Tony Blair is Shocked - And So Are We
It’s been widely reported this week that Tony Blair was thoroughly shocked when he learned the full truth about the enormous numbers of barriers, obstacles and settlements that the Israeli government has constructed within the West Bank during its 40 years of occupation.
We had already heard about his reaction to the UN briefing he was given when he took up his new job as Middle East peace envoy. He came to Hebron for another briefing last week - we caught a glimpse of him arriving at the municipal office - and we were told afterwards that he was shocked all over again by the dire situation here.
You might think it strange that a former prime minister should be so taken aback by the realities of a problem he has been concerned with in some way for over a decade. But I can understand it because our group had the same UN briefing in Jerusalem, and we were really shocked too.
We were 25 well-informed people (or so we believed) from Scandinavia, Germany, France, Poland, the UK, the US and South Africa: several were students of international politics, all of us were concerned enough to volunteer for three months on a World Council of Churches accompaniment programme. And yet we discovered we didn’t really have much of a clue because until you see it and experience it for yourself, you just cannot imagine how far things have gone here.
At the breifing a map of the West Bank and East Jerusalem was projected on the wall and gradually overlaid with all the myriad obstructions which control the movement of Palestinians - the vast majority of them nowhere near the official border between the West Bank and Israel but scattered all over the Occupied Territories.
First there was the infamous Separation Barrier, 90% of which does not follow the border but is being built on Palestinian land. Taking the form of a hideous concrete wall in urban areas and a complex of fences and ditches up to 80 metres wide in rural places, it penetrates with great long fingers deep into the West Bank to snake round Israeli settlements and physically join them to Israel.
It loops like a noose around a number of Palestinian cities, such as Qalqiliya, where the 48,000 population can now only get in and out along a single road guarded by a checkpoint, strangling the town’s economy. And it cuts off over 50 farming communities from their own land. The farmers have to get permits to work their fields which now lie on the other side of the Barrier, but in some areas only 20% of farmers actually get the permits.
Then came the major checkpoints where Palestinians must queue for hours to get to work. Then there were the closures, things like earth mounds or concrete blocks strung across roads which cut many communities in half; then the road gates, the trenches and the “flying” checkpoints - spikes laid temporarily across the road at an average of 140 a week.
At the current count, there are a total of 571 obstacles, all within an area only roughly a quarter the size of Wales. We have already experienced just a tiny fragment of the exhausting and depressing inconvenience these obstacles cause to daily life here.
On our way to dinner with the head of Hebron’s medical services, we took a taxi to the point where the road to his village crossed a main highway mostly used by Israeli settlers. Finding four big concrete blocks barring our way on each side of the highway, we had to get out, thread our way through them and find another taxi on the other side. He has to do the same every day or else drive the long way round, taking about an hour to do what should be a 15 minute commute. This is just one of about 100 “closures” around Hebron and it’s been like this for and astonishing 20 years.
And in Bethlehem we went for dinner with an elegant and sophisticated Christian Palestinian woman, an English teacher at a Christian school, who has not visited Hebron, just 30 km away, for seven years. She told us that for four years there was a huge earth mound straddling the road and she had to scramble over it to get a taxi to the town. “It was so humiliating that I don’t feel like going that way again even though the mound is no longer there,” she told us.
The Israeli government justifies the obstacles on the grounds of “security” but the reality is that terrorists don’t present themselves at checkpoints so all these barriers are actually there to contain the Palestinian population and protect the Israeli settlements which have been built on occupied land.
There are now 150 settlements They are totally illegal under international law and have been condemned by numerous UN resolutions but their inhabitants enjoy all the benefits of Israeli citizenship. They were shaded in deep purple on the map and were mostly surrounded by even bigger areas shaded in light purple marking what the government has designated as “state land” and ear-marked for their expansion.
Then came the 100 or so “outposts” - usually caravans placed by people from a settlement on a nearby hill with the aim of taking over even more land. These are illegal even under Israeli law but are often connected to electricity, water and roads. Then, in shades of grey, there were the “military areas” and the “nature reserves” which Palestinians are barred from building on.
By now the map was a mass of red lines, black lines and blue lines, bristled with crosses, cones, blobs and squares marking the obstacles and was shaded in great patches in purple and grey. What it showed was that the settlements now inhabit or control a massive 40% of the land in the West Bank.
The Palestinian areas appeared in fragmented patches on the map, shaded in brown. It vividly conveyed how the Palestinians are virtually confined in increasingly isolated areas which the UN’s Office for the Co-Ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) calls “enclaves.”
We were told that the result is their economy is completely suffocated and 57% of the people live below the poverty line, many of them dependent on food aid. The idea that this mess could be turned into a viable independent state in a projected “two state solution” to the Israel-Palestine conflict began to look increasingly like a sick joke.
