In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, the newly-appointed head of the Israeli government press office, Oren Helman, spoke about foreign media and their need to see a different side to Israel than the one which is so often a focus in international media. Aside from the conflict, Helman talks about a new initiative called ‘There is more to Israel’ or TIMTI for short. He wants to ‘take them to see things, give them briefings, give them more information’. All of this seems fair and appropriate for a government press office. Helman then uses, as his example, the West Bank city of Hebron. He tells the Jerusalem Post, ‘You have to bring them there to see what is being talked about. It is not how they say, a city under the oppressive occupation of the Israelis. People are not suffering that greatly there.’ As a reflection of this, he cites the three malls and a new $10 million sports center found in Hebron.
After reading this, I took my own trip to Hebron, so that I too could see what was being talked about. As the bus entered the city, I saw the sports center and one or two of the malls. But a five-minute walk away from this main street, one reaches the edge of the old city of Hebron. Again, this is a bustling area with all manner of stalls and shops peddling their goods to the crowds of people walking through.
However, as I walk deeper into the old city, the crowds diminish as do the stalls and shops. Only two-three minutes’ walk from the main entrance to the old city, there are more shops closed then there are open. Above our heads a battered mesh covers the market street. On that mesh are rocks, some the size of dinner plates, interspersed with all manner of rubbish. One shopkeeper shows me the singed hole of his shop’s tarpaulin cover, the result of a burning object being thrown down through the mesh and landing in his shop. Above the market reside a number of Israeli settlers (approximately 400 in the center of Hebron), many of whom show their objection to the Palestinians below through such acts of violence and harassment. There is little wonder why so many shopkeepers have decided to leave their property below, unable to maintain a living under such circumstances.
Further along the market street, the area opens up to a square surrounded by beautiful but battered old buildings. As one looks up, several Israeli soldiers meet your gaze all monitoring the area from surrounding roofs and balconies, with their guns held up ready for any ‘trouble’.
I visited Hebron during Passover. During this time, there were increased ‘security’ measures employed in the city, as there was all over the West Bank and Israel. In Hebron, in order to ‘secure’ the area for the passage of the settlers from their homes to the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque, soldiers were placed every 10-20 meters along the old city street they would walk through. Each soldier held his gun to his chest so that the barrel was pointing at head/chest height for most people. Never having been in such close proximity to so many guns, my natural reaction was to physically recoil each time I passed them. At one point, an Israeli soldier on patrol turns around and points his gun directly at a child, no more than 12, walking behind him. To my horror, the child barely flinches, presumably he is so used to this sort of behavior.
The soldiers were stationed there until the settlers moved through to the holy site, completely closed to Muslim worshippers of the Ibrahimi mosque in the same location. Shortly after, I re-entered the area and spoke to one of its Palestinian inhabitants.
Leila both works and lives within the old city of Hebron. Her shop, the Palestinian Women’s Embroidery Co-operative, is situated right in the heart where the settlers had walked through that day, and where they walk through every Saturday. While the Israeli soldiers (reportedly around 6000 during Passover, 2000-3000 at all other times) are posted in Hebron in order to protect the safety of the Israeli settlers, it must be questioned who is at a greater risk of violence or harassment. Leila describes how the settlers often walk past and flip up the tables of the Palestinian stalls. They have been known to pull down the products from the front of the shops. Leila tells me how her sister had been working at the shop when a settler openly spat in her face twice. The settlers may be more brazen when the soldiers are not there but it seems the Israeli military themselves are also to be feared by the Palestinians.
“The army is often worse than the settlers,” Leila said. “They stop young men and they beat them which is very disturbing to watch. This is why so many people are too scared to come to the market to shop and so business is very bad.”
Leila has had personal experience of how the soldiers behave towards the Palestinian people in Hebron.
“I sent my son, who was only 15 at the time, to go buy me some bread. When he encountered some soldiers they accused him of throwing stones. They checked his pockets for rocks and even found the bread money in his pocket. But they still accused him and he was arrested for two months with a six-month probation. He is still too scared to leave the house.”
Leila also described how the situation in Hebron meant that it was not only the settlers and soldiers that were a threat but also those closer to home. Hebron is divided in its authority. According to the 1997 Hebron Protocol, the old city, surrounding the holy site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque, is under the total control of Israel in what is known as area ‘H2’. The rest of the city is under Palestinian Authority control and is labeled ‘H1’. As a result of this divide, Leila describes how criminals from other parts of the West Bank including the H1 area come to the H2 Israeli-controlled areas in order to escape punishment from the Palestinian Authority. Car thieves, drug dealers and more hide out in the H2 area and therefore pose an added threat to the Palestinian residents, who already have enough to deal with.
