And the situation continues to deteriorate...

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday May 28, 2002 15:40 by Sam Bahour

For all those that are sending messages asking if life is back to normal, I submit the following for your reading:

Letter From Israel
by Ran HaCohen
Antiwar.com, May 24, 2002

Palestinian Enslavement Entering a New Phase

The Israeli far-right - always the best indicator of Israel's true
intentions - is quite outspoken: its aim is to make Palestinian life
unbearable to a point that they would rather get up and go. Asked
about his conception of "voluntary transfer" of Palestinians, Minister
of Tourism (Rabbi) Benny Eylon compared the "voluntary" element
to that of a Jewish husband who refused a rabbinical order to divorce
his wife. Since rabbinical court cannot undo the marriage without the
husband's consent, it should use force - excommunicate the
obstinate husband, slash him, jail him etc. - until he "voluntarily"
agrees to divorce. This is how the Palestinians should be
"voluntarily" made to leave. And obviously, as long as they do not
leave - because they cannot or will not - they should be struggling to
survive rather than resist their oppression.

A NEW DRACONIAN MEASURE

Analysing the Israeli oppression is a like playing chess with the devil:
the evil minds behind the occupation are always two steps ahead of
you. What was the real aim of "Operation Defence Shield"?

The official pretext - "dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism" -
cannot be taken too seriously. Now that resumed suicide bombings
have to be explained, military experts suddenly claim that the simple
equipment of the suicide bombers hardly needs any infrastructure at
all. The further expansion of the settlements, mentioned in my
previous column, is always an aim; "Defence Shield" has
undoubtedly given it a great push, with Palestinians too weak and
too frightened by the extent of Israeli terror to resist their on-going
dispossession.

But Ha'aretz journalist Amira Hass has now reported a new
draconian measure imposed on West Bank Palestinians, which may
be a real break-through that "Defence Shield" was aiming at:

"The Israeli army has been tightening its grip on movement of
Palestinians in cities and towns in the West Bank by insisting that
they obtain new freedom-of-movement permits from the regional
administration to travel from one city to another. [...] Pedestrians, as
well as drivers, have been left with one entrance into the area -
which can be crossed only after receiving the proper freedom-of-
movement permit. [...] [T]he new measures have divided up the area
into eight population regions, effectively isolated from one another,
with traffic and movement control exercised by the Israel Defence
Forces. The eight regions are Jenin, Nablus, Tul Karm, Qalqilya,
Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron."

East Jerusalem, once the economic heart of the West Bank,
annexed by Israel and cut off from the rest of the West Bank, can be
added as a ninth sealed-off enclave. And whoever believes Gaza is
the tenth enclave, is too optimistic: the Strip itself has also been split
in two, with the 200.000 residents of Raffah ordered to get a permit
to go north.

FROM CLOSURE TO SIEGE

Curtailing Palestinian freedom of movement has been a central
feature of Israeli occupation during the last decade. "Terrorism" has
always served as a good excuse for this premeditated policy (and
was served by it in turn). Up to 1991, Palestinians were free to move
both within the occupied territories and to Israel; in fact, they formed
the basis, in terms of cheap labour force, of Israeli economy. It was
during the Gulf War that Israel for the first time closed its territory to
Palestinians. The 1990's, especially the Oslo period since 1994, saw
a gradual routinisation of this measure, for which the euphemistic
term "closure" was introduced. At the same time, massive import of
cheap labour force from Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa replaced
Palestinian workers. In 1996, the notorious "internal closure" was
introduced, later known by the Hebrew euphemism "keter" (original
meaning: "crown"!), correctly translated as "siege": cutting
Palestinian towns and villages from each other. Since October 2000,
Palestinians are no longer given permits to enter Israel, and the
closure policy has turned into a strangling siege.

Thus, step by step, Palestinians have been dispossessed and
surrounded by settlements, military camps, by-pass roads and
checkpoints, squeezed into sealed-off enclaves. Palestinian towns
are besieged by tanks and armed vehicles blocking all access roads.
West Bank villages too are surrounded by road blocks, preventing
the movement of vehicles in and out: three successive mounds of
rubble and earth, approximately 6 feet high, with 100 metre gaps
between them. All residents wishing to move in an out of the village -
old or young, sick or well, pregnant or not - have to climb over the
slippery mounds.

