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Baltimore to Palestine. Our struggle is one
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Connections…that’s what folk’s beginning to make; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this happening.
GAZA CITY : Palestinian children pose for a picture on a makeshift boat made of plastic bottles on April 18, 2015 at the port of Gaza City. AFP PHOTO / MOHAMMED ABED
Will Qatar-Israel relations threaten PA’s relevance in Gaza? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
Palestinian workers clear the rubble of a school that witnesses said was destroyed by Israeli shelling during the most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the east of Gaza City, Dec. 3, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)
Ramallah, WEST BANK — The March 9 visit to Gaza by Qatari Ambassador Mohammad al-Amadi, also head of the Qatari National Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, and his meetings with Hamas and Israeli officials have aroused anger and fear within the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Fatah movement. An official Palestinian source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the PA and Fatah are concerned about the potential marginalization “of the PA’s role in the reconstruction issue” after of the Qataris were reported to have sought direct Israeli approval for bringing reconstruction materials into Gaza for the construction projects they are funding.
The source said, “The PA fears the political implications hidden in the trenches of the Qatari initiatives and Qatar’s direct communication with Israel, particularly in terms of the proposed long-term bilateral truce between Hamas and Israel and the establishment of an airport and a seaport in Gaza.”
The source further stated, “Qatari involvement regarding a bilateral truce between Hamas and Israel means stepping around the PA’s role, leadership and position and ignoring Egypt’s sponsorship of the Palestinian issue with Israel.” He said it would result in “the separation of Gaza from the West Bank, the establishment of a separate entity in Gaza with Qatari funding, the marginalization of the powers of the PA and government in the Gaza Strip and the preservation of Hamas’ control on the ground and over the crossings.”
In Gaza, Amadi had announced that the start of new Qatari projects was drawing near, after crossing into the territory from Israel through the Erez crossing after Egypt refused to allow the Qatari delegation through the Rafah border crossing, which Arab officials typically use. Thus the still simmering Qatari-Egyptian dispute precipitated Qatar resorting to Israeli assistance.
New infrastructure projects for streets, schools, housing units and hospitals will be implemented as part of the Qataris’ pledge of $1 billion during the donors’ conference held in Egypt last October. Mofeed al-Hasayneh, Palestinian minister of public works and housing, told Al-Monitor that Qatar will also be working on the completion of projects already underway. A thousand housing units have been built, with a remaining 2,000 to go.
Meanwhile, after Amadi met with high-ranking Israeli officials on March 11, the Israeli media published leaked reports on Qatari mediation efforts for Gazan reconstruction and the signing of a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas. The leaks reinforced Fatah’s anxieties.
Amin Makboul, secretary-general of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, explained to Al-Monitor that Fatah is concerned about “any direct communication with Israel, including the Qatari-Israeli communication regarding the Gaza Strip, the reconstruction issue or any other issue, out of fear that Israel will exploit it to separate Gaza from the West Bank, thwart the Palestinian state project and consolidate the separation.” Makboul clarified, however, “We support Gaza’s reconstruction.” He said that the most important question is, “Why did Qatar go to Israel directly?”
In an interview with Al-Monitor, one leading Hamas member, Ahmed Yousef, said he believes the Qatari move had been “in response to the suffering of the Gazans.” As a result, according to him, “There is no need for being angry or fearful, and there is no justification for any party whatsoever to offend Qatar.”
Yousef said, “The Qatari action resulted from the absence of the government and PA in Gaza. Had the PA assumed its role toward the Gaza Strip and embraced the citizens’ concerns and problems, Qatar, or any other party, would not have filled the void by working on the reconstruction projects directly.”
A government delegation headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited Gaza March 25 at the behest of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The purpose, according to Hamdallah, was “to firmly establish the reconciliation and resume an inclusive national dialogue.” The visit took place a few days after mutual recriminations erupted between Hamas and Fatah when the Interior Ministry in Gaza accused PA security forces in Ramallah of spying and fomenting riots, and Fatah responded by accusing Hamas of similar actions.
According to Yousef, “The Qatari move toward the Gaza Strip prompted the PA and the Hamdallah government to visit Gaza and promise to find solutions to Gaza’s problems. It might have also embarrassed the government and the PA.”