This part of Hebron, only 10 minutes from the “$10 million sports center and the three malls,” is a reminder that foreign journalists should indeed come and see what is being talked about. But they should see it for themselves not under the Israeli government press office’s organized trips. Just because one part of town doesn’t seem that bad, does not mean that people’s livelihoods and safety aren’t being threatened on a daily basis only a short walk away.
Helman concluded his interview about foreign journalists saying, ‘Give them the information. They are smart, professional, and experienced. They will know what to do with it when the time comes.’
I hope, having seen Hebron and other areas of the occupied West Bank (not just those offered by the Israeli press office) foreign journalists do know what to do with the information they are given. After all, they are smart, right?
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Jaffa Gate: Israeli commercial and tourist center beneath the Jerusalem Citadel
Date posted: February 15, 2022
By MIFTAH
Palestinians: the project will change the character of the Old City
Occupied Jerusalem: -- Palestinian experts and officials are warning of the dangerous repercussions of an Israeli project aimed at changing the landmarks and character of Jaffa Gate and the Omar Bin Khattab Square in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The project, which is currently under construction by Israeli Jerusalem municipal teams and the Israeli Antiquities Authority, involves excavations beneath the western wall of the historical Jerusalem Citadel, which includes the Nabi Daoud Mosque. A market and tourist and commercial center will be built belowground at the site, aimed at attracting commercial and tourist activity and diverting entrance into the Old City to Jaffa Gate by connecting it to Jaffa Street and Jewish centers in the western sector of occupied Jerusalem.
Renowned settlement expert, Khalil Tufakji says the Jaffa Gate project is part of an even more comprehensive project to alter the landmarks and character of the area, especially Omar Bin Khattab Square. He explains that this area in particular leads into the Old City, namely the Armenian Quarter and the Sharaf, or Jewish Quarter, where settlement build-up in the Old City is concentrated. Around 3,000 settlers live in this quarter in addition to the hundreds of settlers and yeshiva students distributed among dozens of other properties taken over from Palestinian Jerusalemites.
“We are talking about a huge tourist project in this area, which is slated to be completed in 2022; the construction and bulldozers are already in place,” Tujaki says.
The project includes the establishment of open arenas, markets and commercial and tourist centers along with an underground museum, so that tourists and Jews can reach Jaffa Gate through several nearby, glassed-in courts and tourist rest-stops. Through its Antiquities Authority, the Israeli government earmarked a budget of ILS40 million for the project, which is being implemented by the “Clore Israel Foundation.”
Jerusalemites fear this Israeli project will result in an even worse slump in commercial and tourist activity in the Old City, which already suffers from an almost complete commercial standstill. This recession only worsened with the coronavirus pandemic, which forced many Jerusalemite merchants to close their shops in search of other means of livelihood for their families.
Walid Dajani is manager of the Imperial Hotel in Jaffa Gate, whose family has been fighting a legal battle for over two decades with settlement associations that claim ownership of the hotel, which is originally the property of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. Dajani warned of the demographic ramifications of these developments in this area, especially on the Palestinian Christian presence in the Old City, which is currently only 1% of the population of 40,000 residents.
Previous estimates indicate a 5% rise in Jerusalemite shops closed during the pandemic and due to Israeli taxes. Overall, 350 shops in the Old City have been forced to close over the years and turned into alternative workspaces. This was confirmed by head of the Jerusalemite merchants’ committee and former secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Hijazi Risheq, who said the situation in the Old City in particular was dire. Everyday, he contends, shopkeepers and merchants lose money due to the recession, a situation which is exacerbated by restrictive and Israeli measures including on movement, for people coming to the Old City.
Meanwhile, Tony Khashram, head of Holy Land Tourism, said Israel was looking to turn Jaffa Gate into the “Mecca” of Jewish pilgrims worldwide. He explains how Orthodox and extremist Jews in Jerusalem are in control of capital and have considerable sway in the politics of the city, investing large amounts of money into Jewish religious sites in the Old City. In contrast, Christian and Islamic sites are unimportant to them. “Jaffa Gate is the easiest entryway into the Old City for Jews from West Jerusalem to the Buraq [Western] Wall, on foot, by car or other means of future transportation,” Kashram explains.
Commenting on the current project at Jaffa Gate, Khashram says: “As for the future of commercial activity in the Old City, I think it will continue to be very weak, because it depends on Christian and Islamic and not Jewish tourism.”
Khashram explains that 2019 saw the highest number of Christian and Muslim tourists since 1948, constituting 35% of the total number of tourists who entered the holy land from all crossings. The other 65% were Jewish foreigners.
