AxisMundi Jerusalem

Writing on the walls

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip may just feel a little less isolated today. Israel is bowing to international pressure and rejigging its embargo on the  enclave in the wake of the bloodshed 3 weeks ago when it enforced a longstanding maritime blockade.

But earlier this month, taking my leave at the end of a 3-year assignment,  I reflected while walking the half-mile (700-metre) cage  (picture, right) that separates Gaza from Israel on  how the barriers that surround and divide this region have, if anything, grown higher, deepening the isolation of the rival parties. That may make any kind of reconciliation more difficult as time goes on. I wrote about this earlier today.

Since Israel pulled out troops from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas took control in 2007, the 1.5 million people in the 40-km (25-mile) sliver of Mediterranean coast, have been cut off. But they’re not the only ones. Israel is itself a virtual island in the Arab world. Though it has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, contact with them seems if anything to be retreating. Relations look little more vigorous at times than they are across the frontlines with Lebanon and Syria. Israeli dreams,  backed by some serious cash lately, of re-establishing a regional rail transport hub, seem far-fetched.

The frontier lines weave their way around and among Israeli and Palestinian populations that live lives in parallel but now rarely meet after a decade in which peace hopes faded amid bloodshed. New divisions among Palestinians, between Hamas and Fatah, have left Gaza virtually at war with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Israelis, too, have seen sharper confrontations within their nation, notably between secular and religious Jews. Inside the West Bank and across Jerusalem,  I’ve also watched new physical barriers going up and the battle for territory has heated up.  Today’s revival of Israeli building plans in the annexed Arab east of the city is the latest development to stir angry passions.

In three years based in Jerusalem, I’ve been impressed by examples of Israelis and Palestinians who do reach over these rising barriers — not least my colleagues in Reuters . But it does seem to be getting harder for most ordinary folk to cross those lines without risking a backlash from their own community.  So although the embargo on goods reaching Gaza looks set to ease, the long divide between the peoples on either side of the wall is unlikely to diminish any time soon.

“Big Brother” bumbles into West Bank

It’s a reality television show whose contestants are isolated from the outside world, but “Big Brother” in Israel has managed to set off yet another controversy over Palestine policies.

Cameras at the studio-cum-commune outside Jerusalem caught Edna Canetti, a 54-year-old liberal activist, telling fellow residents over the weekend she wanted to see a peaceful popular campaign against Israel’s West Bank occupation.

“It bothers me that you’re silent. What’s needed is a revolt,” she declared after refusing to play along with a challenge in which contestants were divided into two groups — “rich” versus “poor” — with a plexiglass barrier between them.

Shifting to Middle East politics, Canetti said Palestinians should similarly tell Israel: “Shove your laws … We’re not going through that checkpoint and we’re not showing you IDs … This is our land.”

The remarks were in themselves unremarkable for Big Brother, an international franchise whose dramatic formula is based on the premise that very different people, cooped up together for weeks, will grow fractious. Yet while Canetti’s assertions met with bored or exasperated shrugs inside the Big Brother house, they found a far angrier audience on the Israeli far-right.

Michael Ben-Ari, a lawmaker from the National Union party who has himself been the subject of public censure after urging Israeli military conscripts to refuse orders to evacuate Jewish settlers from the West Bank, accused Canetti of sedition.

“Mrs. Canetti is, in effect, encouraging Arabs to rise up against the State of Israel, the violation of Israel Defence Force (IDF) troops’ orders, and even open insurrection,” Ben-Ari wrote in a complaint that his spokesman said had been mailed to the Justice Ministry along with a demand for a criminal investigation.

Recycling garbage into art, Gaza style

A group of Gazan women are beating high unemployment, achieving self-empowerment, and raising environmental awareness, all with a rather unconventional resource: garbage.

With funding from USAID, the Organisation for Supporters of Palestinian Environment launched a project that trains and assists 24 women in creating craft items for sale out of household garbage.

The artists display their flower vases made of plastic soda bottles, or wall-hangings made of tree bark, and scrap metal at two or three-day exhibitions, where potential buyers can make their purchase.

Each piece sells for about 20 to 50 NIS ($5-10 U.S. dollars). Twenty-five percent of the total sales are distributed to the craft workers.

The Gaza Strip is sealed off by an Israeli blockade against the ruling Hamas, which seized control of the strip in 2008 and refuses to recognise Israel.

The isolation has made the Gaza economy almost entirely dependent on foreign aid with unemployment reaching up to 40 percent and poverty levels rising.

Education for the blind

Blind Palestinian children attend special schools in East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza.

