InsIDe: - Palestine Solidarity Campaign

spring2011 palestine news 1£2.00 / €2.00 ISSN 1477-5808Spring 2011YouthdemandsunityINSIDE:Mass ralliesOmar Barghoutipage 4Stolen historyDr Salman Abu Sittapage 12Hands off Gaza’s gasNadine Marroushipage 16The PromiseHilary Wisepage 29Palestine Solidarity Campaign Box BM PSA London WC1N 3XX tel 020 7700 6192 email info@palestinecampaign.org web www.palestinecampaign.org

2 palestine newsContentsspring2011Cover image: Demonstrator atrally in Gaza, 15 March.Photo: Ali Jadallah,www.demotix.comISSN 1477 - 5808Also in this issue...Olive farmers tour UKpage 20If you want to contact a memberof the Executive Committee orthe PSC office, here is a list ofthose with particular areas ofresponsibility. Contact via PSC.Chair – Hugh LanningDeputy Chair – Kamel HawwashGeneral Secretary – Betty HunterTrade Unions – Bernard ReganParliamentary Affairs –Nicolette PetersenPublications – Hilary WiseCampaigns – Ben SoffaTrade Union Liaison –Nick Crook, Simon DubbinsStudents – Fiona Edwards,Khaled Al MudallalDirector of Campaigns –Sarah ColborneBranches, members –Martial KurtzCampaigns assistant –Bellavia Ribeiro-AddyAdministration – Steve SibleyCheck outour websitewww.palestinecampaign.org3 Seize the dayBetty Hunter reflects on the consequences of Middle East turmoil4 Young protesters demand end of OsloOmar Barghouti says the political landscape has changed5 A temporary life... for everBritain’s policy served Israel’s goals, says Alistair Crooke6 Bad things happenRevelations of the Palestine Papers7 Campaign for JerusalemA PSC initiative to preserve the multi-faith city8 Egypt holds the keyHilary Wise reports on how the revolution may impact on Palestine10 BBC silent on escalation of killingsWhy are only Israeli Jewish deaths fully reported?11 Costing the occupationShir Hever asks why the world subsidises the occupation12 Maps of a stolen historyGill Swain interviews Dr Salman Abu Sitta about his atlas of a lost land14 “I shall not hate...”Garry Ettle talks to Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish about the death of his daughters15 Turkey still angryBarçin Yinanç analyses continued strained relations between old allies16 Life in Gaza — school art competitionA new contest for secondary school students17 Women uniteA historic conference brings Palestinians and Israelis together18 BDS — ten years onFrankie Green reviews a decade of inspiring action20 PSC delegation to BrusselsBill Williamson reports on an effective lobbying mission21 Goldstone’s shameful U-turnIlan Pappe on the enormous pressure that made the judge crack22 Ahava driven outDedicated activism brings results; branches halt Veolia contracts24 In BriefBulldozers leave Al Araqib, water apartheid, the Arab League awakes, and more27 Arts and ReviewsKai Wiedenhofer, The Book of Destruction; Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine; BDS,the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights by Omar Barghouti; Peter Kosminsky’s The Promise;Our Way to Fight by Michael Riordon; What It Means To Be Palestinian by Dina Matarpalestine NEWSA Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) publication.PSC does not necessarily agree with all opinionsexpressed in the magazine.E-mail: info@palestinecampaign.orgThe editorial teamEditor: Gill SwainDeputy editor: Hilary WiseVictoria Brittain, Ben White,Diane LangfordDesign and layoutMulberry DesignIf you would like to contribute or respond to oneof the articles in this issue please write to:The Editor, Palestine News, Box BM PSA,London WC1N 3XXPalestine Solidarity Campaign• Campaigning against the oppression anddispossession suffered by the Palestinian people• Supporting the rights of the Palestinianpeople and their struggle to achieve theserights including the Right of Return in line withUN resolution 194• Promoting Palestinian civil society in theinterests of democratic rights and social justice• Opposing Israel’s occupation and itsaggression against neighbouring states• Opposing anti-semitism and racism, includingthe apartheid and Zionist nature of the Israelistate

spring2011 editorialpalestine news 3Seize the dayTurmoil in the Middle East andIsrael’s intransigence are creatingopportunities that both the solidaritymovement and the Palestinians mustgrasp with both hands, says BettyHunter.People power in the Middle East is the most importantinternational political development since the fall of the SovietUnion. The outcomes may not yet be clear but the revolutionsand uprisings in so many countries will affect the way that theregion sees itself and the way the people see themselves. The massactions demonstrate a refusal to be under the thumbs of tyrants,monarchs and feudal systems and the people are finding their ownvoices. And those voices will undoubtedly be raised in support ofthe people of Palestine.The end results may not bereplicas of western democracy butthey must meet the aspirations ofthe people for freedom of speech,freedom of choice and economic,social and political development.Palestinian statehood and fullnational, political rights are issueswhich concern all of the populationsin the Middle East, as they see their neighbours’ oppression asa glaring example of the double standards exercised by westerndemocracies. Both established leaders and emerging leaders inthe Middle East will be expected to challenge Israel’s traditionalimpunity.The immediate reaction of the Palestinian Authority totry to suppress Palestinian support for the uprisings seemsincomprehensible, but the exposure through the Palestine Papersand Wikileaks (p6) of the extent of US control cannot be disguised,no matter how many excuses of“context” are raised. The recent USveto in the UN against a resolutionsimply reiterating President Obama’savowed policy of a settlement freezeexposed yet again the intimate,seemingly indissoluble links betweenthe US administration and Israel.We discovered that even aid is usedby the Palestinian marionettes tocreate security for Israel rather thaneconomic and social development forPalestinians.Alastair Crooke in a recent article(p5) describes the success of the IsraeliPSC PATRONS“The impetus for change in theMiddle East must be usedpositively to help change historyfor the Palestinian people”Carlos Latuffstate since the Oslo Accords in creating a situation in which false andmoving parameters have allowed continuous prevarication: not onlyhave facts on the ground been established but divisions among thePalestinian leadership have been intensified.Having been won over to parliamentary democracy, Hamas werepunished for their success in the election with a five-year siege,with devastating humanitarian consequences. And the PA has beenencouraged to turn a blind eye. Siege is a word associated withall-out warfare, yet our governments have allowed the barbarictreatment by Israel of the Palestinians in Gaza to go uncheckeddespite pious resolutions and statements.However, while Israel once expected to enjoy unassailablesupport, the recent UN vote was unanimous — apart from the US.The increasing success of the international campaign to isolateIsrael through boycott, divestment and sanctions has provokedIsrael to pass laws outlawing Israelis and others who are activein boycott campaigns. They are delighted by the recent partialretractions of Judge Goldstone (p21), yet this only demonstrates thelengths to which they will go in hounding critics.A recent BBC international poll showed Israel was rated amongthe least popular countries in the world, with only 21 per centseeing it in a positive light. Thisfigure will no doubt increase asIsraeli intransigence and greed forexpansion continues to be exposedand as the latest killing spree inGaza, callously named OperationScorching Summer, is documentedin horrific detail by the moreindependent TV channels.Since the Israeli governmentrefused to agree to Saeb Erekat’s astonishing concessions, asoutlined in the Palestine Papers, there should be no doubt of theinsincerity of any calls for so-called peace talks from a governmentbent on more settlement building and increasingly violent attackson the besieged people of Gaza. The growing international supportfor Palestine and the impetus for change in the Middle East must beused positively to help change history for the Palestinian people.Richard II from his prison bemoaned: “I have wasted time andnow doth time waste me.” The Palestinian people are all imprisonedby Israel’s occupation and Israel hasbeen allowed to waste the time of thePalestinian people while it builds whatit hopes to be an impregnable Jewishstate.The leaders of all Palestinian partiesand representatives of the grassrootsPalestinian campaigns of resistance mustrecognise that time is running out. Theymust prepare the ground — now — forthe September UN resolution, which willbe calling for recognition of a Palestinianstate, by issuing a broad, united appealto the international community. The worldis ready to hear that call.• Dr. Salman Abu Sitta • John Austin • Tony Benn • Rodney Bickerstaffe • Sir Geoffrey Bindman • VictoriaBrittain • Julie Christie • Caryl Churchill • Jeremy Corbyn MP • Bob Crow • William Dalrymple • PatGaffney • Rev Garth Hewitt • Dr. Ghada Karmi • Bruce Kent • Ken Loach • Lowkey • Kika Markham •Dr. Karma Nabulsi • Prof. Ilan Pappe • Prof. Hilary Rose • Prof. Steven Rose • Alexei Sayle • Keith Sonnet• Ahdaf Soueif • David Thompson • Baroness Tonge of Kew • Dr. Antoine Zahlan • Benjamin Zephaniah

6 palestine news comment & analysisspring2011He said Ariel Sharon “pioneered the philosophy of‘maintained uncertainty’ that repeatedly extended and thenlimited the space in which Palestinians could operate... (which)was intended to induce in the Palestinians a sense of permanenttemporariness.“Maintaining control of the Occupied Territories keeps opento Israel the option of displacing Palestinian citizens of Israel intothe Territories by means of limited land swaps. It also ensuresthat Israel retains the ability to force future returning refugeesto settle in their ‘homeland,’ whereas a sovereign Palestinianstate might decline to accept the refugees. It suits Israel tohave a ‘state’ without borders so that it can keep negotiatingabout borders and count on the resulting uncertainty to maintainacquiescence.”with differential rights for Jews and non-Jews — rights that affecteverything, from housing and access to land, to jobs, subsidies,marriages and migration.”If a Palestinian state were created, there would still be a non-Jewish minority in Israel which would “undermine it as a Jewishstate. Israel’s only answer is to keep its borders undefined whileholding on to scarce water and land resources, leaving Palestiniansin a state of permanent uncertainty, dependent on Israeli goodwill.”Alastair Crooke is founder and director of theConflicts Forum which advocates for engagementbetween political Islam and the West. He worked forMI6 and was a member of the Mitchell Committeeinto the causes of the Second Intifada.• The full essay, “Permanent Temporariness,” can be seen inLondon Review of Books, Vol 22, No 5. www.lrb.co.ukBad things happen...The release of the Palestine Papers, leaked to Al Jazeerawhich shared them with The Guardian, is widely regardedas having finally killed off any remaining remnants of the“peace process.”The 1600 documents were drawn up by Palestinian Authorityofficials and lawyers working for the British-funded PLOnegotiations support unit and included protocols, maps andcorrespondence covering almost a decade of negotiations.They revealed that Palestinian negotiators became increasinglydesperate as they offered concession after concession to theIsraelis who rejected them all.They also reveal that the US was not an honest broker in thenegotiations but backed Israel all the way and often displayeda contemptuous attitude towards the Palestinians. And thatBritish intelligence helped draw up a planfor a wide-ranging crackdown on Hamaswhich became a security blueprint for thePalestinian Authority.The main revelations were:• Palestinian negotiators agreed to acceptIsrael’s annexation of all of the illegalsettlements in occupied East Jerusalemexcept Har Homa. With the backing of the US, foreign ministerTzipi Livni turned the offer down saying it did not “meet ourdemands.”• PLO leaders suggested swapping part of the East Jerusalemneighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah for land elsewhere.• They also proposed a joint committee to take over the Haramal-Sharif/Temple Mount holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City.Chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said it amounted to giving Israel“the biggest Yerushalayim [the Hebrew name for Jerusalem] inhistory.”• Erekat abandoned the Right of Return for the refugees. Hetold the US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell: “On refugees,the deal is there.” To his own staff he said the deal was “1,000refugees annually for the next 10 years.”• The PA collaborated with Israel in extra-judicial assassinationsof Palestinian opposition and resistance leaders and in cuttingLivni: “I am againstlaw — internationallaw in particular”off the tunnels going into the Gaza Strip.• Livni repeatedly pressed for the “transfer” of some of Israel’sPalestinian citizens into a future Palestinian state as part of aland-swap deal.• Condoleezza Rice, then US secretary of state, suggestedPalestinian refugees could be resettled in South America.• The British intelligence plan, drawn up in conjunction withWhitehall officials in 2004, asked for the internment of leadersand activists, the closure of radio stations and the replacementof imams in mosques. It included detailed proposals for asecurity taskforce with “direct lines” to Israeli intelligence. Thebulk of the plan has since been carried out by the PA securityforces which are increasingly criticised for human rights abuses.• All three parties in the negotiations agreed to push the UnitedNations Human Rights Council to delay avote on the Goldstone report on Israel’swinter 2008–09 attack on the Gaza Strip.The PA thought they would get in exchange“favourable assurances on (peace)negotiations from the United States and,they hoped, from Israel.”• There were suggestions, though notdefinitive proof, that the PA leadership wastipped off in advance about Israel’s attackon Gaza.• Current US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, refused toaccept any Palestinian leadership except Mahmoud Abbas andthe prime minister, Salam Fayyad, if it was to continue fundingthe PA.• Livni said in 2007 that international law could not be includedin terms of reference for the talks: “I was the minister of justice,”she said. “But I am against law – international law in particular.”• Erekat accepted Israel as a Jewish state. He told Israelinegotiators: “If you want to call your state the Jewish state ofIsrael, you can call it what you want.”• In talks over compensation for refugees, Rice told Palestiniannegotiators: “Bad things happen to people all around the worldall the time.”• Clinton asked at a meeting with Erekat in 2009 why thePalestinians were “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy.”

