Ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem

Ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem
Dr. Marcy Newman writing from occupied East Jerusalem, Live from Palestine, 10 March 2009

An Israeli flag hangs from a Palestinian home in Silwan taken over by Israeli settlers.

Last week when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a press conference in Ramallah with Mahmoud Abbas, whose term as Palestinian Authority president officially expired on 9 January, a Washington Post reporter questioned her about the 143 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem that Israel intends to demolish in the coming weeks. She responded: "clearly, this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the roadmap." While some hailed this remark as a condemnation of Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing project, it appeared to many on the ground as callous and flippant.

Since the press conference, the number of Palestinian homes Israeli occupation forces intend to level has increased from 143 to 179. It seems that the number of homes and families who will be forced from their homes, and many from their villages entirely, increases every day. Just this past week in the East Jerusalem area, 88 homes in al-Bustan, 55 homes in Shufat refugee camp, 35 Bedouin homes on the Jerusalem-Jericho Road, and 66 homes in al-Isawiyya were slated for destruction, affecting more than 2,000 Palestinians, most of whom have lived there for generations. Ras al-Amoud, al-Abasiyya, Sheikh Jarrah and Ras Khamis appear to be next on the list of targeted areas. The affected families see this method of adding new neighborhoods to the demolition list every day as a means of making it more difficult to challenge and protest these eviction orders.

I recently visited the al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan, one of the many slated for demolition any day now. The roads into the valley where al-Bustan lies were all closed to Palestinian cars with border police blocking off almost every street. Like many neighborhoods in Jerusalem, the homes reflect a mixture of architectural styles from the Ottoman era to the present, although the Israeli government contends that these homes have been built "illegally" because they have not been granted permission to be built in the first place, a permission that is next to impossible for Palestinians regardless of whether they have an Israeli residency ID or citizenship. Such is the logic of colonialism and ethnic cleansing in Palestine over the last 61 years. And accordingly, a number of Israeli colonists have been confiscating and taking over homes and buildings to pave the way for the wholesale seizure of Palestinian neighborhoods.

It is this history of ethnic cleansing, particularly that of the catastrophe of 1948 when three-quarters of the indigenous Palestinian population were forced from their land and property, an event termed the Nakba, that fuels the solidarity work among Palestinians in Jerusalem. Following the lead of Umm Kamel al-Kurd who put up a tent near her home in Sheikh Jarrah after she was forcibly removed from her home four months ago, other neighborhoods in Jerusalem facing a similar fate have set up such tents as spaces for organizing and encouraging others to stand in solidarity with each neighborhood. Such tents exist now on the Mount of Olives and in Ras Khamis. One of the organizers of the solidarity tent in al-Bustan, Ahmed Siam, told me "We will not let history repeat itself. We learned from history. We will not leave our land like we did in 1948. If they come and kill my son, I will not leave. This is our land. Even if they kill me and only my blood remains, it will remain on this land." The 7,000 residents of the area intend to fight for their right to stay on their land rather than see it turned into a new, illegal Israeli colony.

The Silwan community is resisting this widespread confiscation of their land -- for the purposes of a tourist destination called "the city of David" as well as Jewish-only colonies already surrounding it -- by remaining steadfast and staying on their land as member of the al-Bustan Neighborhood Committee Fakhre Abu Diab stated in a letter written to Clinton: "If the Israeli eviction and demolition orders are implanted it will be a catastrophe for our families, children and elders who will suffer the most. In the face of this destruction we are refusing the municipality's plans and we will not leave our lands and houses nor our community under any circumstances."

The al-Qadi family outside their home in the al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan.

Already the elders and children, in particular, are bearing the brunt of the trauma from the news of this latest catastrophe or Nakba. In the heart of al-Bustan the winding, narrow alleyways with homes tightly packed inside remind one of Palestinian refugee camps. The al-Qadi family who has lived down one of these alleys for 25 years, and in this neighborhood for generations, includes seven children, none of whom have attended school since the orders for their home's demolition were issued by the Israeli occupation authorities. This is indicative of most families in al-Bustan. They explained to me that they are afraid to send their children to school because at any time they could be forcibly removed from our homes while the children are gone. Ironically, they told me, that two days ago the municipality opened a new school in their neighborhood, but they see this as part of the plan by the Israeli occupation authorities.

As the children suffer without their ability to go to school, so do the elderly. Like many families in al-Bustan, the Bedran family has lived here for centuries. Indeed, many of the houses lining the valley were built in the 1870s. Abed and Fatima Bedran built their home in 1980 on land their family has lived on for centuries; like most Palestinian families they built a new home to accommodate their expanding family. Abed, who is 82 years old, suffered from a stroke and is now bedridden after hearing the news of their eviction and house demolition orders for their neighborhood. They, too, refuse to flee their home.

These are just two of the families resisting the latest Nakba in Palestine, individuals who refuse to become Palestine's latest refugees. But the latest ethnic cleansing and colonization plans are not limited to Jerusalem. The number of homes scheduled for demolition in all of Palestine is growing every day. While the focus is on East Jerusalem in much of the international media, this week Palestinians in villages near Nablus and Hebron have also received orders to evacuate their homes. In al-Aqraba and Burin near Nablus, Palestinians are being forced to abandon 20 homes and barns by 26 March. As with the homes in East Jerusalem, some of these pre-date the 1967 colonization of the West Bank. Likewise, in al-Baqaa, near Hebron, eight homes are scheduled to be destroyed in a village whose lands have already been stolen for the purposes of illegal colonies and Jewish-only roads. Dozens of Palestinians will become homeless once their homes are confiscated. And in the village of Nilin near Ramallah, Israeli occupation authorities are in the process of expropriating 35.5 acres of land.

Although most of these families are separated by hundreds of checkpoints and established colonies, what the residents of these villages have in common is their steadfast determination to remain in their homes. From Nablus to Jerusalem to Hebron to Nilin they see their most potent means of resistance as remaining in their homes, refusing to live in a constant state of catastrophe, always on the brink of becoming the next refugees. Jawad Abu Ramoz, the son of a refugee from Hebron who fled to Silwan in 1948, is one of the thousands of Palestinians in al-Bustan who rejects a return to the fate of their parents and grandparents, literally and metaphorically.

All images by Marcy Newman.

Dr. Marcy Newman is Associate Professor of English at An Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine. Her writing may be found at bodyontheline.wordpress.com.