“An intifada of the wealthy”

Living conditions seem to be improving in the West Bank. Thanks to a recently gained sense of security and availability of funding, Palestinian farmers are diversifying their crop portfolio away from staples like tomatoes, for a competitive edge. Palestinians have announced the launch of one of their most ambitious real estate projects to date in the central West Bank. Nablus, long the industrial hub of the West Bank, the city’s once ubiquitous soapmakers who have survived a sharp decline in sales are eyeing new markets abroad for their all-natural product. A recent International Monetary Fund report projects real GDP in the West Bank to rise by about 7 percent this year, provided that remaining Israeli military restrictions are lifted. This growth will mark “the first substantial increase in living standards since 2005″, the IMF says. Cafes in Ramallah are bustling with business, and unemployment is down.

Five years ago, such positive economic climate could not have been imagined. The West Bank’s economy had been weak and dwindling under checkpoints and roadblocks imposed by Israel following the Palestinian uprising of 2000. Things started changing this summer, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu easing travel within the West Bank as part of an “economic peace” that he described as a prelude to a fuller accord with the Palestinians. Consolidating that vision despite his own reservations about Israel’s long-term intentions, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad unveiled a 65-page plan for building the institutions and infrastructure of the future state of Palestine.

Many Palestinians, like Nimmer Nazal, acknowledge the economic improvements but are still wary of how long this trend might last. Israel has ultimate control of roads, energy, water, telecommunications and air space, and “there were checkpoints on the roads everywhere,” he said. “They stopped us going to market. We could take all day just getting into Jenin, which is only a few minutes away now,” Nazal told Reuters. “But everything still depends on the security situation. If the atmosphere goes sour, everything will collapse overnight.”

There has been no major violence and Palestinians are enjoying an economic recovery, but some Israeli pundits say this is too reminiscent of the fleeting stability enjoyed just before past outbreaks of violence. A columnist for the leading Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth wrote: ”The statistics are clear and frightening: Every time the standard of living in the Palestinian parts of the West Bank reaches a new zenith, an Intifada (revolt) breaks out and turns back the wheel. This was the case in 1987, this is what happened in 2000, and this may be happen now.”

“Again, just like 22 years ago and nine years ago, the Palestinian economy is completing a period of impressive growth… What else can the Palestinians aspire for when they have advanced autonomy and when their standard of living skyrockets?

“The economic normalization threatens the revolutionary and radical elements within Palestinian society, and they swore not to allow this normalization to take root. It’s perceived by them as indirect reconciliation with the occupation… The reinforcement of a Palestinian middle class, which may fall in love with a routine life, reject the ongoing struggle, and enjoy its proximity to the large Israeli market is anathema in the view of the militant leadership, and not only there…

“The next Intifada, should it break out, may focus on Temple Mount, yet its logic will not really be related to religious feelings. Just like in previous times, its origin will be the volatile cocktail of a diplomatic dead-end coupled with an economic tie. As it turns out, the two don’t go well together.”

Mahmoud Abbas “on trial”

A youth group in the Gaza Strip held a mock trial for the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. The Youth Parliament, a group under the media department of the Islamist group Hamas, prosecuted Abbas on charge of “betraying the blood of the martyrs and the injured”.

The charge was in reference to Abbas’s agreement to defer the vote on the Goldstone Report at the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month. Many human rights groups have been pressing nations to endorse the UN report critical of the Gaza War seeing it as a way to hold both Israel and Hamas accountable for the hundreds of civilian deaths in the devastating war. The vote on the Goldstone Report was delayed to next March, which looked like a victory for Israel, and some Palestinians charged his decision had raised serious questions about Abbas’s leadership. Abbas, doing some damage control, pledged to push for an exceptional UNHCR session, which is being held on Wednesday. (Read more here.)

A panel of three teen judges presided over this trial held at the Hamas media offices in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip. A man with a similar physique as the Palestinian Authority president acted the part of the defendant, wearing a mask with a picture of Abbas’s face, standing handcuffed and chained at the ankles throughout the trial. He also mimicked Abbas’s accent and intonation.

The prosecutor’s opening statement was followed by testimonies from a human rights group representative, an Arab League representative, Abbas’s defense lawyer, and Mahmoud Abbas “himself”. A young girl, representative of “the children of Palestine”, claiming to have come straight from school to testify against the “traitor”, spoke as a “witness to the crimes committed against the children”.

Abbas was unsurprisingly found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. His personal property is also to be seized for public use, the mock verdict said.