He also stated, “The Qataris’ actions were probably a strong message to the PA that there are those who will fill the void and will work in case it does not act. The PA got it and turned its attention to Gaza.”
Ismail Haniyeh, deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, said in a March 22 statement, “Hamas is not slamming the door on a truce with Israel, as part of the Palestinian national project,” potentially assuaging PA fears. This suggests that the Qatari initiative aimed at calming the situation between Gaza and Israel might see the light of day. Hamas has nonetheless assured the PA that it will only enter into a truce after consultations with all the national parties so the decision will be a Palestinian undertaking.
Concerning Qatari reconstruction assistance, Hasayneh told Al-Monitor, “The Qataris were told [by the PA] that the government is in charge of the reconstruction issue and that the work should be conducted through the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is in charge of facilitating the entry of construction materials into Gaza, in coordination with Israel, and that no party is allowed to do otherwise.”
He also reiterated, “The president is fearful of Gaza being separated from the West Bank, which would destroy the dream of establishing a Palestinian state, so we welcome all donations through the government. Regardless of the Qatari ambassador’s meeting with the Israelis, the work must be conducted within governmental mechanisms and frameworks. This has been agreed upon with Ambassador Amadi.”
On March 19, Hussein al-Sheikh, Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs in the PA government, received the Qatari construction dossier from Amadi. Sheikh told Al-Monitor, “Full coordination had been established with the Qataris before they came to the Gaza Strip and Israel. Everything the Qatari government is doing has been run by the Palestinian government.” He also said, “We are making every effort to facilitate the Qatari mission of reconstructing Gaza, and we have provided everything necessary. The government took the decision of exempting the Qatari grant from taxation.”
Jihad Harb, a political analyst and author, told Al-Monitor that the PA fears “Gaza being considered a state capable of concluding agreements, such as the agreements on the provision of fuel or electricity from Israel, with Qatari support and sponsorship.” He said that amid the regional bickering between Qatar and the alliance consisting of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, there are concerns that Gaza’s separation is part of Qatar’s ambition to become an influential actor in the region. If some of Gaza’s needs — such as electricity and construction materials — are met by Qatar, it might assume the role of mediator between Gaza and Israel, thus usurping the roles of the PA and Egypt. This could lure Hamas into trying to maintain its control over Gaza.
The occupation, ongoing suffering and siege of Gaza, wobbly reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and institutional division and lack of resolutions of Gaza’s problems by the Palestinian government guarantee continued anxieties over fears of political projects and plans that will thwart the effort to establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders as part of the two-state solution to which the Palestine Liberation Organization has committed itself.
The Often Overlooked Role of Natural Gas in the Israel-Palestine Conflict | Mother Jones
via The Often Overlooked Role of Natural Gas in the Israel-Palestine Conflict | Mother Jones.
How Gazan natural gas became the epicenter of an international power struggle.
—By Michael Schwartz | Fri Mar. 27, 2015
- Known oil and gas fields in the Levant Basin US Energy Information Administration/Wikimedia
This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.
Guess what? Almost all the current wars, uprisings, and other conflicts in the Middle East are connected by a single thread, which is also a threat: these conflicts are part of an increasingly frenzied competition to find, extract, and market fossil fuels whose future consumption is guaranteed to lead to a set of cataclysmic environmental crises.
Amid the many fossil-fueled conflicts in the region, one of them, packed with threats, large and small, has been largely overlooked, and Israel is at its epicenter. Its origins can be traced back to the early 1990s when Israeli and Palestinian leaders began sparring over rumored natural gas deposits in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Gaza. In the ensuing decades, it has grown into a many-fronted conflict involving several armies and three navies. In the process, it has already inflicted mind boggling misery on tens of thousands of Palestinians, and it threatens to add future layers of misery to the lives of people in Syria, Lebanon, and Cyprus. Eventually, it might even immiserate Israelis.
Resource wars are, of course, nothing new. Virtually the entire history of Western colonialism and post-World War II globalization has been animated by the effort to find and market the raw materials needed to build or maintain industrial capitalism. This includes Israel’s expansion into, and appropriation of, Palestinian lands. But fossil fuels only moved to center stage in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship in the 1990s, and that initially circumscribed conflict only spread to include Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Turkey, and Russia after 2010.