'IDF troops used 11-year-old boy as human shield in Gaza'

Last update - 23:23 23/03/2009

By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies

Israel Defense Forces soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a group of UN human rights experts said Monday. IDF troops ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, said the UN secretary-general's envoy for protecting children in armed conflict. Radhika Coomaraswamy said the incident on Jan. 15, after Israeli tanks had rolled into the neighborhood, was a violation of Israeli and international law. It was included in a 43-page report published Monday, and was just one of many verified human rights atrocities during the three-week war between Israel and Hamas that ended Jan. 18, she said. Coomaraswamy accused Israeli soldiers of shooting Palestinian children, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into a day earlier. Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva said it would respond to the allegations later Monday at a session of the UN Human Rights Council. There also have been allegations that the militant group Hamas used human shields, but UN human rights experts have yet to verify those, said Coomaraswamy. "Violations were reported on a daily basis, too numerous to list," said Coomaraswamy. Coomaraswamy, who visited Gaza and Israel for five days in February, said her list constituted "just a few examples of the hundreds of incidents that have been documented and verified" by UN officials who were in the territory. She was the only one of the nine UN experts who compiled the report that was allowed into Gaza following the war. The experts covered issues ranging from health and hunger to women's rights and arbitrary executions. The experts also noted reports that Hamas had committed other abuses. They said Hamas had been unwilling to investigate the allegations. The report called for Israel to end its blockade of the impoverished territory, where they said more than 90 percent of people are dependent on food aid; allow Palestinians to move between Gaza and the West Bank; and investigate human rights abuses that occurred during the conflict. Coomaraswamy has been a UN undersecretary-general since April 2006. She formerly headed the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission and reported as a UN special investigator on violence against women. Coomaraswamy's comments formed part of a much longer report from nine UN investigators including specialists on the right to health, to food, to adequate housing and education and on summary executions and violence against women. All cited violations by Israel - and in some cases by the Hamas Islamic movement that controls Gaza - during the invasion from December 27 until January 17 which Israeli leaders say was launched to stop rocket attacks by Hamas from the territory. Palestinian officials say 1,434 people in Gaza - 960 of them civilians - were killed in the fighting, a figure Israel contests. The report from the nine gave the total as 1,440, saying of these 431 were children and 114 women. The overall report was criticized in the 47-nation Council by Israel's ambassador Aharon Leshno Yar, who said it "wilfully ignores and downplays the terrorist and other threats we face," and the use by Hamas of human shields. Leshno Yar said the 43-page document was part of a pattern of "demonizing Israel" in the Council - where an informal bloc of Islamic and African nations usually backed by Russia, China and Cuba has a built-in majority. Another report presented to the Council on Monday came from Robert Falk, a U.S. academic and the body's special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. Falk, whom Israel barred from entry last year after accusing him of bias and prejudice, said Israel had subjected civilians in Gaza to "an inhuman form of warfare that kills, maims and inflicts mental harm." His report, in which he called for an independent experts group to probe possible war crimes by Israel and Hamas and also suggested that the UN Security Council set up an ad hoc criminal tribunal, was issued late last week. State Department spokesman Robert Wood was asked whether the U.S. supports Falk's call for an independent inquiry into possible war crimes in Gaza by both Israel and Hamas. "We've expressed our concern many times about the special rapporteur's views on dealing with that question, and we've found the rapporteur's views to be anything but fair. We find them to be biased. We've made that very clear," said Wood.‬

West Bank villagers pushed away from their valley

Dr. Marcy Newman, The Electronic Intifada, 17 March 2009

The village of Aqraba.

The West Bank village of Aqraba sits nested in the Jordan Valley, approximately 20 kilometers southeast of Nablus and around 50 kilometers east of Israel's wall that separates Palestinians in what is now considered Israel from those who reside in the West Bank. It is close enough to the Jordanian border that Palestinian cell phones roam here as if one were in Jordan.

There are 9,000 persons who live in this village, most of whom live on the top of the mountain, but these families have not always resided there. In 1968, shortly after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, when 400,000 Palestinians became refugees, many for the second time, hundreds of Palestinians from Aqraba fled to Jordan. Villagers fled upon hearing accounts of massacres in nearby villages, as happened in 1947-48, during which at least 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homeland in a period referred to as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Historically the families of this village farmed and worked as shepherds, using the land stretching all the way to the Jordan River. But since 1967, Israeli occupation forces have continuously pushed families up towards the valley, a good 20 to 30 kilometers away from lands that used to belong to them. At first this forced removal was because the land was confiscated for a military training area. Then in 1973, part of that land was converted into the colony of Gitit on the mountain above Aqraba's valley.

From the beginning the Israeli military and illegal settlers alike used force to make room for more colonies in the area. Abu al-Aez recalled his family's flight in 1974 from the valley to the center of Aqraba on the mountain after the occupying Israeli army launched a rocket that hit their home: "Thirty dunums of land were stolen from us and now the settlers plant grapes there."

According to official reports, last week the Israeli army issued orders to demolish six homes, their adjoining barns, one elementary school, and a mosque in the valley of Aqraba. However, families there say they suspect that up to 20 houses will be destroyed. On 26 March they are scheduled to have a hearing in an Israeli colonial court in Beit El, a settlement close to al-Bireh, to challenge this decision.

The roads leading down into the valley where the buildings slated for demolition lie are in Area C, while the part of the village on the mountain remains in Area B. Under the Oslo Accords the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B and C, referring to urban areas, built-up villages and rural areas respectively. Under this agreement the Palestinian Authority technically controls civilian life, including security; in contradistinction Area C is entirely controlled by Israeli occupation forces. One can tell the difference as one drives into the valley and the road changes from the paved road to a dirt road (though much of the paved road, like the electricity, was only installed two years ago). The Palestinian Authority exercises limited autonomy in Area B, while Area C -- comprising 59 percent of the West Bank -- is subjected to Israeli military administration. On one of the main dirt roads running through the agricultural land at the bottom of the valley -- a road that was created by the occupying Israeli army -- there are stones that have recently been marked with red spray paint. Villagers believe this indicates that their homes will be demolished in order to create a Jewish-only road connecting the surrounding, illegal Israeli colonies of Gitit, Itamar, Yitzhar and Hamra.

Like many villages in the West Bank surrounded by illegal Israeli colonies, the areas of Aqraba are invaded by Israeli forces daily and Israeli settlers regularly. Between 1975 and 1982 shepherds were regularly arrested by the Israeli army. Their sheep were confiscated while the shepherds were in prison and they were forced to pay 10 Jordanian dinars per sheep to get them back upon their release. Since the second Palestinian intifada broke out in September 2000, at least one shepherd per year has been murdered by Israeli settlers. Most famously, in September 2008, Yahia Ateya Fahmi Bani Maneya, an 18-year-old shepherd, was murdered by settlers. These daily threats since 1967 have meant that numerous families who own land in the valley for grazing their animals and growing food -- fava beans, lentils and wheat -- have sold their livestock and moved to the part of Aqraba at the top of the mountain. Those who have moved, but who have tried to continue to tend to their land, have been prevented from doing so by the Israeli army.

Driving into the valley, one notices that there are still shepherds out with their sheep grazing the land. The village itself is 250 years old, although all of the original homes are more than a hundred years old. As families have expanded they added onto the original structures, which they still use. The history of these families on the land can be traced as these homes are built next to the caves that their families inhabited with their sheep generations ago, prior to building homes. The elementary school and the mosque are newer, but these buildings, like the homes, are all slated for destruction in this latest episode of ethnic cleansing, which will affect the 200 people residing in this valley for generations. These are the remaining families who have not fled to Jordan nor to the center of Aqraba.

Two young girls, Lubna and Maram, of the Anas family.

Every family in Aqraba has a similar story to tell: of relatives fleeing in 1967 to Jordan, of relatives fleeing to Aqraba's center and leaving their agrarian way of life, of the looming dispossession. Like many of the families from Aqraba, Fatima and Maher Anas trace their families back for generations and their migration from cave to home, part of which was built more than 200 years ago. Like many other families, much of their livelihood has been destroyed by Israeli army bulldozers that destroyed all of their wheat last year. Many of their relatives fled to Zarqa refugee camp in Jordan, joining the fate of other Aqraba families.

Reflecting on what will happen if the remaining part of her family is turned into internally displaced refugees, Fatima explained, "If they destroy our houses they will destroy our crops and our ability to make food. If we cannot plant food any longer, what will happen to our livelihood?"

