Report #16: The Agricultural Gates, The Wall/Fence, And The International Community's Complicity

View from Jayyous Town Hall looking west towards Israel. The horizontal brown scar across the picture is the Separation Fence. The Green Line—the internationally acknowledged Israel/West Bank border—follows the horizontal edge of the green area in the middle distance. The lands belonging to Jayyous farmers on the Israeli side of the Fence are between the two. Some lands were confiscated. Some are still owned by Jayyous farmers who can farm them if they can get the necessary permits from the Israelis. Many can not.

The photo shows that the Wall/Fence in the Jayyous area was not built on the Green Line, the internationally recognised future border between Israel and the putative state of Palestine, but several km to the east, thus confiscating some land from Jayyous farmers but leaving some land in their possession in what is called a "Seam Zone"—see photo. To access their land, these farmers need a permit to cross through the agricultural gates provided for this purpose, and these permits are difficult to obtain and frequently withdrawn.

This morning the last farmers to arrive at the gate just before it was supposed to close at 0745 was a group of four young men and an older one in a yellow Mercedes lorry. It and they come most days to harvest crops—today Za'atar and wheat—which they then sell in the market in Nablus some 20km away, and no one expected a problem. However one of the young men was told he had been blacklisted by the Shebat, the Israeli version of MI5, and could not cross despite his permit being in order. This seemed unlikely because, apart from his having a valid permit, his father has a permit to work in Israel for which you have to be squeaky clean in security terms. So the men protested and the soldier went off to phone for confirmation. At 0830 the young man was told he could cross, and off they all went having lost 45 minutes work time. The 45 minutes we waited was pleasant enough in one way. It was sunny, the four soldiers chatted together as did the Palestinians, and I chatted to one of the young men who spoke some English. He told me among other things that three of them were recent university graduates in history, accounting and finance, but none could find a job to use their skills and training. He himself wanted to get married but couldn't until he found a job.

But this is just the 10% of ice on the iceberg of the Occupation. I want to draw your attention to the 90% which people often don't see or think about.

·      First: these men were trying to access their land. Why should they have to go through all this to simply work their land? There are, of course, farmers who have actually had their land taken by Israel, but that's another story covered in my previous Report #15.

·      Second: Israel is fully entitled to build a Wall/Fence along its border for security reasons if it wishes to. But the Wall/Fence here (and along most of its route) was not built on the Green Line but on Palestinian land. Israel claims the Wall/Fence is for security reasons and no doubt this is partly true. But it is also clear that the route of the Wall/Fence is designed to include within Israel all the settlements along the edge of, and sometimes far within,  the West Bank, thus pre-empting any peace agreement with the Palestinians on borders. This is true in the Jayyous area: the Wall/Fence pursues a zig zag route precisely to include several settlements within Israel. It was for this reason that the International Court of Justice in an advisory ruling in July 2004 stated that the Wall is illegal, that it should be demolished where it isn't on the Green Line, and that Israel should pay compensation to those adversely affected by it (see www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1677.pdf). Israel has ignored this ruling and has continued to build the Wall/Fence in precisely the way that was condemned.

·      Third: the ICJ in its ruling also described in paras 154-159 the obligations of other States in respect of this illegal Wall. These are:

o      not to recognise the illegal situation caused by the Wall;

o      not to render aid and assistance in maintaining the situation;

o      to see that any impediment to the exercise by the Palestinian people to self-determination is brought to an end; and

o      ensure that Israel complies with International Law.

·      Fourth: it is clear to me that no State or part of the international community, for example, the EU, has made any attempt to fulfil its legal obligations as given above. The USA continues to support Israel with lots of government aid and private tax-aided donations, the EU to offer favourable trading conditions, and as is obvious here, many countries ameliorate the conditions caused by the Wall/Fence rather than trying to get Israel to move it to the Green Line. Hence the UK, the EU and the USA are all complicit in the situation my farmer friend found himself in this morning. "Not in my name!".

