"The catastrophe in Palestine – on the necessity to speak up.
Posted on July 20, 2014 by Anne Ramberg
I have been on the West Bank. I have visited Gaza. It was admittedly almost a decade ago. It was after the Israeli pullout from Gaza, and before Operation Cast Lead. What I saw upset me, very much. I was filled with a strong frustration. What we experienced was in fact, from a perspective of international and human rights law, entirely unacceptable. These observations unfortunately have tragic relevance even today.
The background was that the Bar Association in 2005, through the International Legal Assistance Consortium, ILAC, was tasked to, in cooperation with the International Bar Association, IBA, assist the Palestinian Bar Association with training in human rights and international law, and to be responsible for trial observations in Palestine and Israel. The project was funded by the Swedish Foreign Ministry.
I therefore spent, together with representatives of IBA and ILAC, a week in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza. The impressions and observations during these visits was dizzying. They made a very strong impression on me. This experience I share with, arguably, the majority of those who have visited the area, regardless of political affiliation.
I thought a lot about how I should deal with these very strong impressions. When I, after returning home, shared these impressions I have often been met with distrust and sometimes surprising aggressiveness, also from the educated and intellectual people who normally can relate objectively to difficult questions. However, in this conflict it seems all sense and balance have ceased. It is, put carefully, very peculiar.
I met diplomats, representatives of the Palestinian Bar Association, prominent human rights experts and representatives of a number of human rights organizations. I met Palestinian judges, Israeli lawyers, people responsible for the Faculty of Law at the then renowned University of Birsit outside Ramallah, representatives of the Palestine Supreme Court, representatives of UN headquarters in East Jerusalem and the Swedish police who within the mandate of EU peacekeeping forces monitored Palestinians ability to manage border control to Egypt. They all presented a very scary picture of the serious violations of fundamental human rights that, already ten years ago, took place in the area. And that, two (sic!) invasions later have continued unabated.
We experienced the Israeli military units which prevent normal trafic for Palestinians in the West Bank. The system of checkpoints and other physical obstacles such as roadblocks, cement blocks, metal fences and buildups of soil, all with the purpose to control and restrict the movement of Palestinians. The Palestinians are not allowed to move freely in their own country. They have for many years been unable to travel between Gaza and the West Bank, but also not freely within those territories. The way the Palestinians are treated in the West Bank and in Gaza is deeply discriminatory and very gently put, equal to apartheid.
Restrictions on Palestinians use of certain roads, as well as diversion of Palestinian traffic to lower quality roads, which means long and time-consuming detours, was already at that time common. Internal barriers have been built.
These measures were, according to the UN, the main reason for poverty and economic depression. Such action prevents access for Palestinians to health care, to education and training, work, as well as to social and religious contacts. It counteracts trade and economic growth. It also negates, of course, the possibility of a functioning principle of rule of law.
Of course we visited the barrier-like wall, in some places 30 feet tall, which Israel, in violation of international law, has built in the West Bank. The illegality has been recognized by the International Court in The Hague, by the Israeli Supreme Court, as well as in the report that the EU ordered, and which was approved by the member states ambassadors, but due to political considerations to the then forthcoming elections, not published at that time, and for political reasons still not have been published. The appeasement is deafening.
This wall has been erected well within the occupied territory, which means that the West Bank is cut off, and that Palestinians are separated from Palestinians. The purpose of the wall is to protect Israel and the illegal Israeli settlements established in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Jerusalem's 230,000 Palestinian residents are separated by the wall from the rest of the West Bank.
In violation of UN Resolution 242 Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1980. Not only the Palestinians and the Arab states, but also the majority of UN member countries have refused to accept Jerusalem as Israel's capital. EU-countries consequently still have their embassies in Tel Aviv.
The Gaza strip, which is no greater than about 50 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide, is one of the world's most populated areas. The population increases by 5.5% per year and was already then to close to 1 500 000.
We saw the abandoned and by the Israelis destroyed settlements with their guard towers. We saw the destruction of Palestinian homes, demolished by the Israelis as part of collective retaliation. We visited the Palestinian refugee camps. We attended the then brand new, with EU funds financed, airport in Gaza, which the Israelis shortly after the opening destroyed by military means. We saw the unimaginable rape of Palestine's nature that have taken place in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Poverty was already extremely high among Palestinians. There was and is today an urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Only in Gaza there was, according to the UN, an estimated "powerty (sic!) rate" of more than 72%, based on $ 2.20 per individual per day. Today, the numbers are certainly even worse. The ability for Palestinians to export goods and services was already almost completely nonexistent. The ratio between imports and exports in 2005 was 12:1. Today, let's not even talk about the realities.