spring2011 activismpalestine news 7Campaign for JerusalemThe PSC is to launch a new campaign to urge the world to uniteto save Jerusalem as a shared city and the future capital of aPalestinian state.All Palestinian lives are affected by Israel’s occupationbut in Jerusalem — Al Quds as it is known in the Arab world —Palestinian life and culture faces complete obliteration. Even theEU Heads of Mission — the consulates based in Jerusalem andRamallah — have been moved to voice their serious concerns,saying that if “current trends are not stopped as a matter of urgency,the prospect of East Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinianstate becomes increasingly unlikely and unworkable.”Jerusalem has always been central to Palestinian economic,social, cultural, political and, of course, religious life so to cut outJerusalem would cut the heart from Palestine. The city is alsosacred to all Muslims, Christians and Jews and the campaign hopesto foster the support of people of all faiths and of none.One of our first steps will be to launch a petition in late Spring.We will be asking branches to develop and extend links with faithcommunities, along with other activities, to deepen and broaden thebacking for this initiative.The official launch of the campaign will be on 28 June to coincidewith the anniversary of Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalemin 1967. We will be asking people in civic and religious circles totake a stand against the persecution of Palestinians in Jerusalemand we will ask for action from political leaders to work to:• Protect Palestinians’ right to live in Jerusalem• Prevent house demolitions• Stop illegal settlement growth• Safeguard freedom of worship for all faiths• Recognise Jerusalem as a shared city and future capitalof a state of Palestine• If you want to get involved, please contact:Sara Apps, PSC Campaigns Officer:020 7700 6192 / 07870 219 512• Box BM PSA, London WC1N 3XXSettlement construction condemnedIsraeli plans to expand significantly the East Jerusalemsettlement of Gilo have been emphatically condemned by theEU and even the United States. European Union Foreign PolicyChief, Catherine Ashton, said she was “deeply disappointed” bythe move.“The actions taken by the Israeli government contravenerepeated and urgent calls by the international community, includingthe Quartet, and run counter to achieving a peaceful solution thatwill preserve Israel’s security and realise the Palestinians’ right tostatehood,” she said.“I reiterate that the EU considers that settlement activities in theWest Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under internationallaw, undermine trust between the parties and constitute an obstacleto peace.”A statement from the United States said, “not only are continuedIsraeli settlements illegitimate, Israel’s actions run counter to effortsto resume direct negotiations.”But hours before he left for a visit to Washington in March, PMBinyamin Netanyahu said Israel would not restrict construction inEast Jerusalem. He told his cabinet: “As far as we are concerned,building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv.”The Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee recentlydiscussed the construction of 942 housing units in Gilo. The planhas already been approved at district level. The new development,called Gilo: Southern Slopes, will include public buildings,commercial buildings, roads and parks.Gilo currently has a population of 40,000. The new project willextend it towards the Har Gilo settlement and begin the process ofphysically linking the large settlement community in East Jerusalemto Israel.The Jerusalem Municipality has also decided to transform apolice station in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ras al-Amudinto a settlement outpost with approval for the construction of 14housing units.The building has been given to a religious settler group. Asettlement financing group, known as the Buhkran Trust, haveplans to build 104 apartments plus a synagogue, kindergartens,a swimming pool and an overpass that would link it with anotheroutpost in Ras al-Amud that houses 200 settler families.Zoning in East JerusalemDemolitions in East Jerusalem, 2000-2010

8 palestine news reportsspring2011Egypt holds the keyThe revolution hastransformed the politicalmap of the Middle Eastand brought hope toPalestine says HilaryWise.After its triumphant and almostbloodless revolution Egypt is oncemore taking its rightful place at thepolitical and cultural heart of theregion.This role was relinquished when Sadatsigned the Camp David treaty with Israelin 1979 and Egypt was expelled from theArab League. Its isolation perfectly suitedIsrael and the US; the latter supported theEgyptian regime with huge sums, averaging$2 billion a year since 1979. About twothirds of this was in the form of militaryaid. But it is now clear that much was alsosiphoned off into lucrative enterprisesowned by the top generals — factories, realestate, farms, construction companies — sothat about a third of Egypt’s assets endedup in the hands of the military.These rewards were not simply forrefraining from any military or politicalopposition to Israel. Egypt guaranteed Israelfull access to the Suez Canal and the RedSea and a continued oil supply from Sinai.The regime also agreed to police Israel’ssouthern border and later, to cooperateentirely in the siege of Gaza and inoutlawing Hamas, which has close relationswith Egypt’s own Muslim Brotherhood. Inrecent years Mubarak strongly supportedMahmoud Abbas against Hamas althoughOmar Suleiman and then Israeli PM Ehud Barak(or perhaps because) the latter won theonly free and fair elections in the region indecades.A “respected”collaboratorIsrael’s closest colleague and ally amongthe Egyptian ruling elite was undoubtedlyOmar Suleiman, frequently referredto in the Israeli and Western media as“distinguished” and “respected.” He wasIsrael’s and America’s preferred successorto Mubarak — even as the full extent ofhis collaboration and brutality was beingrevealed. As Head of Intelligence hereportedly went way beyond the call ofduty in his assiduous attention to the detailof the torture inflicted on both Egyptiandissidents and on prisoners flown infrom the US for interrogation under theextraordinary rendition programme with theCIA.“There will be noelections... we willtake care of it”As minister responsible for Israeli-Palestinian affairs he had a hot line toIsrael’s head of security and could berelied upon to keep the border withGaza hermetically sealed, to imprison orhand over Palestinian “suspects” and toact as Fatah’s covert champion in talkssupposedly aimed at healing the rift withHamas. (When it had looked as if Hamaswould do well in the 2006 elections,Suleiman promised Israel’s security chief,Amos Gilad, that there “will be no electionsin January. We will take care of it” —although he was unable to deliver on thatoccasion.)He also took on personal responsibilityfor “cleansing” the Sinai of all smugglingactivity and supervised the building of thesteel “Wall of Shame” 25 metres deepalong the border with Gaza, to block anytunnelling.Demonising the people ofGazaTo justify its policy on Gaza and to counterthe Egyptian people’s natural empathy withPalestinian suffering, the Egyptian regimeconstantly tried to present the people ofGaza as a “threat to national security.” Thiscampaign reached fever pitch when theGazans broke through the Wall in 2008,although it was clear they were desperateto obtain food, medicine and otheressentials and had no intention of stayingin Egypt.Even internal sectarian strife, such asthe bombing of the Coptic church on NewYear’s Eve in Alexandria, was blamed onHamas infiltrators. Mubarak’s trump card— relentlessly played to a succession ofUS presidents — was to present himselfas an indispensable bulwark against therising tide of violent Islamism in the region.When the revolution came the regimetried the same scare tactics, although itwas patently clear that this was a popularrevolution in the broadest possible sensewith even the Muslim Brotherhood taking aback seat.Thanks to Al Jazeera and other ArabiclanguageTV channels, the Egyptian peoplewere able to witness directly the horrorsinflicted on Gaza during Israel’s onslaughtin 2008–2009, of which Mubarak had priorknowledge. Demonstrations in support ofthe Palestinians were brutally suppressedand the foreign aid convoys attempting totake supplies into Gaza fared little better. Allthis conspired to add shame to the rage feltby the Egyptian people at the corruption oftheir rulers.Tied by tradeEgypt was not only a willing partner policingIsrael’s southern border and helping toperpetuate Palestinian disunity; Israelrealised it could be a convenient milchcow. Since 1979 dozens of “normalisationagreements” were signed between the twocountries, increasing economic and culturalties. The most important was the setting upof ten Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) orfree-trade zones in Lower Egypt in 2005,

spring2011 reportspalestine news 9Young Egyptian demonstrator. Photo: www.demotix.comfollowing a similar accord between Israeland Jordan in the late 1990s.The deal, largely involving the garmentindustry, allowed Egypt to send duty-freeexports to the United States — so long astheir manufacture was at least 10.5 percentIsraeli. It was obviously not the case thatEgyptian workers were incapable of addingbuttons to shirts or patch pockets to jeans:in effect, QIZs were a carrot-cum-stick toboost Israel’s trade and help tie Egypt’seconomic interests to those of Israel.Through this system, Egyptian exports tothe US totalled more than $1 billion in 2010alone.Since 2008 Egypt has also beenexporting natural gas to Israel at rockbottomprices, although it has access tomore profitable markets in the Middle Eastand Europe. Again, one can assume USpressure.The way forward?Politically and economically Egypt holdstrump cards in relation to Israel but it isalso subject to colossal constraints. Withso many overwhelming domestic issues —economic, social, political, demographic— waiting to be tackled, in foreign policycaution will be the name of the game.Moreover the army will be reluctant torelinquish either its king-making or moneyspinningroles and will be keen to maintainclose ties with former colleagues in Israeland the US.However, it will be impossible to ignorethe views of a democratically electedgovernment — hopefully later this summer— and of the vast bulk of the conscriptarmy.Economic ties with Israel may be calledinto question, if only because Egyptianworkers, hitherto unsupported by genuinetrade unions, are calling for higher wages.(Currently factory workers get $80–$100a month.) Already, Egypt’s interim foreignminister, Nabil al-Arabi, has said that Israelshould pay the difference between thereduced price paid for natural gas underPro democracy demo in Cairo's Tahrir Squarethe Mubarak regime and its true marketvalue.More crucially, al-Arabi, who was a judgein the International Court of Justice in TheHague and Egyptian ambassador to theUnited Nations, has said that a priority forthe government is to end the five-year siegeon the Gaza Strip, “which is contrary to therules of international humanitarian law whichprohibits the siege of civilians, even in timesof war.”“A priority is to endthe five-year siege onthe Gaza Strip”A full opening of the borders could beconsidered by Israel to be a ‘casus belli,’since arms could then enter Gaza freely.However, Mohammed Baradei, candidatefor the Egyptian presidency and oncebacked by the US as a safe pair of hands,warned that “if Israel attacked Gaza wewould declare war against the Zionistregime.”Of Sadat’s treaty with Israel, al-Arabisaid: “We abide by it, but it must beproperly implemented by both parties.” Hementioned specifically the clause based onUN Resolution 242, which commits Israel towithdrawing to the pre-’67 borders, saying:“Israel is building settlements on landsfrom which it must withdraw, according toResolution 242.”At a recent meeting with a top Iranianofficial, al-Arabi also accepted an officialinvitation to visit Iran and said Egypt wasready to move towards the resumption offull diplomatic ties with Iran after the 30-yearhiatus.With so many indications that Egypt isforging an independent foreign policy, wehave reason to hope that it will be stronglysupportive of Palestinian rights. An urgent,vital step in this direction would be to back,actively and whole-heartedly, the Palestinianpeople’s call for unity and politicalreconciliation.

10 palestine news reportsspring2011BBC silent onescalation of killingsFor a few months after Operation Cast Lead, when over 1,400Gazans were killed in three weeks up to January 2009, itlooked as though the international outrage this provoked mighthave curbed the Israeli appetite for lethal violence. But in 2010the death toll began to rise again: 68 killed in Gaza and 14 in theWest Bank (including 9 children) by the IDF and settlers. In the sameperiod five Israeli settlers were killed in the West Bank and twosoldiers in Gaza.*From the beginning of this year there has been a steep rise inPalestinian deaths — including the shooting of a number of youngchildren who came within 300 metres of the perimeter fence. Butthis appears to be of little interest to the BBC. The indifferencereached a peak in late March, when eight Palestinians, including twochildren, were killed and 35 injured in one sustained bombing raidon Gaza: there was no mention of this at all.PSC monitors listened to every BBC newscast the following daybut there was nothing — except a report of two rockets fired intoSouthern Israel from Gaza (no injuries or casualties). The next daythe bomb blast that killed a woman in West Jerusalem was reportedin detail by the BBC: name, age, profession, family situation, eventhe number of the bus she was waiting for.Even when Palestinian deaths are reported, no details are given,only the barest statistics. Victims are faceless and nameless. Is thelife of 17-year-old YousefFakhri Ikhlayl, shot inthe head on 29 Januaryby marauding settlersnear Hebron, worthless?Or that of 66 year-oldOmar Salim Suliman al-Qawasmeh, shot in hisbed as he slept in the earlymorning hours by soldiers,who later said they justmistook him for someoneelse?In this the BBCis following thedehumanising approachof the Israeli media. Theyalso parrot Israel’s officialexplanation followingevery killing spree — thatthis is purely in retaliationfor rocket attacks fromGaza, regardless of thefact that these rarely 17-year-old Yousef Fakhri Ikhlaylcause damage or injuryand often it is Israel that initiates the violence.Another disturbing development is the BBC’s increasing useof Israeli terminology when referring to the Occupied PalestinianTerritories, calling them simply “the Territories.” Are they loathto refer to the occupation? What next, one wonders. Will “theTerritories” become “Judea and Samaria,” will “settlements”become “neighbourhoods,” as these are cosily referred to in the USmedia?The BBC, the sole UK public service broadcaster, funded bythe tax-payer, is committed to providing independent, accurateand objective coverage. But without sustained pressure from aninformed public it may well continue to show both indifference andbias during the comingmonths — which Israel hasunashamedly announcedas Operation ScorchingSummer.*These figures are suppliedby the Israeli human rightsorganisation B’TselemIf you would liketo be involved inmonitoring BBCcoverage contactamena.saleem@palestinecampaign.orgOmar al-Qawasmeh, 66They do have names...The murder on 13 March of five members of a family ofsettlers, the Fogels, who believed in their divine rightto live in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, waswidely reported. To redress the balance a little, hereare details of just a few of the 39 Palestinians who had beenkilled in the first three months of the year. There had alreadybeen a further 15 killed and 60 injured in April by the timePalestine News went to press.On 17 February, in Gaza, the Israeli army killed JihadKhalaf, 20, Talaat Al-Awagh, 25 and Ashraf Al-Kteifan, 29,who, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights(PCHR), were attempting to infiltrate into Israel to searchfor jobs. Agence France Presse (AFP) described the menas fishermen and said they had been hit by a tank shell andmachine gun fire in an area close to both the shore and thenorthern border with Israel. No weapons were found neartheir bodies.On 11 February, Hussam Rwidy, 24, was murderedby a number of young Jewish Israeli men. According toPCHR, while he was walking home from his work in WestJerusalem, an Israeli stabbed him in the face then othersgathered and violently beat him. He died of his injuries afew hours later.On 27 January, settlers shot dead 18-year-old UdayMaher Qadous, from Iraq Burin, southwest of Nablus.His cousin, who witnessed the murder, said four settlersopened fire on them from a nearby hilltop.Nadine Marroushi

