Tag: Settlement

The Elders’ view of the Middle East

Jimmy Carter | The Washington Post

6 September 2009

During the past 16 months I have visited the Middle East four times and met with leaders in Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. I was in Damascus when President Obama made his historic speech in Cairo, which raised high hopes among the more-optimistic Israelis and Palestinians, who recognize that his insistence on a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key to any acceptable peace agreement or any positive responses toward Israel from Arab nations.
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Late last month I traveled to the region with a group of “Elders,” including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Mary Robinson of Ireland, former prime minister Gro Brundtland of Norway and women’s activist Ela Bhatt of India. Three of us had previously visited Gaza, which is now a walled-in ghetto inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians, 1.1 million of whom are refugees from Israel and the West Bank and receive basic humanitarian assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Israel prevents any cement, lumber, seeds, fertilizer and hundreds of other needed materials from entering through Gaza’s gates. Some additional goods from Egypt reach Gaza through underground tunnels. Gazans cannot produce their own food nor repair schools, hospitals, business establishments or the 50,000 homes that were destroyed or heavily damaged by Israel’s assault last January.

We found a growing sense of concern and despair among those who observe, as we did, that settlement expansion is continuing apace, rapidly encroaching into Palestinian villages, hilltops, grazing lands, farming areas and olive groves. There are more than 200 of these settlements in the West Bank.

An even more disturbing expansion is taking place in Palestinian East Jerusalem. Three months ago I visited a family who had lived for four generations in their small, recently condemned home. They were laboring to destroy it themselves to avoid much higher costs if Israeli contractors carried out the demolition order. On Aug. 27, we Elders took a gift of food to 18 members of the Hanoun family, recently evicted from their home of 65 years. The Hanouns, including six children, are living on the street, while Israeli settlers have moved into their confiscated dwelling.
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Daily, headlines in Jerusalem newspapers say that certain areas and types of construction would be excluded from the settlement freeze and that it would, at best, have a limited duration. Increasingly desperate Palestinians see little prospect of their plight being alleviated; political, business and academic leaders are making contingency plans should President Obama’s efforts fail.

We saw considerable interest in a call by Javier Solana, secretary general of the Council of the European Union, for the United Nations to endorse the two-state solution, which already has the firm commitment of the U.S. government and the other members of the “Quartet” (Russia and the United Nations). Solana proposes that the United Nations recognize the pre-1967 border between Israel and Palestine, and deal with the fate of Palestinian refugees and how Jerusalem would be shared. Palestine would become a full U.N. member and enjoy diplomatic relations with other nations, many of which would be eager to respond. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad described to us his unilateral plan for Palestine to become an independent state.

A more likely alternative to the present debacle is one state, which is obviously the goal of Israeli leaders who insist on colonizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbors and then demand equal rights within a democracy. In this nonviolent civil rights struggle, their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

They are aware of demographic trends. Non-Jews are already a slight majority of total citizens in this area, and within a few years Arabs will constitute a clear majority.

A two-state solution is clearly preferable and has been embraced at the grass roots.

Just south of Jerusalem, the Palestinian residents of Wadi Fukin and the nearby Israeli villagers of Tzur Hadassah are working together closely to protect their small shared valley from the ravages of rock spill, sewage and further loss of land from a huge settlement on the cliff above, where 26,000 Israelis are rapidly expanding their confiscated area. It was heartwarming to see the international harmony with which the villagers face common challenges and opportunities.

There are 25 similar cross-border partnerships between Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors. The best alternative for the future is a negotiated peace agreement, so that the example of Wadi Fukin and Tzur Hadassah can prevail along a peaceful border between two sovereign nations.

The writer was the 39th president. He founded The Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization focused on global peace and health issues.

Ahava drops spokesperson amid public relations fiasco

For Immediate Release:

4 September 2009

A first victory for CODEPINK’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign

The Israeli cosmetics company, Ahava, which illegally manufactures and appropriates its products in occupied Palestinian territory, has dropped its spokesperson Kristin Davis amid a public relations debacle sparked by the peace group CODEPINK’s Stolen Beauty campaign.

