Author: ISM Media Group

Bil’in: Un-cage Palestine!

by an ISM Media office volunteer

The non-violent demonstration against the Apartheid Wall on the land of Bil’in village this week was themed around the economic siege of Palestine by western powers. Israeli and international activists with pictures of western leaders taped to their chests carried a barbed-wire cage in which a Palestinian dressed in Palestinian flags was symbolically trapped. This was to signify the fact that Palestine is being made a prison created by the Israeli state and it’s western financiers.

The demonstration reached the fence gate which was closed to prevent the villagers accessing their own land. As has been the case for the last few weeks, the Israeli military enforced the closure of the gate by lining up jeeps and Border Police behind it. The demonstrators with the cage tried to open the gate and pass, but were prevented by the Border Police who beat those who got close to them with clubs. After a short while of trying this, the demonstrators gave up and instead dumped the cage on a jeep.

As was the case last week, the chanting group of demonstrators was broken up when the Border Police threw sound bombs at us. In response, several shebab from the village started throwing stones at the soldiers, who then opened fire on them with rubber-coated metal bullets. Most of the demonstrators moved out of the way of this unequal crossfire, shouting at the soldiers to stop firing at children, or talking to them in Hebrew to the same effect. Some from the village Popular Committee convinced the shebab to stop throwing stones. The demonstration regrouped and some tried to start a noise demo (banging in rhythm on a metal barrier which is part of the barrier), but the soldiers tried to arrest one of them – an international activist. Israeli international and Palestinian demonstrators prevented the arrest, simply by piling on the international. The soldiers gave up after a short while.

After a while, the demonstration was declared over by the Popular Committee. The demonstration left peacefully, making sure that the military jeeps were prevented from following us. Shebab from the village exchanged stones with tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets with the soldiers.

No one was arrested this week. One Israeli demonstrator was mildly bruised (we think by a ricocheting rubber-bullet).

Jerusalem in Exile

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: PLO Mission – Washington, DC
A book in the making, help write it

An Invitation to Palestinians Across the World

Work started on the preparation of an exceptional book with a new concept “Jerusalem in exile – tangible memories” by artist Steve Sabella. The book seeks to explore the visual images of Jerusalem in the minds of Palestinians who live in the Diaspora, as well as Palestinians who live in Palestine but are incapable of reaching their city. The project will photographically materialize the various mental images Palestinians have of Jerusalem in their memories and imagination.

These participations will be presented on the “Jerusalem in exile” web site, and this art experience will be documented in a book which will be edited by poet Najwan Darwish. The book will compile various testimonies and texts on Jerusalem and other related subjects by a number of distinguished Palestinians artists, intellectuals and participants.

The work will also be inaugurated in Jerusalem in the form of an exhibition and will subsequently tour various cities globally. Go to http://www.sabellaphoto.com/sky.htm for Steve Sabella’s art statement, which presents the art project’s idea and includes an invitation to participate in the art project.

Please forward this invitation.

Your contributions will be published on the web site that will create a visual bridge through imaginings and memories that will connect Palestinians from all over the world with Jerusalem. Some of these contributions will form the book Jerusalem in exile tangible memories.

www.jerusalem-in-exile.net

Learning under occupation in Jordan Valley

by Tom

Al Jifflik is a small village in the northern Jordan Valley. The villagers live largely in houses built of plastic and tin, as they are barred in Israeli law from building or repairing their houses.

There is an UNWRA school for children up to 13 years old. Since 1967, the inhabitants have been asking for a school for the older children, but to no avail. So last year some people in the area decided to stop asking, and set up a school. They took an existing two-room house in the area, with a couple of outhouses that are used as a sleeping room and shower room for the teachers.

They concreted the ground and erected 6 large tents to use as classrooms, equipped with just desks, chairs and a blackboard. The school has electricity (which is unusual in this area), but no phone line and no address – post for the head teacher has to be sent to her sister in Jericho which is about 50km away.

This school is essential for the pupils. Without it, their education would end at 13 years. Their families have very little money and depend on them to work in the fields. To go to school further away there would be transport problems as there is no public transport. They would have to go through checkpoints. This not only makes their journey very long, but the girls were particularly upset about being searched and having their photographs taken. If the checkpoints are closed, they would have to find somewhere to sleep for the night. Then, they would not be able to go to school and help with the family farm.

The conditions are apalling. The tents flood when it rains, as they are at the bottom of a mountain, and the heat is unbearable in the summer. Yet the girls we spoke to said they would rather endure this than not be able to go to school. They say this even though the chance of getting work is close to zero, and most of the boys will end up working for the settlements for 40-50 shekels per day.

The teachers at the school all come from other areas in the West Bank and have to travel long distances and go through checkpoints to get here. They have to stay at the school, all sharing one very small room, and return home about once a month. They are now paid by the Palestinian Authority (PA), but with the US and EU withholding aid, and Israel withholding taxes due, they got paid nearly a month late last month, and don’t know if they’ll be paid at all this month. At last, the school has permission to build classrooms after going through a lengthy process, but there is no money available to build.