Later we were given a tour of East Jerusalem by Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, a British-born Israeli who works for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions which campaigns against the occupation.
East Jerusalem is a densely populated area which used to provide 40% of the Palestinian economy before it was annexed by Israel in 1967. We took a walk beside the ghastly Wall and saw how it now slices off the town from the rest of the West Bank, then stood on a hill while Angela pointed out numerous brand new Israeli settlements - often financed by US money - spreading through and fragmenting the entire area.
Angela - an Israeli for 26 years - described what was happening as a system of “apartheid” in which the Palestinians are being forcibly confined in ever more crowded, destitute “bantustans.”
Many of the activists here are wary of using this kind of emotive language but it increasingly appears daubed on the Wall. Angela uses it deliberately to evoke memories of South Africa in an effort to grab the world’s attention. She says that even the Israeli population mostly does not know what is going on as it is just not discussed on the TV or in newspapers.
As for us, I felt the most shocking thing about the fact that Tony Blair was shocked, and we were shocked, by the real facts on the ground, was just that - that we were shocked. This has been going on for 40 years. We should have known.
27 October 2007 | Category » news
Comments
Gill, you took the Propoganda Holiday Package so why were you shocked. You usually get what the brochure says. It was not a balanced assessment by any means.
I wonder whether you got a chance to watch any PA TV while you were there? And seen the shameless promotion of shahada - death for “Allah”. Statistics show that a stagering 80 percent of young Palestinians living int he territories desire to die in an act of suicide-murder. And these kids do use check points. Of course they do, by your own admission they cann’t get out otherwise.
You should talk to an IDF spokesman by the name of Rutland and get some statistics on just how many “terrorists” are apprehended at check points on a dailly basis. Before Gaza disengagement the figure was something like 1 every 20 minutes. This is the real barrier to peace; the indoctrination of generations of Palestinians to desire death. Check out PA TV on www.pmw.org.il - now that’s a shocker. This is what the UN should be tackling, but sometimes I get the impression that the UN is more interested in demonizing Israel, than really trying to find peace.
Vicki at 28 October 2007 2:24 AM
Vicki, under international law, the Palestynians have an absolute right to fight the occupiers, just like Poles and French had a right to form resistance movements. Stop the occupation, accept the international law.
Eva
Eva Jlassi at 28 October 2007 2:43 AM
Vicki, I monitor checkpoints in a group of 400 Israeli women (www.machsomwatch.org). I’ve more than once seen the same Palestinian mentally handicapped kid come through with a suitcase which has been detonated by an army robot in a nearby field..at a checkpoint where it’s easy to walk round it through hills, so I don’t believe it was a real bomb. And I question who paid him the ten shekels/pound he was paid to go with it through the cp? Maybe the people interested in bumping up statistics to keep the cps? While Olmert promises Abbas that he’ll relax cps, the IDF in the past month created 20+ more! (I’ve also twice seen a bus explode, one I almost got on, so I understand something about that, too.) And I question YOUR statistics because they have no basis in reality; those of us already at peace with Palestinians live and work with them regularly. Fact is, all except 14 of the over 500 checkpoints and barriers are between Palestinian villages in the West Bank, nowhere near Israel. While Israeli settlements expand hugely (nearly half a million Israelis living in Palestinian occupied territory, expanding at 5%+ p.a., on 40% privately owned Palestinian land - an army statistic), the checkpoints are more about keeping Palestinians pinned down in their villages than stopping bombs. The absence of suicide attacks for the past few years is because Hamas is in a truce. When they end it, we’ll see how much the checkpoints and wall help! Tunnels? Rockets? Get my point? Only solution is peace. REAL security cannot be military. Even the army and politicians agree. But they aren’t serious about getting out of occupied territory. Yet.
AngelaJerusalem at 28 October 2007 8:55 AM
Angela-
Hamas is not in a truce, don’t you remember when they said the truce was over a long time ago amidst fighting in Gaza? And certainly you remember Hamas calling for a truce-but not getting it- just in the past month or two so obviously there is no truce now. Why would the Israelis have cps just to keep Palestinians tied down to their villages? What’s in it for Israel? Don’t they want to capture terrorists or at least intercept the transfer of weapons to neighboring towns with them?
Justin at 30 October 2007 7:15 AM
What has any of this got to do with St Margaret’s? Shall we have a thread on Zimbabwe? Darfur?….
david at 30 October 2007 6:14 PM
Gil,
You took the propaganda highway alright, as only those who live in the US know. When you traveled to the West Bank, you saw for yourself as I did, and with 7 others of the Michigan Peace Team Spring 2005, the truth and what is not reported in the news media in the United States.