As Gawker.com (http://gawker.com/5351985/cosmetics-company-uses-kristin-davis-and-then-kicks-her-out) first reported yesterday, ‘Sex & the City’ star Kristin Davis has been dropped by Ahava. All trace of her image and mention of her name have already been removed from Ahava’s website.

Davis’ dismissal, and the accompanying blow to Ahava’s image, follow the successful launch of CODEPINK’s Stolen Beauty campaign designed to spread word of Ahava’s illegal practices — its products are falsely labeled as “Made in Israel” but in actuality are made in an illegal settlement in occupied Palestinian territory, and often contain resources appropriated from occupied land, in clear violation of international law.

For the past two months CODEPINK activists have been appearing at Ahava stores, trade booths, and online, spreading word of Ahava’s illegal business practices (view photos and publicity at www.stolenbeauty.org). Particularly newsworthy was Davis’ dual role as Ahava spokesperson and as a goodwill ambassador for the international charity Oxfam—a group that has courageously spoken out against the illegal Israeli settlement trade. First, CODEPINK activists reached out to Davis (http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-code-pink-snubbed-by-sex-and-the-city-star-kristin-davis-r-1244746975) to dissuade her from continuing her paid promotional appearances for Ahava. When that failed, public pressure forced Oxfam to suspend Davis from publicity work for the charity. The glare of publicity, including a story on Page 6 of the New York Post (http://www.nypost.com/seven/08062009/gossip/pagesix/sex_star__oxfam_part_ways_183164.htm), surrounding that controversy appears now to have helped make untenable Ahava’s P.R. campaign centered on Davis.

While Davis’ apparent hypocrisy served as a convenient initial lightning rod for mobilizing the Stolen Beauty campaign, and has helped generate enormous press coverage of Ahava’s crimes, the campaign has yet to begin to reach its full force. In a few weeks, another wave of activity (and a whole new pressure point for Ahava) will be unveiled. In the meantime, though, CODEPINK activists celebrate this first small victory, and the enormous increase in consumer awareness it has focused on Ahava’s illegal practices.

Did Leviev’s empire succumb to boycott?

Alternative Information Center (AIC)

2 September 2009

On 31 August 2009, Lev Leviev, the sixth richest Israeli according to Forbes Magazine, convened a press conference and announced that his company Africa Israel will be unable to meet its financial obligations and repay its debts on time. Leviev’s debt is estimated at nearly Euro 1.4 billion. While this tycoon said in August 2008 that “I will meet all of my obligations, to the last penny,” he admitted in the latest press conference, one year later, that he made serious investment mistakes.

Though Leviev originally made his fortune in the diamond industry, Africa Israel is the flagship of his business empire. The company is well known for its widespread real-estate investments, but also for the fact that it builds in Israeli settlements, or colonies, in the West Bank. The company’s construction projects in areas such as Ma’ale Adumim, Har Homa, Adam and Modi’in Ilit contribute to the ongoing efforts to dispossess Palestinians from their lands, to expand illegal Jewish settlements, entrench Israeli control, and place obstacles to ending the occupation and achieving peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

As a result of these construction projects, Leviev’s business empire came under a massive and well-coordinated worldwide boycott campaign. Although it is difficult to organize a consumer boycott on a real-estate company, because that would amount to convincing people not to live in certain areas, supporters of the Palestinian cause for justice and freedom found creative ways to apply pressure on Africa Israel.

As the crimes of Africa Israel became infamous throughout the world, international pressure on the company began to mount. Demonstrations took place in New York City, including in front of Leviev’s store on Madison Avenue. UNICEF refused a donation from him, saying “We are aware of the controversy surrounding Mr. Leviev because of his reported involvement in construction work in the occupied Palestinian territory.” The UK embassy in Tel Aviv decided not to buy its office from Africa Israel while on 23 August 2009, it was revealed that Blackrock Inc., a large British investment firm, decided to divest from Africa Israel. Eight days later, Leviev convened the press conference in which he announced his inability to repay his debts.