The head teacher of the school has a fighting spirit beyond belief. But the difficulties of life here showed themselves as we left. She got a lift from us to go down to the village, so she could pick up some medicine for her mother that somebody had brought from Jericho for her. She is very keen to set up links with schools in other countries and asked us if we might be able to facilitate this.

http://brightonpalestine.org/blog/?p=20

The London Times: “West ‘has to prevent collapse’ of PA”

From Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem

JAMES WOLFENSOHN, the international envoy to the Middle East, has resigned and issued a warning of the dangers ahead if the West cuts everything but humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

Mr Wolfensohn, a former head of the World Bank, also cautioned that the UN, charities and humanitarian organisations will not be able to fill the gap if the Palestinian Authority collapses under financial pressure. Speaking in Washington after he ended his posting as envoy to the Quartet on the Middle East — the UN, the US, the EU and Russia — Mr Wolfensohn said: “It would surprise me if one could win by getting all the kids out of school or starving the Palestinians. And I don’t think anyone in the Quartet believes that to be the policy. I think that’s a losing gambit.”

Mr Wolfensohn stepped down on Sunday because of restrictions in dealing with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which dominates the Palestinian Government. He said that recent promises of aid from Arab states would provide only temporary relief to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, which has been unable to raise the $130 million (£71 million) a month it needs to pay 160,000 civil servants and keep services going.

He cautioned that if Israel continued to withhold authority tax revenues and maintain its restrictions on the movement of Palestinian trade and workers, by 2008 74 per cent of Palestinians would be living in poverty and 47 per cent would be unemployed. He echoed earlier warnings that fortifying NGOs could not replace the apparatus of the Palestinian Authority if it collapsed.

He also questioned whether the West wanted to bring about the collapse of the authority after spending billions since 1993 to establish it as the cornerstone of a viable Palestinian state. “Will we now simply abandon these goals?” he said. His report was also gloomy about the failure of a deal brokered last year by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to increase the flow of goods through the Karni crossing.

Gaza’s only goods terminal has been closed 50 per cent of the days that it has been scheduled to operate.

The Quartet met in New York yesterday to discuss whether it should replace Mr Wolfensohn. Meanwhile, Israeli officials indicated that Ehud Olmert, the incoming Israeli Prime Minister, plans to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, after visiting Washington this month. It would be the first meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders for more than a year.

BBC’s Coverage of Palestine/Israel unbalanced

  • Study finds failures in news balance and depth
  • Reports said to show little to suggest deliberate bias

Owen Gibson, media correspondent, Wednesday May 3, 2006

The BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “incomplete” and “misleading”, including failing to adequately report the hardships of Palestinians living under occupation, an independent review commissioned by the corporation’s board of governors has found.

The report urges the BBC to be bolder in setting a policy for using the word “terrorism” to describe acts of violence perpetrated against either side and suggests a senior editorial figure should be appointed to “give more secure planning, grip and oversight”.

The latest of several reports into contentious areas of the BBC’s news provision, it praised the quality of much of its coverage and found “little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias” but listed a series of “identifiable shortcomings”.

Chaired by the British Board of Film Classification president, Sir Quentin Thomas, the review said output failed to consistently “constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture”.

The panel, which also included former ITN chief executive Professor Stewart Purvis, said the BBC should not let its own requirements of balance and impartiality become a “straitjacket” that prevented it from properly relaying the “dual narrative” of both sides.

In particular, it highlighted a “failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation”.

On the emotive issue of whether acts of violence perpetrated against either side should be called “terrorism”, the review said the BBC should use the term because it is “clear and well understood” and that once it had decided on a policy for the correct use of language it should be more consistent in applying it.

Like other major media organisations, the BBC regularly deals with a flood of complaints from both sides.

An internal BBC News review, led by senior editorial adviser Malcolm Balen, led to greater resources being allocated to the Middle East and the appointment of a specific editor, veteran foreign correspondent Jeremy Bowen. But the review said more should be done to provide a stronger editorial “guiding hand”.

The BBC should do more to put the conflict in context for viewers, it said. This could include doing more to direct viewers to resources offering more depth and background. Too often, it suggested, news stories were chosen on the basis of the pictures available to accompany them.

The recommendations met with some disquiet among BBC News managers, who felt the appointment of a senior editorial figure to oversee all output on the topic would contradict the findings of a review following the Hutton inquiry.

“We are confident we have the right editorial structures and processes in place to provide high quality, impartial journalism and to ensure we continue to make progress in developing the authority and comprehensiveness of our output,” said BBC News management in a statement.

The Council for Arab-British Understanding said “the panel quite correctly highlighted that there was little reporting of the difficulties faced by Palestinians in their daily lives”.

Daniel Shek, of the British Israel Communications & Research Centre, said: “The report argues that the Israelis and Palestinians are not on equal terms, since the Israelis possess a fully functioning state and the Palestinians do not. It then implies that an imbalance in BBC coverage could be acceptable. If such an argument absolves the BBC from offering balanced reporting then it is a slippery slope towards biased coverage.”