The Poisonous History of Gazan Natural Gas
Back in 1993, when Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed the Oslo Accords that were supposed to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and create a sovereign state, nobody was thinking much about Gaza’s coastline. As a result, Israel agreed that the newly created PA would fully control its territorial waters, even though the Israeli navy was still patrolling the area. Rumored natural gas deposits there mattered little to anyone, because prices were then so low and supplies so plentiful. No wonder that the Palestinians took their time recruiting British Gas (BG)—a major player in the global natural gas sweepstakes—to find out what was actually there. Only in 2000 did the two parties even sign a modest contract to develop those by-then confirmed fields.
BG promised to finance and manage their development, bear all the costs, and operate the resulting facilities in exchange for 90 percent of the revenues, an exploitative but typical “profit-sharing” agreement. With an already functioning natural gas industry, Egypt agreed to be the on-shore hub and transit point for the gas. The Palestinians were to receive 10 percent of the revenues (estimated at about a billion dollars in total) and were guaranteed access to enough gas to meet their needs.
Had this process moved a little faster, the contract might have been implemented as written. In 2000, however, with a rapidly expanding economy, meager fossil fuels, and terrible relations with its oil-rich neighbors, Israel found itself facing a chronic energy shortage. Instead of attempting to answer its problem with an aggressive but feasible effort to develop renewable sources of energy, Prime Minister Ehud Barak initiated the era of Eastern Mediterranean fossil fuel conflicts. He brought Israel’s naval control of Gazan coastal waters to bear and nixed the deal with BG. Instead, he demanded that Israel, not Egypt, receive the Gaza gas and that it also control all the revenues destined for the Palestinians—to prevent the money from being used to “fund terror.”
With this, the Oslo Accords were officially doomed. By declaring Palestinian control over gas revenues unacceptable, the Israeli government committed itself to not accepting even the most limited kind of Palestinian budgetary autonomy, let alone full sovereignty. Since no Palestinian government or organization would agree to this, a future filled with armed conflict was assured.
The Israeli veto led to the intervention of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whosought to broker an agreement that would satisfy both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. The result: a 2007 proposal that would have delivered the gas to Israel, not Egypt, at below-market prices, with the same 10 percent cut of the revenues eventually reaching the PA. However, those funds were first to be delivered to the Federal Reserve Bank in New York for future distribution, which was meant to guarantee that they would not be used for attacks on Israel.
This arrangement still did not satisfy the Israelis, who pointed to the recent victory of the militant Hamas party in Gaza elections as a deal-breaker. Though Hamas had agreed to let the Federal Reserve supervise all spending, the Israeli government, now led by Ehud Olmert, insisted that no “royalties be paid to the Palestinians.” Instead, the Israelis would deliver the equivalent of those funds “in goods and services.”
This offer the Palestinian government refused. Soon after, Olmert imposed a draconian blockade on Gaza, which Israel’s defense minister termed a form of “‘economic warfare’ that would generate a political crisis, leading to a popular uprising against Hamas.” With Egyptian cooperation, Israel then seized control of all commerce in and out of Gaza, severely limiting even food imports and eliminating its fishing industry. As Olmert advisor Dov Weisglass summed up this agenda, the Israeli government was putting the Palestinians “on a diet” (which, according to the Red Cross, soon produced “chronic malnutrition,” especially among Gazan children).
When the Palestinians still refused to accept Israel’s terms, the Olmert government decided to unilaterally extract the gas, something that, they believed, could only occur once Hamas had been displaced or disarmed. As former Israel Defense Forces commander and current Foreign Minister Moshe Ya’alonexplained, “Hamas… has confirmed its capability to bomb Israel’s strategic gas and electricity installations… It is clear that, without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement.”
Following this logic, Operation Cast Lead was launched in the winter of 2008. According to Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, it was intended to subject Gaza to a “shoah” (the Hebrew word for holocaust or disaster). Yoav Galant, the commanding general of the Operation, said that it was designed to “send Gaza decades into the past.” As Israeli parliamentarian Tzachi Hanegbi explained, the specific military goal was “to topple the Hamas terror regime and take over all the areas from which rockets are fired on Israel.”