spring2011 reportspalestine news 11Costing the occupationShir Hever, economic researcherfor the Palestinian-Israeli organisation,The Alternative Information Centre,spent six years examining the costs ofthe occupation to write his book, ThePolitical Economy of Israel’s Occupation. He met upwith Palestine News during a UK speaking tour.Despite the vast amount of aid whichis poured into its coffers annually bythe US, running the occupation is nolonger a profitable business for Israel,according to Shir Hever.By his estimation, the Israeli governmentspends $3 billion a year on subsidies tosettlers and $6 billion a year on security.The total of $9 billion counts for 9% of thenational budget.“This is not the entire cost of runningthe colonies. It is just the extra funds thatare used to subsidise them, on top of whatsimilar communities would cost to run ifthey were inside Israel,” he says.“And the cost is increasing very fast. Myestimates were based on 480,000 settlersand there are now over half a million. Thecolonies are growing at a rate of 7% a yearbecause of all the subsidies.”Hever reckons that since 1967 Israelhas received $135 billion in aid from theUS while he calculates that the occupationhas had a net cost of around $100 billion.These figures reflect the fact that for the first20 years Israel profited economically fromoppressing the Palestinians. Now, he says,the situation has reversed.The US government ploughs $3 billion ayear into Israel in order to keep a foothold inthe Middle East. But Hever says the moneymostly acts as a subsidy to Americanmilitary manufacturers since Israel has tospend it on buying US weaponry.The additional deluge of annualdonations from Jewish organisations whichqualify for tax breaks around the world areharder to track and this money benefits theIsraeli economy more as it is spent withinthe country.“It is your money thatis being used to assistthe Palestinians and youshould look at what it isbeing used for”When he set out to research theeconomics of the occupation, Hever sayshe soon realised that the complex realitywas no respecter of borders and involvedmany different countries. “It is relevant tothe British too. It is your money that is beingused to assist the Palestinians and youshould look at what it is being used for,” hesays.Israel is the highest per capita recipientof aid in the world. Egypt comes secondafter the US pledged to hand over 60% ofthe same subsidy when it signed the peacetreaty with Israel in 1978. Financial supportto the Palestinians comes not far behind.When the Palestinian Authority wasThe remains of the EU-funded Gaza International Airport in Rafah. Photo by KaiWiedenhofer (see p27)being formed in 1994, Hever says theEuropean Union made a “strategic decision”to support the two state solution. “A lotof European countries have a lot to gaineconomically from peace in the MiddleEast,” he says.“But they were unwilling to put sanctionson Israel to force it to implement the Osloaccords. So they provided money to builda Palestinian state without any guaranteesthat it would be used for that. It was allcarrot and no stick.”After the second intifada began in2000, donors reacted by doubling aid tothe Palestinians but switching the bulkof it from development to humanitarianprojects. “By doing this they are taking onthe burden that belongs to Israel which hasthe responsibility under humanitarian law oflooking after the people it occupies.”Between 1994 and 2007 around $7 billionwas spent on development projects, mostlyby the EU but also by Japan, the US andArab countries, but “the overall effect wasnegative,” says Hever, because so many ofthe projects have been destroyed, mostly byUS-made weapons.The occupation has many other costsincluding the expense to neighbouringnations of hosting Palestinian refugees,most of whom are unemployed, and thecost to the UN of education and healthcare — UNRWA spends $600 million a yearsubsidising the occupation by providingsuch services.Four “industrial zones” which aresupposed to boost the Palestinianeconomy are being developed, two paidfor by the French government, one byGermany and one by Japan. They areexpected to employ a total of 20,000people; wages will be fixed and no unionswill be allowed, Hever says.“It is a far cry from what the Palestinianeconomy needs — 20,000 new jobs need tobe created every year just to keep pace withpopulation growth so the zones won’t makea big impact.”Up to now the Israeli public has beenprepared to accept the costs of theoccupation, but Hever wonders why therest of the world should do the same. “InEurope people should be asking their MEPswhether the projectsyou are paying to buildare being destroyed bythe Israelis.”• The PoliticalEconomy of Israel'sOccupation:Repression BeyondExploitation, by ShirHever. Published byPluto Press.

12 palestine news reportsspring2011Maps of a stolen historyDr Salman Abu Sitta has devoted20 years and infinite care andpatience to producing his definitiveAtlas of Palestine 1917–1966, whichdocuments through maps howthe land has been stolen from thePalestinians and much of their physicalhistory obliterated. Gill Swain wentto meet him at the book launch.What is a map? What does it do in history?” asked DrSalman Abu Sitta. Answering his own question, he wenton: “It is the birth certificate of a place and its identitycard.”In the case of Palestine, most of whose ancient villages andlandmarks have been destroyed by a people intent on creating themyth that they never existed, this “birth certificate” is crucial notonly to the fight for justice but to preserve the sense of identity ofthe Palestinian people.That is why Dr Abu Sitta has lavished such love and care oncreating his massive atlas, which is an updated and expandedversion of his Atlas of Palestine 1948, published in 2004. The newbook has 500 large scale map pages covering all of Palestine atdifferent stages in its history and over 150 pages of analysis of theprocess of destruction, plus information on 1600 towns and villages,16,000 landmarks and 30,000 place names.The result is a book that disproves definitively the Zionists’ claimthat early 20th century Palestine was “a land without a people.”It also tells the story of that people in the places that they namedand of the enormous crime that was committed against them whenthose places were obliterated.No maps, no monumentsLaunching the new atlas in London in January, Dr Abu Sitta said thatcolonial powers usually made maps to chart natural resources andstrategic points of defence. “The Zionists have different objectives— to take the land by military power, to expel the owners and toerase the memory of those owners. To do that there should be nomaps, no monuments or shrines made by the people; all had to bedestroyed.”The process began after the Balfour Declaration of 1917when Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann demanded from the Britishgovernment a full survey of Palestine. “He wanted to know thelegality of ownership of every dunum of land so that, if it was notowned, it could be declared ‘state land.’“Most of the land was owned by ‘custom law’ and not registeredin the modern sense.” The British tackled the problem by making a“pedestrian map” which involved walking around talking to peopleand, if there was a dispute over ownership, resolving it there andthen.At a conference in Versailles in 1919 to discuss the break-up ofthe Ottoman empire, the Zionists presented a map on which fewof the Palestinian towns and villages were recorded. Marked onthe map in their place was “grazing land for nomads.” The colonialpowers knew this was a travesty but failed to challenge it.Obliteration will never stopAfter Israel was established in 1948, its first leader, David BenGurion, recognised that the expelled Palestinians had a fierceemotional attachment to their land and would fight to return. So heissued an order to “erase every name in Palestine and replace themwith Jewish names,” said Dr Abu Sitta.“Of the 1000 towns and villages in the part that became Israel,900 were obliterated. It was the biggest and most comprehensiveethnic cleansing operation in modern history and it is a continuousprocess. It will never stop.”His atlas features photographs taken from the air by the RAFin 1919 and aerial photographs from 1948, plus documentspainstakingly gathered from more than 20 locations in the UK andother sources in the US and Germany.The amazing index of 46,000 landmarks and placenames “describe the life the people created overthousands of years. They indicate things like what theyplanted, the animals they kept, the colour of the land,the relative location of villages, places where it wascommon to have a beard. I call it the social history ofPalestine.This is the history of humanity“Ben Gurion said the people would die and forgetabout their land. It is true that people die but not beforethe father has told his son about the place he camefrom and what he had there.”Dr Abu Sitta’s atlas contains 139 villages whichwere recorded on an ancient map made in 313AD and which still existed with the same names in1948. “This is not just the history of Palestinians, itis the history of humanity,” he said. In the processof erasing the Palestinians, the Israelis have alsodestroyed archaeological evidence of all ancientpeoples, except where they can find evidence ofJewish inhabitants.The atlas also reveals how relatively simple it

spring2011 reportspalestine news 13would be for Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral land,according to Dr Abu Sitta. “We know where the people of eachvillage are now and it is not true that there would not be room forthem in present day Israel. Eighty four per cent of Jews live on 17%of Israel; the rest is almost empty.This is a cry for justice“The most important inhabitant of those areas is the Israeli army;they control 85% of the land. Israel is in effect a huge militarybase where soldiers are custodians of the land that belongs toPalestinians.”Dr Abu Sitta’s aim in creating this fantastic historical record hasbeen to “defy Ben Gurion’s dream of erasing Palestine’s memoryand depriving the young from knowing their heritage and theirhome.” He added: “This is a battle that is more lasting than politicaland military fights.“Ben Gurion wanted to prove that we didn’t exist. That we were aspeck of dust in the train of history. We want to prove how criminalthat is and how untrue. This is a cry for justice.”Bishop of Jerusalem threatened with expulsionThe Right Reverend SuhailDawani, the AnglicanBishop of Jerusalem,has had his Jerusalemresidence permit revoked by theIsraeli Ministry of Interior, whohave accused him of “actingwith the Palestinian Authority intransferring lands owned by theJewish people to the Palestiniansand also [helping] to registerlands of the Jewish people in thename of the church.”Bishop Dawani hasvehemently denied the accusations. As yet the Israeli authoritieshave not produced any evidence against him. Since last Augusthe tried to resolve the situation without publicity but then he wasoffered a temporary work permit — which he refused.Interviewed on Radio 4’s “Sunday” programme on 6 March,he said: “They offered a three month foreigner visa. It’s veryinsulting to treat me as if I am a foreigner. I am an indigenousChristian. But I now have no legal status here — at any time theycan come and ask me to leave.”Previously, all Anglican bishops of the Episcopal Dioceseof Jerusalem who have not held Israeli citizenship have beengranted residency permits to allow them to live in Jerusalemwhere the bishop’s residence, diocesan offices and cathedral arelocated.Israel’s chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, and Archbishop ofCanterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, together with other members ofthe Anglican church, have complained to Binyamin Netanyahu,the Israeli prime minister.Asked by Edward Stourton about the implications for theChristian community in the region, Bishop Dawani said: “It’s avery bad indication that Christians are not welcome here.” He isnow taking legal action against the Israeli government.

14 palestine news reportsspring2011“I shall not hate...”It was an unforgettable cry of anguish amidst the desperatehorror of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza — Dr Izzeldin Abuelaishweeping on the phone live on Israeli TV and repeating over andover: “My God, my God, what have we done?”Two Israeli shells fired into his home killed three of his sixdaughters: Bessan, 20, Mayar, 15, and Aya, 14, and his niece,Noor, 17, and seriously injured his daughter, Shatha, 17. Thedoctor, an infertility specialist who worked in Israeli hospitals,phoned one of his many Israeli friends, Channel 10 reporter,Shlomi Eldar.The doctor’s voice was raw and desperate, Eldar’s facestricken. “I wanted to try to save them,” cried Abuelaish. “Butthey died, Shlomi.”Two years on Dr Abuelaish, who had lost his wife, Nadia, toleukaemia just three months before his daughters were killed,was in London to promote his book, I Shall Not Hate. It is hisresponse to the tragedy that has engulfed his family like that ofso many Palestinians. Garry Ettle reports.To introduce himself, Dr Abuelaishbegan with a poem written by anIsraeli acquaintance and dedicatedto his lost, eldest daughter, Bessan.It gently expressed awe at the family’sdetermination after their unbelievable lossand how women were central to this tragedyand to so many others world-wide.The conversation that followed wasthreaded through with medical allusions andmetaphors, reflecting the long and almostunique career of a doctor who has workedacross the deep divisions of the MiddleEast in Egypt, Gaza and Israel. He has alsoworked in Europe and is now a professor inCanada.Medicine, he told us, demands absoluteequality in the relationship between doctorand patient and Dr Abuelaish found thisamongst his colleagues in Israel. As for“hate,” this was a “symptom of a sick body,not healing well.”He led us through the moments betweenwhen he stepped out of his daughters’bedroom, filled with young life and hope, onthe afternoon of 16 January 2009 at theirhome in Jebalya refugee camp in Gaza, andthe screaming, dust-choked scrabble backto a laughter-slaughtered space of bloodand body parts and his instinctive firstaidingof the intact and breathing.We were asked to pause on thethought of how easily such individual, realnightmares become lost in a repeated“number of dead,” as another news item.We also tried to reflect on how we asindividuals would survive and react to suchan event destroying our own lives.Moving into “questions and answers,”Dr Abuelaish was asked the obvious, firstquestion: “How have you resisted hate?”He replied that the list of his persecutorswas endless and he refused to be theirvictim or partner in hate. He also felt thatone day he would have to account to hisdaughters as to how he had brought themtrue justice, rather than revenge.He spoke of the example set him by hisinjured daughter, Shatha, who persistentlypleaded as she recovered to return toher studies in Gaza and who succeededin passing her grades, with merit. Herchallenge had been to herself as well as tothose who attacked her family: to defy, notto hate.Again, “How did Dr Abuelaish feel theIsraeli de-humanisation of Palestinians couldbe curtailed?” His reply was, by challengingthe selected “facts.” Constantly to drivehome that Israel’s freedom is inextricablylinked to that of Palestine.He talked of his faith and how itexplained that his wife’s dying before herchildren saved her that ultimate horror ofmothers. Hope should also sustain peoplebecause, while there was life in the body,there was hope, but that we had to worktirelessly to discover and remove the truecause of the sickness.Finally, being asked “what could wedo?” Dr Abuelaish related the tale of achild running up and down a beach wherehundreds of starfish were being washedashore, gasping for their lives. The childstopped again and again to toss onestarfish after another back into the sea.Then a man approached shouting: “You aremaking no difference!” The child looked upinto the man’s eyes and answered firmly:“I am making a difference to each one Isave.”With his book, Dr Abuelaish brings away forward for Israelis and Palestiniansto reflect on how hate imprisons themalongside fear. As Dr Abuelaish might say,without treatment this patient’s future isfull of more pain and horror, but challengedwith trust and real human sensitivity, there isanother future.• In memory of his beloved girls, DrAbuelaish has established the Daughtersfor Life Foundation to provide educationalscholarships for young women throughoutthe Middle East, including Israel. Seewww.daughtersforlife.com• I ShallNot Hate byDr IzzeldinAbuelaish ispublished byBloomsbury.The bookcovershows DrAbuelaish’sdaughterswho wrote theirnames in the sand at the beach twoweeks before they died.