Fatima's brother, Yusef, has already faced this fate. Across the way from the mosque scheduled to be demolished is the foundation is Yusef Nasrallah's home. He started building it last year only to be ordered to stop by the Israeli army. Like many before him, Yusef sold his sheep and moved to Aqraba's center where he has been unable to find work.

To be sure, this latest phase in the ethnic cleansing of Aqraba is not unique to the West Bank nor to the part of historic Palestine that is now considered Israel. This week saw the destruction of two Palestinian homes and 100 olive trees in the Negev town of Beer Seba, now given the Hebraized name of Beersheva. In the West Bank, from Qalqiliya to Hebron to East Jerusalem, families await the status of the orders for their homes to be demolished. But while there is a great deal of attention paid to the impending destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, there is little if any media attention or support for families in small villages like Aqraba. In the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Palestinians flock to the demonstration tent set up to show solidarity, but there has been no such solidarity presence in Aqraba. Israel's colonial divide-and-rule policy continues to fragment the people in ways that separate them physically by its system of checkpoints and permits. But this is not about the occupation of the West Bank. Indeed, these same methods were used to confiscate large land tracts during the 1948 catastrophe. It is an ongoing Nakba that requires learning the lessons of history by not submitting to the divisions imposed by the colonial regime.

All images by Dr. Marcy Newman.

Dr. Marcy Newman is Associate Professor of English at An Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine. Her writing may be found at bodyontheline.wordpress.com.

Global boycott movement marks its successes

Jeff Handmaker, The Electronic Intifada, 20 February 2009

Responding to the many calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, solidarity movements around the world have marked many successes. It is important for human rights advocates to build on this momentum and seize the opportunity to do what is within their power to try and hold Israel accountable for its abuses of human rights and other international laws.

Since the initial BDS call by Palestinian intellectuals and academics in October 2003, which was followed by separate calls for sports, arts, economic and other calls for BDS, there has been a seismic shift in the global solidarity movement for human rights in Israel-Palestine. Lawyers, doctors, academics, students, trade unionists, school teachers and many other activists have marked successes around the world. Their efforts are an inspiring reflection of the South African anti-apartheid movement, where BDS was also used very effectively.

In first few weeks of 2009 alone, European, North American and South African solidarity movements have made remarkable progress:

• A growing number of politicians in Europe and North America have put forward uncomfortable, probing questions to their governments and clearly want to do more. One example is the "Break the Silence" campaign within the Dutch Labor Party.
• Numerous letters and opinion pieces have been published by prominent figures in major national newspapers, including statement by prominent lawyers and professors published by The Sunday Times on 11 January 2009.
• The global "Derail Veolia" campaign has grown in leaps and bounds. An important success was the decision by the Stockholm municipality to cancel an agreement with Veolia Transport, on the basis of its involvement in the Jerusalem light-rail project, to the tune of several billion euros.
• There have been calls for international investigations of war crimes from the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the head of UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestine refugees) and the UN Secretary General as well as scores of high-profile international lawyers around the world.
• The European Parliament managed to halt negotiations on strengthening the trading relationship between the EU and Israel in the framework of the Association Agreement and there are new, emboldened efforts to try and get the Association Agreement suspended altogether.
• Countless demonstrations have taken place in villages, towns and cities around the world, from Cape Town to Swansea and from Stockholm to Montreal and they are attracting decent publicity. Where there has been no television crew present, activists have made effective use of online resources such as YouTube.
• In South Africa there was a major success when dockworkers affiliated with SATAWU and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) refused to unload a ship containing Israeli goods. The story made national headlines for several days.
• Academic boycott is taking hold in academic institutions around the world -- students in particular have been leading the way on this, but academics also.

Israel's 22-day-long bombardment of Gaza, the greatest use of military force in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967 and what several commentators have already referred to as the Palestinian Sharpeville, has greatly fueled BDS efforts.

Especially before the blockade and recent carnage in Gaza, some activists raised concerns that by pursuing BDS, they may be curtailing dialogue, isolating progressive elements within Israel or even harming Palestinians. However, these concerns have greatly diminished as activists have realized how effective a mechanism BDS really is. In any event, the existence of a dialogue towards a just and sustainable peace between Palestinians and Israel is clearly non-existent, and there is little incentive on the part of Israel to engage in this any time soon. Progressive elements within Israel are still very marginal, but growing and many of these courageous, progressive Israelis have themselves called for BDS against Israel. As for harm against Palestinians, the fact that Palestinians themselves have called for BDS should be as clear a sign as any that the cost of not responding to the call causes far more harm.

Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, activists should continue to grasp the opportunities that BDS offers and build up the momentum that has been generated. As Israeli apartheid week, taking place worldwide from 1-8 March (see http://apartheidweek.org), solidarity activists should continue to work within the narrow, but highly significant space that exists for them to try and hold the Israeli government, and their own governments, accountable for abuses of human rights and humanitarian law against Palestinians.

Jeff Handmaker is an author, a human rights lawyer, and a researcher and university lecturer in human rights at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. A version of this article was originally published by Indymedia US.

Rebuilding the Islamic University of Gaza

Akram Habeeb and Marcy Newman, The Electronic Intifada, 16 February 2009
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10308.shtml

Since Israel's bombing of the buildings housing scientific laboratories at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) on 28 December, the rubble that remains debunks Israeli claims that those labs were used to manufacture weapons. Of course such allegations are preposterous; indeed it would be quite foolish for IUG to even entertain the notion of producing weapons given the way in which Palestinian universities have been under constant Israeli attack since the founding of Birzeit University in the West Bank in 1975.

Rather, it is Israeli universities that contain the laboratories where the weaponry used to destroy Palestinian lives in Gaza and elsewhere is developed. In the 14 June 2007 issue of The Nation, US journalist Naomi Klein makes it clear that the relationship between the State of Israel, its academic institutions and its military are intertwined:

"Thirty homeland security companies were launched in Israel in the past six months alone, thanks in large part to lavish government subsidies that have transformed the Israeli army and the country's universities into incubators for security and weapons start-ups (something to keep in mind in the debates about the academic boycott)."

The way that Israel binds together its universities (all of which are state-run and funded) and its military can be gleaned from any number of Israeli universities and their laboratories, which serve as incubators of destruction while the Palestinian people inevitably become its guinea pigs. In a recent article in the Tel Aviv University Review (Winter 2008-2009) entitled "Lifting the Veil of Secrecy," Gil Zohar lays out the collaboration between Israeli universities and Israel's colonial military project quite clearly:

"... Tel Aviv University [TAU] is at the front line of the critical work to maintain Israel's military and technological edge. While much of that research remains classified, several facts illuminate the role of the university. MAFAT, a Hebrew acronym meaning the [Research and Development] Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense, is currently funding 55 projects at TAU. Nine projects are being funded by DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense."

What is significant is that the US government and its military are complicit in the research leading to the destruction and devastation of Palestinian lives through their funding of these research projects, projects that inevitably lead to acts of aggression such as the bombing of IUG.