Mike Barnes, 30 May 2010

Report #13: How The Army Runs The West Bank, And Israeli Peace Groups Continued

1. Introduction


This Report picks up on one facet of the occupation I had not realised clearly until I heard a talk by an ex-soldier from Breaking the Silence during our early training in Jerusalem, and that is that this is a military occupation. This sounds so obvious that I am embarrassed to state it so bluntly, but I'll summarise what he told us below. I will also describe the Israeli Peace Groups other than those featured in Report #10. For this I thank my fellow British EA, Pat Devlin, who has allowed me to use her description of these groups. MachsomWatch, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD, and its British branch) and Breaking the Silence are the voice of alternative and better Israel, and we should applaud them and support them in their often lonely work whenever we get the chance.


2. The military occupation of the West Bank


• How does the GOI (Government of Israel) see the occupation? They rarely use the word but see it in a direct and continuous line from the Ottoman Empire, through the British occupation and Mandate (1917 to 1948) and then the Jordanian occupation (1948 to 1967). Since then the West Bank has been "held" in Israeli hands. In the GOI's view, no independent Palestinian state ever existed, hence it cannot be "occupied" but is rather "disputed" territory. Needless to say the international community and UN resolutions disagree with this legal fiction, and call for the application of the full panoply of international and humanitarian law to be applied in the West Bank.
• Martial law: it may be a legal fiction, but the result is that the Palestinians in the West Bank are ruled by martial law and the Israeli Army even though the Army bureaucracy is called the "Civil Administration". Ultimate control lies with the Minister of Defense, currently Ehud Barak.
• Which laws are applied? The laws that existed during the British and Jordanian occupations are still used for the Palestinians with some crucial exceptions such as their right to influence the planning and development of their own towns and villages which was removed in 1971 by military order. Many of the laws still applied are by modern standards primitive. For example, the definition of "children" in Israel is 14, in the West Bank applied to Palestinians it is 12.
• Military courts: A major consequence is that all courts for Palestinians in the West Bank are military courts: the judges and prosecutors are soldiers in uniform, they are run in Hebrew, and the conditions applied such as how long a person can be held without seeing a lawyer or judge are different from those applying in Israel (8 days versus 24 hours).
• The importance of "security": martial law also explains the ethos of the higher Courts in Israel who may take appeals from lower courts. The Israeli Supreme Court, for example, tends to take a liberal western perspective until the word "security" is mentioned. They then take military advice in coming to their judgements.
• The Israeli Army is structured and trained for war not for occupation. And what do soldiers (naturally) do? They make their presence felt by conducting aggressive actions in Palestinian space so that the Palestinian population always feels the Army "breathing down their necks". They do this by conducting patrols in Palestinian villages, arresting people in the night, shooting in the air and firing stun grenades, taking village houses as temporary bases, making house arrests and curfews, and looking for Palestinian collaborators many of which activities we ourselves have witnessed in Jayyous. There is no point in asking why the Army does these things, it's what armies do.
• Ignorance by the Army of the West Bank: An Army unit will often control a part of the West Bank for 4 months, but because these are Army units, they know very little about the West Bank, for example, the difference between Areas A, B and C, or the procedures at checkpoints. In addition, the conscripts and NCOs have had no official training for occupation, and EAs (for example) have much more information than they have. Soldiers tend therefore to rely on their instinct in making judgements, and, because they are trained for war, tend to treat everyone as a potential enemy. So they are likely to be apprehensive or even frightened, and bored as well—a lethal combination which may explain why some of them are aggressive and suspicious at checkpoints, and their (to us) extreme behaviours during Army incursions into Jayyous.
• Demonstrations and protests: A further consequence is the way demonstrations and protests—of which there are many more here than are ever reported abroad—are handled and this is the cause of much of the violence that regularly occurs. Martial law requires that any group of 10 or more Palestinians ask permission for a march or demonstration. Most organisers don't ask because permission will likely be refused and asking is tantamount to accepting the occupation. So all protests are deemed ipso facto illegal by the army and are essentially riots which the army can deal with by any necessary military means. The standard procedure is for the soldiers
o to shout that this is a closed military zone in Hebrew and then Arabic and protesters must go away
o to use stun grenades which make a very loud noise a few seconds later
o to fire tear gas, supposedly but not always @ 60 degrees into the air
o to fire rubber bullets, and finally
o to fire live ammunition.
• Complete control of the Palestinian population: our speaker from MachsomWatch emphasised the increasing and pervasive nature of the permit and magnetic card system used to control Palestinians in all aspects of their lives. She also said that changes are part of the control system: what was OK yesterday is not OK today because this is unsettling.
• This is all counter-productive: The speaker from Breaking the Silence pointed out that these sort of actions are all counter-productive: they stimulate hostility, and so the Army is dealing with a situation created by the occupation itself. This seems obvious, but not apparently to the military.
• The law for settlers in the West Bank is the civilian law of Israel. Settlements are themselves illegal under the 4th Geneva Convention, and the discrimination between the law applied to Palestinians and that to settlers is also illegal under the same Convention.