spring2011 reportspalestine news 15Turkey still angryPhoto: www.Demotix.comBy Barçin YinançThousands protested outside the Israeli embassy inIstanbul after the Mavi Marmara murders, May 2010.As the first anniversary approaches of Israel’s raid on theGaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine Turkish activists dead,relations between the former allies remain tense as Israelrefuses to deliver on the Turkish request for an apology andcompensation for the victims’ families.The murder of Turkish citizens on the Mavi Marmara sparked adeep crisis in what were already strained relations between Israeland what used to be its most important friend in the Muslim world.Now, though both embassies in the respective capitals continuetheir activities, relations stay at the minimum with all contacts at thepolitical level suspended.Even if Israel fulfils Turkey’s two conditions, it will not be enoughto put relations back on track. For, in contrast to the period thatstarted with the Middle East peace process in the early 1990s andlasted until the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to powerin 2002, bilateral ties will no longer enjoy immunity from MiddleEastern conflicts. And as long as the AKP remains in power, relationswill largely depend on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially ifIsrael insists in continuing its current intransigent policies.Turkey was the first country with a majority Muslim population torecognise Israel, but successive Turkish governments were unwillingto improve relations further in the absence of a solution to thePalestinian problem. The Middle East peace process that startedfollowing the first Gulf War lifted that reserve and Turkish-Israeli tiesbegan to improve.The fact that the two nations enjoyed historically good relationshelped the process along. One of only a few places in the worldwith a relatively clean record on anti-Semitism, Turkey, among otherMiddle Eastern countries, provided a safe haven for Jews fleeing theSpanish Inquisition in the 15th century as well as for those fleeingthe Nazis in Europe.Meanwhile Turkey’s difficult relations with its neighbours, Iranand Syria, the arch-enemies of Israel, also played a role in the fastdeveloping accord during the 1990s.As Turkey started to sort out its problems with its neighbours inthe last decade, the strategic value of Israeli cooperation began todiminish. But it was Israel’s preference for military action rather thannegotiations with its Arab neighbours that dealt the heaviest blow toties with Turkey.Israel’s deadly strike on the Gaza Strip in the last days of2008, just as Turkey was in the midst of mediating for a historicbreakthrough between the Israelis and the Syrians, proved to be aturning point. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bitterspat with Israeli President Shimon Perez at Davos a few days latermade things worse between the two countries but it gained Erdogantremendous popularity not only inside Turkey but in the Arab streetas well.Although the AKP’s voter base is both socially and politicallyheterogeneous, it has its roots in Turkey’s Islamist movement whichharbours some anti-Semitic elements. So while thousands of AKPfollowers took to the streets in a show of support, the deterioratingrelations with Israel attracted criticism from some in secular circles.As the AKP is widely expected to win a third term in the Turkishelections in June, the move to mend fences will be expectedto come from Israel. With regime changes on the way in theArab countries that could bring to power governments lessaccommodating to Israeli policies, Israel cannot afford to havestrained relations with one of the strongest countries in the regionwhich accepts the existence of the Jewish state.Turkey, for its part, would not let go an opportunity to mendfences with Israel since it knows its influence in the region is moreeffective when there is a working relationship between the twocountries. In addition, while anti-Israeli feeling is strong among thesupporters of Erdogan, the AKP is a pragmatic party, aware of thefact that strained relations with Israel poses a contradiction to thegovernment’s policy of “zero problems with neighbours.”Even if, in contrast to wide expectations, AKP does not formthe government after the elections, it will be highly unlikely for anynew government to back down from the request for an apology andcompensation for the Mavi Marmara murders.The current state of affairs between the two countries is notsustainable. But the timing and pace of normalisation depends ondecision-makers in Israel.Barçin Yinanç is Associate Editor of the Hürriyet DailyNews and Economic Review in IstanbulThe Mavi Marmara was opened to the public in January.Photo: Tomasz Grzyb, www.Demotix.com

16 palestine news reportsspring2011Hands off Gaza’s gasBy Nadine MarroushiIsraeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has officially askedPalestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resumetalks on the sale of natural gas from Gaza’s offshore marinefield to Israel, it was revealed in early March. The UK’s BGGroup holds a 60% stake in the field with the remaining 40%held by Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company,whose chairman is the Palestinian Said Khoury, and thePalestine Investment Fund.Netanyahu told Tony Blair in February that the marine fieldshould be tapped together with the nearby Noa field which liesin Israeli waters and is jointly owned by US company, NobleEnergy, and Israeli companies, Delek Group and Avner OilExploration.Israel is not short of gas, at least in the short-term. It imports40% of its natural gas needs from Egypt and has its own offshorefields that can supply it with gas for the next 25 years. Thesefields are operated by Noble, BG and a Canadian company.Israel is even looking at options to export its gas via Cyprus.BG acquired the concession for the Gaza field in 1999 asa 25-year exploration and development license from the PAand drilled two successful wells in 2000. The field has reservesestimated by BG at around 1 trillion cubic feet. In 2002 the PAapproved a four-year development plan to bring the field onstream.A pipeline from the offshore field to Gaza was in the makingwhen Israel put down the condition that production would onlybe allowed if the gas is first piped to the Israeli port of Ashkelonand then to Gaza. In other words, Israel would have been inWith access denied to their own gas resources, the peoplesuffer frequent power cutscontrol and able to turn Gaza’s gas taps on and off at will. And itcould control the money from gas sales too. BG then broke offnegotiations with the Israeli government.There is no need to repeat here the dire circumstances underwhich Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants live in what is effectively theworld’s largest open air prison. Let us, therefore, encourage andremind BG and the PA of the continued importance of keepingIsrael off Gaza’s gas fields.Nadine Marroushi is the editor of Gulf States NewsletterPhoto: Khalil Ibrahim, www.Demotix.comLife in Gaza – School ArtCompetitionAn exciting new art competition for secondary school studentsin the UK is being launched this spring but hurry — thedeadline is coming soon!The competition, called Life in Gaza, has some great prizeson offer including an HD video camera, vouchers for art suppliesand book tokens. The best works will also be displayed at a premiervenue in London to show that Gaza has not been forgotten.The idea is for students to produce art works reflecting on thedifficulties and hardships young people of the same age endureevery day under the continuing occupation and siege of Gaza.Entrants can produce paintings, collages, sculptures — whatevermedium they feel best captures their thoughts and feelings aboutthe situation.The competition is open to two separate categories — Key Stage3 and 4 and A level years 12 and 13. It is being run by the Councilfor Arab British Understanding (Caabu) which is working on behalfof Al-Fakhoora, an international campaign that aims to secure thefreedom to learn for Palestinian students in the Occupied Territories.Students can enter individually or through their schools byposting a photo of their work on the Fakhoora website. For fulldetails, including rules and application forms, visit www.fakhoora.org/art. The deadline for submissions is May 2, 2011.What can you do?This competition is the first of its kind. If you know anybody whomight like to enter but who doesn’t feel they know enough aboutthe topic, Caabu has developed a new online quiz all about Gazaon Al Fakhoora’s website (www.fakhoora.org/resources/quiz-ongaza).There’s also a versatile “Palestinian Pathways” programmeyou can download free of charge, tracing Palestinian history throughthe extraordinary testimonies of ordinary families, alongside a richcollection of historical photos and images (http://fakhoora.org/resources/palestinian-pathways).In addition Caabu is offering special introductory talks tointerested schools through its education programme, free of charge.To book one of these, learn more about the competition, or for anyother enquiries, please get in contact with Caabu’s EducationOfficer, Edward Parsons, at parsonse@caabu.org or call 0207832 1320.

spring2011 reportspalestine news 17Women uniteSome 250 Palestinian and Israeliwomen human rights defendersmarked the centenary of InternationalWomen’s Day on 12 March with ahistoric conference to discuss using civildisobedience to challenge the occupation.The meeting was held in the West Bankvillage of Beit Umar and the presence ofIsraeli women there was in itself an act ofdefiance as the Israeli Army had pastedlarge signs forbidding entry to Israelicitizens.The signs claimed wrongly that Beit Umarwas in Area A and thus under the controlof the Palestinian Authority. In fact, theOslo accords state that it is in Area B andit is treated as such by the Israeli securityforces who carry out frequent incursionsand prevent Palestinian security forces fromacting in the village.Fida Arar and Ghadeer Abu Ayyash,from Beit Umar, and Yusra Hammam, fromHussan, described the suffering Palestinianwomen endure at checkpoints on the way towork. In addition to the burden of providingfor their families with fathers and husbandsoften imprisoned or unable to get work, theyare forced to spend long hours in line and toundergo often humiliating searches.They also spoke of the impoverishedstatus of women within Palestinian societyand called upon women to insist on theirrights to education and more freedom ofchoice.Israeli writer and translator, IlanaHammerman, said the law regulating entryinto Israel “is illegal and should not beobeyed. As a group of women practicingcivil disobedience, we will continue towork to destabilise the system of militarydecrees and regulations that make the lifeof our Palestinian friends and their familiesunbearable.”Sara Beninga, an activist in the SheikhJarrah Solidarity Movement, focused onthe political investigation initiated by thephoto: Esti TzalIsraeli police against the activists. Utteringslogans against the occupation was nowlabelled as “incitement” and criminalised,she said, and thus “joint non-violent activityby Palestinians and Israelis is presentlyconceived as the most intimidating threat tothe Israeli regime.”The conference opened a few hoursafter the murders of five members of afamily in the Itamar settlement. VeteranIsraeli activist, Rivka Sum, said: “Theseviolent events, which will not end as longas the occupation continues, stress thecommitment we must have to act togetherdaily to end the present situation which isimpossible.”One of the Palestinian women said: “Wetoo condemn the use of violence. It hasnot contributed to our progress but on thecontrary, backfires on our own public.”Participants described the groundbreakingconference as a powerfulemotional experience. “It is a rareoccasion for us to be hosted sogenerously by women who live underoccupation, in spite of all the wrongsdone to Palestinian society by our side,”said the Israeli feminist activist, YvonneDeutsch.Help uschallenge Israel’s“pinkwashing”Israel’s attempt to “pinkwash” its image by presentingitself as a tolerant, “gay friendly” tourist destinationwas raised at the PSC AGM. Israel’s supporters havealso increased their criticism of the support within theLesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communityfor Palestinian rights.Since the strong policy motion was passed at theAGM in January,PSC aimsto increaseawarenessof this issue,produce materialand increaseits links withsupportive LGBTgroups and withPalestinian LGBTorganisations.• If you are interested in getting involved with this work,please contact sarah.colborne@palestinecampaign.orgEye on the web• How to solve spatial problemsA new website is an excellent contribution to architecturalactivism and discourse on the Israel/Palestine conflict, writesAbe Hayeem. The “arena of speculation.org” presents newthinking on how to solve the spatial problems posed by theoccupation and colonisation of Palestine and what couldbe done to achieve solutions compatible with equality andrestoration of human rights in the event of a just peace.Much of the material coincides with the work and aimsof Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine. Highlyrecommended!http://arenaofspeculation.org• Comment is free, but watched...The Zionist “hasbara” network stretches its tentacleseverywhere, trying to stifle any criticism of Israel. A newwebsite is monitoring anything negative said about Israel onthe Guardian’s “Comment is Free” site.See what they are up to on http://cifwatch.com• Roger Waters says — tear down the wall!There is an excellent 25 minuteinterview on al-Jazeera withPink Floyd’s Roger Waters onhis support for the Palestiniansand the BDS campaign as heplays his current world tour ofThe Wall.http://tinyurl.com/6jxuk8v

18 palestine news reportsspring2011BDS – Ten years onOn 4 July, 2001, the PSC, supported by dozens of other organisations,launched the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign at the Houseof Commons. People listened to the speakers with excitement: this washistory in the making, an event akin to 1959’s Conway Hall gatheringtriggering the boycott of South African apartheid.Frankie Green, who was there, reviews the achievements of the last tenyears.We knew we were in for the long haul, while hopeful thatthis struggle for justice would not take as long as theSouth African one. Boycotting Israel had always beena PSC issue but urging a full-fledged boycott was yetto make a mark on British public consciousness. It was an ideawhose time had come. Outraged by Israel’s violent provocationand brutal repression of the second intifada, shocked by murderssuch as that of Mohammed al-Dura, the 12 year old who wasfilmed being shot while trying to shelter with his father in Gaza, ourburgeoning membership was keen to act.Immediately, members began to build a mass boycott campaign,undertaking a variety of projects about consumer goods, armstrading, tourism, sporting and cultural links. The PSC got down tothe grassroots work of tirelessly, week after week, increasing thecampaign’s visibility.Supermarket actions were a crucial way of raising awareness anddistributing information, discussing with shoppers the importanceof ethical consumerism and collecting petition signatures. Theyalso involved postcard campaigns, lobbying shareholders at AGMs,picketing, leafleting, stickering produce and filling trolleys withoranges, grapes, potatoes, peppers, humus or avocados to causehavoc at check-outs.National days of actionPickets of Selfridges and M&S were held in Oxford St and Londonbranch began regular pickets of Israel Airlines and tourist office.National days of action saw synchronised email/phone/fax-ins ofthe Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Also targeted were theBBC, complaining of bias, and complicit companies such as thosesupplying cement for settlements. On 9/11 we were at the hugearms fair at East London’s ExcelCentre, demanding an end to thearms trade between Israel andBritain.By February, 2002, boycottswere developing in France,Netherlands, Denmark, Norwayand Sweden. The campaignposted large newspaperadvertisements and imaginativeactions were staged onparticular days, for instance“I Love Palestine” events topersuade people not to buyIsraeli flowers for Valentine’sDay.Any successes affordedgreat opportunities forpublicity, such as whenSelfridges temporarilywithdrew settlement goods and when Ethical Consumer removedBIG info under Zionist pressure only to reinstate it after protests fromreaders. Additionally, PSC encouraged the purchase of fairtradePalestinian crafts, olive oil and other products to support thedevastated Palestinian economy.In Scotland the boycott campaign was launched by the ScottishPalestinian Forum at the Scottish Parliament in March, 2002, withMSPs, academics, activists and trade unionists attending. Lettersto newspapers called for sanctions and Palestine News called forintensified public pressure for sanctions and an end to the binationaltrade-promoting Britech Agreement.Boycott bus attracts attentionCultural and sporting boycott became another strand to thecampaign. Israeli singer, Noa’s, Barbican concert was disrupted byInternational Solidarity Movement activists and three people werearrested for invading the pitch with banners at a football matchbetween Leyton Orient and Maccabi Tel Aviv.As Israeli invasions wreaked destruction across the West Bankand global public protest went unheeded by governments, boycottactions accelerated. The Freedom Summer boycott bus travelledaround Londonfestooned withballoons, flags,banners andplacards. Activistsexhorted shoppersto consider theplight of peopleunder lockdownunable to shop,on one occasioncausing apoplexyamong Israelitourists visitingCamden Lock.The bus parked inWhitehall on 15 Julyto deliver a petitionexpressing outrageover Israel’s invasions and calling on the government to imposecomplete trade sanctions on Israel.The Network of Palestinian Arts Centres sent out a call for aninternational cultural boycott and by June, 2002, this was reallytaking off, as evidenced by a speech by the late actor and PSCpatron, Corin Redgrave, an article by Nicholas Rowe in DanceEurope and more protests at concerts. The call for academicboycott was taken up across America, Europe and Australia, andcalls for divestment were also underway in the US.