IUG is an institution of higher education open not only to its 20,000 students, but also to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza who visit its libraries and attend its lectures. USAID, the US government's foreign aid agency, claims that it funded more than $900,000 of projects, which went into building IUG's campus (see "Audit finds US funded university linked to terrorism," The Chicago Tribune, 12 December 2007). In March 2007 The Washington Times published a propagandistic article, "School Linked to Hamas Gets US Cash," charging that USAID did not follow US federal laws when financially assisting IUG, as well as Al-Quds University (famous for its normalizing relations with Israeli academia, although it recently promised to cease such joint projects). USAID conducted an audit in response to The Washington Times article that questioned $140,000 of USAID money awarded to the university and to 49 students who received scholarships. The article and the audit argued that funding a so-called "Hamas-controlled" university violates US federal law. As a result of this audit faculty and students at IUG have been prohibited from receiving US State Department funds -- whether USAID-related funds for building, scholarships or the Palestinian Faculty Development Program. This is yet another method of destroying educational opportunities for Palestinians in Gaza over the course of the past few years.

It is difficult to assess at present how much of the damage sustained by IUG was built with USAID funds. Likewise, it is difficult to ascertain a direct link between military research projects at Tel Aviv University funded by Israel and the US and the destruction of IUG. But what is clear is that past educational opportunities, for individual faculty members and students as well as for expanding scientific studies in the form of building laboratories, coming from the US are no longer available to Palestinians affiliated with IUG. Moreover, the primary "living" testimony which verily refutes Israeli claims about IUG as a place for hiding or manufacturing weapons can be found in the rubble of its destroyed buildings, which were decimated with knowledge produced by American research projects at Israeli universities. The mountains of rubble call out to any investigation team to come, to dig, to excavate in order to prove that Israeli allegations are merely a pretext employed to destroy a prestigious academic institution in Palestine. The debris of the science lab buildings shows that beneath it were 74 laboratories serving the science and engineering students at IUG. These labs were places for diligent research and scientific experiments. They were a fountain of hope for impoverished students, many of whom were about to graduate.

The science and engineering lab buildings were not the only premises that were pounded by the Israelis with their American-made weapons. Many other university buildings housing sophisticated computer labs, classrooms, workshops and seminar rooms were also bombed. In spite of the tremendous damage inflicted on IUG, it will be rebuilt with the spirit of resiliency that we see in the young minds of our students. This role however cannot be sustained without the help of our colleagues from around the world. That academics have taken the decision to boycott Israel and support Palestinians given Israeli academia's role in its continuous military aggression, offers a glimmer of hope for IUG.

IUG needs financial support to help it rebuild and re-equip its labs. But it does not just need charity. IUG faculty and students also require solidarity from their academic colleagues at institutions around the world to start partnerships in order to rehabilitate the rest of its premises. Projects such as collaborative video-conference courses, faculty and student exchange programs and scholarships for faculty and students are all important ways of lending solidarity to IUG. Equally important for our American colleagues is to remove the false label that IUG is a "Hamas-controlled" institution. Just as Palestinians in Gaza belong to a variety of political parties, IUG's students, board, faculty and staff represent that reality. IUG is a university like any other in Palestine that reflects the diversity of its population. As with Israel's propagandistic claims that it engaged in a "war with Hamas," when they besiege all Palestinians living in Gaza, this classification of IUG hurts all Palestinians pursuing higher education. We call on our colleagues to work to rebuild IUG through their solidarity through which it can remain an edifice of light, love and learning.

Akram Habeeb, teaches literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and Marcy Newman teaches literature at An Najah National University. For more information about IUG reconstruction please visit http://www.iugaza.edu.ps/iugrec/en/. For more information about how you can help please email Marcy at marcynewman at riseup dot net or Akram at akramhabeeb at yahoo dot com.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10308.shtml

Rebuilding the Islamic University of Gaza

Akram Habeeb and Marcy Newman, The Electronic Intifada, 16 February 2009
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10308.shtml

Since Israel's bombing of the buildings housing scientific laboratories at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) on 28 December, the rubble that remains debunks Israeli claims that those labs were used to manufacture weapons. Of course such allegations are preposterous; indeed it would be quite foolish for IUG to even entertain the notion of producing weapons given the way in which Palestinian universities have been under constant Israeli attack since the founding of Birzeit University in the West Bank in 1975.

Rather, it is Israeli universities that contain the laboratories where the weaponry used to destroy Palestinian lives in Gaza and elsewhere is developed. In the 14 June 2007 issue of The Nation, US journalist Naomi Klein makes it clear that the relationship between the State of Israel, its academic institutions and its military are intertwined:

"Thirty homeland security companies were launched in Israel in the past six months alone, thanks in large part to lavish government subsidies that have transformed the Israeli army and the country's universities into incubators for security and weapons start-ups (something to keep in mind in the debates about the academic boycott)."

The way that Israel binds together its universities (all of which are state-run and funded) and its military can be gleaned from any number of Israeli universities and their laboratories, which serve as incubators of destruction while the Palestinian people inevitably become its guinea pigs. In a recent article in the Tel Aviv University Review (Winter 2008-2009) entitled "Lifting the Veil of Secrecy," Gil Zohar lays out the collaboration between Israeli universities and Israel's colonial military project quite clearly:

"... Tel Aviv University [TAU] is at the front line of the critical work to maintain Israel's military and technological edge. While much of that research remains classified, several facts illuminate the role of the university. MAFAT, a Hebrew acronym meaning the [Research and Development] Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense, is currently funding 55 projects at TAU. Nine projects are being funded by DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense."

What is significant is that the US government and its military are complicit in the research leading to the destruction and devastation of Palestinian lives through their funding of these research projects, projects that inevitably lead to acts of aggression such as the bombing of IUG.

IUG is an institution of higher education open not only to its 20,000 students, but also to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza who visit its libraries and attend its lectures. USAID, the US government's foreign aid agency, claims that it funded more than $900,000 of projects, which went into building IUG's campus (see "Audit finds US funded university linked to terrorism," The Chicago Tribune, 12 December 2007). In March 2007 The Washington Times published a propagandistic article, "School Linked to Hamas Gets US Cash," charging that USAID did not follow US federal laws when financially assisting IUG, as well as Al-Quds University (famous for its normalizing relations with Israeli academia, although it recently promised to cease such joint projects). USAID conducted an audit in response to The Washington Times article that questioned $140,000 of USAID money awarded to the university and to 49 students who received scholarships. The article and the audit argued that funding a so-called "Hamas-controlled" university violates US federal law. As a result of this audit faculty and students at IUG have been prohibited from receiving US State Department funds -- whether USAID-related funds for building, scholarships or the Palestinian Faculty Development Program. This is yet another method of destroying educational opportunities for Palestinians in Gaza over the course of the past few years.

It is difficult to assess at present how much of the damage sustained by IUG was built with USAID funds. Likewise, it is difficult to ascertain a direct link between military research projects at Tel Aviv University funded by Israel and the US and the destruction of IUG. But what is clear is that past educational opportunities, for individual faculty members and students as well as for expanding scientific studies in the form of building laboratories, coming from the US are no longer available to Palestinians affiliated with IUG. Moreover, the primary "living" testimony which verily refutes Israeli claims about IUG as a place for hiding or manufacturing weapons can be found in the rubble of its destroyed buildings, which were decimated with knowledge produced by American research projects at Israeli universities. The mountains of rubble call out to any investigation team to come, to dig, to excavate in order to prove that Israeli allegations are merely a pretext employed to destroy a prestigious academic institution in Palestine. The debris of the science lab buildings shows that beneath it were 74 laboratories serving the science and engineering students at IUG. These labs were places for diligent research and scientific experiments. They were a fountain of hope for impoverished students, many of whom were about to graduate.