The current projects being carried out in Jerusalem cannot be separated from the crux of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, especially in regards to the narrative. Khashram maintains, “Everyone knows that Jews inside and outside of Israel have not stopped for one day since 1948 to promote the idea of building Solomon’s Temple. We, in the tourism sector, hear it all the time from tourists and we know how much money Israel collects from other countries and Jewish organizations abroad for the sake of their settlement projects in the city. This money funds all of the tourism service providers and contractors and all of the other Jewish-owned economic sectors in Jerusalem.”
Money utilizes to enhance the demographic settlement presence in the Old City is not limited to Israeli government-funded projects, all of which look to achieve one goal, which is the Judaization of Jerusalem in its entirety, but extends to other sources, particularly the millions of dollars flowing into these projects from the likes of American-Jewish millionaire Irving Moskowitz. He finances settlement associations with an annual ILS100 million, constituting a main source of funding for their activities, aimed at taking over Jerusalemite properties in the Old City, Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah. Thanks to his money, two settlement neighborhoods were established in Ras Al Amoud, named “Ma'ale HaZeitim” and another in the heart of Sheikh Jarrah named the “Moskowitz Quarter”, which was built on the ruins of the Shepherd Hotel.
Effect of House Demolition on Jerusalemite Women
Date posted: October 02, 2021
By Fatmeh Hammad
“Since the day I received the Israeli demolition order, I never left the house, I am always afraid that they will come and I don’t want them to find it empty, I am always here ready to defend my ownership of this house, I won’t go out. I missed family weddings, mornings I never went out, except once, to the post office to pay the fine for the house!”
These were the words of Etidal, a Palestinian woman from the Al-Bustan neighborhood - Silwan, the Israeli occupation authorities issued an executive order to self-demolish her house within a period of 21 days. If she and her family do not do so, the occupying forces will demolish their house, bearing the family the costs of the demolition. In addition to continuing the payment of a construction violation issued to them since 2009. The story of Etidal is not exceptional, as 230 thousand Palestinian women live under constant threat of forced displacement in its various forms within a policy that in most cases can constitute a crime against humanity to empty Jerusalem of its Palestinian residents and replace them with Israeli settlers .
Palestinian women have been living under the Israeli military occupation in Jerusalem since 1967, when Israel imposed its legal system in contrary with international humanitarian law, which prohibits the occupying power from changing the laws in force in the area. Moreover, the Israeli Laws classified Palestinians as permanent residents in their own land; accordingly, they are under the constant threat of losing this residency and be expelled out of the city. The policy of house demolitions in East Jerusalem is one of the forced displacement mechanisms where Israel seeks to limit the presence of Palestinians in Jerusalem to Judaize the city. Among all this, the suffering of Palestinian women and the double impact of the occupation on their security and safety are evident.
This specialized article presents the issue of house demolitions in Silwan as one of the mechanisms of forced displacement. It focuses on the daily challenge of human security of Jerusalemite women due to this Israeli policy, and its impact on their daily lives. This article contributes in shedding the light on their case in light of the WPS agenda, and answers the central question: How can Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda contribute in alleviating the suffering of Palestinian women in Jerusalem? Could it guarantee their basic rights?
Legal Overview: Silwan as a part of East Jerusalem.
Silwan is part of the militarily occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel illegally annexed its lands, despite the UN Security Council’s call for the Israeli forces to withdraw from it as stated Resolution 242. This illegal annexation was followed with the imposition of the Israeli legal system on Palestinians in Jerusalem. Accordingly, the Israeli courts hear the civil cases of the Palestinians without jurisdiction ; as the relationship between the occupying power and the people under occupation must be governed by international conventions and covenants of humanitarian law. Such cases must be heard before international courts. As Israeli Judicial system necessarily adopts the colonial perspective of the Israeli occupation represented in the policies to Judaize the city, the most prominent of which is forced displacement.
The policy of forced displacement takes many forms, such as the withdrawal of residency and the imposition of a coercive environment on the Palestinian population in which it is difficult to live under. In several cases, this policy can constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, but the most obvious form is house demolitions, which witnessed an increase of 40% during the first quarter of 2021 over previous years, leading to an increase of 87% for cases of displacement.
Israel’s policy to forcible transfer: Expensive fines & executive demolishing orders: Based on that, Israel imposes fines or even issue executive orders on Palestinian housing units that did not obtain a building permit, as the Palestinians in Jerusalem face two problems in this regard:
- Israel does not adequately grant building permits to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, as the percentage of building permits granted to the Palestinians in recent years did not exceed 7% of the granted permits, although they constitute 40% of the population in East Jerusalem, which indicates a racist planning policy.