The Parliament is comprised of 50 girls and boys under the age of 18. It has already “tried” several politicians: former U.S. President George W. Bush towards the end of his term and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shortly before he fell ill a few years ago.

Gazan zebra, the wild donkey

Palestinian children in Gaza received a very special treat today. They had the opportunity to see a zebra in flesh. Well, a “zebra”.

A small Gaza zoo dyed two female donkeys white and striped the two using women’s hair-dye and a paint brush. It charged $15 for a full busload of children to meet the zebras – a bargain for an animal that would have cost $40,000 to bring to the Israel-blockaded Gaza.

In Arabic the word for zebra literally means ‘a wild donkey’, so maybe these donkeys weren’t too far off.

Click below to judge the dye job for yourself:

The Opportunity Cost

(Read the English transcript of Shalit’s video message here.)

It’s been two days since the exchange of the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit’s proof-of-life video for Israel’s release of 20 Palestinian female prisoners. The final prisoner of the 20 was freed today as the last step to the soldier-video swap.

After being made public, the video has been replayed nonstop on television, radio, and video web-hosting sites. As of Monday, the endless number of video uploads by individual users on Youtube had each been viewed over at least 40,000 times.

Israeli newspapers Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv dedicated more than half of their pages to the Shalit video. Under the headlines “Broken Smile” and “May I fulfill my dream of going free, at last”, the newspapers’ extensive coverage ranged from an analysis by former prisoners of war, emotional comments by the Shalit family, to piercing commentaries on “how Israel has failed its son, Gilad”.

There have been conflicting reports on the significance of Friday’s exchange and the prospects of Shalit’s release and Israelis and the Hamas reaching a deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was encouraged by the video and President Shimon Peres said, “The tape is an important step, but there is still a long way to go”. Israeli media quoted one Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip said reaching a deal is “a matter of weeks, or at the most – months”. Father of the captive soldier Noam Shalit expressed fear that negotiations might take years.

Looking at the recent swap, Newsweek‘s Adam B. Kushner wondered how much “mere proof of life” is worth. According to Kushner, analysts argue that these swaps could encourage more attempts to capture soldiers because the return or the “exchange rate” is very high as long as they seize “somebody valuable enough” – enough to make Israelis want to trade.

Peace Without Hamas?

According to International Peace Institute’s (IPI) new poll conducted in both Hamas-ruled Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank administered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement, Palestinians still offer substantial support for the Islamist Hamas group for being “the party of resistance”.

IPI said 55 percent of Palestinians favor a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, which shows a shift in Palestinian public opinion towards greater willingness to accept “the overall package and of provisions for Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian demilitarization, and mutual recognition.”

So, most Palestinians want a state of their own through a peace deal with Israel. But at the same time, a significant percentage back Hamas which refuses to recognise Israel and will only consider a long-term truce, not a peace treaty creating two states.  Elections are due next year and if this poll is right, Fatah will win but hardly by a landslide.

It shows Palestinians are still ambivalent about their choice of leadership. Poll results show Abbas winning a head-to-head election against Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh with 52 percent, which it calls a “narrow margin”.

Click below to see a massive Hamas rally celebrating the Islamist group’s 21st anniversary on December 14, 2008:

Operation Goldstone?

Israeli media reacted strongly to the report issued by the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza  Conflict, which criticised both the Israeli military and Palestinian militants for actions that could be considered war crimes during the December-January Gaza War. A “declaration of war” and “classic anti-Semitism” against Israel were some of the descriptions used by the Israeli media . (Read more about the report here.)

The media reports noted that Justice Richard Goldstone, a South African, is Jewish.

Media coverage in Israel generally addressed the question of the report’s factual accuracy. Commentators also cited fears in Israel that on the basis of the report, its military officers and politicians could face foreign prosecution, during overseas trips, for alleged crimes against humanity.  All agreed the Goldstone report would cause further damage to Israel’s international image.

“Hundreds of millions throughout the world were exposed to [the report], and they do not read the details (in this case, the negative details), but only buy the headlines.  In their eyes, we are war criminals, contemptible people, killers of small children,” wrote Eitan Haber in a commentary which ran under the headline “This is a declaration of war” in the leading Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. “This, at the moment, is the image that is being created for us throughout the world as villains, evil, cruel, murderers.”

An opinion piece in the Israel Hayom daily called the 575-report for the United Nations as “classic anti-Semitism in liberal thinking patterns”. The newspaper described as “a hypocrisy” the appointment of Judge Goldstone, who is Jewish, to head the committee.

Goldstone’s daughter Nicole Goldstone, who once lived in Israel,  said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio that her father is a Zionist.