odd sense of exuberance at the Baqaa refugee camp. Arab pop music blares from music shops, and from the windows of peoples' homes.

The market is as bustling as any you would find in a small Middle Eastern town but then that is what this camp has become.

Forty years on, the Camp is a permanent fixture, a rather tumble-down residential area like any other on the outskirts of the Jordanian capital, Amman.

But any suggestion that Baqaa might become their permanent home is fiercely rejected by its occupants.

'Still foreigners here'

"Every day, I pray to God that I will return to Jerusalem," a shopkeeper told me.

There are some who go crazy dreaming of Palestine. If you go the mental hospitals, you can see them Rula Qawwas Baqaa volunteer worker

"I come from there, my family is there - it is my city."

Another was equally adamant:

"I am a foreigner in this country. Even if I stay here another 40 years, I will still try to return to the West Bank. And if I do not go there, my children will do so."

This defiant optimism may be impressive. Yet at the same time, it undoubtedly takes a psychological toll.

Rula Qawwas is a volunteer who has been working with refugees here.

"They dream about their homes," she says, "they dream about their gardens. But this means they do not live in the present."

She worries that because of the conviction that their stay in Jordan is only temporary, many refugees refuse to put down roots, or develop their lives.

"At its worst, there are some who go crazy dreaming of Palestine. If you go to the mental hospitals, you can see them."

Nice but not home

And yet even those Palestinian refugees who have made a good life for themselves in Jordan express this same insistence that they will return to their homeland.

I like Jordan... but home is different Samia Zaru Palestinian sculptor

Samia Zaru fled Ramallah after the Israeli occupation made life difficult for her and her husband.

Now she lives in a huge house, with a garden filled with the sculptures she produced while living in exile.

These have earned Ms Zaru an international reputation in the art world and, it would seem, a fair amount of money as well.

But she rejects any suggestion that she might want to continue this life forever.

"I like Jordan," she says, "and I have many friends here. But home is different. It feels different, it smells different - it's home."

Faith in return

Assad Abdul Rahman understands this sentiment all too well.

One of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation representatives in Amman, he says that waiting to return is not merely what a Palestinian refugee does.

It has become, he says, part of the very nature of what it means to be a Palestinian.

"The whole psychology is built on the idea of return," he argues.

"To stop believing this is impossible. It's like negating oneself."

But Mr Rahman's insight is not tempered by any sense that such a wait might be unrealistic.

Showing off his familiarity with Western culture, he insists:

"We are not waiting for Godot. Return to Palestine is legal, it is practical, it is a sacred duty. It is something that will happen - one day."

A life in legal limbo By Leila El-Haddad in Gaza

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3A886108-79B7-471F-ADB0-285CBE3D78DC.htm

FOCUS 1967 : 40 YEARS OF OCCUPATION

There are no main images.