spring2011 reportspalestine news 19Badgers settle in StarbucksProving that the best protest actions are often the wittiest, 30members of ISM dressed as badgers and armed with water pistolsgarnered valuable publicity when they occupied Oxford Street’sStarbucks (a focus of activism for its Zionist CEO’s support ofIsrael) in October, 2002, claiming the land as their ancestral home.Using the logic of Israeli settlers the badgers evicted some of thecustomers, handed out copies of the “badger bible” that “proved”their ownership of Starbucks and erected the first badger settlementin London.With placards proclaiming “If it works in Palestine, why nothere?” and “It’s ours because we say so,” the self-styled BadgerDefence Force set up checkpoints to inspect shoppers forconcealed weapons. “If they’re not a badger, they could be aterrorist,” a spokesbadger reasoned.Charges were dropped against the football pitch activists and“Kick Israel out of UEFA” became a rallying cry with more protestsat sporting events. The autumn conference season saw a waveof resolutions backing boycott and Plaid Cymru described Israelioccupation as “terrorism.”The PSC’s international conference on 30 November, 2002,issued “a fresh call for comprehensive, international boycott”specifically including a boycott of artistic, scientific and sportingcontact, cessation of official contacts with the state of Israel,divestment of funds from institutions supporting Israel, an armstrade embargo and the imposition of economic sanctions uponIsrael. Signatories included Naseer Aruri, Tony Benn, Edward Said,Hilary Rose, Steven Rose, MPs and trades union leaders andacademics.Retailers refuse to stock Israeli goodsThrough 2003 the pressure carried on building. That summer theBIG campaign newsletter reported retailers refusing to stock goodsand expressions of concern from Zionist groups. TU resolutionsaccumulated and creative, theatrical actions vividly dramatisedprotests. For instance, cardboard bulldozers in Brighton drewattention to the destruction of the Palestinian homeland andcommemorated the murder of Rachel Corrie. Carmel-Agrexcoactions included dozens of blockades of the depot while Caterpillarwas a focus of action in 2004 to press councils to refuse tendersfrom companies using their equipment.And so momentum has built from those initial steps, action bycountless action, with great leaps forward with the PalestinianCampaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)call being issued in 2004 and Palestine civil society, through theBoycott National Campaign (BNC) launching their call in 2005.Sustained action regarding the labelling of settlement goodsresulted in DEFRA issuing guidelines to retailers in December, 2009.Church groups then became more prominent in the movement. LastJune the Methodist Conference backed the boycott of settlementproduce in response to requests from Palestinian Christians andthe World Council of Churches and most recently, in April, BritishQuakers followed suit.Tireless work with local branches of trade unions culminatedin the historic vote by the TUC last year which pledged it to workclosely with the PSC to encourage the boycott of the goods ofcompanies profiting from the occupation, the settlements and thewall and divestment from those companies.In ten years the BDS campaign has gone global and high profileand is beginning seriously to give Israel the jitters, as evidenced by thelaunch of their concerted counter attack which they call “delegitimisingthe delegitimisers.” But the situation for Palestinians remains dire.A surge in BDS activity to take it further is now essential.We cannot wait for as long as it took to end South Africanapartheid; another ten years must not be allowed to go bywithout an end to Israel’s genocidal behaviour.A recent supermarket actionSpies out for BDS supportersIsraeli Military Intelligence is collecting information aboutorganisations round the world that the army views as aimingto “delegitimise” Israel, Ha’aretz reported in March.Senior officials and IDF officers told the paper the unitwas created several months ago in the wake of investigationsinto last year’s assault on the Gaza convoy. It will monitorgroups involved in the boycott, divestment and sanctionscampaign and will also collect information on groups who try tobring war crime charges against Israeli officials.Military Intelligence officials said the initiative reflected anupsurge in BDS activity worldwide. “The enemy changes, asdoes the nature of the struggle, and we have to boost activityin this sphere,” an MI official said. “Work on this topic proceedson the basis of a clear distinction between legitimate criticismof the State of Israel on the one hand and efforts to harm it andundermine its right to exist on the other.”But Ha’aretz said the undefined and potentially broadscope of such a venture “has some Foreign Ministry officialsconcerned that the army is overreaching.”One ministry official told the paper: “We ourselves don’t knowexactly how to define delegitimisation. This is a very abstractdefinition. Are flotillas to Gaza delegitimisation? Is criticismof settlements delegitimisation? It’s not clear how MilitaryIntelligence’s involvement in this will provide added value.”

20 palestine news reportsspring2011Buy olive oil, save livesBy Sharen GreenTwo Palestinian olive farmers whose oil is imported by Zaytountoured the UK during Fairtrade Fortnight. I listened to theirmoving talk at St Michael and All Angels’ Church in Colehill,Dorset, in March.Bassema Basalat told the congregation that she is an architectand shares the care of her four children with her engineer husbandin addition to farming olives. A pioneer in her village of Haja, shehas founded an association to help women become financiallyindependent.She said many women had been forced into the role ofbreadwinners because of the high numbers of men who had beenkilled or were in prison. Her own family’s land is under threat ofbeing stolen and she can no longer reach five acres due to thebuilding nearby of two Israeli settlements.Her colleague, father of four Riziq Abu Nasser from Deir Istya,said his village had lost nearly 60 per cent of its land to a ring ofsettlements and its water sources had been polluted by untreatedsettlement sewage.Last September settlers ploughed up 40 dunums of Deir Istyaland and installed 20 caravans there while in November the Israeliarmy destroyed newly planted Palestinian trees, blocked watercourses and seized 50 metres of irrigation pipes.In spite of everything Riziq remained steadfast, believing that thesupport of ordinary people around the world will bring about an endto occupation.“By buying our olive oil, you are saving our lives, the future of ourchildren and you are helping to save our land,” he said.Vicar John Goodall said: “We are delighted to host the Palestinianfarmers — both to hear of their experiences and to offer oursolidarity for their struggle against the illegal and oppressiveoccupation of their land.”From the left: Riziq Abu Nasser, Canon John Goodall, BassemaBasalat, Cathi Pawson, co-founder of Zaytoun and her babyJessicaPSC delegation to BrusselsAdelegation of PSC members, including nine from CountyDurham, joined with a group from the European CoordinatingCommittee on Palestine (ECCP) in March to lobby MEPsand EU officials about policies towards Israel and the peaceprocess.Durham Labour MEP Stephen Hughes helped them meet theHigh Representative for External Affairs, Baroness Cathy Ashton’sadvisor, Mr Paleyo Castro Zuzuarregui. They also met Fiona Hall,Durham Lib-Dem, and senior officials Silvio Gonzala,from the Foreign Affairs Committee, and MichaelDocherty who serves on the European Commissionwith responsibility for the Occupied Territories.The delegates argued that EU-Quartet policieswere not working and that a better way forward wasto show determination to require Israel to live byinternational standards and meet the human rightscriteria that are at the centre of EU external relationspolicies.The EU officials were open about the EU approach,stressing that Baroness Ashton had to work within thelimits of what the 27member states would support.Durham delegates concluded that the EU can go nofaster than the slowest partner and there were stateslike Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia andRomania that were not willing to enforce strongermeasures against Israel.The EU will evaluate its Israel-Palestine policiesin September. Among officials there appears to be aclear view that radical changes in the EU approachare needed and that the EU can and should take alead.The visit was a great success and delegates returned clear thatPSC pressure is especially vital in the coming months as Europere-evaluates its policies. The PSC needs to build on the evidencethat public opinion in Europe is ahead of the EU in regarding Israeliintransigence as the main obstacle to peace.Bill Williamson, Durham PSC

spring2011 comment & analysispalestine news 21Goldstone’s shamefulU-turnBy Ilan PappeIf I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report wouldhave been a different document.” Thus opens Judge RichardGoldstone’s much-discussed op-ed in The Washington Post on1 April.I have a strong feeling that the editor might have tampered withthe text and that the original sentence ought to have read somethinglike: “If I had known then that the report would turn me into a selfhatingJew in the eyes of my beloved Israel and my own Jewishcommunity in South Africa, the Goldstone report would never havebeen written at all.” And if that wasn’t the original sentence, it iscertainly the subtext of Goldstone’s article.This shameful U-turn comes after more than a year and a half ofa sustained campaign of intimidation and character assassinationagainst the judge. Readers might ask “why could Goldstone notwithstand the heat?” Alas the Zionisation of Jewish communitiesand the false identification of Jewishness with Zionism is still apowerful disincentive that prevents liberal Jews from boldly facingIsrael and its crimes.Every now and again many liberal Jews seem to liberatethemselves and allow their conscience, rather than their fear, tolead them. However, many seem unable to stick to their moreuniversalist inclinations for too long where Israel is concerned.The risk of being defined as a “self-hating Jew,” with all theramifications of such an accusation, is a real and frighteningprospect for them. You have to be in this position to understand thepower of this terror.Just weeks ago, Israeli military intelligence announced it hadcreated a special unit to monitor, confront, and possibly hunt down,individuals and bodies suspected of “delegitimising” Israel abroad.In light of this, perhaps quite a few of the faint-hearted felt standingup to Israel was not worth it.“Israel’s international legitimacyhas suffered anunprecedented blow”We should have recognised that Goldstone was one of themwhen he stated that, despite his report, he remains a Zionist. Thisadjective, “Zionist,” is far more meaningful and charged than isusually assumed. You cannot claim to be one if you oppose theideology of the apartheid state of Israel. You can remain one if youjust rebuke the state for a certain criminal policy and fail to see theconnection between the ideology and that policy. “I am a Zionist”is a declaration of loyalty to a frame of mind that cannot accept the2009 Goldstone Report. You can either be a Zionist or blame Israelfor war crimes and crimes against humanity — if you do both, youwill crack sooner rather than later.That this mea culpa has nothing to do with new facts is clearwhen one examines the “evidence” brought by Goldstone to explainhis retraction... There is only one new piece of evidence and this isan internal Israeli army investigation that explains that one of thecases suspected as a war crime was due to a mistake by the Israeliarmy that is still being investigated.Judge Richard Goldstone in the Gaza Strip, June 2009.Ever since the creation of the state of Israel, the tens ofthousands of Palestinians killed by Israel were either terrorists orkilled by “mistake.” So 29 out of 1,400 people were killed by anunfortunate mistake? Only ideological commitment could basea revision of the report on an internal inquiry of the Israeli armyfocusing only on one of dozens of instances of unlawful killing andmassacring. So it cannot be new evidence that caused Goldstone towrite this article. Rather, it is his wish to return to the Zionist comfortzone that propelled this bizarre and faulty article.This is also clear from the way he escalates his language againstHamas in the article and de-escalates his words toward Israel. Andhe hopes that this would absolve him of Israel’s righteous fury. Buthe is wrong, very wrong.Goldstone and his colleagues wrote a very detailed report,but they were quite reserved in their conclusions. It was firstWestern public opinion that understood better than Goldstonethe implications of his report. Israel’s international legitimacy hassuffered an unprecedented blow. He was genuinely shocked to learnthat this was the result.We have been there before. In the late 1980s, Israeli historianBenny Morris wrote a similar, sterile, account of the 1948 ethniccleansing of Palestine. Morris too cowered under pressure andasked to be re-admitted to the tribe.Professionally, both Morris and Goldstone tried to retreat toa position that claimed, as Goldstone does in The WashingtonPost article, that Israel can only be judged by its intentions not theconsequences of its deeds. Therefore only the Israeli army can bea reliable source for knowing what these intentions were. Very fewdecent and intelligent people in the world would accept such abizarre analysis and explanation.Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of theEuropean Centre for Palestine Studies at the Universityof Exeter. His most recent book is Out of the Frame: TheStruggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (Pluto Press, 2010).• This article first appeared in the Electronic Intifada, 4 April 2011.http://tinyurl.com/3kc5h36

