http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=18036
Divide and conquer - By Daoud Kuttab
Date: 12 / 12 / 2006 Time: 18:53


Erez Crossing when Palestinians
were still allowed to cross through (MaanImages)
Originally published on The Electronic Intifada, 11 December 2006

A strange phenomenon has been taking place over the past few years. Israel has been carrying out a systematic plan to try and separate Gaza from the West Bank. Little attention has been given to this effort separating people -- and a country -- using administrative measures.

This phenomenon began in the late 1980s with the launch of the Palestinian intifada, was accelerated in the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, and has been accelerated even more since the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, causing a critical human and economic crisis.

Gaza, the West Bank, as well as Israel were part of historic Palestine. In 1948, with the creation of the State of Israel, they were abruptly divided. The Egyptian authorities were left to administer the Gaza Strip, whose population had been doubled as a result of the Nakba (catastrophe), sending Palestinian refugees from the southern towns of Palestine to Gaza.

On the other hand, the West Bank was held by Transjordan. In April 1949, Transjordan became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and one year later, in 1950, the West Bank became constitutionally an integral part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. While Egypt didn't confer citizenship on the Palestinians of Gaza, West Bankers became Jordanian citizens.

All this changed after the June 1967 war. In an ironic twist of history, these two sectors of Palestine were reunited, albeit under Israeli occupation. Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank were able to travel freely back and forth even though this meant going through the pre-'67 Israeli territory. And since all were part of a single economic area, the movement of people and goods went on uninterrupted for tens of years.

Palestinians from Nablus or Hebron married and started families with fellow Palestinians from Gaza or Rafah. Students from Khan Yunis or Deir El-Balah attended universities in Bir Zeit or Al-Najah. Businesses in Ramallah or Hebron distributed their dairy products, stone, or toilet paper to the Gaza market, and trucks carrying bamboo furniture or sand made daily trips to Bethlehem or Jenin.

The 1991 Madrid Peace Conference and the 1993 Oslo Accords brought with them both a legal restriction of movement and a reaffirmation of the unity of Palestinian lands. The PLO-Israel Memorandum of Understanding devoted an entire chapter to routine safe passage to facilitate movement of people and goods. Signs were put up dedicating a special road between north Gaza and the Tarkumiya checkpoint, south of Hebron.

But all this seems like a charade now. Except for a few photo opportunities of a few buses traveling on the Gaza-West Bank route, the safe passage never materialized and the signs have entered the museum of Palestinian-Israeli failures.

Israel has never admitted it, but the plan for separating these two entities is obvious, even though largely underreported. Palestinians from Gaza wishing to travel to the West Bank, and vice versa, are unable to do so as a result of publicly-known as well as secret administrative decisions and guidelines.

Technically, of course, one can get the coveted permit to travel back and forth -- but such passes were, I imagine, easier to come by in apartheid South Africa. Extreme humanitarian cases are often the only ones in which a limited time permit is allowed.

For a while Palestinians traveled from Gaza to the West Bank by flying from the Egyptian El-Arish airport and then crossing into the West Bank or vice versa, but even using nearby Arab countries is now administratively impossible. Democratically elected members of the Palestinian parliament, as well as many others have had to use video conferencing in order to communicate with fellow Palestinians. Only President Mahmoud Abbas and a few senior, "acceptable" PLO leaders have been allowed to travel into and out of Gaza.

What the Israelis hope to accomplish is unclear. Some feel they are still dreaming that one day Gaza will be administered by the Egyptians, and the West Bank by Jordan. Both Arab countries as well as all Palestinians vehemently oppose this.

And, in the meantime, Israel continues to violate the 13th clause of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement. You have the right to move about freely within your country. You also have the right to travel freely to and from your own country, and to leave any country."

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Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah. His website is www.daoudkuttab.com. This article was originally published by the Jerusalem Post and is reprinted with the permission of the Electronic Intifada

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=18009
Israeli PM Olmert sends two secret envoys to visit Abbas in Ramallah
Date: 12 / 12 / 2006 Time: 09:58

President Abbas
(MaanImages)
Bethlehem - Ma'an - Two Israeli officials secretly visited Palestinian President Abbas in his Ramallah headquarters, the Muqata'a, on Sunday according to the Israeli newspaper 'Haaretz' on Tuesday.

The paper said that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's bureau chief, Yoram Turbowicz, and his political advisor, Shalom Turjeman, went to the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday and met with Palestinian president in the Muqata'a.

The Israeli newspaper added that the Israeli prime minister talked with Abbas via telephone during the meeting and that Abbas asked him to release the imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, regardless of any prisoners' exchange deal. Olmert told Abbas that such issues cannot be discussed until the captured Israeli soldier, Cpl Shalit, is released.

Palestinian sources told the paper that the meeting was positive. One Palestinian source said, "We received several very positive messages from Israel."

The sources also said that both sides discussed the expected visit of the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to the region next month and a possible meeting between Abbas and Olmert.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=18014
Desmond Tutu prevented by Israel to conduct fact-finding mission in Beit Hanoun
Date: 12 / 12 / 2006 Time: 10:39

Ma'an - UN News - Israel's lack of cooperation has prevented a fact-finding mission from the United Nations Human Rights Council from visiting Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, where an Israeli attack last month killed 19 Palestinian civilians, the head of the team, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, told reporters in Geneva on Monday 11 December.