A life in legal limbo By Leila El-Haddad in Gaza

Um Nael has land and property in Gaza but no residency rights Al Jazeera's Leila El-Haddad speaks to Palestinians who, trapped without legal status in the Palestinian territories, are separated from their loved ones. In 1996, after 36 years in exile, Um Nael returned to Gaza along with her husband and two sons. It was a momentous occasion, re-uniting her with her parents, siblings, and bringing her back home. But the euphoria of those days is long gone, replaced instead with anger and disillusionment as she finds herself without legal status in her own country after nearly 11 years in Gaza. System of control Um Nael is one of more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian ministry of civil affairs, who await a family reunion ID card, or hawia. Special report Click here for more video and eyewitness reports The hawia is issued by the Israeli military to residents of the occupied territories. It enables Palestinians to move in and out of either Gaza or the West Bank and both entitles them to residency there and to a Palestinian Authority travel document. The Israeli authorities first began issuing them as part of a system of control imposed on the population following the 1967 war. The Palestinian borders were sealed immediately after the war and a door-to-door population census was conducted. Cards were issued to only those Palestinians who were in residence and added to the population registry. Family 'reunification' Millions of others who were abroad - studying, working, or visiting family, were immediately excluded. "I curse the day I came back - I don't exist as far as Israel is concerned" Um Nael, Palestinian in Gaza Over the years, Palestinians who had direct family in the territories could apply for an ID through a process known as family reunification. But less than one-fifth of the applications were approved by Israel, subject to bi-annual renewal from within the occupied territories. Failure to renew resulted in immediate cancellation. It was only in the mid-1990s, under the terms of the Oslo Accords, that Israel established a quota for both temporary visitor's permits and permanent family reunion ID cards to Palestinians awaiting the hawia. Many, like Um Nael, jumped at the chance to finally return home - even if it meant she had to do so as a "visitor" to her own land. Once she arrived, she immediately applied for the family re-unification ID. "I expected I [would come back] to my land and would face no difficulty, now I curse the day I came back. I don't exist as far as Israel is concerned," said Um Nael. 'Torn apart' Since 2000, Israel has frozen all family reunification ID requests and visitor's permits and has not permitted additions to the Palestinian Population Registry, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians like Um Nael stranded. "If you are born in the US and get a citizenship, how is it that I was born in Gaza and I can't get residency rights here? I have land and property here," said Um Nael. The freeze has also affected Palestinians in the West Bank. Amal Souf lives in the town of Qalqiliya, where she has been waiting for her ID for more than 10 years. Souf came to the West Bank on a visitor's permit to join her new husband there in 1997. She renewed her permit three times, but after that the Israeli authorities told her she was not allowed to renew any more, and that if she left the West Bank she could never return. "I was pregnant and newly married. What was I supposed to do? I decided to stay here, not tear my family apart, but this also meant I would not be able to move." Risking detention Four years ago her father in Jordan became seriously ill. "I knew that if left I would never be able to return to my husband or my children -imagine having to make such a choice" Amal Souf, Palestinian in West Bank "I began crying and saying I wanted to leave Qalqiliya to see my father ... but I knew that if I left I would never be able to return to my husband or my children. Imagine having to make such a choice." Her father died shortly thereafter. "Now they are telling me my mother is sick and I don't know what to do," she said tearfully. Souf has trouble far closer to home, too. Because she resides "illegally" in the West Bank, she risks detention even when crossing from Qalqiliya to neighbouring Palestinian towns across Israeli checkpoints. "I never leave Qalqiliya. I feel like I'm locked inside my own home," she said. 'Not Palestinians' Shlomo Dror, the Israeli spokesperson for the co-ordinator of government activities in the territories, insists the onus lies on Palestinians such as Souf and Um Nael, who "overstayed their visitor's permits". "This is something they should have thought about from the beginning. "There are many Israelis that have problems in the US. For example, they overstayed their visas. "It's the same story here. These people came here, asked for visitors' permits. And then decided to stay permanently. "So when you are working against the law you should expect that there will be a problem in the future," Dror told Al Jazeera. "And from our point of view they are not exactly Palestinians ... they came on a permit to visit family inside and decide to stay even though they didn't have ID cards," says Dror. Trapped Ameen Siyam, deputy Palestinian minister of civil affairs, argues that family re-unification is a Palestinian's most basic right. "What are they, then, if not Palestinians? Tourists? Of course they came back to stay - it is their home after all" Ameen Siyam, deputy Palestinian minister of civil affairs "So what are they, then, if not Palestinians? Tourists? Do you think they came to take in the views of shelling and destruction? Of course they came back to stay - it is their home after all," Siyam said. He handles the family re-unification applications on the Palestinian side, but there is little he can do except send the files to the Israelis for approval and wait like everyone else. He says each week he receives dozens of new applications. "Choose a file at random and it will be the same: a mother separated from her children, a husband from his wife. Most are humanitarian cases but who will have sympathy to deal with them? No one." Until the problem is resolved, Palestinians such as Um Nael and Amal Souf are trapped in legal limbo in their own towns. "Sometimes I dream I was actually allowed to travel ... and then I suddenly get up and start crying when I realise it isn't true," says Um Nael. "I wish I can go to get treated for my heart condition in Egypt or Jordan; that I can visit my daughters who live abroad; that I can go to Mecca to perform the hajj. "But I can't do any of these things. I can only watch people go and cry and dream. I am trapped in a prison inside my own home."