Operation Cast Lead did indeed “send Gaza decades into the past.” Amnesty International reported that the 22-day offensive killed 1,400 Palestinians, “including some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians, and large areas of Gaza had been razed to the ground, leaving many thousands homeless and the already dire economy in ruins.” The only problem: Operation Cast Lead did not achieve its goal of “transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel.”
More Sources of Gas Equal More Resource Wars
In 2009, the newly elected government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuinherited the stalemate around Gaza’s gas deposits and an Israeli energy crisis that only grew more severe when the Arab Spring in Egypt interrupted and thenobliterated 40 percent of the country’s gas supplies. Rising energy prices sooncontributed to the largest protests involving Jewish Israelis in decades.
As it happened, however, the Netanyahu regime also inherited a potentially permanent solution to the problem. An immense field of recoverable natural gas was discovered in the Levantine Basin, a mainly offshore formation under the eastern Mediterranean. Israeli officials immediately asserted that “most” of the newly confirmed gas reserves lay “within Israeli territory.” In doing so, they ignored contrary claims by Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, and the Palestinians.
In some other world, this immense gas field might have been effectively exploited by the five claimants jointly, and a production plan might even have been put in place to ameliorate the environmental impact of releasing a future 130 trillion cubic feet of gas into the planet’s atmosphere. However, as Pierre Terzian, editor of the oil industry journal Petrostrategies, observed, “All the elements of danger are there… This is a region where resorting to violent action is not something unusual.”
In the three years that followed the discovery, Terzian’s warning seemed ever more prescient. Lebanon became the first hot spot. In early 2011, the Israeli governmentannounced the unilateral development of two fields, about 10 percent of that Levantine Basin gas, which lay in disputed offshore waters near the Israeli-Lebanese border. Lebanese Energy Minister Gebran Bassil immediately threatened a military confrontation, asserting that his country would “not allow Israel or any company working for Israeli interests to take any amount of our gas that is falling in our zone.” Hezbollah, the most aggressive political faction in Lebanon, promised rocket attacks if “a single meter” of natural gas was extracted from the disputed fields.
Israel’s Resource Minister accepted the challenge, asserting that “[t]hese areas are within the economic waters of Israel… We will not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect not only the rule of law but the international maritime law.”
Oil industry journalist Terzian offered this analysis of the realities of the confrontation:
“In practical terms… nobody is going to invest with Lebanon in disputed waters. There are no Lebanese companies there capable of carrying out the drilling, and there is no military force that could protect them. But on the other side, things are different. You have Israeli companies that have the ability to operate in offshore areas, and they could take the risk under the protection of the Israeli military.”
Sure enough, Israel continued its exploration and drilling in the two disputed fields, deploying drones to guard the facilities. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government invested major resources in preparing for possible future military confrontations in the area. For one thing, with lavish U.S. funding, it developed the “Iron Dome” anti-missile defense system designed in part to intercept Hezbollah and Hamas rockets aimed at Israeli energy facilities. It also expanded the Israeli navy, focusing on its ability to deter or repel threats to offshore energy facilities. Finally, starting in 2011 it launched airstrikes in Syria designed, according to U.S. officials, “to prevent any transfer of advanced… antiaircraft, surface-to-surface and shore-to-ship missiles” to Hezbollah.
Nonetheless, Hezbollah continued to stockpile rockets capable of demolishing Israeli facilities. And in 2013, Lebanon made a move of its own. It began negotiating with Russia. The goal was to get that country’s gas firms to develop Lebanese offshore claims, while the formidable Russian navy would lend a hand with the “long-running territorial dispute with Israel.”
By the beginning of 2015, a state of mutual deterrence appeared to be setting in. Although Israel had succeeded in bringing online the smaller of the two fields it set out to develop, drilling in the larger one was indefinitely stalled “in light of the security situation.” U.S. contractor Noble Energy, hired by the Israelis, was unwilling to invest the necessary $6 billion dollars in facilities that would be vulnerable to Hezbollah attack, and potentially in the gun sights of the Russian navy. On the Lebanese side, despite an increased Russian naval presence in the region, no work had begun.