"This is a time in our history that neither allows for indifference to the plight of those suffering, nor a refusal to search for a solution to the present crisis in the region," Mr. Tutu told reporters in Geneva, describing Israel's action as "very distressing."

"The events leading up to the shelling at Beit Hanoun are documented and the basic facts are not in dispute. The broader context, however, is complex, and this warranted that we also visit Israel, where in the pursuit of our mandate we had hoped for meetings with members of the Government at a high level."

The Council established the fact-finding mission in a resolution adopted during a special session on 15 November that described Israeli military attacks as "a collective punishment of the civilians." The mission's tasks included: assessing the situation of victims; dealing with the needs of survivors; and developing recommendations on how to protect Palestinian civilians against further Israeli attacks.

The mission was due to have reported to the Council by the middle of this month but Mr. Tutu, who is also the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, had been waiting in Geneva for a visa from Israel since 1 December. Another member of the team, Professor Christine Chinkin from the UK, had been in Geneva since 7 December.

Tutu confirmed to AFP that Israeli authorities had effectively thwarted the mission, which was planning to head to Israel and the Gaza Strip on Sunday, by failing to grant travel visas in time.

Mr. Tutu welcomed the current ceasefire in Gaza but said he believed the fact-finding mission could have played a useful role in facilitating negotiations between the two sides.

However, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP that Israel was concerned about the mission's platform, saying it "advances a biased anti-Israeli agenda".

Regev nevertheless said Israel was "still considering the request" for the authorisation to travel. However, Tutu pointed out that the mission had been ordered to report back to the Council by mid-December.

Tutu added, "We [felt] we would be able, through a direct engagement with all sides, to make suggestions and recommendations which we hoped would begin to move the logjam ... It's human beings being in touch with one another and you can't predict ahead of time when that kind of engagement will occur. We did not believe we were going on a hopeless quest."

He and Chinkin also revealed on Monday that they had firmly ruled out crossing directly into the Gaza Strip through Egypt precisely because they wanted to meet senior Israeli officials and avoid bias.

"We did make a very definite decision, that it would be one-sided it would not give us the full picture. It would also look in a way that we were going in through the back door," Chinkin remarked, according to an AFP report.

At the time of the Beit Hanoun attack, which occurred on 8 November, Secretary-General Kofi Annan voiced his shock and took note of Israel's announcement of a full investigation into the incident, saying he looked forward to its early results.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23170/1/
Under-cover troops abduct three resident in Tulkarem
IMEMC & Agencies - Tuesday, 12 December 2006, 12:36

Under-cover forces of the Israeli army infiltrated into the West Bank city of Tulkarem and abducted three Palestinian men on Tuesday midday, local sources reported.

Salah Iraki, 24, Mo'men Safaka, 24, and Mo'tassem Abu Dughsh, were taken to an unknown destination when under-cover troops, driving a Palestinian licenced vehicle, forced the three into the car and sped to an unknown destination.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23175/1/
Israeli High Court rules on easing compensation ban for civilians harmed by the army
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Tuesday, 12 December 2006, 17:35

The Israeli High Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday against legal obstacles that had prevented Palestinian civilians harmed by what was described as “non-belligerent” Israeli military operations in the occupied territories, from demanding Israel for compensation.


Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that the ruling cancels a portion of the "Intifada law" which exempts Israel from paying compensation for harm caused by military operations against civilians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The areas in question are labeled by the army and the Israeli Defense Ministry as "conflict zones" . The ministry uses the term in order to exempt the state from any responsibility for compensation for damages directly caused by the Israeli troops during military attacks in these areas, Haaretz added.

Several Human Rights organizations in Israel praised the new ruling and said that it could be the beginning of proceeding law suits filed by civilians against the army.

The organizations who filed the suit are nine human rights organizations headed by Adalah “The Legal Center For Arab Minority Rights in Israel”.

The nine organizations argued that the Israeli law that bars the filing of compensation suits is “racist and inhumane” since it frees Israel from its responsibility for attacks and offensives carried by its troops since the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada in 2000.

Haaretz added that the court decided to preserve a clause added to the law in July 2005, that stipulated that the state does not have to pay compensation for damages caused in military operations since September 2000, when the damage was suffered by "citizens of enemy states and workers or members of terrorist organizations."

The new ruling goes in immediate effect in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and will be applied retroactively, Haaretz reported, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be considered as a one conflict zone.

On September 2000, the former Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, declared nearly all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a “conflict zone” and thus exempted the army from responsibility for damages caused during military operations and attacks.

The new ruling will enable legal actions to take place against events that happened in previous years.

Adalah welcomed the ruling and issued a statement welcoming the ruling “which attacks the racist laws taken by the Knesset in recent years”.

Also, Arab member of Knesset, Mohammad Barakeh, from the Hadash Party, said that this law will allow the victims of the Israeli occupation to file claims against the state, and demand compensation.

MK Haim Oron, from Meretz party, said that “It is a shame that the Knesset repeatedly makes mistakes which must be fixed by the High Court.