- Building permit fees are very expensive compared to the income of the Palestinian population in occupied Jerusalem, where 75.4% of them live below the poverty line.
As for the issue of (17) Palestinian families in the Al-Bustan neighborhood - Silwan, these families face both policies, non-appealable executive orders for demolition, and exorbitant financial fines.
Today, the estimated number of houses under the threat of demolition in East Jerusalem is 60,000 houses. This constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Times of Armed Conflict. Article 53 states that: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations”. While all the houses threatened of demolition in East Jerusalem are civilian facilities and their residents are civilians.
In addition, house demolitions can constitute a war crime based on international criminal law, as Article 8/2 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court states that large-scale destruction of property without a military necessity justifying it is a war crime. Furthermore, it can constitute a crime against humanity as it includes the elements of the crime of persecution as a crime against humanity.
None - appealable executive orders for demolition:
Despite imposing the Israeli legal system in violation of international humanitarian law on the Palestinians in Jerusalem, Israel accelerated the implementation of its forced displacement policies. In 2008, the Israeli government approved Amendment No. 116 to the Israeli Planning and Building Law, known as the Kaminits Law; This amendment grants wide powers to demolish and impose very expensive fines on the executive authority, undermining the powers of the judicial authorities. It prevents courts from interfering with demolition freeze orders so that the planning and building unit can issue an administrative order to demolish a building without a court permission and can also impose a fine of hundreds of thousands of shekels without court’s permission.
Today, because of their implementation, the planning and building unit has imposed fines amounting to more than 20 million shekels in Arab towns. The Israeli government boasts that it has managed through law to limit 80% of construction in unregulated Arab towns.
The right to adequate housing within the WPS agenda:
"Although the whole family is affected by forced displacement, it is the woman who suffers the most here as well. Women have to adapt to their new circumstances and assume their responsibilities as in the past, but with fewer means, and they have to work harder and harder to manage things."
International law links between the right to adequate housing and human security; as one of the elements of the right to an adequate standard of living. Accordingly, the indivisibility approach applies to it with the related basic human rights such as the right to food, water, health, work, and property, safety of the person, safe Housing, and protection from inhuman and degrading treatment.
This link is reflected in the definition of “the right to adequate housing” as more than just providing a roof, which the individual can live under, it is the right to live a safe and dignified life in a decent housing away from threats .
Therefore, international community considers forceful displacement a grave violation of international law . Moreover, in some cases it may constitute a war crime or a crime against humanity .
In Jerusalem, Palestinians struggle against the policy of forced displacement, which is implemented in various forms, the most prominent and burdensome of which is the policy of house demolitions. Where Israel has pursued a policy of self-demolition, based on giving Palestinians the option to self-demolish their home or bear the cost of demolition if it is carried out by the Israeli Jerusalem municipality, adding to the risks and burdens of forced displacement an additional financial burden as compensation for the government.
In light of this systematic policy, which is widely applied in Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, in addition to other racist policies, living in the city of Jerusalem has become a major challenge for Palestinians, especially women and girls, which requires special attention and focus to protect them from the multiplier effect of human rights violations under occupation.
This policy reshapes the lives of Jerusalemite women, from stability to displacement. It affects their ability to access available resources, and re-establish a sense of belonging, as they live under constant anxiety and fear. It also results in the destabilization of the economic situation and family structure because of the loss of livelihood, property and luggage, and the loss of privacy.
"We separated, my children are in their relatives' homes, I sleep with my parents, and my little daughter sleeps in the car! We lived here all our lives, but now we lost everything. I don't know what will happen next, all I know is that I need to go back to live with my family under one roof, I derive my strength from being with them, but it is not possible now, we have lost our house forever, where are we going, and how can we start over?” With these words, Safaa Nassar (49) years old from Silwan, expresses her life after the demolition of her house.
The displacement of Palestinian in Jerusalem increase the vulnerability of women, and exacerbate the differences based on gender at the public and private spheres.
- Lack of security: The sense of insecurity begins from the moment they feel threatened of losing their houses through the Israeli demolition orders, as women live in constant anticipation of what is coming. When the demolition occurs, women become homeless, with no place for protection, they feel that they are a burden on those around them from their relatives and neighbors.
- Instability: When the house is demolished, women move between the homes of their relatives (usually the house of their brothers or their parents), where they live a period of constant movement before the family can find an alternative to housing. There are no guarantees that this alternative will be comfortable or appropriate, and they remain subject to permanent movement and lack of privacy.
- Difficulties adjusting: After women have formed and strengthened their relationship with the neighborhood and started to feel empowered by activating their energies in their community. The women whose homes were demolished, find themselves in a completely different situation and in a new environment. People always deal with them as women in need of help, and the stigma attached to them is "poor", they must live and adapt to these new circumstance as they recover from the trauma and its impact on them.