The Palestinians are not permitted to fish in the waters of their own shores, other than in very restricted areas - up to six nautical miles. No fishing is allowed at all from about 40% of Palestine's coasts. If this prohibition is defied, the fisherman gets shot to death. It happened right before we arrived. Similar events are reported today.
One should not compare human suffering in numbers. But as a result of fighting in Gaza, a very large number of Palestinians have died each year. Add to this is the very large number of Palestinians made homeless because of the Israeli devastation. Already in 2004, for instance, Israeli military forces destroyed an average of 120 permanent homes each month, or 4 per day.
Nearly 13 percent of children in Gaza were already in 2005 chronically malnourished. Since March 2004, sick Palestinians in Gaza have been prevented from receiving medical care in Israel. They were left to seek help in Egypt. An option that today is almost nonexistent.
Opportunities to distribute humanitarian aid has always been very limited. Today they are missing almost completely.
Food shortages has increased in recent years due of the offensive land destruction. Over 50% of the important agricultural district of Beit Hanoun in Gaza had been destroyed since 2004. That means that the large areas of citrus trees and centuries-old olive trees have been devastated. Land destruction has taken place primarily around the Israeli settlements. The declared purpose was to increase security. Because of the new wall, land destruction has now also increased in the West Bank.
I met Palestinians who spent decades in Israeli prisons, and who had continually been subjected to torture. I experienced the humiliating treatment that ordinary Palestinians are subjected to, especially at border controls. I saw the surveillance aircraft in the shape of a zeppelin who intercepted all communication in Gaza. I saw the many surveillance cameras, as well as the young soldiers hung with automatic weapons. I walked through the long concrete culvert that connects Israel and Gaza. It was a nasty experience. I remember that a strange sense of security appeared once one escaped through the cattle-like bars on the Palestinian side, despite the widespread and very serious crime that already flourished there.
To the sound of Israeli warplanes dropping bombs a little further away, I got to sit for three hours and see how the Israelis humiliated the very few returning Palestinians who at the time were allowed to work in Israel. (They needed to do the work that the Israelis themselves do not want to do). Just as they neared the end of the culvert and was about to pass the gate, it was closed - sometimes for a minute, sometimes longer. Seemingly completely without logic. The feeling of never being able to be sure of what might happen was, however, palpable.
The difficult question of balance between the enforcement of human rights and on the other hand, the safety of citizens, have since long before September 11 been a topic in Israel and Palestine. Palestinians have, through military action and suicide bombings, contributed to Israeli citizens feeling, fully justified, under threat, and their demands for increased security.
The understanding of, and the desire to, maintaining the ideals of rule of law, however, has long since been sidelined by the state of Israel. In that sense Israel is a clear example that democracy is no guarantee of a system of rule of law that covers all citizens. Israel is also an example of the fact that military repression and abandonment of human rights is not an effective weapon against terror. The recent events speak for themselves.
We can no longer ignore the very serious abuses that have long been and still is taking place against the Palestinian population. The illegal Israeli settlements is a very obvious example.
As several diplomats and foreign aid workers put it, the abnormal becomes normality here. Therefore, they expressed their appreciation for the fact that we were there - with the hope that when we come home would share what we had seen. I, and many others, have tried to do. To absolutely no avail.
Since my visit to Palestine, devastating encroachments have continued to occurr. Both sides commit abuses. However, the occupying power has a special responsibility for the maintenance of proportionality. That is a responsibility that Israel has not wanted to take. The price of this is unacceptably high. Read and ponder this UN report www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_sitrep_12_07_2014.pdf
When Israeli deputy speaker today spoke about the future of Gaza's Palestinians the international community has reason to react. electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/expel-palestinians-populate-gaza-jews-says-knesset-deputy-speaker. There are accepted terms for this member of the party in power expresses. We have seen it throughout history. And history risk repeating itself if the world does not react. There's an unforgivable silence from the U.S., EU and parts of official Sweden.
It is fair to ask why I once more make a statement in this politically sensitive issue. The answer is that we all need to stand up for human rights, although some may consider it politically inopportune. We were silent when Jewish refugees were denied asylum in Sweden. One shall not be able to say the same of the Bar Association today."
Original text here: http://annerambergs.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/katastrofen-i-palestina-om-nodvandigheten-att-saga-ifran/
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