The science and engineering lab buildings were not the only premises that were pounded by the Israelis with their American-made weapons. Many other university buildings housing sophisticated computer labs, classrooms, workshops and seminar rooms were also bombed. In spite of the tremendous damage inflicted on IUG, it will be rebuilt with the spirit of resiliency that we see in the young minds of our students. This role however cannot be sustained without the help of our colleagues from around the world. That academics have taken the decision to boycott Israel and support Palestinians given Israeli academia's role in its continuous military aggression, offers a glimmer of hope for IUG.

IUG needs financial support to help it rebuild and re-equip its labs. But it does not just need charity. IUG faculty and students also require solidarity from their academic colleagues at institutions around the world to start partnerships in order to rehabilitate the rest of its premises. Projects such as collaborative video-conference courses, faculty and student exchange programs and scholarships for faculty and students are all important ways of lending solidarity to IUG. Equally important for our American colleagues is to remove the false label that IUG is a "Hamas-controlled" institution. Just as Palestinians in Gaza belong to a variety of political parties, IUG's students, board, faculty and staff represent that reality. IUG is a university like any other in Palestine that reflects the diversity of its population. As with Israel's propagandistic claims that it engaged in a "war with Hamas," when they besiege all Palestinians living in Gaza, this classification of IUG hurts all Palestinians pursuing higher education. We call on our colleagues to work to rebuild IUG through their solidarity through which it can remain an edifice of light, love and learning.

Akram Habeeb, teaches literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and Marcy Newman teaches literature at An Najah National University. For more information about IUG reconstruction please visit http://www.iugaza.edu.ps/iugrec/en/. For more information about how you can help please email Marcy at marcynewman at riseup dot net or Akram at akramhabeeb at yahoo dot com.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10308.shtml

The Wounds of Gaza

From the Lancet (Medical Journal)

February 2nd 2009

The Wounds of Gaza

Two Surgeons from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang, managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. Here they describe their experiences, share their views, and conclude that the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack.

The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008,

Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years.

On the first day of the invasion, 250 persons were killed. Every single police station in Gaza was bombed killing large numbers of police officers. Having wiped out the police force attention was turned to non government targets. Gaza was bombed from the air by F16 and Apache helicopters, shelled from the sea by Israeli gunboats and from the land by tank artillery. Many schools were reduced to rubble, including the American School of Gaza, 40 mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, and of course 21,000 homes, 4,000 of which were demolished completely. It is estimated that 100,000 people are now homeless.

Israeli weapons
The weapons used apart from conventional bombs and high explosives also include unconventional weapons of which at least 4 categories could be identified.

• Phosphorus Shells and bombs

The bombs dropped were described by eye witnesses as exploding at high altitude scattering a large canopy of phosphorus bomblets which cover a large area.

During the land invasion, eyewitnesses describe the tanks shelling into homes first with a conventional shell. Once the walls are destroyed, a second shell - a phosphorus shell is then shot into the homes. Used in this manner the phosphorus explodes and burns the families and the homes. Many charred bodies were found among burning phosphorus particles.

One area of concern is the phosphorus seems to be in a special stabilizing agent. This results in the phosphorus being more stable and not completely burning out. Residues still cover the fields, playground and compounds. They ignite when picked up by curious kids, or produce fumes when farmers return to water their fields. One returning farming family on watering their field met with clouds of fumes producing epistaxis. Thus the phosphorus residues probably treated with a stabilizer also act as anti-personnel weapons against children and make the return to normal life difficult without certain hazards.

Surgeons from hospitals are also reporting cases where after primary laparotomy for relatively small wounds with minimal contamination find on second look laparotomy increasing areas of tissue necrosis at about 3 days. Patients then become gravely ill and by about 10 days those patients needing a third relook encounter massive liver necrosis. This may or may not be accompanied by generalized bleeding , kidney failure and heart failure and death. Although acidosis, liver necrosis and sudden cardiac arrest due to hypocalcemia are known to be a complication of white phosphorus it is not possible to attribute these complications as being due to phosphorus alone.

There is real urgency to analyze and identify the real nature of this modified phosphorus as to its long term effect on the people of Gaza. There is also urgency in collecting and disposing of the phosphorus residues littering the entire Gaza Strip. As they give off toxic fumes when coming into contact with water, once the rain falls the whole area would be polluted with acid phosphorus fumes. Children should be warned not to handle and play with these phosphorus residues.

• Heavy Bombs

The use of DIME (dense inert material explosives) were evident, though it is unsure whether depleted uranium were used in the south. In the civilian areas, surviving patients were found to have limbs truncated by DIME, since the stumps apart from being characteristically cut off in guillotine fashion also fail to bleed. Bomb casing and shrapnel are extremely heavy.

• Fuel Air Explosives

Bunker busters and implosion bombs have been used . There are buildings especially the 8 storey Science and Technology Building of the Islamic University of Gaza which had been reduced to a pile of rubble no higher than 5-6 feet.

• Silent Bombs

People in Gaza described a silent bomb which is extremely destructive. The bomb arrives as a silent projectile at most with a whistling sound and creates a large area where all objects and living things are vaporized with minimal trace. We are unable to fit this into conventional weapons but the possibility of new particle weapons being tested should be suspected.

• Executions

Survivors describe Israeli tanks arriving in front of homes asking residents to come out. Children, old people and women would come forward and as they were lined up they were just fired on and killed. Families have lost tens of their members through such executions. The deliberate targeting of unarmed children and women is well documented by human right groups in the Gaza Strip over the past month.

• Targeting of ambulances

Thirteen ambulances had been fired upon killing drivers and first aid personnel in the process of rescue and evacuation of the wounded.

• Cluster bombs

The first patients wounded by cluster were brought into Abu Yusef Najjar Hospital. Since more than 50% of the tunnels have been destroyed, Gaza has lost part of her lifeline. These tunnels contrary to popular belief are not for weapons, though small light weapons could have been smuggled through them. However they are the main stay of food and fuel for Gaza. Palestinians are beginning to tunnel again. However it became clear that cluster bombs were dropped on to the Rafah border and the first was accidentally set of by tunneling. Five burns patients were brought in after setting off a booby trap kind of device.

Death toll
As of 25 January 2009, the death toll was estimated at 1,350 with the numbers increasing daily. This is due to the severely wounded continuing to die in hospitals. 60% of those killed were children.

Severe injuries
The severely injured numbered 5,450, with 40% being children. These are mainly large burns and polytrauma patients. Single limb fractures and walking wounded are not included in these figures.

Through our conversations with doctors and nurses the word holocaust and catastrophe were repeatedly used. The medical staff all bear the psychological trauma of the past month living though the situation and dealing with mass casualties which swamped their casualties and operating rooms. Many patients died in the Accident and Emergency Department while awaiting treatment. In a district hospital, the orthopaedic surgeon carried out 13 external fixations in less than a day.

It is estimated that of the severely injured, 1,600 will suffer permanently disabilities. These include amputations, spinal cord injuries, head injuries, large burns with crippling contractures.

