Walls, Settlements and Ethnic Cleansing

Yet the rugged terrain and garigue, so typical of the Mediterranean landscape, are scarred by the crushing sprawl of new Jewish settlements in the surrounding area. Militant orthodox Jews set up home here. Unlike the typical settlements which exist all over the Occupied Territories, here settlers control parts of the valleys and they are slowly but steadily besieging the Nablusi in the middle.

Typical Jewish settlements first appear when caravans are strategically placed on hill tops. These then turn into building sites that spread on the hillsides displacing Palestinians and usurping their land. In their effort, settlers are supported by the state. The Israeli author Tikva Honig-Parnass aptly observed how in the past 60 years Jewish Zionist politics treated Palestinians like an “environmental nuisance” that needs to be swept away. Other Israeli activists have commented on efforts to remove inconvenient Arab residents since the advent of the infamous Nakba of 1948.

 Brutal ethnic cleansing takes place on a daily basis as expounded by scholar Ilan Pappe’. In the past days we have heard of such cleansing efforts in the northern town of Yanun and some other towns and villages where residents are offering resistance to new settlements. There settler harass Palestinians on a daily basis; Israeli soldiers close off the area without any warning; land is systematically confiscated denying farmers of their olive groves and access to water tanks. Away from the glare of the television cameras and the attention of global news media, there exist silent but resilient struggles by villagers in most areas of Palestine.

Take the village of Yasir Az-Zarka, which I visited only yesterday. It is adjacent to an Israeli municipality which boasts the oldest Jewish settlements that were sponsored by Baron Rothschild in the 1880s. Zarka is the last remaining Palestinian village on the shores of the Mediterranean, apart from those that are confined within the Strip of Gaza.

Try to look up Zarka on a map or try to look for road signs and you will hardly find any indication. Ask for directions to Israelis inhabiting the affluent clusters, whose comfortable homes are coloured bybougainvillea creepers just outside the historical park of Caesarea.  You immediately realize they hardly have a clue Zarka exists as these Israelis exist on a different plane from the Bedouins that inhabit Zarka. There you can walk the unpaved road in the midst of decrepit Palestinian houses; men idling their lives away in open tea shops because there is no economic activity whatsoever. Children learning from the street what they may never learn at school. They look at our Jerusalem-registered car with suspicion.

I was told that there were recent riots in Zarka; the authorities disconnected the water supply as the inhabitants cannot afford to meet the bills. I saw generations of villagers that were being pushed, squeezed, isolated and punished for one unpardonable crime: They are resisting dislocation.

No wonder that the Jewish settlements are the biggest bone of contention in the Middle East peace process. And since the settlements are growing with the blessing of the Israeli government, no wonder that the Palestinians have come to believe that peace talks are mere delaying tactics to keep depriving them of their rights.

I reached the city of Nablus merely two days before Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly to demand full Palestinian membership of the United Nations. Palestinians aspirations had been immediately frustrated by Barack Obama’s opposition and by declarations issued by the Quartet that peace negotiations should resume as soon as possible. Israel immediately responded with a provocation: the construction of a new 1, 200 Jewish dwellings in the Palestinian East Jerusalem.

I joined the crowds that gathered in Nablus’s dawwara on the evening of September 23. I went with a new friend whose love for her people is truly inspiring. That day the city centre was packed with families: men, women, youth and kids. The international media were somehow anticipating uprisings but this was an entirely peaceful festival that celebrated Palestinian culture. The music stopped just when Mahmoud Abbas was about to deliver his speech, which was screened for the benefit of the crowd attending the rally. As soon as he commenced, the transmission came to a mysterious halt. A voice announced that the television station was being deliberately jammed. People waited patiently until they could resume watching the speech on a foreign station. In the dawwara people applauded Abbas, as did most of the world leaders in New York.

The Palestinian leader delivered a speech that earned him respect and support. During the rally I heard people say that Abbas reminded them of Yasser Arafat’s heyday. But there was also resentment towards Barack Obama, the man who claimed that we should all have the Audacity to Hope; the man who was awarded a premature Nobel Peace Prize mainly on the basis of his promise to deliver peace in the Middle East. “We will never trust the Americans and the Europeans again” one disappointed man told me. While many were angered but not surprised that Israelis responded to Palestinian aspiration with the setting up of new settlements in East Jerusalem, Washington’s response cuts deeper.

Congress has now blocked $200 million of aidto Palestinians. Long are the days since Obama’s Cairo Speechwhere he declared  “Wewill not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own” and his opposition to Jewish settlements. Rife are the rumours that the US president backed down on his Palestinian promises because his arms were twisted by domestic politics. Obama’s bid for a second term in office depends on Jewish support; it is estimated that in the last presidential election he obtained 78% of the US Jewish vote.  

The cut in US aid will have devastating effects on Palestinians as most of this money was being spent on health care and infrastructural projects. Palestine is one of the biggest aid receivers in the world.  External aid makes up a third of the Occupied Territories’ GDP, even though aid has been dwindling in the past years. Some claim that aid fosters dependency but I have met some very enterprising Palestinians who cannot advance merely because of the Occupation. This week the Palestinian Authority published a study on the cost of occupation.  It concluded that in 2010 the total costs imposed by the Israeli occupation amounted to 85% of the total estimated Palestinian GDP. It was stated that if Palestinians were not subject to occupation, their economy would be double the size it is today.Palestinians cannot make their economy work as long as they do not become a sovereign state.

On top of all this, very striking is the apartheid that is forcing Palestinians into poverty and dependency. Striking are the separate roads and The Wallthat separates the West Bank from Israel. Over 20 years ago the world rejoiced with the fall of the Berlin Wall but little did we know that less than two decades later, world leaders would be turning a blind eye to another Wall that confines Palestinians. One can only cross The Wall at checkpoints, so non-Jews need to travel for many hours to merely visit villages on the other side of The Wall that are actually only a few kilometres away from where they live. There are days when the crossings are closed for Palestinians, like last weekend when Jews were busy celebrating their New Year.

Apartheid systems became immediately clear to me as I was being driven by one of the underemployed youths of East Jerusalem. He has post-graduate qualifications from a prestigious international university; yet in spite of his credentials there are very few work opportunities for intelligent young people like him so he is now resigned to earn a living driving. Israeli occupation is pushing one fourth of the Palestinians into such underemployment. These are luckier than the other one fourth of the Palestinians who are unemployed and the one-third of all Palestinians who are living in poverty, as reported earlier this month by Oxfam.

I have to acknowledge that I did not really know what to expect when I decided to head towards the Occupied Palestinian Territories. My perceptions of the region where shaped by years reading about the human tragedies and the myriad political failure that afflict the region. My family resented this trip. Most of my friends responded with calculated hesitation. I arrived with little knowledge of what is happening on the ground but it did not take me long to gain a deeper understanding. People on the street are very conscious of what is being played in the world of High Politics; nonetheless most of them only wish to lead a normal life where they have jobs, they feel secure and they can obtain the human dignity and rights that are only afforded by citizens of nation states.

Last week I stood in an open ground in front of the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in Ramallah. There the Maltese flag was among those of all the nations supporting Palestinian statehood. Malta has a moral obligation to speak vociferously and clearly about the Palestinians’ right to sovereignty as we have the responsibility to defend the rights of others. Whereas too many players are gambling the future of Palestinians for their own ends, as a small nation we can maintain our moral ground by standing tall and using a strong voice in the community of nations.