3. Israeli Peace Groups (continued from Report #10)


Machsom Watch http://www.machsomwatch.org
• This is a group of Israeli women, many of them grandmothers, who since 2001 have organised themselves to monitor the checkpoints which control the entry of Palestinians into Israel, but also control the movement of Palestinians around the West Bank. They also monitor the Military Courts which deal with detained Palestinians, many of whom are young boys arrested on suspicion of stone throwing and appearing without legal representation. Machsom Watch estimate that there are currently 40 permanent checkpoints in the West Bank (see website for listing).
• At the big checkpoints like Qualandyia in the north, Qalqiliya near Jayyous, and checkpoint 300 near Bethlehem in the

south, where thousands of people start queuing from the early hours before they enter the checkpoint at 4am in the morning to reach their work, university or hospital appointment, women from Machsom Watch monitor the Israeli side and EAPPI team members monitor the Palestinian side. They watch for human rights abuses: humiliating or aggressive behaviour on the part of the soldiers, protracted delays, late opening of gates etc.
• We EAs call them if we see any of these things happening. They have direct access to the Israeli District Coordinating Officer and are admitted to the Military Courts and other places, where non Israelis cannot gain access


Breaking the Silence (www.shovrimshtika.org)
is an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers that collects testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifadah and Gaza. Soldiers who serve in the Territories are witness to, and participate in military actions which change them immensely, and the way they are ordered to treat Palestinians often conflicts with their Jewish ethical upbringing at home. This reality is known to Israeli soldiers and commanders to exist in Israel's back yard, but Israeli society continues to turn a blind eye, and to deny what happens in its name. Discharged soldiers who return to civilian life discover the gap between the reality which they encountered in the Territories , and the silence which they encounter at home. Since 2004, Breaking the Silence has collected testimonies from over 650 soldiers who have served in the teritorries since the beginning of the second Intifadah. The collectors of the testimonies are veteran combatants themselves. Every soldier who gives a testimony to Breaking the Silence knows the aims of the organization and the interview. ‘We demand accountability regarding Israel's military actions in the Occupied territories perpetrated by us and in our name.’ The testimonies are published in booklets and on the web site—see above. They give talks both within Israel and overseas and they organize alternative tours of Hebron and the South Hebron Hills. We heard from our Hebron team that the Breaking the Silence leader of the last tour was arrested for his pains.


Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) ( www.ICAHD.org)
Perhaps better know in the UK because of its British branch, ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action group originally established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories by physically sitting in front of bulldozers and mobilizing activists to help with rebuilding. Their familiarity with realities "on the ground" gives them frequent contacts with diplomats, fact-finding missions, the public and the media. ICAHD aids Palestinians in filing police claims, in dealing with the Israeli authorities, in arranging and subsidizing legal assistance. ICAHD took us on our tour of Jerusalem when we first arrived and explained the housing crisis to us. Our EA Jerusalem team work closely with them


Mike Barnes
20 May 2010

REPORT #12: JOY and DELIGHT

It isn't often that we meet not one but two Palestinian village mayors whose faces beam with joy and delight. But it happened last evening as a result of their villages being moved from the Israeli "seam zone" to the West Bank 6 days ago. Their feelings were tempered somewhat by the loss by some of their villagers of land and trees, but there was no doubt of their overall feelings. The story is as follows. Because it depends on the crazy way in which Israel's Wall/Fence zig zags around this area to incorporate the settlements built illegally on West bank Palestinian land into Israel, we need part of the same map I showed in Report #4 to make sense of it all.

The story concerns three small villages Wadi ar Rasha, Ad Dab'a and Ras at Tira, total population 1200. You can find them on the map near the large words in red "Ras 'Atiya", and close to the purple/mauve settlement area marked Alfe Menashe. You will see this whole area surrounded by a red/black line which represents the Wall/Fence. You will also see a dotted red line near the settlement: this is a new Wall. 

When Israel built its Wall/Fence in this area 7 years ago, the three villages and their lands were incorporated into the Seam Zone around Alfe Menashe settlement, that is within territory that is directly connected by road to Israel and which Israel considers, contrary to international law, to be its own territory. Many of the Palestinian inhabitants of these villages worked for example as teachers in the West Bank which, if they had permits, they accessed via a checkpoint marked on the map as a red circle with a white cross in the middle. Even for those with permits, this checkpoint like others was a constant source of delay and aggravation. When we first visited these villages in March, we found a car with a bride inside stranded on the West Bank side of the wall. The mayor of Ras at Tira had gone to enormous trouble to get permits for all the many wedding guests and participants, but a new team of soldiers at this checkpoint made real problems and she was delayed for her own wedding.

There were innumerable problems of this kind over the years, and the Palestinians suggested the villages should be placed outside the Wall/Fence in the West Bank. After due legal process this has been done. A new Wall (not a Fence) has been constructed closer to Alfe Menashe settlement and the old Fence and checkpoint are being removed although leaving a 100 yard wide scar across the hills and fields.

The advantages of their new position are many. The main one is that the villagers now have their freedom to come and go within the West Bank, and to visit friends and relatives. Our taxi driver used to be good friends with one of the mayors but hadn't been able to visit him for 7 years. He described to us the strange feeling of being able to drive into this land from which he had been excluded for so long. Another is the recovery of lands that were  inaccessible before.

There are also disadvantages. Some people have lost their jobs in the settlement. Others have lost land and trees behind the new Wall—although this will have  two agricultural gates to access trees left in the Seam Zone during the olive season, many people will find it difficult to access their trees. But the balance of feelings is very  positive.

I can add some other points of interest.

·      Mayors: we have met many Mayors of West Bank towns and villages. I think without exception they have been impressive and capable. They are elected. Mayors of small villages like these do the job unpaid. It is a huge worry, they have to deal with the Israeli authorities and legal issues, and do the best for their village. The two Mayors we met yesterday have full-time jobs in Israel as construction workers (not in settlements) which means starting from home at 0430 or 0500. Mayors of larger towns such as Jayyous are salaried, but the worry level is high, too.

·      Families: as in many places, villagers here belong largely to an extended family started in this case in the early 1800s by someone who came here.

·      Security: the Israelis claim that the Wall/Fence is for the security of the settlers. The Mayor here stated that since 1983 when Alfe Menashe was founded, there had been no incidents even of stone throwing. Israeli security is threatened by their constant theft of land for settlements—seems obvious really.

·      Bedouin villages: there are also two Bedouin villages in the Alfe Menashe seam zone, Arab Abu Farda and Arab ar Ramadin al Janubi. The former have no papers for the land they live on, and Israel will in time move them on. People in the latter have the correct papers for their land from 60 years ago, and can access the West Bank through a checkpoint. They have no intention of moving.

Mike Barnes

18 May 2010