United Nations reports in the context of the right to adequate housing indicate that legal protection against forced displacement is an essential component of women's security. Thus; addressing the threats to the security of Palestinian women in the city of Jerusalem, the policy of forced displacement and home demolitions is evident as the largest component of the insecurity.
The vision of WPS agenda is based on understanding that conflicts have multiplier effect against women. Thus, women are the most interested in building peace. Therefore, through the WPS agenda, documenting cases of human rights violations with a focus on their impact on women and girls as vulnerable groups is the backbone of advocacy campaigns especially at the international level. To mobilize international public opinion and support and be in solidarity with the Palestinian women’s call to end the occupation and hold Israel accountable for committing human rights violations and war crimes. Women’s participation in ending occupation and achieving peace requires women's ability and empowerment to be effective, but persistent violations of basic human rights undermine women's ability to reach and influence. This contributes to the continued absence of international accountability for the Israeli occupation and impunity for its crimes against the Palestinians.
As a young human rights defender and WPS advocate, I send a message to the Security Council and UN agencies that it is time that for us as Palestinians especially Palestinian women to live in peace and security. This can be achieved only when perpetrators are held accountable for committing human rights violations and to ending impunity against all those who committed crime against humanity.
We need the international community to take actions against perpetrators to stop war crimes, to end the Israeli occupation and hold the Israeli occupation accountable for its successive crimes against Jerusalemite women. Otherwise, we will continue to count numbers of women victims of conflicts, wars, and colonial occupation.
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Image is Everything: The Importance of Public Diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Date posted: May 10, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
The power of image is important to anyone who is concerned about how others view them. The way one is perceived, especially on first impression, is integral to the opinion of the outside world and their reaction/action towards them. This, it seems, is no different for a government or a whole nation. Politicians strive to perfect their image on behalf of their party in order to secure more votes, and whole countries put across a global image in order to attract people to their shores and boost their tourism industry. But the global image of a country is significant in other, more politically-driven, ways. This essay will look at how Israel understands the importance of its’ image in shaping other countries’ foreign policy towards it and how it manipulates the media in order to refine and justify the actions of the military in news reports, focusing particularly on the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid coverage.
Background: Propaganda, public diplomacy and soft power
In order to disseminate such an image, a government can employ what was originally labeled as propaganda. Following the harmful yet effective propaganda that was in circulation throughout the Second World War and the following Cold War, such image-shaping efforts have now been renamed in order to avoid the negative connotations. Governments now talk about ‘public diplomacy’.
Public diplomacy can affect the foreign policy of another country and thus influence their treatment towards one’s own country. While this can be done through diplomatic, economic and military means, it can also be achieved through ‘soft power’. Therefore governments target civilian audiences whose opinion has a bearing on the government’s policy. As the academic Manheim points out ‘public relations are more likely to have effect in foreign affairs than in domestic affairs because there is less knowledge and experience on part of the citizens’, therefore the coverage of foreign affairs becomes tantamount. In this way, outside governments began to realize that they can have a positive effect on the opinion of civilians and, in turn, on that country’s foreign policy through carefully grooming their public image and explaining their actions to the rest of the world through information.
As governments acknowledged the importance of such ‘information activities’, they began to devote more and more resources to the endeavor. The United States has the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs which is dedicated to ‘supporting the achievement of US foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics…’ The British government also employs their own methods of public diplomacy through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office which undertakes ‘a process of achieving the UK’s international strategic priorities through engaging and forming partnerships with like-minded organizations and individuals in the public arena.’ According to the FCO, ‘it’s not just about delivering messages but holding a two-way dialogue, listening to and learning from audiences around the world, in order to get a better understanding of the changing perceptions of the UK and its policies.’
Following suit, the Israeli government takes the role of public diplomacy very seriously and as such devotes a number of resources to educating and influencing foreign audiences, particularly those in the United States. The Israeli government has its own word that has been used since the 1970s in relation to their own public diplomacy work. Hasbara is roughly translated as ‘explanation’ and is used under the context of Israeli policy and actions. Along with the work undertaken by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, the government has created other ways in which the image of Israel can be explained and promoted around the world, from person to person.
Public diplomacy and hasbara are employed as tactics of ‘soft power’. When Hilary Clinton became Secretary of State, she remarked on the importance of a ‘smart power’ strategy, that being the attention to both hard and soft power. While hard power concerns military prowess and financial coercions, soft power deals more with development and education.
For example, the Hasbara fellowships bring young people from the US to Israel to learn more about the country so that they may become ‘effective pro-Israel advocates on their campuses’.
