The plan violates international law. The Geneva Convention, signed by Israel, says a military occupying power is prohibited from using the occupied territory unless it benefits the local population. But since when did Israel care about the many international treaties it has signed? And why should it? The United States is expected to veto any international attempt to have Israel retreat from its ongoing destruction of Palestinian culture and nature. That is how the international system works.
On this occasion it is not about the illegal settlers, the settlements, or the Annexation Wall, which are all so benevolently imposed on the local population, who – along with most of the rest of the world – are still at a loss to realize how all these Israeli uses of occupied territory benefit it. The latest outrage in the Middle East is an Israeli plan, already partly implemented, to dump up to 10,000 tons a month of its own garbage across the 1967 ‘Green Line’ in Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Not only that! The dumping site selected – Abu Shusha, near Nablus, the largest Palestinian city aside from Jerusalem – was a Palestinian quarry, which Palestinians will now be unable to use. Moreover, the dumping site, which is the size of a football stadium, is close to the Mountain Aquifer, one of the largest sources of freshwater in the whole of Historic Palestine (including Israel). Any leaks from the 120,000 tons of waste a year that the Israelis plan to drop there are likely to end up in that water, with the risk of poisoning it. Palestinians are already critically short of fresh water, because Israel will not let them use their own water. Israel prohibits Palestinians from drilling wells. It allows Palestinians only 70 liters of water per person per day. Israelis, however, get 350 liters. The minimal quantity of water recommended by the World Health Organization is 100 liters. When supplies run dry during summer months, the Israeli water company, Mekorot, which has a monopoly on the water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, simply shuts off the valves that supply Palestinian towns. This means settlers get their swimming pools topped up while Palestinian villages a few miles away run out of drinking water.
In a typical Israeli reaction to the news of the use of the Abu Shusha dump, the army’s ‘civil administration’ (the military occupation authority) announced that it has now temporarily halted construction after it was discovered that the bottom of the garbage pit was not properly insulated. Garbage already dumped, hundreds of tons of it, would now be removed before nylon sheeting is installed to line the floor of the dump, the army said. But what if the nylon is eventually ripped by the sheer weight of the trash? What if toxic waste spills out over the sides of the floor? What if there is an earthquake? The ‘civil’ administration now also says that the dump will take Palestinian, as well as Israeli, waste. But Yossi Sarid, the left-wing Israeli parliamentarian and former environment minister, told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz that the dump is a “double crime,” since “Israel is preventing the Palestinians from making use of the quarry and its resources and in exchange we are giving them Sharon’s garbage.”
What the ‘civil’ administration is actually trying to do is damage control, mainly by means of media spin. The calculation seems to be that if Israel can get its hands on some Palestinian garbage now and redirect it to Abu Shusha, then the use of the Occupied Palestinian Territories will suddenly seem to benefit the local population, and Israel will no longer be breaking international law in Abu Shusha.
But this is not the time to be separating trash from trash according to national origin. All Israeli garbage dumped on Palestinian territory is illegal. This is the time to go one step further than the former Israeli environment minister’s condemnation of the practice and to stop the crimes of Israel, whether single, double, or multiple. By the way, some of the garbage will come from the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Kedumim. Maybe this is all the army means by “Palestinian” waste.
There are no settlements near the dump site; however, there are four Palestinian villages and thousands of Palestinian olive and almond trees within two miles of the dump. They will be the ones to suffer first and foremost from pollution emanating from the dump. And the inhabitants of those villages or the owners of those olive and almond groves were never asked for permission or advice, neither by the army, nor by the Israeli private firms that operate the dump. Those firms say that the choice of Abu Shusha is a way to raise profits and cut costs by a quarter, compared to the use of garbage dumps on Israeli territory. But what are those cut costs? Do they – by any remote chance – include environmental protection measures?
The companies participating in the project include D.S.H., a Netanya-based garbage disposal company owned by the Valensi family, and Baron Industrial Park, a company owned jointly by town councils in Israel and the illegal settlement of Kedumim’s town council. Ha’aretz reported that the initial use of the dump, which started six months ago, was illegal because Israel has not yet issued a tender, as required by State law. Furthermore, an approval by the Israeli Environment Ministry is also missing.
MIFTAH condemns all breaches of international law, whoever the perpetrator may be. An investigation by Israeli authorities, specifically civil, is also called for, since Israeli law also appears to have been violated on a number of issues. The basic problem behind this latest scandal, not the first scandal involving Israeli waste disposal in Palestine, is the illegal military occupation of Palestine by Israel.
Believing in Jerusalem
Date posted: May 27, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
Last week, Israel barred a UNESCO fact-finding mission from entering the country, charging that the Palestinians had ‘politicized’ the mission before it had even arrived. The mission was tasked with looking into conditions of historical sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, something Israel apparently found to be very threatening.
Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.
Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away. A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance. Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.
The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.
The sad truth is that, on the surface, Israel has succeeded in this to a large extent. Pockets of Jewish settlers now live in the heart of Muslim quarters and aim to take over more and more. Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center. The train, of course, is not meant to service the Palestinian population but rather to connect Jewish neighborhoods and settlements in the city, but the area confiscated from Shufat and Beit Hanina for its construction simply fell into the plan.