Targeted killings won't bring peace...& more from IMEU

Palestinian children play in their schoolyard after class in the southern West Bank village of Ar-Rihiya, near Hebron. (Osama Silwadi, Apollo Images)

A nation occupied IMEU

Targeted killings won't bring peace
Mustafa Barghouti, The International Herald Tribune, Jun 9, 2007

This article was originally published by The International Herald Tribune and is republished with the author's permission.

Palestinians inspect the remains of a car after it was struck by an Israeli missile in an attempted 'targeted killing' in Khan Younis. (Hatem Omar, Maan Images)

As we enter the 41st year of Israel's military occupation, one of the more sinister policies inflicted upon us is what Israel calls "targeted killings."

Israel applies no death penalty, except against Palestinians living under Israeli military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

There, suspected opponents of Israel's occupation are routinely executed without charge, judge or jury. Innocents who happen to be in the vicinity of Israel's "target" just as often suffer summary execution.

In April, 17-year-old Bushra Breghish was pacing her bedroom, studying for an exam. An Israeli sniper, from a squad dispatched to arrest her brother, shot her through the forehead, killing her instantly. All she held in her hands was a book.

Last week in Ramallah's central square, in broad daylight, Israeli undercover forces shot a fleeing 22-year-old, Omar Abu Daher, in the leg. After he fell, and was entirely vulnerable to arrest, an Israeli assassin shot him in the back of the head from close range, then kicked his body, apparently to confirm the kill.

The deaths of these young Palestinians are not rare, nor were they unintentional. They were the victims of an openly acknowledged policy.

For decades, Israel murdered Palestinian leaders abroad, following the macabre calculations of its political scientists and intelligence experts that even a small number of assassinations could retard, if not foil, our national movement.

Israel claimed to target those guilty of committing or planning acts of violence. In reality, Palestinian political leaders, poets, journalists and other professionals and artists were also killed....[more]

Related stories

Forty years later, searching for truth

Looking back on 40 years of occupation

The mirage of the two-state solution

Rethinking Israel's 'David and Goliath' past

A nation occupied

FAQ on the USS Liberty IMEU

Looking back over 40 years Chris Hedges, Truthdig

FAQ on the 1967 war IMEU

Occupational hazard Orna Coussin, Haaretz (Jun 9, 2007) Israeli troops kill one in West Bank Reuters (Jun 8, 2007) Muslim graveyard vandalized Ynet News (Jun 8, 2007) Bonded in resistance to the barrier The Washington Post (Jun 8, 2007) Ex-parliament speaker paints Israel 'Zionist ghetto' Agence France Presse (Jun 8, 2007) EU, donors weigh expanded aid plan Reuters (Jun 8, 2007) A life in limbo Leila el-Haddad, Al Jazeera (Jun 8, 2007) In praise of the occupation Amira Hass, Haaretz (Jun 8, 2007) Survivor bears the wound of conflict and occupation Ibtasim Barakat, The Seattle Times (Jun 8, 2007)

Water and Resistance- Timothy Seidel writing from the West Bank, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 8 June 2007

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7003.shtml

Water and Resistance
Timothy Seidel writing from the West Bank, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 8 June 2007

A road in Nahhalin village with the ever-expanding Israeli colony of Betar Illit looming in the background (notice the red roofs). (Timothy Seidel)

The view from the Palestinian village of Nahhalin, in the west Bethlehem area, is sobering. This small village -- along with the villages of Husan, Battir, Wadi Fuqin, and Al Walaja -- are becoming more and more isolated from Bethlehem. As Israeli colonization in the Etzion bloc grows and as the Wall continues to cut deeply into the West Bank and strangle these communities, these Palestinian villagers have little access to the rest of the Israeli occupied West Bank. Even now, Israel is burrowing out a tunnel under the major settler bypass road running through the Etzion bloc, that will provide "transportational contiguity" for this one of many isolated islands of land on 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice want to sell to the world as "the state of Palestine." [1]

Stuck between the "Green Line" -- the 1949 Armistice Line that separates Israel from the West Bank -- and the Wall, Palestinians from Nahhalin find themselves among some 60,000 Palestinians living in the "seam zone" or the western segregation zone between the Wall and the Green Line which includes roughly 11 percent of the West Bank and which will ultimately be annexed to the "state of Israel" in Israel's unilateral plan to define its own borders.