Meanwhile, in Syria, where violence was rife and the country in a state of armed collapse, another kind of stalemate went into effect. The regime of Bashar al-Assad, facing a ferocious threat from various groups of jihadists, survived in part by negotiating massive military support from Russia in exchange for a 25-year contract to develop Syria’s claims to that Levantine gas field. Included in the deal was a major expansion of the Russian naval base at the port city of Tartus, ensuring a far larger Russian naval presence in the Levantine Basin.
While the presence of the Russians apparently deterred the Israelis from attempting to develop any Syrian-claimed gas deposits, there was no Russian presence in Syria proper. So Israel contracted with the U.S.-based Genie Energy Corporation to locate and develop oil fields in the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied by the Israelis since 1967. Facing a potential violation of international law, the Netanyahu government invoked, as the basis for its acts, an Israeli court ruling that the exploitation of natural resources in occupied territories was legal. At the same time, to prepare for the inevitable battle with whichever faction or factions emerged triumphant from the Syrian civil war, it began shoring up the Israeli military presence in the Golan Heights.
And then there was Cyprus, the only Levantine claimant not at war with Israel. Greek Cypriots had long been in chronic conflict with Turkish Cypriots, so it was hardly surprising that the Levantine natural gas discovery triggered three years of deadlocked negotiations on the island over what to do. In 2014, the Greek Cypriots signed an exploration contract with Noble Energy, Israel’s chief contractor. The Turkish Cypriots trumped this move by signing a contract with Turkey to explore all Cypriot claims “as far as Egyptian waters.” Emulating Israel and Russia, the Turkish government promptly moved three navy vessels into the area to physically blockany intervention by other claimants.
As a result, four years of maneuvering around the newly discovered Levantine Basin deposits have produced little energy, but brought new and powerful claimants into the mix, launched a significant military build-up in the region, and heightened tensions immeasurably.
Gaza Again—and Again
Remember the Iron Dome system, developed in part to stop Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel’s northern gas fields? Over time, it was put in place near the border with Gaza to stop Hamas rockets, and was tested during Operation Returning Echo, the fourth Israeli military attempt to bring Hamas to heel and eliminate any Palestinian “capability to bomb Israel’s strategic gas and electricity installations.”
Launched in March 2012, it replicated on a reduced scale the devastation of Operation Cast Lead, while the Iron Dome achieved a 90 percent “kill rate” against Hamas rockets. Even this, however, while a useful adjunct to the vast shelter system built to protect Israeli civilians, was not enough to ensure the protection of the country’s exposed oil facilities. Even one direct hit there could damage or demolish such fragile and flammable structures.
The failure of Operation Returning Echo to settle anything triggered another round of negotiations, which once again stalled over the Palestinian rejection of Israel’s demand to control all fuel and revenues destined for Gaza and the West Bank. The new Palestinian Unity government then followed the lead of the Lebanese, Syrians, and Turkish Cypriots, and in late 2013 signed an “exploration concession” with Gazprom, the huge Russian natural gas company. As with Lebanon and Syria, the Russian Navy loomed as a potential deterrent to Israeli interference.
Meanwhile, in 2013, a new round of energy blackouts caused “chaos” across Israel, triggering a draconian 47 percent increase in electricity prices. In response, the Netanyahu government considered a proposal to begin extracting domestic shale oil, but the potential contamination of water resources caused a backlash movement that frustrated this effort. In a country filled with start-up high-tech firms, the exploitation of renewable energy sources was still not being given serious attention. Instead, the government once again turned to Gaza.
With Gazprom’s move to develop the Palestinian-claimed gas deposits on the horizon, the Israelis launched their fifth military effort to force Palestinian acquiescence, Operation Protective Edge. It had two major hydrocarbon-related goals: to deter Palestinian-Russian plans and to finally eliminate the Gazan rocket systems. The first goal was apparently met when Gazprom postponed (perhaps permanently) its development deal. The second, however, failed when the two-pronged land and air attack—despite unprecedented devastation in Gaza—failed to destroy Hamas’s rocket stockpiles or its tunnel-based assembly system; nor did the Iron Dome achieve the sort of near-perfect interception rate needed to protect proposed energy installations.