Perhaps, one of the most challenging obstacles to the image of Israel is the action of its military in respect of the occupation. For this reason, the Israeli Defense has its own department which deals with media relations concerning their own actions. The IF Spokesperson’s Unit is organized into a number of branches ranging from international media, strategies, public affairs and film. The last mentioned produces films and footage about the Israeli military and will be looked at more closely further on in this essay.
Such efforts of public diplomacy have been developed and stream lined so that, following Israeli military action, the appropriate process of ‘explanation’ and justification can be put into place. In order to show how the Israeli public diplomacy or ‘PR’ machine works, I will look at the media coverage following the Gaza flotilla incident in May 2010.
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Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Freedom of Thought
Date posted: May 04, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
Last night I introduced a friend from home to one of my new friends from Ramallah. As we chatted, we started to talk about the summer and the prospect for us in Britain to be able to venture outside, for camping, barbeques, festivals and the like. My Palestinian friend listened and nodded politely but I was sure he was holding back.
Further into the conversation, as everyone was more comfortable in speaking their mind, he admitted his frustration at hearing such things. As we freely talked about our summer plans, he had been thinking about the restrictions laid on him that prevents such summer time frivolity. For instance, when we talked about camping, he said he was thinking, ‘I am scared when I go camping. As my foreign friends enjoy the ‘freedom’ of sleeping in the great outdoors, I am nervous that a shot might fire over our heads at any time. I am worried that Israeli military could appear at any time and demand our ID, or even detain us for some unknown crime. My foreign friends do not think about this.’
This lack of freedom and the constant anxiety it instills is a fact of life that Palestinians, many of whom were born under occupation, must counter into their lives every day. As those of us who are lucky to come from a liberal, fair and free country, we are unaware of the constant stress caused by living under occupation. Whether this is about the length of a journey because of checkpoints along the way, or whether your family will get their permits in order to worship in Jerusalem during holy days, the occupation must always figure largely in the minds of Palestinians.
I am wary of talking too much about my holidays or the time I have spent travelling around Israel for fear of being insensitive towards those who can’t enjoy the same physical freedom as me. Since being here, I have learnt to be more aware of what Palestinians (particularly those restricted to the West Bank) are permitted and not permitted to do because of the situation and the way in which to ask questions. For instance, I am careful to ask about what plans they have for the summer or, for Christians, for Easter, because ultimately this decision is rarely just their own. They may plan to cross the border to visit family or enjoy a change of scene but this can only happen at the discretion of the Israeli authority which distributes permits. Regardless of holidays, families often find it impossible to visit each other between the West Bank and Jerusalem because of the travel restrictions laid down, resulting in months passing between family visits that would normally only take a 20-minute drive.
This restriction happens between West Bank towns also. Despite travelling from one Palestinian town to another, one could still be denied access by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint, therefore plans can be made but obstacles and delays are always prepared for, if not expected.
With the constant pressure of second-guessing anything that might come between you and daily life, it must be exhausting to make plans far in advance. When it is uncertain whether there will be clear access for work in the morning, it must surely be a risk to plan something more long term.
I invited this same friend to come visit us in Britain so that he could experience the festivals and the barbeques for himself. The suggestion was met with a polite but cynical smile. In order to get to Britain, he explains, he would have to be formally invited and able to provide reasons for being there and contacts that could vouch for him. In my ignorance, I assumed that these demands came from the Israeli authority. ‘No’ he tells me, ‘this is what your British government asks for.’
So here my friend from Ramallah is telling me about my own country’s visa requirements although he has never been there, never been to Europe. Just because travel seems so impossible at times, does not mean that many Palestinian people do not think about it, look into it, try it. Despite the daily obstacles faced and the amount of forethought that is required to complete the most basic of tasks while under occupation, Palestinians, like anyone else, have more ambitious plans, why shouldn’t they? Just because one is forced to live under a physical occupation, does not mean that one’s mind should be restricted too. The Palestinian people have just as many travel, educational and personal plans as any other but in their instance they can rarely be realized. So for those living in a free state, maybe give some thought, as Palestinians do every minute of the day, to the Israeli occupation and the difficulty of achieving what is a human right - to live life with a free body and mind.
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Settlers’ Stones and Sports Centers
Date posted: April 27, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, the newly-appointed head of the Israeli government press office, Oren Helman, spoke about foreign media and their need to see a different side to Israel than the one which is so often a focus in international media. Aside from the conflict, Helman talks about a new initiative called ‘There is more to Israel’ or TIMTI for short. He wants to ‘take them to see things, give them briefings, give them more information’. All of this seems fair and appropriate for a government press office. Helman then uses, as his example, the West Bank city of Hebron. He tells the Jerusalem Post, ‘You have to bring them there to see what is being talked about. It is not how they say, a city under the oppressive occupation of the Israelis. People are not suffering that greatly there.’ As a reflection of this, he cites the three malls and a new $10 million sports center found in Hebron.