The question that naturally arises is whether the efforts of the boycott campaign were what eventually toppled one of Israel’s biggest tycoons. There is no way to answer this question based solely on financial data. Company financial reports do not include a clause for “losses because of boycott.” Also, it is unrealistic to assume that the massive losses of Africa Israel result solely from the boycott—it is clear from company reports that the primary reason for debt is the depreciation of real-estate assets, which the company bought at tremendous leveraging. The international capitalist crisis impacted the value of the company’s assets, making the huge company seem like a sinkhole of debt.

While it would be irresponsible to contend that Africa Israel accumulated a significant amount of its Euro 1.4 billion debt as a result of the boycott movement, this does not mean that the boycott movement did not play a key role in toppling the company. After all, a company doesn’t go into crisis because of heavy debts, but only when it cannot refinance its debts and borrow money to cover previous commitments.

The “big five” Israeli tycoons include Eliezer Fischman with debts estimated at Euro 4.2 billion, Israel Corp of the Ofer family, with debts worth Euro 7.5 billion, Delek Group of Yitzhak Tshuva, with debts amounting to about Euro 8.1 billion and I.D.B of Nochi Dankner, with debts estimated at Euro 14.9 billion. Africa Israel has the least amount of debt amongst these tycoons, but was the first to fall, partially because its image was destroyed along with its fortunes, and because investors were wary of lending money to a company beset by protests, and facing possible litigation for crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories. The other Israeli tycoons are not subject to widespread boycott campaigns, and are so far able to obtain sufficient credit from investors to keep doing business, despite the international crisis.

In fact, the impact of boycott cannot be directly measured in numerical terms. The educational, mobilizing and psychological impacts are always more powerful than the direct economic impact. What can be measured, however, are the decisions of companies that clearly state their decisions to withdraw from illegal projects, like the statements of Blackrock regarding Leviev, or Veolia regarding the illegal light rail in Jerusalem, or companies that succumb to economic pressure faster than companies in similar financial dire straits, such as Africa Israel succumbing before Israel’s more indebted tycoons.

It is too early to say what the consequences of Leviev’s fall could be. His creditors are mostly Israelis, and many were invested in his companies through their pension funds. The fall could be painful for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Some of them might dedicate a moment of thought, as a result of losing money, to the reasons behind the boycott campaign, and to the fact that the crimes committed by their government and complicit corporations can affect them personally. Some may realize the occupation of Palestine is not free.

One thing is certain: the brave people who took to the streets to demand boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and Israeli companies received a clear message that their efforts are not in vain. Private companies that seek to make easy profits in Palestine while ignoring the injustices and illegality of Israel’s crimes there, will have to think twice about their investments. They may be required to pay a price in actual money for the moral deficit in their accounts.

Settler stabs B’Tselem worker in Susiya

B’Tselem

10 August 2009

This morning [Monday, 10 August], at about 7:30, I heard voices and shouting coming from the direction of the wadi near our village, Khirbet Susiya. I got up and took my stills camera and ran toward where the voices were coming from. On the way, I looked behind me and saw two others from our village running behind me. They apparently also heard the shouting.

I got there quickly. I saw Jaziya Nawaj’ah and her sheep and two settlers. One of the settlers was average height and heavyset, with short hair, a beard, and slightly dark skin. I know him. His name is Dotan and he works for Dalia [Har-Sinai] at the Yair Farm settlement. The other settler was a bit shorter and younger than Dotan, had short hair and was fair-skinned. I know him too. His name is Shalom, and he is also from Yair Farm. The settlers tried to lead the sheep toward the settlement, and Jaziya shouted and tried to lead her sheep back toward the village.

I went toward Dotan to take a picture of him from up close, and he took something sharp out of his pocket and tried to attack me with it. I managed to get away, but it wounded my right hand. It might have been a knife.

I managed to take pictures of the settlers. I saw that Jamal and Ahmad Nawaj’ah filmed the incident on video and that foreign peace activists who were with us in the village came and also began to film what was happening.