When I last visited Nahhalin, I was joined by my friends at the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ). [2] ARIJ had begun a waste water treatment project in Nahhalin that will now be duplicated to provide rural Palestinian areas in the West Bank with new sources of water for irrigation. ARIJ's water and environment research unit will install on-site waste water treatment systems for 180 homes, providing direct benefits to about 1,800 people. The project gets underway this year and will be completed in 2010.

Nader Sh. Hrimat from ARIJ pointed out to me that scarcity of fresh water supplies and restricted access to traditional water supplies creates ongoing shortages of water for agricultural purposes. These new systems will not only improve access to water, they improve management of waste water, said Nader, explaining that the re-use of treated wastewater for irrigation is now considered to be one of the most feasible and economical ways to utilize household waste water in a sanitary manner.

The anticipated success of expanding this project to 180 homes is expected to encourage more Palestinian villages to install on-site treatment systems. In addition to addressing water shortages and water pollution concerns, these systems are also expected to increase agricultural productivity and food security, a function all the more important considering that over a third of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are, with another 12 percent at risk of becoming, "food insecure." [3] Treatment units will be manufactured locally and create much-needed employment opportunities here where rampant unemployment has contributed to a poverty rate of over 33 percent (with a quarter living in "deep poverty"). [4]

On the surface, this might simply appear to be another development project, one that is similar to many others around the world. However, in this context of ongoing Israeli colonization and occupation of Palestinian life and land, such simple acts of waste water treatment and sustainable development are not only peacebuilding initiatives in their own right but they also become powerful acts of nonviolent resistance.

Another example would be the next phase of a hydrology project in the northern part of the West Bank with the Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG). [5] I recently joined Abdul-Latif from PHG in a field visit to the Palestinian villages of Jayyus and Kafr Jammal near Qalqilya where farmers are cut off from their agricultural lands by the Israeli separation barrier. This hydrology project in its various phases has sought to assist farmers in keeping a presence on their lands on the other side of the Wall, the "seam zone," by maintaining well pumps and irrigation systems.

Projects such as these give Palestinian people greater control over their natural resources, explained Nader. Water resources, he noted, are particularly vulnerable because Israel controls over 80 percent of the Palestinian groundwater resources in the West Bank, restricting access to water for agricultural irrigation and other purposes. [6]

Abdul-Latif also pointed this out to me. With Israeli control over water resources, and Palestinians captive to Israeli water companies, Abdul-Latif asks, "Where is the infrastructure for this 'Palestinian state'?" Abdul-Latif then pointed out to me the citrus lying on the ground having rotted off the trees as another sign of the economic strangulation on these communities. These fruits go unpicked because Palestinian farmers have very limited access to a market of any sort to sell their goods due to the Israeli closure system in the West Bank. And when they can sell their goods somewhere, Israel has flooded the market with cheap fruits from Israel (and Jordan) that these farmers simply cannot compete with.

These indicators point to what many see as the imminent demise of a "two-state" solution to this terrible conflict and the solidification -- through this structure of occupation, colonization, and apartheid -- of Israeli domination over the Occupied Territories. And with the absence of any viable economic infrastructure, those calling for investment in Palestinian society as a "positive" response to the "critical" call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions need to understand the context of this structure that holds Palestinians captive in "Bantustans" as cheap laborers and consumers -- a structure that will not benefit Palestinians or Israelis in the long run.