22 palestine news activismspring2011Ahava driven outVictory! The fortnightly protests outside the Ahava cosmeticsshop in London’s Covent Garden by PSC members andother pro-Palestinian supporters have driven the companyout.The Jewish Chronicle reported in March that Shaftesbury PLC,which owns the property, told them that when Ahava’s lease expiresin September, “we will not offer them a new one."The protests began two years ago in response to a call for actionfrom the PopularCommittee ofBil’in. Ahavaproducts aremanufacturedin the IsraeliWest Banksettlement ofMitzpe Shalomthough labelledas producedin Israel. Acounter groupof pro-Israelisupporters,backed by theultra-right English Defence League, staged alternative protests.It appears that nearby shop owners put pressure on the landlordsto oust Ahava. The Jewish Chronicle quoted Colin George, managerof a clothes shop next door, saying: “I’m pleased Ahava is leaving.It’s brought the street down. I’ve complained to the landlords, ashas everyone here. Everyone would like them to leave. I wish theyhad left two years ago.”“I’m pleased Ahava isleaving. It’s broughtthe street down...Everyone would likethem to leave”The JC said AhavaUK’s accounts up untilthe end of 2009 showa loss of more than£250,000, despitereceiving more than£300,000 from its Israeliparent company, withno repayment plan.The company told thepaper it was looking foranother location, including sites in north-west London.Another store to be targeted was Adidas’s busy flagship store onLondon’s Oxford Street in a protest at the company’s sponsorshipof the Jerusalem Marathon. Members of West London, Lambethand Richmond branches and other BDS activists imposed a noshoppingzone at the store for 30 minutes on the day of the race, 25March.The runners distributed flyers explaining that the JerusalemMarathon is an attempt by Israel to whitewash their atrocious humanrights record and to urge Adidas not to sponsor the 2012 race. Theygave the management a document explaining the purpose of theaction with a request it be forwarded to head office. The store wasevacuated and forced to close for a time.Several branches have supported Mark Thomas’s performancesof his “Extreme Rambling” show about walking the apartheid wall.Cambridge hosted a Q&A after the show and Oxford held a stallat the Pegasus Theatre during the week of his tour and provided aspeaker for a Q&A on one evening.There were events round the world in February to mark the deathof Jawaher Abu Rahmah, 34, who became the first Palestinian to dieat the hands of the Israelis when she was killed by tear gas duringa peaceful demonstration in Bil’in. Lambeth and Wandsworthheld a stall and banner signing in her memory at the Dashed HopesSymposium at St John’s, Waterloo.The idea was to get the banner covered with messages ofsupport for the people of Bil’in and then to send it to the villageorganisers so they could carry the support with them on futuredemonstrations. They report: “People were open to the idea ofnon-violent protest in pursuit of human rights following the widecoverage of the uprising in Egypt.” Portsmouth and South Downsheld two vigils for Abu Rahmah in central Portsmouth with bigplacards explaining the circumstances of her death.Joint activities with other organisations were held to mutualbenefit. Lambeth and Wandsworth branch are holding fortnightlystalls with Lambeth Unison in support of BDS while Oxfordmembers worked with the Oxford Ramallah Friendship Associationwho are bringing young people to the town this summer. They alsojoined in Women in Black demonstrations which have recentlyconcentrated on East Jerusalem.Orkney Friends of Palestine has forged a link with theunrecognised Bedouin village of Al Sira in the northern Naqab[Negev] which the secretary, Bryan Milner, visited when on anICAHD study tour. Members held a table-top sale and a music andpoetry evening which raised over £500. Donations were added andthe total sum was matched by a local charity with the result that£2,000 was sent to Al Sira to help a community leader on a legalcourse relating to land rights.Films continue to be an effective way of drumming up interestfrom the wider public. The award winning documentary, Budrus,about the fight by Palestinian community organiser, Ayed Morrar,to save his village, was shown in Cambridge where the brancharranged for Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: a Beginner’sGuide, to host a Q&A afterwards. They report the event “got a fullhouse, people were turned away.”York branch showed the film in a local cinema and led a publicdiscussion afterwards which was very well attended with manynew people coming. One member also organised a film showing ofLawrence of Arabia in aid of Medical Aid for Palestinians. OrkneyFriends of Palestine also participated in a lively discussion after alocal showing of the film while Oxford provided publicity and foodfor a showing of the Gaza Monologues film and raised over £2000towards bringing a group of young performers from Gaza thissummer.Martial Kurtz at the PSC stall at the March for theAlternative demo in London

spring2011 activismpalestine news 23Public meetings were held by Southampton branch with a talkby David Cromwell of Media Lens, and York had one with the Israelieconomist Shir Hever and another with Ramzy Baroud, editor of thePalestine Chronicle and author of My Father Was A Freedom Fighter— Gaza’s Untold Story.Portsmouth and South Downs held a Day for Palestine inJanuary with speakers including Jenny Tonge, Tony Greenstein,Angus Geddes, Suleiman Sharkh and Malcolm Levitt on the OneState Solution, MP Mike Hancock, Del Singh of Labour Friends ofPalestine and Zuber Hatia, a driver on the first convoy to Gaza.Miranda Pinch of the Ecumenical Accompaniers Programme dida superb presentation of her experiences in Hebron and the branchattended a presentation by another EAPPI speaker, Rachel Nassif,at the Friends Meeting House in Chichester in February which“made a deep impression on the audience.” They also hosted a talkby Gazan journalist Yousef Al-Helou in March.Branches continue to press councils not to renew contracts withVeolia. Members from Richmond and Kingston and West Londonheld a “silent protest” at Merton Civic Centre in February during ameeting of the South London Waste Partnership Joint Committeewhich was discussing contracts.They also held street events and collected signatures — and theirhard work paid off when the SLWP announced that Veolia was beingdropped from the bidding.Portsmouth and South Downs has done a huge amount ofwork on the Veolia issue, organised by Angus Geddes. On 7 Marchthey were rewarded when Portsmouth City Council Cabinet voted toselect Biffa as the preferred bidder for the city’s rubbish collectioncontract even though Veolia holds the current contract. The council,naturally, said Biffa won on price and quality. Portsmouth reports:“We will never know for sure how much influence we had... FromAngus’s contacts with councillors he feels that there was a lot ofsympathy for our campaign.”PSC merchandiseKeffiyahs made in Hebron £10Boycott IsraeliGoods t-shirt: £10(available in S, M,L & XL)Gaza FlotillaAttack: The TruthDVD: £5Case for Justice booklet: Limited offer £1.50PSC’s updated 55-page booklet: A greatintroduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, fromthe origins of Zionism to the Apartheid Wall. Facts,figures, quotes, colour maps and photos.For merchandise information visitwww.palestinecampaign.org/shop or phone 020 7700 6192Making a roller bannerThe best impact we had ever had with a stall was whenwe displayed a roller banner we had bought via PSChead office showing the three maps of “DisappearingPalestine.”We needed something of similar impact for our Veoliacampaign so we thought — why not make a banner ofour own? It proved to be relatively simple to do; the timeconsumingpart turned out to be deciding what to put on it.The first thing you need to ask is: what do I want to say andwho am I trying to say it to? We wanted to grab the attention ofpassing shoppers at street events and get the message acrossthat their council was complicit in the oppression of Palestineby placing contracts with Veolia. Thus the banner had to bevisually striking with text large enough to be read at a distanceand set out in a logical layout.This is harder to do than it sounds. In fact, banner designis an art in itself. You can get help from websites such ashttp://tinyurl.com/yzbsmlj.We started off trying to tell a story over four panels withquite a lot of text, maps and pictures. We soon learned thelesson — simplify, then simplify again. Attention-grabbingpictures and a few lines of simple text work best. Images mustbe high resolution but be careful of copyright — or be preparedto pay for them.I bought two roller banners from Ebay for £9.99, plusdelivery. Make sure the width you buy is suitable for yourdesign. Also buy the type that have swivel feet, which are morestable for displaying outdoors.I brought them to a meeting so we could discuss thelayout. Having desktop publishing software such as MicrosoftPublisher can be very useful if you want to produce the finaldesign yourself, or some printers will do it for a fee. Some haveblank templates on their websites that you can use.We settled on two banners, 85cm wide by two metres high.I found printers on Ebay and emailed them for quotes making itclear that it must be suitable for use outdoors — printing ontoPVC/vinyl is fine but laminated paper is not.When ready you can just send your design to the printer andask them to supply the complete roller banner or just ask themto print the graphic and assemble the banner yourself. If goingthe DIY route, make sure the graphic is long enough to stretchseveral times around the roller drum when the banner is fullyextended. For a 2m high banner the extra is likely to be 20cm.I assembled ours and the cost worked out at £37.35 eachbanner. A printer is likely to charge a total of £60 to £100 forincluding assembly. When you see eyes swivel towards yourdisplay and people heading over to find out more — I think youwill agree with us that the cost and effort is all worthwhile!Joe Cairns, Richmond and Kingston PSC

24 palestine news in briefspring2011In Brief•Bulldozers leave Al AraqibAfter demolishing the poor Bedouin village of Al Araqibin the Naqab (Negev) 21 times and uprooting hundreds of theresidents’ fruit trees in order to plant its own forest, the JewishNational Fund removed its bulldozers, dismantled its work campand departed in April without finishing the planting.Rabbis for Human Rights — North America claimed that themove came as a result of mounting pressure and media coveragecombined with behind the scenes meetings they held withsupporters of JNF-US and board members of JNF-Israel (KKL-JNF).Meetings were arranged with Bedouin leaders and the JNF wereurged to freeze home demolitions in Al-Araqib and other Bedouinvillages.The Rabbis are now asking supporters to help them “turn thisinitial tactical gain into a strategic victory” by writing to the KKL-JNF World Chairman Efi Stenzler in Jerusalem at efis@kkl.org.il andtell him to “announce a JNF freeze on all home demolitions andforestation in the unrecognised Bedouin villages until Israeli courtsissue final rulings on the land’s ownership and a just and mutuallyagreed solution for these villages is reached between the Israeligovernment and the Negev Bedouin community.”Meanwhile the Recognition Forum, a coalition of groups workingfor Israeli recognition of the Bedouin villages, is seeking donationsto buy olive tree saplings to replace the ones uprooted by the JNF.Contributions may be sent to Recognition Forum, POB 1335, KfarSaba, 44113.•Palestinian infrastructuredestroyedThe “Freedom Road” in the northern West Bank district of Shalfitwas bulldozed by the Israeli authorities for the second time inMarch. The road is part of Palestinian attempts to build institutionsand infrastructure for a future Palestinian state.It goes through Area C which covers nearly 60% of the WestBank and, under the Oslo accords, should have been handed backto Palestinian control by the end of the 90s. But Israel demolishesanything that the Palestinians build in it.The Freedom Road was built by the Palestinian Authority andfunded by the US at a cost of $400,000. Prime Minister SalamFayyad opened it in September 2010 but the IDF destroyed it inNovember while Fayyad was abroad.The municipality rebuilt the road only to see it destroyed again.The village mayor, Abdul Kareem Rayan, said Israeli forces attackedlocals who tried to defend the road which provided a lifeline tovillagers. Meanwhile, Israel continues to build apartheid roads forsettlers in Area C.•Arab League awakesOn 10 April the Council of the Arab League called on theUnited Nations to convene an emergency special session of theSecurity Council, to consider the Israeli aggression on the GazaStrip and to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza, in order to protectcivilians against Israeli airstrikes.The call marked a new departure in the stance of the ArabLeague, as it openly rejected the West’s double-standards policytowards the Palestinian cause. In addition the Council demandedthe international community prosecute all Israeli war criminals andbring them to justice.The Council also called for the siege on Gaza to be lifted andwelcomed President Mahmoud Abbas’s recent initiative to achievePalestinian national reconciliation.•WaterapartheidWorld Water Day on 22 March was marked by theannouncement from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics(PCBS) that Palestinians use only 15% of the water fromunderground aquifers in the West Bank while Israelis use 85%. TheGaza Strip uses about 18% of the coastal aquifer while Israel takesthe rest — 82%.It also said that Israeli settlers consume seven times more of theWest Bank water than Palestinians. And it quoted a World BankPhoto: Khalil Ibrahim, www.demotix.com