There Is No Denouement
After 25 years and five failed Israeli military efforts, Gaza’s natural gas is still underwater and, after four years, the same can be said for almost all of the Levantine gas. But things are not the same. In energy terms, Israel is ever more desperate, even as it has been building up its military, including its navy, in significant ways. The other claimants have, in turn, found larger and more powerful partners to help reinforce their economic and military claims. All of this undoubtedly means that the first quarter-century of crisis over eastern Mediterranean natural gas has been nothing but prelude. Ahead lies the possibility of bigger gas wars with the devastation they are likely to bring.
Michael Schwartz, an emeritus distinguished teaching professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, is a TomDispatch regular and the author of the award-winning books Radical Protest and Social Structure and The Power Structure of American Business (with Beth Mintz). His TomDispatch book, War Without End, focused on how the militarized geopolitics of oil led the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq. His email address is Michael.Schwartz@stonybrook.edu. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, and Tom Engelhardt’s latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Students Critical of Israeli Occupation Face Academic Crackdown – YouTube
via Students Critical of Israeli Occupation Face Academic Crackdown – YouTube.
TheRealNews
Published on 16 Mar 2015At the 2015 Jewish Voice for Peace Conference in Baltimore, TRNN speaks to Jewish and Palestinian students, academics and attorneys who are demanding that college campuses stop suppressing dissent
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A collection of old Palestinian posters : Land day (x) day of the land: march 30th
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Israeli forces respond to Women’s Day march with violence
Mar. 8 2015
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) – More than 30 Palestinians, mostly women, were injured as Israeli troops forcibly dispersed a peaceful march marking International Women’s Day at Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah on Friday.
Israeli soldiers fired tear-gas canisters, stun grenades, rubber-coated bullets, and pepper spray at hundreds of women to prevent them from reaching the checkpoint. Fourteen of the 30 injured were evacuated to hospitals.
The rally began at Qalandiya refugee camp and marched toward the nearby checkpoint. Witnesses say more than 1,000 women joined the rally along with Palestinian political leaders.
When the rally neared the checkpoint, Israeli soldiers barricaded themselves behind the steel gates and attacked female participants in the face with pepper spray as they approached.
As defiant women refused to move back, Israeli soldiers showered them with tear gas and stun grenades, forcing them to move.
A Ma’an reporter present at the event explained that altercations broke between Israeli soldiers and journalists after the soldiers “deliberately” fired tear gas at the journalists.
A heavy traffic jam then ensued on the main road in both directions causing bottleneck backups near near Qalandiya checkpoint, where vehicles travel between Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Hebron.
Palestinian lawmaker representing the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Khalida Jarrar said the rally was a message from Palestinian women confirming that they would continue to struggle against Israeli occupation until Palestinians achieve freedom and independence.
Palestinian women “have always been a major component of the struggle against Israeli occupation and won’t give up this national duty,” she added.
Similarly, secretary-general of the Palestinian Democratic Union Zahira Kamal said Palestinian women hope to send the message that they reject and would continue to resist Israeli occupation, emphasizing that Palestinian women “urge the Palestinian leadership not to resume negotiations with Israel.”
Palestinian law should be in agreement with international women rights conventions, particularly the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Palestine became a signatory to CEDAW on April 2, 2014 as the PLO continued efforts to join several international conventions and treaties.
President Mahmoud Abbas signed letters to join nearly 20 international treaties in December 2014 — including the Rome Statute that guarantees accession to the International Criminal Court — after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution supporting an end to the Israeli occupation.
SOAS votes for academic boycott of Israel
via SOAS votes for academic boycott of Israel.
Friday, 27 February 2015
SOAS students and staff have endorsed an academic boycott of Israel, after the results of a week-long referendum were released Friday evening.
The vote, open to students, academics, and all other staff and management, finished with 73% for the ‘Yes’ campaign and 27% for the ‘No’ campaign.
The referendum asked members whether they think SOAS should fully join the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and implement academic boycott following the guidelines of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).
Earlier this week, PACBI and Palestinian student and academic unions expressed their support for the ‘Yes’ campaign, and applauded efforts of pro-boycott campaigners.