What the UNESCO mission would not have seen even if they made it into the Old City is the overall humiliation that the Palestinian population of Jerusalem must endure on a daily basis because of Israel’s military occupation. Trips to the Israeli ministry of interior must be made just to prove that one lives in the city for fear that their residency rights may be revoked; young Palestinian men are stopped randomly by Israeli soldiers to check their ID cards or just to harass them, and settlers are always given the luxury of maximum security whenever they walk the streets. If settlers want to march through the city, the Palestinians are told to close their shops, are barred for hours from reaching their homes if they run along the path of the march and are always the ones blamed if any kind of confrontation between the two sides breaks out.
Jerusalem is being squeezed by these measures more and more each day. But there is always that glimmer of hope, that strength that shines through proving that all is not lost. On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.
The sight of the Palestinian flag waving at the entrance to Damascus Gate was a breath of fresh air. All is not lost and never will be because hope is eternal and determination and strength come from a never-ending spring.
That day at Damascus Gate is what all Palestinians must keep in their minds’ eye in spite of the daily oppression of the occupation. No matter how many missions Israel bars from entering or how many houses it takes over, there will always be those brave souls who, despite the risks, will always raise Palestine’s flag.
Joharah Baker 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.
Let Mohammed rest in peace
Date posted: May 20, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
There is no point falling into the pit of countering the claims being made about the death of Mohammed Al Durra, the 12-year old boy from Gaza whose videotaped killing was seen around the world. The boy, crouching in fear behind is equally afraid father as bullets whizzed around them, was killed admittedly by the Israeli army. Later, the army recanted after investigating the tape, saying Durra was killed by Palestinian fire instead. Well now, Israel is changing its story altogether, saying he was not killed at all. In fact, he was probably not even wounded and the French channel that broadcast the footage and brought some pretty bad rap to Israel, had most likely filmed a charade.
The reason why I will not waste my time countering this claim is that even with the great lengths the Israeli government went to to prove that the boy was never killed, it could not provide any irrefutable proof that Mohammed Al Durra – who would be 25 now – is still alive. No pictures, no testimonies, no hospital or morgue officials giving statements to refute his death, have been provided. Only sketchy information about ‘poor quality footage’ and the fact that it seems as though the boy moved his arm after he had slumped over his father following the explosion.
My point is this: indeed, Mohammed Durra’s death was at least one of the catalysts that fueled the second Intifada, and thus, was an important event in the history of the Palestinians. However, more importantly – most importantly to me –is the fact that this is about a boy who died in sheer terror, with his distraught father futilely trying to shelter him from the barrage of bullets coming their way.
Mohammed Al Durra was a boy, with a life, a family and friends. He died a horrible death and now he is being made to die a second one. I did not know Mohammed or his family, but I can only imagine how awful it must be for them to read these claims now and feel the pain of losing their child all over again. If nothing else, this is disrespect for human life of the worst kind.
Some may postulate that the rehashing of the Durra case is a personal jab at the French cameraman who shot the footage, Charles Enderlin. Perhaps. But as a Palestinian who has seen the pain endured by numerous families who receive the horrible news that their sons or daughters have been killed by the Israeli army, my concern is for his family and for his memory. He should be left to rest in peace. If Israel has axes to grind with French journalists or with the international community for holding it accountable for its actions, then so be it. Israel is not lacking in the public relations department.
That being said, there is just one decent thing left to do. Leave Mohammed Al Durra and his memory alone.
Joharah Baker 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.
Recognition and justice is our demand
Date posted: May 13, 2013
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
This week Palestinians will commemorate Al Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people when Israel was founded. Every year, Palestinians hang placards pointing to the right of return, they carry keys symbolizing the homes they were forced to leave and could not return to and remember the Palestine that was lost to them 65 years ago.
This year will be no different. Every May 15, Palestinian recall their catastrophe and demand justice. They demand that they are granted the right of return for those who were made refugees virtually overnight and were then relegate to a life they did not choose. But more than anything, they demand recognition of the tragedy that befell them rather than a denial that it ever happened, or worse, that it was of their own making.
It has been 65 years since Israel was established in 1948, which means those who were cast into exile are either very old or have long passed. Those who experienced the Nakba are now few and far between, clinging to those few precious memories of a small garden in front of their house in Jaffa or of the salty smell of the sea in their neighborhood in Haifa. The rest of us are either descendants of these refugees or ordinary Palestinians who feel their cause is our cause because we are one people.
But the Palestinians have made one thing clear. The refugee issue will not die with the last refugee. It is felt nationwide, the loss, the injustice and the fact that those who were forced from their homes have mostly passed, longing for their beloved homes.
We cannot turn back time. What was lost has been altered, destroyed, changed or taken over by Israel’s newcomers. What we can do is hold on to the right to be recognized, for the injustice to be rectified in word and deed and for Palestine to never be lost in our minds or hearts.
Joharah Baker 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.