Special factors
The death and injury toll is especially high in this recent assault due to several factors:

• No escape: As Gaza is sealed by Israeli troops, no one can escape the bombardment and the land invasion. There is simply no escape. Even within the Gaza Strip itself, movement from north to south is impossible as Israeli tanks had cut the northern half of Gaza from the south. Compare this with the situation in Lebanon 1982 and 2006, when it was possible for people to escape from an area of heavy bombardment to an area of relative calm - there was no such is option for Gaza.
• Gaza is very densely populated. It is eerie to see that the bombs used by Israel have been precision bombs. They have a hundred percent hit rate on buildings which are crowded with people. Examples are the central market, police stations. Schools, the UN compounds used as a safety shelter from bombardment, mosques (40 of them destroyed), and the homes of families who thought they were safe as there were no combatants in them and high rise flats where a single implosion bomb would destroy multiple families. This pattern of consistent targeting of civilians makes one suspect that the military targets are but collateral damage, while civilians are the primary targets.
• The quantity and quality of the ammunition being used as described above.
• Gaza’s lack of defense against the modern weapons of Israel. She has no tanks, no planes, no anti-aircraft missiles against the invading army. We experienced that first hand in a minor clash of Israeli tank shells versus Palestinian AK47 return fire. The forces were simply unmatched.
• Absence of well constructed bomb shelters for civilians. Unfortunately these will also be no match for bunker busters possessed by the Israeli Army.

Conclusion
Taking the above points into consideration, the next assault on Gaza would be just as disastrous. The people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack. If the International Community is serious about preventing such a large scale of deaths and injuries in the future, it will have to develop a some sort of defense force for Gaza. Otherwise, many more vulnerable civilans will continue to die.

Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang

Israeli "investigation" whitewashes West Bank execution

AL-HAQ ALERT

REF.: 7.2009E
9 February 2009

On 2 February 2009, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported the findings of an "investigation" into an incident in which, that morning, "a Palestinian gunman opened fire at an [Israeli army] Patrol Force near the Community Yatir [sic], south of Hebron." As a result of the investigation, the Israeli military Central Command "assumes" that the "terrorist," who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, "was intending to execute a terror attack against Israeli civilians."

After a full field investigation, Al-Haq has determined serious factual inaccuracies and false assumptions in the Israeli authorities' version of events, and reports the following findings:

On the morning of Monday, 2 February 2009, an infantry unit of the Israeli occupying forces was deployed to Janba, southeast of Yatta in the Hebron district of the southern West Bank. Between 7:30 and 8:00am, the Israeli soldiers stopped a total of three vehicles on a dirt road in the Marah al-Tabaka area of Janba. This road is close to the West Bank's southern border with Israel, and is used by Palestinian merchants who travel to Israel to sell their goods. Two of the three vehicles were returning from Israel, while the other was traveling towards Israel from Yatta. The Israeli soldiers had not set up a visible "flying" checkpoint on the road, but rather each time a vehicle arrived, the soldiers jumped out from positions of hiding off to the side of the road, ordered the drivers to turn off their engines, took the IDs of those in the vehicles, and forced them to wait at the side of the road. By the time the three vehicles had been stopped, a total of 11 Palestinians were being kept by the Israeli soldiers at the side of the road.

At approximately 8:45am, a fourth vehicle arrived along the road, coming from Yatta, containing only the driver, Taysir Shihda Manasra, 28, from Bani Neim. Although the first three vehicles were still blocking the road, they were not yet visible to Manasra because of a bend in the road. The Palestinian witnesses, being guarded by soldier "A," were at the side of the road, on the bend, and could see Manasra's car approaching. Further back up the road, the rest of the Israeli soldiers were hiding again, and two of them jumped out (one from each side of the road) to ambush Manasra in a similar manner to the other vehicles. He was already passing them by the time they emerged and called on him to stop. It is not clear whether Manasra noticed the soldiers or not, as he did not stop immediately, driving for another 10 meters, before seeing soldier A emerge from the side of the road at the bend, 25 meters in front of him. Manasra stopped immediately as the soldier fired five shots into the air. A total of five Israeli soldiers then opened fire on the car, without warning or justification: soldier A, from the front; the two soldiers who had initially called on Manasra to stop, from behind; and another two soldiers who had been hiding in line with where Manasra stopped his car, from the side.

Corroborated witness reports confirmed that no shots came from the car, and that the barrage of shooting at the car continued for approximately 15 minutes, with hundreds of bullets fired. Medical reports later showed that Manasra was hit and killed by four bullets: one to the face, one to the back, one to the left arm, and the fourth to the left leg. Manasra's body was left on the road outside his car until approximately 2:00pm. He was then placed on a stretcher by four Israeli soldiers who repeatedly kicked the body as they brought it to a military ambulance.

Shortly after the victim had been killed, a number of Israeli officials arrived, including a military police unit as well as an apparently senior officer who arrived in a helicopter, spoke to the soldiers present about what had happened, and left after 10 minutes. At approximately 10:00am, a remote-controlled robot was brought by the Israeli forces to open the doors of the car and remove Manasra's body from the car.

Between 11:00am and 2:00pm, the Palestinian witnesses were taken one by one to a military jeep close to where they were still being kept at the side of the road, and interviewed by Israeli military police officers. Each one was asked whether Manasra had shot at the Israeli soldiers, and each one responded in the negative. However, when one of the military police investigators asked soldier A what had happened, the soldier claimed that Manasra had fired 30 shots at him with a pistol from inside the car. Witnesses reported that no gun was found on Manasra's body or in his car when searched by the Israeli soldiers.

After the body was removed, the Palestinian witnesses were all brought to the nearby Israeli military checkpoint at Lasifer, and held there from 3:00pm to 5:00pm before being released.

The findings above demonstrate that Taysir Manasra was summarily executed by the Israeli occupying forces, amounting to an extrajudicial killing in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law. It also constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as a willful killing. Having stopped his car, Manasra was under the control of the Israeli soldiers, yet they made no attempt to question or arrest him for any alleged offense before opening fire. The "assumption" on the part of the Israeli authorities that Manasra intended to carry out an attack on Israeli civilians is disingenuous and unfounded in fact. There is no evidence that Manasra had any weapon, and the Israeli military is fully aware of the fact that the road in question is regularly used by Palestinian workers and merchants to enter Israel, which Manasra did every day. Any assumptions or suspicions as to the victim's intentions certainly provide no basis in law for the arbitrary deprivation of his inalienable and inviolable right to life.

Al-Haq emphasizes its concern over the lack of impartiality and diligence in the Israeli authorities' "investigation," the findings of which were reported on the same day as the incident occurred, and calls for a full and independent investigation into the incident by the Israeli authorities. Al-Haq further reiterates its condemnation of the systematic impunity with which the Israeli occupying forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are allowed to persistently violate the right to life of Palestinians.

AL-HAQ ALERT

Gaza 2009: Culture of resistance vs. defeat

Dr. Haidar Eid, The Electronic Intifada, 11 February 2009

Can the brutal 22-day Israeli war on the Gaza Strip be considered a victory for the Palestinian people? (Matthew Cassel)

The ongoing bloodletting in the Gaza Strip and the ability of the Palestinian people to creatively resist the might of the world's fourth strongest army is being hotly debated by Palestinian political forces. The latest genocidal war which lasted 22 days, and in which apartheid Israel used F-16s, Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks and conventional and non-conventional weapons against the population, have raised many serious questions about the concept of resistance and whether the outcome of the war can, or cannot, be considered a victory for the Palestinian people. The same kind of questions were raised in 2006 when apartheid Israel launched its war against the Lebanese people and brutally killed more than 1,200 Lebanese.