The SOAS Students’ Union has supported the BDS campaign since 2005. In October 2014,the Students’ Union passed a motion that called on the Union “to take the BDS campaign to the University”, through a school-wide referendum.
Along with Palestinians at SOAS, the boycott campaign received support from “the Justice for Cleaners campaign, the LGBTQIA+ Society, the Kashmir Solidarity Movement, Tamil Society, and the SOAS Student Union itself.”
Gaza Rebuild Effort Could Take 100 Years: Oxfam | Common Dreams
Friday, February 27, 2015 by Common Dreams
‘Only an end to the blockade of Gaza will ensure that people can rebuild their lives.’ —Catherine Essoyan, Oxfam
by Andrea Germanos, staff writer
People walk through the heavily-bombed Shujaiya area in eastern Gaza in July 2014 during a pause in attacks. (Photo: Iyad al Baba/Oxfam via flickr/cc)
Despair and destruction continue to envelop the blockaded Gaza strip, where the rebuilding of vital structures could take up to a century, Oxfam International has warned.
The organization’s statement comes six months after a ceasefire agreement ended Israel’s 50-day assault on Gaza, which left over 2,100 Palestinians dead, decimated thousands of structures, and weakened already damaged infrastructure systems.
Oxfam is one of 30 international aid agencies that operate in Gaza, including the Norwegian Refugee Council and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), to issue a joint statement Thursday expressing alarm at the slow pace of reconstruction and worsening living conditions for Gaza’s residents.
Among the families hit by the destruction this summer was that of Abdel Momen Abu Hujair, who farms in Johr El-Diek. His wife, Um Mohammed, told the Norwegian Refugee Council:
Is this what our lives have come into? Living in a shack after we invested all what we had to build a house? I am very depressed and feel unable to take care of my children. I used to help them with their studies; their performance at school is now deteriorating. I feel no hope for the future or reconstruction. I am afraid we will spend the rest of our lives in this shack, in suffering and despair.
In their joint statement, the organizations lay out some of the ongoing problems:
since July, the situation has deteriorated dramatically. Approximately 100,000 Palestinians remain displaced this winter, living in dire conditions in schools and makeshift shelters not designed for long-term stay. Scheduled power cuts persist for up to 18 hours a day. The continued non-payment of the salaries of public sector employees and the lack of progress in the national unity government further increases tensions. With severe restrictions on movement, most of the 1.8 million residents are trapped in the coastal enclave, with no hope for the future.
Bearing the brunt of this suffering are the most vulnerable, including the elderly, persons with disabilities, women and nearly one million children, who have experienced unimaginable suffering in three major conflicts in six short years. Children lack access to quality education, with over 400,000 of them in need of immediate psychosocial support.
The statement adds that “Israel, as the occupying power, is the main duty bearer and must comply with its obligations under international law,” and concludes: “We must not fail in Gaza.”
In an update earlier this month, UNRWA said a funding shortfall had forced it “to suspend its cash assistance program supporting repairs and providing rental subsidies to Palestine refugee families in Gaza,” and Oxfam pointed to the responsibility of the international community as well.
“Only an end to the blockade of Gaza will ensure that people can rebuild their lives,” Catherine Essoyan, Oxfam’s Regional Director, said in a media statement.
“Families have been living in homes without roofs, walls or windows for the past six months. Many have just six hours of electricity a day and are without running water. Every day that people are unable to build is putting more lives at risk. It is utterly deplorable that the international community is once again failing the people of Gaza when they need it most,” Essoyan stated.
But Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah writes that little change to the dire situation will come if aid agencies continue to make appeals to the vague “international community” and avoid putting blame on “the home governments of many of the international civil society organizations have been complicit in Israel’s military attacks and siege on Gaza.”
He continues: “Aid agencies should not have waited six long months to speak out. Now that they have done so, they should have called for specific punitive measures against the party they correctly call the ‘occupying power’ to force it to end its siege.”
“Israel, moreover, could not carry on the way it does without the complicity of ‘Western’ governments: the aid agencies should hold their governments accountable and pressure them to end their complicity,” Abunimah writes.
Human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued reports finding that some of Israel’s actions during the summer assault amounted to war crimes, but the head of a UN war crimes inquiry into the operation announced his resignation this month, stating: “This work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks.”
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