A hydrology initiative such as this is the form that a relevant nonviolent resistance has taken in the Occupied Territories. And it goes unnoticed by many in North America because it is not as recognizable as demonstrations or sit-ins. But in a context where so many pressures are exerted on Palestinian communities to leave their homes due to economic, social, or political forces (or other softer forms of what is essentially ethnic cleansing), assistance by the international community to help these communities simply be, simply exist, is the most salient form of nonviolent resistance that Palestinians live out on a daily basis.

This is why when I hear people ask, "Where is the Palestinian Gandhi, or the Palestinian King, or the Palestinian Mandela?" (once again blaming the victim for their victimhood and absolving the oppressor by placing the responsibility and the initiative on the shoulders of the oppressed, which makes one want to respond with a "Where is the Israeli Mandela or de Klerk?") I think of the Nader's and Abdul-Latif's of Palestine who exercise courage, persistence, and steadfastness in the face of all of these pressures of dispossession, colonization, occupation, and most recently international boycott, and through the seemingly mundane acts of farming, reclaiming land, and water and food security initiatives truly resist injustice and truly pursue a sustainable peace born of justice in this broken land.

Timothy Seidel is a peace development worker with Mennonite Central Committee in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where he has lived for the past three years.


Endnotes:
[1] See Jeff Halper's recent comments on this in "The Livni-Rice Plan: Towards a Just Peace or Apartheid?" ICAHD.org, 2 May 2007.
[2] See http://www.arij.org/.
[3] See "One-third of Palestinians 'food insecure'," IRIN 22 March 2007, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6713.shtml and "Growing poverty, unemployment threaten Palestinians' ability to feed their families," UN News, 22 February 2007, or "Poor Palestinians unable to purchase enough food," WFP Press Release, 2 February 2007.
[44 See "Financial boycott sends Palestinian poverty numbers soaring, finds UN report," UN News, 24 November 2006, and Rory McCarthy, "UN plea for millions in Palestinian aid amid fears of economic collapse," The Guardian, 8 December 2006.
[5] See http://www.phg.org/.
[6] See the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department summary on water at http://www.nad-plo.org/listing.php?view=nego_permanent_water.


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BBSNews Nahr al-Bared Palestinian Refugee Camp Receives First Aid Truck in a Week

Nahr al-Bared Palestinian Refugee Camp Receives First Aid Truck in a Week

Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 07:56 PM EDT Unexploded ordnance hampering aid deliveries to refugees BBSNews 2007-06-07 - BEIRUT, (IRIN) -- Unexploded ordnance and booby-trapped buildings are hindering an already highly restricted relief effort trying to provide vital food and water and evacuate the injured from the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon. Up to 8,000 people remain caught in a deadly stand-off there between the military and Islamist militants. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday distributed food parcels to last five days for 3,000 people in Kawkab School. Image Courtesy: © Hugh Macleod/IRIN For the image shown above in a larger size, please see: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday distributed food parcels to last five days for 3,000 people in Kawkab School. More BBSNews images are available in BBSNews Photos. "It is becoming extremely difficult to mount relief operations, not only because of the deteriorating security conditions, but also because debris, rubble and unexploded ordnance on the camp's roads are obstructing the way for ambulances and relief vehicles," said Jordi Raich Curco, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) head of delegation in Lebanon, in a statement. A source inside the Lebanese Ministry of Defence, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IRIN that soldiers taking over buildings on the edge of Nahr al-Bared formerly held by Fatah Islam militants have found them booby-trapped. The Palestine Red Crescent (PRC) remains the only emergency service entering the camp, both due to lack of security guarantees and because rubble and the winding alleys of the camp make access practical only for smaller vehicles. First ICRC delivery in a week The ICRC through the PRC on 7 June made its first delivery of water and food into the camp for a week, providing 800 litres of bottled water, one and half tones of bread and some fifty boxes of tinned tuna and soup. The ICRC was loading a second convoy of six PRC ambulances this afternoon taking in further food supplies, as prioritised by the Palestinian Popular Committee, through whom the ICRC and PRC are accessing camp residents. Since 3 June the PRC and Lebanese Red Cross have evacuated 72 vulnerable people from Nahr al-Bared, including pregnant women, children and the elderly. Only a few were injured. US humanitarian, military aid The US State Department said on 5 June it would provide US$3.5 million to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), in response to an appeal for $12.7m to meet the humanitarian needs of over 27,000 Palestinians displaced from Nahr al-Bared. US President George Bush also announced on 6 June that he was partially lifting a US ban on air traffic to Lebanon, in place since the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner to Beirut. A memorandum released by the White House said Bush permitted "US air carriers under contract to the US government to engage in foreign air transportation to and from Lebanon - of passengers, including US and non-US citizens, and their accompanying baggage; of goods for humanitarian purposes; and of any other cargo or material." The US has dispatched several military cargo planes from its bases in the region to Beirut over the past two weeks carrying ammunition and other undisclosed equipment to re-supply the Lebanese army, part of a hugely increased $280m US military aid package to Lebanon. UNRWA spokeswoman Hoda Samra told IRIN the agency had also received a pledge of 500,000 euros from Germany. In the south, near the port city of Sidon, several hundred Palestinian refugees, who had fled Ain al-Helwe camp after clashes broke out on the night of 3 June between militants from Jund as-Sham and the Lebanese army, returned home on 6 June. The army re-opened entrances leading to the Ain al-Helwe and Tawaree camps after a joint Palestinian security force - tasked with maintaining security and preventing Jund as-Sham attacking the army - was deployed around the outskirts of Ain al-Helwe, where Jund as-Sham is based.