After reading this, I took my own trip to Hebron, so that I too could see what was being talked about. As the bus entered the city, I saw the sports center and one or two of the malls. But a five-minute walk away from this main street, one reaches the edge of the old city of Hebron. Again, this is a bustling area with all manner of stalls and shops peddling their goods to the crowds of people walking through.
However, as I walk deeper into the old city, the crowds diminish as do the stalls and shops. Only two-three minutes’ walk from the main entrance to the old city, there are more shops closed then there are open. Above our heads a battered mesh covers the market street. On that mesh are rocks, some the size of dinner plates, interspersed with all manner of rubbish. One shopkeeper shows me the singed hole of his shop’s tarpaulin cover, the result of a burning object being thrown down through the mesh and landing in his shop. Above the market reside a number of Israeli settlers (approximately 400 in the center of Hebron), many of whom show their objection to the Palestinians below through such acts of violence and harassment. There is little wonder why so many shopkeepers have decided to leave their property below, unable to maintain a living under such circumstances.
Further along the market street, the area opens up to a square surrounded by beautiful but battered old buildings. As one looks up, several Israeli soldiers meet your gaze all monitoring the area from surrounding roofs and balconies, with their guns held up ready for any ‘trouble’.
I visited Hebron during Passover. During this time, there were increased ‘security’ measures employed in the city, as there was all over the West Bank and Israel. In Hebron, in order to ‘secure’ the area for the passage of the settlers from their homes to the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque, soldiers were placed every 10-20 meters along the old city street they would walk through. Each soldier held his gun to his chest so that the barrel was pointing at head/chest height for most people. Never having been in such close proximity to so many guns, my natural reaction was to physically recoil each time I passed them. At one point, an Israeli soldier on patrol turns around and points his gun directly at a child, no more than 12, walking behind him. To my horror, the child barely flinches, presumably he is so used to this sort of behavior.
The soldiers were stationed there until the settlers moved through to the holy site, completely closed to Muslim worshippers of the Ibrahimi mosque in the same location. Shortly after, I re-entered the area and spoke to one of its Palestinian inhabitants.
Leila both works and lives within the old city of Hebron. Her shop, the Palestinian Women’s Embroidery Co-operative, is situated right in the heart where the settlers had walked through that day, and where they walk through every Saturday. While the Israeli soldiers (reportedly around 6000 during Passover, 2000-3000 at all other times) are posted in Hebron in order to protect the safety of the Israeli settlers, it must be questioned who is at a greater risk of violence or harassment. Leila describes how the settlers often walk past and flip up the tables of the Palestinian stalls. They have been known to pull down the products from the front of the shops. Leila tells me how her sister had been working at the shop when a settler openly spat in her face twice. The settlers may be more brazen when the soldiers are not there but it seems the Israeli military themselves are also to be feared by the Palestinians.
“The army is often worse than the settlers,” Leila said. “They stop young men and they beat them which is very disturbing to watch. This is why so many people are too scared to come to the market to shop and so business is very bad.”
Leila has had personal experience of how the soldiers behave towards the Palestinian people in Hebron.
“I sent my son, who was only 15 at the time, to go buy me some bread. When he encountered some soldiers they accused him of throwing stones. They checked his pockets for rocks and even found the bread money in his pocket. But they still accused him and he was arrested for two months with a six-month probation. He is still too scared to leave the house.”
Leila also described how the situation in Hebron meant that it was not only the settlers and soldiers that were a threat but also those closer to home. Hebron is divided in its authority. According to the 1997 Hebron Protocol, the old city, surrounding the holy site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque, is under the total control of Israel in what is known as area ‘H2’. The rest of the city is under Palestinian Authority control and is labeled ‘H1’. As a result of this divide, Leila describes how criminals from other parts of the West Bank including the H1 area come to the H2 Israeli-controlled areas in order to escape punishment from the Palestinian Authority. Car thieves, drug dealers and more hide out in the H2 area and therefore pose an added threat to the Palestinian residents, who already have enough to deal with.
This part of Hebron, only 10 minutes from the “$10 million sports center and the three malls,” is a reminder that foreign journalists should indeed come and see what is being talked about. But they should see it for themselves not under the Israeli government press office’s organized trips. Just because one part of town doesn’t seem that bad, does not mean that people’s livelihoods and safety aren’t being threatened on a daily basis only a short walk away.