spring2011 in briefpalestine news 25report of 2009 which said that Palestinians pay five times more thanthe settlers for obtaining water which encourages settlers to use anexcessive amount.•Latest triumphs of the“only democracy...”Several new laws have further consolidated Israel’s relentlessdrift towards apartheid and oppression of dissent.The so-called “Boycott Law” which would impose punitive fines onIsraelis who call for academic or economic boycotts passed its firstreading in the Knesset in March with 32 MKs voting in favour and 12against. Several MKs known to be opposed were absent for the vote.The draft law explicitly includes boycotts of goods from settlements.Opposing the law, MK Hanna Swaid of the Hadash party said it“violates freedom of expression and every citizen’s right to chooseto boycott products from the occupied territories. There is racismhere which must be condemned.”This was soon followed by the passing of the first reading ofthe “Citizenship Law” which would allow the State to revoke thecitizenship of anyone convicted of terror or espionage offencesagainst Israel or of undermining Israel's sovereignty, instigating waror aiding the enemy.The bill’s initiators, MKs David Rotem and Robert Ilatov of YisraelBeiteinu, said the legislation is aimed at stressing the connectionbetween the right to Israeli citizenship and loyalty to the state.Another law passed in March allows towns built on state landinside Israel not to sell land to Palestinian citizens of the state and toban them as residents.This blatantly apartheid law follows other recent ones such asthe “loyalty oath” law that turns Palestinian Israelis into secondclass citizens and one which does not allow them to live with theirPalestinian spouses from the Occupied Territories.•Kidnap in UkraineIn another outrageous flouting of international law, Israeladmitted that its secret service, Mossad, kidnapped Gaza’s chiefpower plant engineer while he was in Ukraine and illegally renderedhim to an Israeli torture centre and then prison.Dirar Abu Sisi, 42, was snatchedfrom a passenger train on 18 February.His Ukrainian wife, Veronika Abu Sisi,told a German press agency that helater telephoned her and said he wasbeing held in a secret Israeli prison.“Dirar said Israeli secret agentshad grabbed him and snuck himout of Ukraine,” she said. “He hasdone nothing, and I am absolutelyshocked.”Maksim Butkevych, spokesmanfor the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees inUkraine, said: “What happened looks like a violent abductionand not a legal extradition or any other legal action on the part ofauthorities.”•Call to visit Palestine inJulyMajor Palestinian civil society organisations and human rightsdefenders have issued a joint appeal to activists around the world tovisit Palestine on July 8 to 16 to take part in non-violent actions.The date has been picked because it was on 9 July, 2004, thatthe International Court of Justice ruled that the wall and settlementsbuilt in occupied territories are illegal and that Palestinians shouldbe compensated for the damage they have caused. A year laterPalestinian civil society organisations called for help in demandingthe implementation of the resolution through non-violent actionsincluding BDS.There is a rich programme planned including peace building inJerusalem, the Bethlehem area, Hebron old city, the Jordan Valley,refugee camps, the Ramallah area (including villages like Bilin) andthe Negev.The organisers say they “believe in the power of collectivenonviolent action” which has “shown its efficacy to bring hope andto transform reality.” They add: “We believe that every single oneof us is a change maker, and nobody has the right to deny us theaccess to suffering populations.”For more information visit www.bienvenuepalestine.com andpalestinejn.org•Stars fight to savebooksellerWorld class UK writers, Ian McEwan, Roddy Doyle, John Banvilleand Simon Sebag Montefiore and Israelis, Amos Oz and DavidGrossman, are among the host of voices petitioning for bookseller,Munther Fahmi, be allowed to stay in Jerusalem, the city of his birth.Fahmi, 56, runs an English-language bookstore in the forecourtof the world famous American Colony hotel, stocking it with worksof history and literature written by Arabs, Jews and scholars fromaround the world.Michael Palin and Munther Fahmi at the Palestine Festival ofLiterature 2009. Photo: Raoof Hajj YehiaWhile Israel gives anyone from anywhere in the world whohas one Jewish grandparent the right to live in Israel or its illegalsettlements, Jerusalem-born Palestinians are issued with residencypermits which they must keep up. Fahmi let his lapse when he spentseveral years in the US and since his return in the 1990s has beenliving in his home city on a succession of temporary tourist visaswhich 18 months ago the authorities warned that they would notrenew.David Grossman told The Observer newspaper that Fahmiwas one of many Palestinians whose residence in Jerusalem wasthreatened by Israeli laws. “What is being done to him is an outrage.It’s part of an attempt to embitter the lives of Palestinians so thatthey leave.”•Ill-treatment of childrenmust endA report by a group of MPs who watched children being tried inIsraeli military courts and were shocked and appalled by what theysaw calls for Israel to put an end to the mass arrest and ill-treatmentof minors.The report was released in March by the Britain-Palestine AllParty Parliamentary Group (BPAPPG) and based on a visit lastNovember to the West Bank by some of its members along with theCouncil for Arab British Understanding (Caabu).It shows that approximately 700 Palestinian children areprosecuted every year in military courts and that at the end ofJanuary 2011, 222 Palestinian children were being held in Israelijails.Richard Burden MP, Chair of the BPAPPG, said: “Having beento Palestine many times, I thought the area had lost its capacityto shock me. But when I saw the military court and what went on

26 palestine news in briefspring2011there, I knew that the area still had the capacity to shock me, with avengeance.“When I saw children come into the room, shuffling because theirlegs are shackled together, and with their hands in handcuffs, it hitme.“It hit me when I saw the look on the face of a child who onlywanted to see his mother, who had come to the court to see herchild, probably for the first time since he was arrested in the middleof the night.“When one sees such things for oneself, one cannot ignore itand say, ‘Well, this is just something to do with the political situationthere.’ It is totally unacceptable.”•Peace activist releasedAbdullah Abu Rahma, the coordinator of the PopularCommittee against the Wall and Settlements in Bil’in, was releasedin March after 15 months in an Israeli prison and was met by scoresof family members, friends and supporters.Draggedfrom his homein the middleof the nightin December2009, AbuRahma, 39,was initiallycharged withstone throwingand armspossession, thelatter based onthe collectionhe had madeof Israelibullet casings and tear gas canisters to prove how Israel violentlysuppresses peaceful demonstrations.He was cleared of those charges but convicted last Octoberof organising protest rallies. The case caused outrage round theworld; EU diplomats attended all the hearings and EU foreign policychief, Baroness Cathy Ashton, expressed her deep concern “thatthe possible imprisonment of Mr Abu Rahma is intended to preventhim and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right toprotest.”Thousands of Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons,subjected to ill-treatment and torture and often deprived of visitsfrom their families. The Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners states thatalmost half of the 315 prisoners arrested before the Oslo Agreementhave been in Israeli jails for over 20 years.There are more than 1,500 cases of serious illness amongprisoners but the Israeli authorities deny the prisoners adequatemedical care and often medication is limited to painkillers. About 14prisoners have been subjected to solitary confinement for more thanfive years.•Settlers seize JerusalemhousesAt 2.30 am on 2 April around 15 to 20 settlers seized a house inthe Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem Old City belonging to Mr NasserJaber. They had forced their way in but when Mr Jaber called thepolice the officers told him they would not remove the settlers. Hehad to bring the legal documents relating to the property to court.In the afternoon, police and military escorted another settlerinto the house while a crowd gathered to protest at the police andmilitary partiality. In court Mr Jaber was told a decision would betaken in a few days but until then he would not be able to access hishouse.Mr Jaber claims the settlers knew the house was temporarilyempty because renovation work was going on. Two more propertiesnearby were successfully occupied in the 90s and now the settlersare looking to strengthen their hold in this part of the Old City.A few days before this the American millionaire and settlerpatron, Irving Moskowitz, finally scored a sickening victory in hisConfrontation outside the Jaber house. Photo Silvia Boarini,www.demotix.comlong legal battle against the Hamdallah family when a court rulingmeant their probable expulsion from a bedroom and the front yardof their home to make way for fanatical settlers.The Hamdallahs, comprising three families, live in Ras al-Amud, on the edge of Ma’ale Zeitim, the biggest settlement ina Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Their house ispreventing the expansion of the settlement on its western border.This fact has fuelled Moskowitz for the past 16 years in pursuingfour claims simultaneously in separate courts in an attempt to evictthe family.In 1990, Moskowitz bought the land on which the Hamdallahhouse is built from religious seminaries that had been able toregister it in their name after the annexation of East Jerusalem.Israeli lawpermits Jewsto claimownership ofland ownedbefore 1948 —a privilege notextended tonon-Jews.In 2005 ajudge decidedthat theHamdallahscould keepeverythingbuilt before1989 but wereto be evicted Members of the Hamdallah family at homefrom anythingbuilt after that date. Two years later, Moskowitz filed a new suitwhich claimed the front yard and one bedroom should be includedin the sections to be evacuated. Though the bedroom extensionwas built in the mid-’80s, the judge ruled in his favour in March.Moskowitz then stated his intention to install a Jewish family in thebedroom, along with armed guards.The Hamdallahs’ lawyer, Shlomo Lecker, got an order to delaythe move for a month. He believes that, should the settlers beallowed to move into the appointed bedroom, “they will harassthe family until they want to leave completely, part of the drive toexpand Ma’ale Zeitim.” The Hamdallahs have been in Ras al-Amudsince 1952, after being displaced from their home in Ramle in1948.The room to be evacuated is home to Ahmad and AmaniHamdallah and their one year old baby. Amani says: “If they come into one bedroom, they will keep trying to take more and more. In mymind and my heart, I feel hopeless. If your house is taken, what doyou do?”

spring2011 ARTS & REVIEWSpalestine news 27Images of sufferingInjud al-Ashkar was hit by a phosphorusshell while sheltering from Israel’sonslaught on Gaza in a place shethought would be safe — an UNRWAschool. Two of her children were killed andshe lost her right hand.She looks straight at the camera inacclaimed photographer Kai Wiedenhofer’spicture with a serenity that belies hercontinuing distress in the aftermath of thistragedy. For Injud’s husband is a deaf muteand she used her hands to talk to him. Nowher marriage is in crisis.At the exhibition in London’s MosaicRooms of Wiedenhofer’s pictures fromGaza, The Book of Destruction, Injud, 33,was flanked by others with equally affectingstories. There was 16-year-old Jamilaal-Habash whose legs were sliced off bya missile fired on to the roof of her houseand Sabah abu Halima, 45, whose husbandand four children were burned to death byphosphorus shells. Sabah, who was alsoseverely burned, has now developed canceras a result of the phosphorus, the use ofwhich is illegal under international law.“We have electronic warfare now somissiles can be aimed extremely accuratelyand the Israeli army has a good reputation.But I wanted to show the reality of what itactually did to people,” Wiedenhofer toldPalestine News.“The Israelis like to preserve the myththat they just shoot at ‘guilty people.’ Mypictures reveal that is completely wrong.”Wiedenhofer first went to the OccupiedTerritories as a young man in the late80s but had been focusing on otherprojects since the mid 90s because hewas disillusioned by the lack of politicalprogress. But in 2009 he won the inauguralCarmignac Gestion Photojournalism Prizeand was awarded a grant to undertake anew body of work in the Gaza Strip.He found his subjects through the localhealth authority, charities and a femalecommunity worker who convinced manyof the women to pose. He photographedpeople in their own homes, using naturallight.“It was difficult to strike the balancebetween voyeurism and revealingsomething. I tried to reduce theinjury part of the picture as much aspossible.” Interspersed with the peoplewere beautifully composed pictures ofdevastating destruction, often shot in therosy light of dawn. Together they formed aharrowing collection which was also full ofhumanity and dignity.When the exhibition premiered in theMusée d’Art Moderne in Paris late last year,two men wearing ski masks and motorcyclehelmets tried to storm the building todamage the exhibits and an umbrella groupof Jewish organisations in France accusedWiedenhofer of “virulently anti-Israel views.”“They had to close the museum for a day.Everyone got to hear about it and after thatthe exhibition was full,” he said happily.Wiedenhofer doesn’t think his pictureswill change things. “If I believed that I wouldgo mad,” he said. “But perhaps we can helpsome of the people in the pictures. Probablynot all of them, but maybe a couple.”• The Book of Destruction: Gaza — OneYear After the 2009 War, by Kai Wiedenhoferwill be published by Steidl/FondationCarmignac Gestion on 6 June, £30.

28 palestine news ARTS & REVIEWSspring2011Surveillance and Control inIsrael/Palestine: population,territory and powerEdited by Elia Zurick, David Lyon andYasmeen Abu-LabanPublished by RoutledgeWay, way back I was joint author ofa Penguin book, The Technologyof Political Control. Its theme washow technologies were beingdeveloped in the UK to protect the statefrom attacks from within. The context wasthe “troubles” in Northern Ireland.So I jumped at the chance to review abook covering at least part of the sameterritory but now with Israel’s attempt tocontrol Palestine and Palestinians as thefocus and with technology advanced by 35years. Back then plastic bullets were cuttingedge. Now we have the Unmanned AerialVehicle (UAV) or drone.The drone is indeed the iconic newdevelopment in warfare and not just inIsrael. But it is Israel that makes 68% of theworld-wide market. Israeli UAVs monitorthe India/Pakistan border and are in use inThailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, the USborder with Mexico… and the UK is buyingthem too. This is just one instance of alarger phenomenon: Israel was ranked bySIPRI in 2008 as the sixth largest militaryexporter in the world. Other sources put itfifth or even third.It is not just hardwarebut also military doctrinethat is exported fromIsrael. Those US targetedassassinations by dronein Afghanistan. Whopracticed it first? And herewe see another successfor Israel. In deliberatelyand repeatedly breakingwhat were understood tobe the rules of warfare,they are having somesuccess in changingthose rules which areonly conventions.Israel has otherhigh-tech exports —homeland securitytechnologies are already in the$billions including passenger profilingsystems, biometrics, checkpoint systems,intruder detection systems. They all comewith the useful customer reassurance thatthey have been forged and tested in thelaboratory of Israel’s ongoing conflicts.A more mundane aspect of Israel’ssurveillance of its Arab population isfocused on the ID card and the checkpoint.The colour-coded ID card is central to aregime of selective but also essentiallyarbitrary exclusion. One provocative chaptersuggests that the whole apparatus isdesigned not to regulatemovement but simplyto discourage it. Theless they move aroundthe easier it is to forgetabout them.There is muchfascinating historicalmaterial, for exampleon the origins of theIsraeli census. And,this being an academicrather than an agitationalbook, there are extensivesummaries and critiquesof the available theories ofsurveillance.Several words ofwarning are, however,appropriate. Too few ofthe chapters attempt todescribe just what the technologies theyfeature actually do and how they work.And there is a good deal of overlap andhence repetition. It is possible, for instance,to learn the size of the Israeli weaponsindustry, or the colours of ID card jackets,once too often. The price (£85) suggeststhat the publishers expect their sales tocome almost exclusively from libraries.Probably they are right.Jonathan RosenheadBDS – The Global Strugglefor Palestinian RightsBy Omar BarghoutiHaymarket BooksOur South Africa moment hasfinally arrived!” concludesOmar Barghouti, transforming anegative concept into a harbingerof victory against Israeli apartheid. Thisis a must-have handbook, especially fornew activists, based on his collectedessays, lectures and articles highlightingthe 2004 call by PACBI (PalestinianCampaign for the Academic andCultural Boycott of Israel) and the2005 call for BDS by the PalestinianCivil Society Boycott, Divestment andSanctions Campaign which he cofounded.Of course, concerned individualswere shunning Israel well before 2001when PSC formally launched its boycottcampaign. It took years of regular, localbranch organising to make the boycottvisible as a movement in the UK andeven longer before it could be describedas global.Incidentally, author Iain Banks wasamong the first to help PSC promotethe boycott. He did not only “recentlyendorse” it as stated in the book. Andin 2002, as acknowledged, Hilary andSteven Rose initiated a petition callingfor an academic and cultural boycott.“Think global, actlocal,” was our adoptedmantra. The global aspectreceived a boost when170 Palestinian civilsociety organisationssigned up to the BDScampaign.Barghouti writes:“The heart of the BDScall is not the diverseboycotting acts it urgesbut this rights-basedapproach that addressesthe three basic rightscorresponding tothe main segmentsof the Palestinianpeople. Ending Israel’soccupation, ending itsapartheid and ending its denial of the rightof refugees to return together constitute theminimal requirements for justice and therealisation of the inalienable right to selfdetermination.”These principles are applicable toall forms of popular resistance to Israeliapartheid yet there is a focus here thatsometimes makes it appear that BDS is thestruggle, rather than a tactic.By taking ownership of BDS, Palestiniancivil society has exercised self-determinationwhile acknowledging that those whowill implement their calls for boycott areinternational grassroots solidarity activists.It is the responsibility of civil society,human rights defendersand solidarityorganisations globallyto operate BDSwherever we are tothe maximum of ourability and resources.Use this book to spreadit, explain it, advocateit, educate about it!We have a particularresponsibility to respondto the BDS call due tothe historic betrayalof the Palestiniansby successive Britishgovernments.Diane Langford“It is theresponsibility ofcivil society, humanrights defendersand solidarityorganisations globallyto operate BDS”