BBSNews Gaza Fishing Industry in Sharp Decline Due to Israeli Restrictions

Gaza Fishing Industry in Sharp Decline Due to Israeli Restrictions

Thursday, June 07 2007 @ 07:44 PM EDT Gaza fishermen's livelihoods in jeopardy BBSNews 2007-06-07 - GAZA CITY, (IRIN) -- Almost a year after Israel imposed harsh restrictions on fishing off the Gaza coast, the industry is in sharp decline and fishermen's livelihoods are in jeopardy. Ghanem Abu Jamal says many fishermen use very fine nets, which catch baby fish and prevent stocks from replenishing. Image Courtesy: © Tom Spender/IRIN For the image shown above in a larger size, please see: Ghanem Abu Jamal says many fishermen use very fine nets, which catch baby fish and prevent stocks from replenishing. More BBSNews images are available in BBSNews Photos. Gaza fishermen are now allowed by the Israeli navy to fish up to eight nautical miles off the coast after what the UN described as a "near total ban" on fishing since last June, when Gaza-based militants from the armed Palestinian faction Hamas abducted an Israeli soldier. The best fishing begins at about 18 nautical miles out, Gaza fishermen say. However, they have not been allowed so far out for so long that the coastal waters have been overexploited, resulting in the depletion of breeding grounds. Israel said the restrictions were necessary to stop weapons and drugs smuggling into Gaza, though the Oslo Accords of 1993 stipulated that Palestinian fishermen were entitled to fish up to 20 nautical miles out. Livelihoods at risk At Gaza City's main seafood market, the concrete floor was almost bare of fish. "Our fishermen are now very poor. If you go to their homes you will see their families don't have good clothes. On the other hand, the sales of what fish we have are very low. This is now a very weak industry," said market owner Mohammed Abu Kheir. Demand for fish in Gaza has fallen thanks to spiraling poverty, according to the World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organisation, which in March reported that more than half of Gazans suffered from food insecurity. "Meat and fish are expensive and people aren't eating them so much. So they aren't getting enough protein in general," said Amir Yassine, a WFP fieldworker. Overfishing The amount of fish caught off Gaza has been in steady decline since 2004 - but 2006 marked a new low of 1,604 tonnes, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture (MoA). Revenues from fishing have dropped from about US$10 million before 2000 to less than half that today. "There are a few sardines now. But some fishermen are using nets with such small holes which means they are also catching the babies. They don't have time to grow and breed and one day the cycle of life will simply stop," said Ghanem Abu Jamal, a 60-year-old fisherman. Abu Jamal said he used one-inch nets but that others were using nets up to three times smaller and added that the MoA had few controls in place to stop the overfishing. Israel's view Increasing the range for Gaza fishermen would not improve the industry's long-term chances because fish stocks were declining across the Mediterranean, Israel said. "Even if they go far out there will be no fish. It's a problem everywhere in the Mediterranean. In the future there will be no more fish to catch," said government spokesman Shlomo Dror. Dror said the Palestinian practice of pumping raw sewage into the sea from Gaza, the cheapest disposal method, was harmful to the area's remaining fish, and he said that even before the restrictions were imposed, Gaza's 6,000 registered fishermen had had to venture into Egyptian and Israeli waters in order to get enough of a catch. "There are only 300 registered fishermen in Israel and they find it hard to make a living," he added. OCHA report "The fishing industry faces long-term decline and even possible extinction if the current restrictions are maintained," warned the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its report Gaza Fishing: An Industry in Danger. It urged Israel to increase the range allowed to fishermen. The fishermen themselves are becoming increasingly dependent on UN food handouts, OCHA warned. It accused the Israelis of not making clear to Palestinian fishermen when and where they can fish. Four fishermen have been killed since last summer, with many more injured and their boats damaged after being fired upon by Israeli gunboats. "No formal communication exists between the Israel Defence Forces and fishermen over the range to which boats are permitted. This lack of dialogue has led to the deaths, injuries and continuing arrest of fishermen," the report said.