Helman concluded his interview about foreign journalists saying, ‘Give them the information. They are smart, professional, and experienced. They will know what to do with it when the time comes.’
I hope, having seen Hebron and other areas of the occupied West Bank (not just those offered by the Israeli press office) foreign journalists do know what to do with the information they are given. After all, they are smart, right?
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
The ‘Real’ Palestine
Date posted: April 20, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
Over the last few weeks I have been repeatedly told that Ramallah is not the ‘real’ Palestine. For this, I was told, I must travel further afield, go north, go south, go into Nablus or Hebron. I was unsure of what people meant when they said the ‘real’ Palestine. Do they mean more conservative communities? Or towns where there is not the easy access to cocktails and continental cuisine such as that found in Ramallah? Do they mean the villages separated by the wall?
The other day, I finally experienced the ‘real’ Palestine. It was not in the tense streets of Hebron or amongst the active demonstration in Bil’in, but here in Ramallah, in Al Amary refugee camp.
As I walked around the quiet and cramped alleyways of the refugee camp, I struck up a conversation (with the help of someone who could translate) with two women sitting and talking outside one of their homes. I wanted to know where they were from originally and one woman explained that she had come from a small village which she had been forced to leave in 1948 - she was eight years old at the time.
After being invited into their homes to continue the conversation, what followed was a powerful introduction to what the ‘real’ Palestine is.
One of the women is named Amna but she prefers to be called Um Mohammed, meaning ‘the mother of Mohammed’, her eldest son. She was eager to talk about her past and tell her story.
Amna, 71, spoke of the village where she was born along with her brothers and sister. Beit Affa, near Ashkelon, was once home to many Palestinian families. She described how it had been a village of peasants who had planted their own vegetables, an idyllic spot surrounded by trees. When she was eight years old, however, this picture of rural tranquility was disrupted. Jewish forces began to attack the village. Most people took to hiding in their homes to avoid the snipers who would shoot those on the street. Amna’s memory is strong and she has little trouble in recalling both her own experience but also the military exercises that were taking place at the time, something which must have been explained to her later. She remembers the Egyptians flying over with their planes and promising the Palestinian people that they would reclaim any villages captured by the Jewish forces. However, the Egyptians were unable to stop the night raids taking place and the Palestinian people took to fleeing into the woods. From that point on, they were unable to return to their homes.
Amna recalled that, at the time, she didn’t fully understand the situation or why, as they ran from building to building, her brother kept forcing her head down (out of the line of bullets) – her overriding memory is of continually tripping over because of her brother’s actions to save her life. She laughed at her girlish naivety. Amna can still remember the names of most of the villages she moved around. She can remember that the Egyptians tried to reassure the fleeing Palestinians that any land that was taken by Jewish forces would be recaptured by the Egyptians that night – something that obviously didn’t happen. Amna recalls how, every morning, her family tried, unsuccessfully, to re-enter the village from which they had just fled.
Amna also talked of everything that they had left behind. Under the illusion that they were going to be able to return in a couple of days, most families left the majority of their belongings at home and simply hid the most precious. Amna and her family had wrapped and hidden any gold or money that they had within their house, believing they would be back to retrieve it once the fighting was over. They left chickens and cows in the village and only took one camel to carry their mattresses.
The family moved from village to village, eventually settling in Gaza. But this was not the end of Amna’s journey. Now married and with children, she was persuaded by her brothers to move to the West Bank in the 1960s for a better way of life. As she departed, she had been warned that she may not be able to return to Gaza.
Her and her young family initially moved to a house outside the camp but it had been too expensive for them so they took a place inside Al Amary which was half the price and that is where they have remained.
Through all this displacement, I ask her about how she feels for the village of Beit Affa. She tells me she longs for the village. Both her and her family dream of returning to the place they are from, despite her children never having visited it. But Beit Affa is no longer in existence. During the fighting of 1948, the village was completely obliterated.
In a moment of sad reflection, she laments all the people who were killed at the time she was forced to flee. The mix of pain and nostalgia when talking about her past are evident on her face. The event took place over 60 years ago and yet, as Amna herself asks, ‘Does anybody forget where they are from?’
Amna has not forgotten her Palestine. For her and so many others the ‘real’ Palestine is the home they remember and the life they used to live, not the modern day reality of the refugee camp. The ‘real’ Palestine surely has to be the people and their individual histories. Whether they live in an apartment block in Ramallah or a farm in the South Hebron hills, it is them and not their current situation that defines them.
Background – Over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed in the run-up to the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. 800,000 Palestinians were displaced, resulting in over 4.5 million registered Palestinian refugees around the world today.
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