At the beginning of the Gaza war, we were told by certain sectors of the Palestinian political leadership that "the two sides are to blame: Hamas and Israel" and that "Hamas must stop the launching of the rockets from Gaza." Resistance in all its forms, violent and otherwise, was considered, by these same people, "futile." Now that there are fewer bombs raining down on Gaza, the conflict focuses on whether the outcome of the war was one of victory or defeat. For the Israeli ruling class the answer is clear -- in spite of the fact that none of the objectives announced at the beginning of the war have been achieved. It is clear because they, like the defeatist Palestinian camp, simply use the numbers of martyrs, disabled and homeless to determine victory and defeat.

This approach fails to acknowledge that none of the so-called "objectives" of the war have been achieved: Hamas is still in power; rockets are still being launched; no pro-Oslo forces have been reinstated in the Gaza Strip. The question now being raised by some Palestinian intellectuals and political forces, after the (un)expected brutality of the Israeli occupation forces, is "was it worth it?" The "it" here remains ambiguous depending on the reaction of the listener/reader. What is of interest here is the radical change that some national forces, especially the left and their intellectuals, have gone through in their mechanical, as opposed to dialectical, interpretation of history and their role, thereafter, in its making.

The war on Gaza has emerged as a political tsunami that has not only put an end to the fiction of the two-state solution and brought liberation rather than independence back to the agenda, but it has also created a new Palestinian political map given the intellectual debate vis-a-vis the outcome of the war. This new classification of the Palestinian intelligentsia and ruling classes has led to many ex-leftists joining the right-wing anthem of Oslo and its culture of defeatism. Not unlike the Oslo intelligentsia, the new pragmatic left is characterized by demagogy, opportunism and short-sightedness. The conduct of these NGOized intellectuals (those emerging from western-funded "nongovernmental organizations" -- NGOs) does not show any commitment to their national and historical responsibility.

Michel Foucault's famous formulation, "where there is power, there is resistance," helps us to theorize the political and, hence, the cultural resistance, represented in some of the (post)war discourse. Within the context of resistance, it is worth quoting Frantz Fanon's definitions of the role of the "native intellectual" during the "fighting phase": "[T]he native, after having tried to lose himself in the people and with the people, will ... shake the people ... [H]e turns himself into an awakener of the people; hence comes a fighting literature, and a national literature."

On the other hand, there are intellectuals who, according to Fanon's theorization, "give proof that [they] [have] assimilated the culture of the occupying power. [Their] writings correspond point by point with those of [their] opposite numbers in the mother country. [Their] inspiration is European [i.e. Western] ..." Hence the adoption of the Israeli narrative by some intellectual sections, including NGOized leftists, whereby Israel was exonerated of its crimes: "we are to blame for what happened;" "we were not consulted when Hamas started the war!" and "the people are paying the price, not the resistance movement;" "Hamas should have renewed the truce;" "we cannot afford to lose so many lives; Hamas should have understood this;" "there was no resistance at all on the streets of Gaza; resistance men ran away as soon as they saw the first tank."

By the same token, one would also condemn the Algerian, South African, French, Vietnamese, Lebanese and Egyptian resistance to occupation. The same logic was used by the Bantustan chiefs of South Africa against the anti-apartheid movement, by the Vichy government of France, the South Vietnamese government, the reactionary Egyptian Forces against the progressive regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956, and even by the Siniora-Jumblatt-Geagea-Hariri March 14 coalition in Lebanon in 2006.

Obviously, these intellectuals' assimilation of the Western mentality, through a process of NGOization, and hence Osloization, makes them look down upon the culture of resistance as useless, futile and hopeless. Resistance, broadly speaking, is not only the ability to fight back against a militarily more powerful enemy, but also an ability to creatively resist the occupation of one's land. The Oslo defeatists and the neo-left camp fail to use people power creatively or even to see that it exists. They are defeated because they want to fight the battle on Israel's terms -- through the adoption of an Israel-Hamas dichotomy, rather than apartheid Israel vs. the Palestinian people -- instead of looking at their strengths: that they are the natives of the land, they have international law supporting their claims, they have the moral high ground, the support of international civil society, etc.

One good lesson from the South African struggle is the way it tried to define resistance and its adoption of what it referred to as "the four pillars of the struggle" to achieve victory over the apartheid regime: armed struggle, internal mass mobilization, international solidarity, and the political underground. Alas, none of these pillars seem to fit within the paradigm of the Palestinian neo-left.

The principled critical legacy of the likes of Ghassan Kanafani, Edward Said and Frantz Fanon is no longer the guiding torch of the NGOized left -- the secular democratic left which is supposed to be, as Said would argue, "someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations [or donors], and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug." A fascinating, and timely, remark by Hungarian philosopher George Lukacs points the way that the NGOized left should be talking right now: "When the intellectual's society reaches a historical crossroads in its fight for a clear definition of its identity, the intellectual should be involved in the whole sociopolitical process and leave his ivory tower."

Decolonizing cultural resistance insists on the right to view Palestinian history as a holistic entity, both coherent and integral. It also reflects a national and historical consciousness that Palestinians are able to be agents of change in their present and future regardless of the agendas of western donors, the Quartet and other official "international" bodies. Yet we see that the neo-democrats of Palestine are unable to acknowledge Palestinian agency because they refuse to respect the will of the people as expressed through the ballot box. This position is meant to synergize with that of their donors and international bodies who have worked hard over the last two years to delegitimize Palestinian agency.

This lack of political consciousness and the search for individual solutions -- the major characteristics of defeatist ideology -- contradict the collective national reality of the colonized Palestinians. Political consciousness must begin with a rejection of the conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation and the Quartet (Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union) on the majority of Palestinians and even more crucially, a rejection of the crumbs that are offered as a reward for good behavior to a select minority of Palestinians. Indeed, class consciousness is dialectically related to the struggle for national liberation. It is the interests of some NGOized groups, ex-leftists, and neo-liberals, whose defeatist perspective on the outcome of Gaza 2009 is being disseminated with the help of some unpopular media outlets, which is at stake here -- not the interests of the Palestinian people who have gained even more legitimacy through their steadfast resistance to the Israeli bombardment.

Osloized and NGOized classes argue that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict is the establishment of two states which basically means the creation of an independent Palestine on 22 percent of Mandate Palestine. They maintain that the only way to reach independence is through negotiations, though more than ten years of negotiations have not moved the Israeli position at all. The establishment of a Palestinian state is not mentioned in any of the clauses of the Oslo agreement, thus leaving the matter to be determined by the balance of power in the region. This balance tilts in favor of Israel, which rejects the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, in spite of its recognition of the Palestinian people and its national movement the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). No Israeli party, neither Labor, Likud nor Kadima is ready to accept a Palestinian state as the expression of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The impasse negotiations have reached has proven the oppositional camp correct.

Hence the "shocking" results of the 2006 elections, in which Hamas won the majority of the seats of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Both liberals and leftists were "surprised" and even felt "betrayed!" Accusations of the "immaturity" and even "backwardness" of the Palestinian people have been thrown around since then. Nothing was mentioned about the failure of "the peace process;" nor the end of the two-state solution, and thereafter, the necessity and need for a new national program that can mobilize the masses; a program that is necessarily democratic in its nature; one that respects resistance in its different forms and, ultimately, guarantees peace with justice.