MEMRI is ‘propaganda machine,’ expert says By Lawrence Swaim, Staff Writer

"....According its critics, until MEMRI starts translating Hebrew stories about the rightward drift of Israeli society, torture of Palestinians in Israeli jails, the forced exile of Ilan Pappe and Azmi Bishara, and the elevation of the neo-fascist Avigdor Lieberman to deputy prime minister of Israel, they aren’t really covering all Middle Eastern media..."

MEMRI is ‘propaganda machine,’ expert says

By Lawrence Swaim, Staff Writer
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/15069/302/

Four Decades of Heroes in Palestine by James Zogby

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/four-decades-of-heroes-in_b_51349.html

James Zogby| BIO

Four Decades of Heroes in Palestine

3 Comments | Posted June 8, 2007 | 04:05 PM (EST)

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We are forty years into this occupation, and the systematic destruction of Palestine, its people and their culture continues. I am not Palestinian, but throughout my adult life their story has been important to me.

From my first visit to the Palestinian camps in Lebanon in 1971, which led to my doctoral dissertation "Arabs in the Promised Land," a study of the emergence of Palestinian national consciousness, and later motivated me to found the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, I have been haunted by the plight of this captive and displaced nation.

Along the way, I have met some extraordinary people, whose commitment to justice and perseverance in the face of adversity, have inspired and challenged me.

First and foremost among them were the people of Ein al-Hilweh, the refugee camp I visited in 1971. Despite a quarter century in exile and the harsh conditions of the camp, they had, with determined creativity, reconstructed a facsimile of Palestinian life in their camp. They spoke with reverence of their homes, villages and way of life they had lost, of their remembrances of forced exodus in 1948, and of their hopes for the future.

I recall most vividly the grandmother of my host in the camp. Umm Abed was a strong woman who possessed steel grey eyes and a face hardened by history and the elements. The day I left, she looked hard at me and said, "Now you've heard our stories, what will you do?" In some ways, through my work during the past thirty-six years, I have been answering her question...[more]

USS Liberty Veterans Demand Investigation

from antiwar.com:

40 Years Ago Today: 34 American Sailors Killed, 171 Wounded in Sustained Attack During 1967 Israel-Arab War

Attack on the USS Liberty

	USS Liberty Veterans Demand Investigation
	USS Liberty Vets to Mark Attack
	The USS Liberty: Israel's Side of the Story
	USS Liberty Memorial Web Site
	FAQ on the USS Liberty
	FAQ on the 1967 War

Palestinian's academic freedom- Intolerable restrictions deprive Palestinians of academic freedom

http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article2636200.ece

Letters: Palestinian's academic freedom

Intolerable restrictions deprive Palestinians of academic freedom

Published: 09 June 2007