I witnessed loving families, caring Palestinians, children who gathered around us counting in English 1-10, and joining us as we counted in Arabic.
I witnessed the percussion bombs, tear gas and shooting of Palestinian children in Bili’n during their march against the apartheid wall.
I experienced one of my expensive cameras hit and destroyed by an Israeli bullet while in my hand during one of the weekly Bilin protest marches against the apartheid wall.
I witnessed a paraplegic and 3 year old and their family bombed by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) in their march through the town of Bilin. I captured this on camera. The IDF/IOF proceeded further into the heart of town and threw the same percussion bombs into the town’s mosque. This shooting and bombing went on for at least 1-2 hours.
I witnessed Israeli activists marching in Bilin, then handcuffed and dragged from the town as a result of their commitment to justice.
I witnessed settlers invading the sheep herders’ homes with their AK-47s strapped around their backs on their routine Sabbath walks to intimidate the people of Qawasis, a small hamlet of Palestinian herders who live in caves and tents in Southern Hebron. I have pictures of these confrontations also.
I attended a Governor’s conference in Hebron and video taped the results of an International study that concluded the Israeli settlers poisoned 70-100 Palestinian sheep using a powerful poison pellet banned by International law and only held by the Israeli army.
I witnessed the attempted collective punishment used by the Israeli Occupation Forces to pick up the younger brothers of one of the protesters at the Bilin weekly march.
I visited the Balata refugee camp, met some businessmen who want very much to provide a greater venue for their customers, but are blocked by the IDF checkpoints.
I witnessed my friend being detained at one of the checkpoints because he wore a Palestinian wrist band.
I witnessed a young Palestinian woman with 3 young children being evicted from a bus at one of the checkpoints which was located in the middle of nowhere (5-10 miles from nearest town). Her husband lived in Jerusalem, but she was denied entry due to errant papers. She was left alone with her children but the driver gave her his phone so she called for some assistance. I dont know what happened to her or her young children ages 6, 4, 1.5 is my guess. I took pictures of that incident also.
There are many more stories of the sadness I feel for the injustices occuring in Palestine and its people, but the people I met remained amazingly resilient. They want peace with justice.
My sincere appreciation for your report, Gil. If only America knew what we have found out first hand.
I am Jon Heffelfinger, a Univeristy of Michigan graduate and former UM football player. Cant say there was ever a more foreboding challenge in my life than to pursue peace with justice. Presently I am a retired teacher of 34+ years and now a photographer and videographer. I am also a husband and father of 3 beautiful children (now adults) and 1 grandchild, and a stepson to my 94 year old father-in-law.. I want my children and grandchildren to live in a world of peace and shared properity. I love all people of the world, regardless of race, religion or color. We are one and that is my intention, to be one people of the world living in peace, and there can be no peace without justice, and no justice without forgiveness.
Jon Heffelfinger at 1 November 2007 1:41 PM
For any one interested to understand more about the historical perspective on this issue an excellent book is The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan. It is a very clear account which seems to try v. hard to be unbiased.
Jane Pettersson at 8 November 2007 4:03 PM
Also read “Dark Hope” by David Shulman, a leading Israeli academic who spent four years in the South Hebron hills documenting the appalling treatment meted out to Palestinians by settlers and the IDF, including the sheep poisoning incident mentioned by John Heffelfinger. If you think I have swallowed propaganda, maybe you will believe him. You can also see films of settlers in Hebron attacking Palestinians and invading their property on YouTube. And you can read reports by well-respected Israeli groups such as B’Tselem which document the kind of thing I witnessed.
The Israeli authorities have even been known to acknowledge it themselves. A report by the Israeli Defence Force’s civil administration in 2003 catalogued a series of break-ins, damage and seizure of Palestinian property by Hebron’s Jewish settlers as they “consistently and systematically” worked to “establish and expand” their colony.
The report also said that the activities of the settlers were as “if carried out under the protection of the Israeli regime” because no settlers are ever arrested for these crimes. It added:”The State of Israel looks very bad with regard to the rule of law in Hebron.”
If Britain was occupied, would we not resist? If France, Belgium, Holland were still occupied following the war, would we not support and applaud any resistance movement they managed to muster? Why are Palestinians alone expected to be completely supine in the face of such oppression while their homes are demolished around them and their children injured or killed?
Meanwhile, in Hebron since I left: a child was shot dead by an Israeli soldier during protests against the mass killing of civilians - including about 25 children - in Gaza. A woman gave birth at a checkpoint in the early hours of a freezing January night after soldiers refused to let her pass through for half an hour to get to hospital.
Who needs propaganda? The facts speak for themselves.
Gill Swain
Gill Swain at 21 March 2008 5:09 PM