At present, this policy seems to have been perfected to an extent
that it can be further institutionalised by long-term bureaucracy: a
permit system, considerably worse than the "pass laws" imposed on
blacks in Apartheid South Africa.

The severity with which the restrictions on movement are imposed
was demonstrated again this week, when, in two different incidents,
Israeli soldiers shot dead innocent Palestinians in the vicinity of road
blocks. Since both Palestinians were Israeli citizens, the army
"regretted" their killing; otherwise the incidents might have been
dismissed as "self defence" or whatever. But the army made its
point: movement in the occupied territories is an exclusive privilege
of Jewish settlers. All other people - the local residents and their
visitors - may pay for it with their lives. "Regret" or not, Israeli terror
prevails.

IMPOVERISHING THE PALESTINIANS

The damage to the Palestinians as a nation is obvious. Nation
building often means political unification of territory: think of Italy or
Germany. Israel is imposing on the Palestinians the very reversed
process, hoping to reduce them into numerous separate groups with
no collective interests, consciousness and institutions. The human
catastrophy too is not hard to imagine: any movement outside your
enclave becomes a tedious project, to say the least: going to school
or university in a neighbouring town, moving patients or medical
staff, not to mention "luxuries" like visiting friends or family.

But the economic side is just as essential. While travelling
thousands of miles in the United States and in united Europe is free,
Israel is putting towns and villages individually under siege, dividing
the West Bank into nine separate "cantons" (Swiss tranquillity aside).
The entire West Bank is about 130 km long, never more than 50 km
wide, its eastern third a desert. Jenin is just 25 km away from
Nablus; Tul Karm is 15km away from Qalqilya; and Bethlehem is just
a few hundred metres away from East-Jerusalem. The Gaza Strip is
about 50 km long and just a few km wide, and has been cut in two.
The Israeli travel permits are valid from 5:00 A.M. until 7:00 P.M.,
and must be renewed every month.

Amira Hass adds:

"Under the new system, goods can be transported within the
territories only using a 'back-to-back system' in which a truck goes to
a certain location where goods are unloaded to another awaiting
truck, which then carries the merchandise further."

Imagine doing business (or just providing for a village) under such
circumstances. There are reports of big price differences between
towns: one town is flooded with cheap vegetables, in the other town
vegetables are rare and expensive.

Real income pro capita in the occupied territories has been proved
inversely proportional to the number of closure days. Compared to
1994, income per capita was dropping 15% up to 1996, while closure
periods were rising towards 80 days a year. In the relatively quiet
Netanyahu years, 1996-1999, days of closure were declining
towards zero in 1999, with income per capita on the rise, almost
reaching the 1994-level. With Barak elected in 1999 and provoking
the Intifada a year later, the tide turned once again. 2001 saw a
record of 210 days of closure; Palestinian income level now lost 30%
on its 1994-level. 2002 will be worse.

In September 2000, 600.000 of about 3 million Palestinians were
defined as poor, living on less than $2 a day. At the end of 2001, the
number of poor reached 1.5 million - half the population. After
"Operation Defence Shield", it is estimated that 75% of the
Palestinians have reached poverty.

So the main measure to subjugate Palestinians is not war, but
closure and siege. This is why Israel is so anxious to institutionalise
it. World Bank experts estimate the damage caused to Palestinian
economy by Israeli military attacks at $305 million in the first 15
months of the present Intifada (up to "Defence Shield"). The
damage caused by closure and siege during the same time is
estimated at $2,4 billion. (Ha'aretz, 19.5.02.)

TO SUM UP

Having pushed the Palestinians out of its labour market, Israel is
now institutionalising their long-term seal-off in besieged enclaves by
a system of "permits". It counts on the world community - "the donor
states" - to finance the intentionally impoverished people through the
Palestinian Authority. This dirty game must be exposed. As the
"permit system" demonstratees, Israel is clearly the effective force
ruling the occupied territories, and thus solely responsible for their
welfare. It must stop the systematic destruction of Palestinian
economy and society. Freedom of movement is a basic right; due to
its disastrous human, political and economic implications, Israel's
policy of curtailing this freedom should be fought against at top
priority.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter" Martin Luther King Jr.