It is this lack of a political vision and a clear-cut ideological program that allows for the contortions of the Osloized classes. It is this lack that makes it prepared to recognize a "Jewish state" alongside a Palestinian state, including the legitimization of discriminatory practices applied by Israel against its non-Jewish, i.e. mainly Palestinian citizens and residents since 1948, and the end of the right of return of more than six million of refugees. What we are constantly told, is either accept Israeli occupation in its ugliest form -- i.e. the ongoing presence of the apartheid wall, colonies, checkpoints, zigzag roads, color-coded number plates, house demolitions and security coordination supervised by a retired American general -- or have a hermetic medieval siege imposed on us, but still die with dignity. The first option seems to be the favorite of some NGOized "activists."

The new, much-needed program, however, must make the necessary link between all Palestinian struggles: the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel's ethnically-based discrimination and rights violations of more than one million Palestinian citizens, and the 1948 externally displaced refugees. Gaza 2009 was not a defeat but a victory, because in Gaza the Israelis shot the two-state solution in the head; it is a victory achieved with the blood of those children, men and women who sacrificed their lives so that we could live and continue to resist, not surrender. Those Palestinians that are mourning the demise of the two-prison solution are out of step with new facts on the ground: there can be no going back to fake solutions and negotiations; it is time for a final push to real freedom and statehood. They can join other Palestinians, and internationals, in their demand for a secular, democratic state in Mandate Palestine with equality for all or they can walk into the dustbin of history.

Haidar Eid is an independent political commentator and activist residing in Gaza.

The tunnels of Gaza

By Sara Flounders
Published Feb 8, 2009 8:39 AM

Resistance takes as many forms as life itself dictates.

Life in Gaza could not be more impossible. Its tunnels are a symbol of resistance.

Eighteen months ago, outraged when the Palestinians voted for the militant leadership of Hamas in democratic elections, Israel imposed a total lockdown on the entire population of Gaza.

But the entire people were determined to continue to resist. They found a way to circumvent total starvation.

The Israeli blockade led to a new economic structure, an underground economy. The besieged Palestinians have dug more than 1,000 tunnels under the totally sealed border.

Many thousands of Palestinians are now employed in digging, smuggling or transporting, and reselling essential goods. Smuggling constitutes approximately 90 percent of economic activity in Gaza, Gazan economist Omar Shaban told The Guardian. (Oct. 22, 2008)

The tunnels demonstrate the great ingenuity and enormous determination of the entire population and its leadership.

Because millions of Palestinians have been forced into refugee status outside of historic Palestine, large extended families on both sides of the border help arrange the buying and shipping of goods or send funds so family members locked in Gaza can buy essential supplies.

The tunnels connect the Egyptian town of Rafah with the Palestinian refugee camp of the same name inside Gaza. They have become a fantastic, life-sustaining network of corridors dug through sandy soil. Tunnels are typically three-tenths of a mile long, approximately 45 to 50 feet deep. They cost from $50,000 to $90,000 and require several months of intense labor to dig.

They pass under the Philadelphi buffer zone—a border strip of land put under Israeli military control by the 1993 Oslo accords.

The Israeli siege of Gaza, followed by 23 days of systematic bombing and invasion, has created massive destruction and scarcity. Food processing plants, chicken farms, grain warehouses, U.N. food stocks, almost all the remaining infrastructure, and 230 small factories were destroyed. Now hundreds of trucks packed with essential supplies from international and humanitarian agencies sit outside the strip, refused entry to Gaza by Israeli guards. As soon as the Israeli bombing ended, work on the tunnels resumed.

Lara Marlowe reported from Rafah: “From a distance, you’d think it was a horticultural project. Banks of red earth criss-cross the Palestinian side of the no-man’s land between Gaza and Egypt. Every 20 or 30 meters, young Palestinian men work under what appear to be greenhouse canopies.

“The tunnels of Rafah–more than one thousand of them–are a major stake in the war between Hamas and Israel. Israel wants the tunnels shut; the Palestinians say they would starve without them, because of Israel’s 19-month siege of the Gaza Strip. Despite three weeks of heavy bombing, the majority of the tunnels are open.

“The area has as many holes as a Swiss cheese. ‘Sometimes the tunnels intersect,’ says a worker. ‘We try to avoid it. We go under or over other tunnels. It’s like directing train traffic.’

“The smugglers work in jeans, T-shirts and bare feet. ‘We shore up the collapsed parts with wood,’ Hamdan [a tunnel worker] explains. ‘If the Israelis bomb again, we’ll use metal next time, and concrete the time after that. As long as there’s a siege, the tunnels will keep working.’” (Irish Times, Jan. 26)

Food is towed through on plastic sleighs. Livestock are herded through larger tunnels. Flour, milk, cheese, cigarettes, cooking oil, toothpaste, small generators, computers and kerosene heaters come through the tunnels. Every day, about 300 to 400 gas canisters for cooking come through the lines. On the Egyptian side the trade sustains the ruptured economy while corrupt or sympathetic guards and officers look the other way.

Electricity and fans provide ventilation. Essential supplies of diesel fuel are pumped through the tunnels in hoses and pipes.

Rami Almeghari, editor-in-chief of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service and contributor to The Electronic Intifada, has described the organization that goes into digging and maintaining the tunnels. The Hamas-led government in Gaza imposed regulations and restrictions on the tunnel trade to avoid accidents and prevent smuggling of drugs and prohibited substances. “However, the besieged Hamas government cannot guarantee an end to the tunnel trade, unless the Israeli blockade comes to a halt.”

Almeghari interviewed one tunnel worker as he loaded cooking oil canisters: “Let Israel besiege us the way it wants, and we bring in what we want. At the end of the day, we will not let anyone repress us.”

Xinhua News headlined a Jan. 22 article: “In spite of Israeli offensive, Gaza tunnels are back to work.”

“We dug tunnels because we have no other alternative. Israel was imposing a very tough blockade on Gaza Strip and the tunnels were the smartest way to defeat this blockade,” Hashem Abu Jazzar, a 23-year-old worker, told Xinhua News.

“As long as Israel is still imposing the siege on Gaza Strip, I don’t think that we will stop working in the tunnels, but if all crossings are fully and permanently opened, I believe that working in tunnels will automatically stop,” said Abu Jabal, a 45-year-old owner of a tunnel.

Commercial tunnels are used only for food, fuel, medicines and basic necessities. Other totally separate tunnels are operated by resistance groups to bring in small weapons and munitions.

Israel claims it drops 100-ton bombs on the tunnels from F-16 jets to stop Palestinian rockets. But closing off supplies to an entire population or bombing life-sustaining tunnels will not prevent the firing of small rockets.

A population with skills, education, massive unemployment, lots of time and no future will be able to build rockets, mortars, pipe bombs and mines out of the tons of scrap metal and twisted ruins that Israel left behind.

The continued blockade is strictly punitive.

The Israeli military and their Pentagon backers are deeply frustrated. The bombing failed to demoralize the Palestinian people or break their will. It is also clear that the massive bombardment of the Rafah border and the targeting of hundreds of tunnels have failed to close these lifelines of basic supplies.

On Feb. 1, Israel again bombed the border, targeting the tunnels.

What is needed is a broad international campaign to demand an end to U.S.-supported Israeli collective punishment and an end to the intended starvation of an entire population.

The only possibility for peace in the region is through the recognition of the full rights of the Palestinian people to return to all their land. Their sovereignty and economic development must be guaranteed.

The immediate starvation siege must be lifted. The international movement that emerged in solidarity with Gaza must focus world attention on this international war crime.