Pollution, Apartheid and Protest in Occupied Palestine
heather on September 30th, 2005Ethan Ganor writes about the environmental devastation created by the Israeli Occupation the IDF and the settlers.
http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=249
DEAR SETTLERS
atif on September 27th, 2005DEAR SETTLERS
August 27th, 2005
by Uri Avnery
Gush Shalom
Dear Settlers –
“Dear” in the most literal sense.
At long last it must be spelled out, without hypocritical pity, without “if” and “but”.
We have paid billions of shekels in order to settle you in the Gaza Strip. We have paid billions to keep you there, and most of you have lived there at our expense. We paid billions to defend you, and dozens of soldiers, male and female, lost their lives doing this. Now we are paying billions (Eight? Ten? Twelve?) to get you out of there and pay you generous compensation.
But all this is not enough. Again you are shouting. Again you are being robbed. Again we owe you much, much more. Whole stretches of the country, preferably on the sea-shore, to be especially reserved for you, so that you can resettle “as whole communities”. So that you can live separately. So that you can have your own separate schools. So that you can draw government salaries as employees of the local council, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defense.
I don’t know whether the Guinness Book of Records awards a title for champions of impertinence, cheek, impudence - in short, good old Jewish chutzpah. If so, you should win it hands down. In the past we only owed each of you a luxury villa for next to nothing, as well as a source of livelihood, land and water, now it seems we owe you everything. It is your right to help yourselves from the money needed for the sick, the elderly, the handicapped, the children, the unemployed. Because you are the best of the best. Because you are holding on to the beard of the Messiah. Because you were personally chosen by God.
I might have some sympathy for your plight, if you had uttered one word of compassion for the inhabitants of the 1500 Palestinian homes that were destroyed because of you, a greater number than all the homes of the settlers that are being destroyed now. If you had expressed any compassion for the children that were evicted from their homes within half an hour, without compensation, without hotels and psychologists. For the thousands of trees uprooted in order to supply you with “security”.
As the good Rabbi Hillel said 2000 years ago, when he saw the skull floating down the river: “Because you have drowned others, you were drowned”"
And please remember: the bill is not being paid by “the State”, an anonymous body, but by me and the Israeli readers of this column, out of our own pockets.
From Gush Shalom: http://zope.gushshalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1125184690
The Gaza disengagement - looking behind the hype
saleh on September 21st, 2005We now have a new section zaytoun.org/gaza/ with a fact sheet and selected reports examining in detail what The Gaza disengagement means for the Palestinian and places it in its context.
Gaza is a tiny strip of land, a mere 5 miles by 25 miles. It houses 1.3 million Palestinian’s in overcrowded refuge camps with poverty levels similar to sub saharan Africa. Gaza is entirly dependent on the outside world for it’s economic survival. The Israeli pullout from Gaza has left it economically stranded due to its isolation from the rest of the world.
Israel controls its airspace and has closed off the airport. There is no connection with the West Bank and the borders with Egypt are closed. The seaport is closed. The Gaza disengagement effectivly means that Palestinians have been isolated from the outside world and left stranded in poverty and an acute housing crisis. Post Gaza disengagement they now live in a slightly bigger open air prison.
Despite Israeli disengagement, Palestinians continue to endure closures, arrests and attacks
saleh on September 20th, 2005A report byThe Palestinian Human rights centre in Gaza
Israel is removing 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip, corresponding to only 2 percent of the total settler population (425,000) currently living in the Occupied Palestinian Terroteries, including East Jerusalem, and this year alone Israel is building housing for 30,000 more settlers in the West Bank. The removal of settlers from Gaza must be viewed within this broader context of ongoing settler activity in the West Bank.
The reports represent a few of the many incidents recorded by PCHR’s fieldworkers since the ‘disengagement’ process began, showing some of the suffering and hardships imposed on Palestinian civilians during this time.
The full report can be read here