spring2011 arts & reviewspalestine news 29Journeys of the mindPowerfully affecting,” “a one-sided rant,” “brilliant, edge-of-thesofadrama,” “anti-semitic,” “should be compulsory viewing”:the comments about The Promise are still flooding ontothe internet. When Peter Kosminsky’s gripping drama wasscreened in February by Channel 4 it aroused more controversy —and inspired more dazzling reviews — than any TV drama in recentyears.Essentially it moves between the events leading up to thePalestinian Nakba in 1948 and current events in Israel and theOccupied Territories. The story is told through the eyes of Len, ayoung British sergeant posted to Palestine after assisting in theliberation of Belsen at the end of World War II, and through hisgranddaughter, Erin, who has discovered his diaries. Her trip toIsrael with her best friend, who is Israeli and has been called upto serve in the IDF, turns into an increasingly obsessive mission tocontact a Palestinian family Len befriended.Every key angle is covered. In Len’s story we see desperateJewish refugees fleeing the nightmare of the holocaust; ruthlessIrgun guerrillas; Len’s Jewish girlfriend who acts as an informer forthem; the kidnapping, torture, hanging and blowing up of Britishsoldiers; the massacre of Deir Yassin; the Palestinian family whobelieve that they will soon return to their home.“Erin’s physical and mental journeyparallels that of many outsiders whostart from a position of ignoranceand who are shocked and tested bythe reality they encounter”In Erin’s story we see her friend Eliza’s well-meaning “softZionist” parents; their peace activist son, disillusioned andpoliticised after serving in Hebron; his Palestinian friend who actsas Erin’s guide in the Occupied Territories; violent settlers, complicitIsraeli soldiers, suicide bombings, the siege of Gaza...Somehow Kosminsky has managed to weld all these elementsinto a hugely powerful and involving drama. Both Len and ErinErin (Clare Foy) discovers the WallPeter Kosminsky (right) on location with Mohammed (AliSuliman) and Len (Christian Cooke)go on a physical and mental journey of discovery and deepeningunderstanding — hers parallels that of many outsiders who startfrom a position of ignorance and who are shocked and tested by thereality they encounter.At a packed meeting at the Royal Television Society on 16 March,Kosminsky explained how the original idea was triggered by a letterfrom a British veteran telling of his experiences in Palestine after thewar and how he and his comrades felt forgotten and betrayed.Kosminsky’s researcher, Helen Barton, delved into the archives ofthe period and interviewed as many surviving veterans as possible— Len’s experiences and reactions are a distillation of this research.The idea of running Erin’s story alongside her grandfather’semerged as Kosminsky came across parallels between events inBritish-mandated Palestine and the present day, such as the Britishdynamiting the homes of Zionist terrorists and the IDF bulldozingthe homes of suicide bombers.Kosminsky said he approached the whole issue with absolutelyno agenda beyond turning his research into watchable drama.For instance, Len’s feelings shift from sympathy with the Jewishrefugees to antipathy as Zionist guerrillas target British soldiers, thento sympathy with the indigenous Palestinians whose likely fate wasbecoming increasingly clear. In this he simply mirrors the changingemotions reported by the veterans.No doubt aware of the likely impact of his work, Kosminskycarried out an immense amount of research himself, spendingmonths reading respected modern Israeli historians, and a team oflawyers vetted the accuracy of all the facts referred to in the film. Hesaid he was taken aback by the “highly intemperate” language usedby some viewers who simply would not accept that Israel couldbehave in the way described.He talked about the challenges of filming on location — virtuallythe whole film was made in Israel with Jewish and Palestinian Israeliactors — and he paid tribute to the professionalism of his Israelifilm crew and cast. He said: “There was a scene where a Jewishactress plays a Jewish settler, who has a screaming match with aPalestinian woman played by an Israeli Arab. It was a very hostilescene, it felt tense. At the end they wanted to be photographedtogether as actors.”Hilary Wise• The Promise is available on DVD from Play.com or Amazon

30 palestine news ARTS & REVIEWSspring2011Our Way to Fight: Peace work undersiege in Israel-PalestineBy Michael RiordonPublished by Pluto PressTwo Israeli women burst into tears at acheckpoint. An Arab doctor has just jumpedout of an ambulance to yell his thanks to them.His patient, a labouring mother, had been heldup for hours and the women had refused to leaveuntil the vehicle was allowed through.It is beautifully written little vignettes like thiswhich overcome your “Palestine fatigue” and makeyou want to read this informative book aboutactivists on the ground.Michael Riordon has a sharp eye for detail andan easy journalistic style. He interviews nervousactivist Daphne Banai about her first shift with theIsraeli women’s peace group, Checkpoint (Machsom) Watch, andquotes her saying: “We were surrounded by Palestinians and everyone of them I saw as a terrorist who was going to blow himself up orstab me. Most people in Israel are driven by this kind of fear, we’rebrainwashed with it.”Another scene has two young Palestinian women strolling bareheadedthrough Nablus, defending the choice of their peers who —unlike them — wear the hijab.And I love the Palestinian farmer who correctsthe writer when he calls an olive tree old because,at three or four centuries of age, it is only a youngtree.There is no shying away from the occupationand some of the nonsense put forward to justify it,however. Welcome to the census, Israeli-style.“…hundreds of soldiers invaded the village [ofHares] again and arrested more than 150 people.Most were blindfolded and bound, some beaten.When witnesses from the International Women’sPeace Service asked why, an army officer replied thatthey wanted to update their database on the village.”There’s also damning material about Palestiniancitizens of Israel. For every $1,000 invested in theeducation of a Jewish child, his Arab counterpartwill get $200. And the Arab student must travel to ahostile Jewish town to sit university entrance — since1981 the Israeli government has refused permissionfor an Arab university.But to end on a more optimistic note, New Profile, the NGOwhich helps young refusers, is now getting 60 enquiries a month ascompared to only four when they set up seven years ago. It’s a longold haul but this book will help many a campaigner to keep goingand is likely to recruit some more.Sharen GreenWhat it Means to be Palestinian: Storiesof Palestinian PeoplehoodBy Dina MatarPublished by I.B.TaurisThis book is based on in-depth interviews andconversations with Palestinians, male andfemale, old and young, rich and poor, religiousand secular, in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel,the Occupied Territories and England. They providea deep and intimate account of what it means to bePalestinian in the 21st century.The stories are told chronologically throughwearing phases of the Palestinian national struggle,beginning with “On the road to Nakba: Palestineas a Landscape and a People, 1936–1948,” whichdescribes the revolt against British rule in Palestine.This is followed by “Living the Nakba: ‘In the Perilous Territory ofnot-Belonging,’ 1948–1964” when Israel was established and thePalestinians were fleeing their homes and becoming refugees intheir own country.The author quotes her own father, Henry Matar, who wanted toco-author the book but died before it came to fruition: “I could notcope with the occupation. I bade farewell to my friends and familyand made my way to Damascus,” exemplifying the despair of thecatastrophe of 1948.Ellen Kettaneh Khouri, who was born in Beirut after her parentswere exiled from Jerusalem after the establishment of Israel,expresses the feeling of void and anguish because of the loss ofPalestine by saying: “I was cut off from a tree, as we say in Arabic:ma’tou’a min shajarah.”The third chapter, “Raising the Fedayeen: Between Romanceand Tragedy, 1964–1970,” describes the years which gave rise toarmed civilian rebellion. Salah Mohammed, one of the RPG kids —an RPG was the anti-tank shoulder-mounted rockets that youngPalestinians carried to slow down the Israeli advance in southernLebanon in 1982 — recalls: “And then the interrogations and thepsychological torture began. My interrogators would not believe Iwas 13, insisting I could not be older than nine. I was small for myage in those days.”Samira Salah, who was active in the Palestinian Women’s Unionand member of the Palestine National Council, reveals: “It is a mythto say women were left behind and were not part of the revolution...We were active at home and on the battlefield, tending to peopleA Case for Protestwho had lost martyrs, relatives or who weredisplaced.”“Living the Revolution: Living the Occupation,1970-1987, the era of ‘War of the [Lebanese]Camps’” continues the story then the bookconcludes in 1993 with the Oslo peace agreementand its aftermath with a chapter called “Children ofthe Stones: Living the first intifada.” Khaled Ziadeh,the only Gazan interviewed outside of Gaza, says:“Everyone who lived and witnessed the intifada has astory to tell.” In this book Dina gives them a welcomelong-awaited voice!Dina Matar is a lecturer in Arab Media andInternational Political Communication at the Centre forFilm and Media Studies, SOAS, and co-editor of “TheMiddle East Journal of Culture and Communication.”Maha RahwanjiACase for Protest is a 45 minute documentary by Jon Pullmanthat explores the case of the SPSC5. It follows five membersof the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign from theiraccounts of initially forming or joining the group to protestingat an appearance of the Jerusalem Quartet, their subsequent arrestand trial last year on charges of breach of the peace and racism.The film does a fine job of tracing the trajectory of the groupfrom first learning about Palestine to their reasons for protesting,their deep commitment and their willingness to go to trial and to puttheir future on the line. It is emotionally engaging to the point where,when they win their court case, this viewer felt like standing up andcheering.The film also explains with clarity why the Jerusalem Quartet isan important target. There is a glimpse into how the Zionist publicrelations machine sells an image — evidence of the Quartet’s ties tothe military is pushed aside in the service of “pure art.”High production values and professional narration work to makeA Case for Protest an excellent piece of documentary grassrootsfilmmaking. I highly recommend it as perfect for discussion andfundraising. Watch it on-line or order the disk for a modest fee bycontacting jonpullman@yahoo.co.uk.Naomi Woodspring, Bristol PSC

spring2011 ADVERTISEMENTSpalestine news 31The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme inPalestine & Israel (EAPPI) provides protectionby presence, supports Israeli and Palestinianpeace activists and advocates for an end to theoccupation.Human RightsObserversKnown as Ecumenical AccompaniersBased in the West Bank and Israel in 201218 vacancies for 3 months’ service2 vacancies for 4.5 months’ serviceliving allowance + benefitsDeadline for applications: 23rd June 2011For more information and to download anapplication pack please check our website:www.quaker.org.uk/applyeappi.(Please note that we will not be sending hardcopies of the application pack)International Summer Campand Workshops in PalestineMay 28th–June 12th, 2011Join “Rays of Justice,” a ZajelInternational Youth ExchangeProgramme, for a two week summer campat the An-Najah National University inNablus.The programme includes lectures, working withPalestinian university students and communityactivities related to social youth development. Livingand working together in Nablus, the volunteerswill gain a better understanding of themselves,Palestinian social/political questions and thecontinuing Palestinian struggle for freedom.For more information see:http://youth.zajel.org/summer_camps/camp2011-rays-of-justice.htmFor the information packet and application formplease contact: placement@najah.eduor zajel.camp@gmail.comJoin thePalestineSolidarityCampaignJoin PSC / make a donationNameAddressPostcodeTelephoneE-mailIndividual £24.00 Unwaged £12.00Plus a donation (optional) ofI enclose a cheque of(payable to PSC)Affiliation fees for trade unions and otherorganisations are: £25 local; £50 regional;£100 national.To cover the additional costs of overseasmembership please pay the equivalent of US$35in your local currencyStanding orderPaying this way helps PSC plan ahead more effectivelyName of BankAddressPostcodeAccount numberSort codePlease pay £12 £24 Other £Monthly / Quarterly / Yearly (delete as applicable)To PSC Cooperative BankAccount No. 65147487 (sort code 08 92 99)From (date) / / until further noticeNameSignaturePlease return this form to:PSC Box BM PSA London WC1N 3XX

32 palestine newsspring2011END THE SIEGEON GAZA —FREE PALESTINESaturday 14 May 2011Assemble 12noon oppositeDowning Street,Whitehall, London SW1A(nearest tube Westminster)Join us for a protest vigil tocommemorate the Nakba and todemand the government act to endthe siege on Gaza.Many more events listed on the PSCwebsite!Fair news meetingCome to listen to a panel of experts talkingabout whether reporting on Palestine andIsrael is fair and balanced.Tim Llewellyn, the BBC’s former Middle Eastcorrespondent, Greg Philo, Research Directorof the Glasgow Media Group, and Abdel BariAl-Atwan, editor of Al Quds will discuss:• Does newspaper and TV reporting favourone narrative over the other?• How does this influence public perception?• Is real damage done to the Palestinians’hopes for justice?• What pressure do journalists come underfrom their news organisations when trying toreport the facts?Greg Philo will be signing copies of his newbook, More Bad News from Israel.Date: Monday 23 May, 2011Time: 7pm–9.30pmVenue: Amnesty International,Human Rights Action Centre,New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EAEntrance is free but advance registration isessential. Please email events@memonitor.org.uk to reserve a place.