When other residents arrived and tried to help Jaziya, the settlers left. Dotan went to a white car that was parked about five hundred meters to the east, and Shalom walked toward the settlement, where there were soldiers. I went to talk with the soldiers and saw Shalom standing between two of them and telling them that we had trespassed settlers’ land. I explained what had happened and Shalom threatened me, saying that when he went into the army, he would shoot me. While I was there, Shalom took their two-way radio a few times and called for reinforcements from one of the battalions. The soldiers let him keep using the device, but nobody answered.

I went back to the village and called the police and asked them to come quickly. I went to the main road to wait for them. About half an hour later, a police car with three police officers inside arrived. One of them was called Jalal and another was called Tal. They spoke with me and then asked me to go with them to the settlement so I could identify the assailants.

I got into the van and we drove to where the soldiers were. Two of the police officers got out to speak with the soldiers, and I stayed in the car with Jalal. Suddenly I saw Dotan passing by in a white Mitsubishi Magnum. I pointed him out to Jalal and said that he was the one who had assaulted Jaziya. Jalal said he would arrest him later on. When the two police officers came back to the car, Jalal told them that Dotan had just passed by. One of the policemen asked him why he hadn’t stopped him, and Jalal said it was impossible to take us together. They told me to go with Jaziya, Ahmad, and Iyad Abu Qabita, to the Kiryat Arba police station. One of the policemen returned me to Khirbet Susiya. They said they would arrest Dotan.

I took Jaziya to al-Hassan al-Qassem Hospital, in Yatta, and then we went to the Kiryat Arba police station and filed complaints. My hand wasn’t severely injured and I didn’t get it examined.

Nasser Muhammad Ahmad Nawaj’ah, 27, married with three children, is the coordinator of B’Tselem’s video-camera project in the southern Hebron hills and a resident of Khirbet Susiya, Hebron District. He gave his testimony to Musa Abu Hashhash on 10 August 2009 in Hebron.

In village, Palestinians see model for their cause

Ethan Bronner | The New York Times

27 August 2009

Every Friday for the past four and a half years, several hundred demonstrators — Palestinian villagers, foreign volunteers and Israeli activists — have walked in unison to the Israeli barrier separating this tiny village from the burgeoning settlement of Modiin Illit, part of which is built on the village’s land. One hundred feet away, Israeli soldiers watch and wait.

The protesters chant and shout and, inevitably, a few throw stones. Then just as inevitably, the soldiers open fire with tear gas and water jets, lately including a putrid oil-based liquid that makes the entire area stink.

It is one of the longest-running and best organized protest operations in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it has turned this once anonymous farming village into a symbol of Palestinian civil disobedience, a model that many supporters of the Palestinian cause would like to see spread and prosper.

For that reason, a group of famous left-leaning elder statesmen, including former President Jimmy Carter — who caused controversy by suggesting that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank amounted to apartheid — came to Bilin on Thursday and told the local organizers how much they admired their work and why it was vital to keep it going.

The retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also on the visit, said, “Just as a simple man named Gandhi led the successful nonviolent struggle in India and simple people such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King led the struggle for civil rights in the United States, simple people here in Bilin are leading a nonviolent struggle that will bring them their freedom.”

Mr. Tutu, a South African Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke on rocky soil, surrounded by the remains of tear gas canisters and in front of coils of barbed wire, part of the barrier that Israel began building in 2002 across the West Bank as a violent Palestinian uprising was under way. Israel said its main purpose was to stop suicide bombers from crossing into Israel, but the route of the barrier — a mix of fencing, guard towers and concrete wall — dug deep into the West Bank in places, and Palestinian anger over the barrier is as much about lost land as about lost freedom.

Bilin lost half its land to the settlement of Modiin Illit and the barrier and took its complaint to Israel’s highest court. Two years ago, the court handed it an unusual victory. It ordered the settlement to stop building its new neighborhood and ordered the Israeli military to move the route of the barrier back toward Israel, thereby returning about half the lost land to the village.

“The villagers danced in the street,” recalled Emily Schaeffer, an Israeli lawyer who worked on the case for the village. “Unfortunately, it has been two years since the decision, and the wall has not moved.”

The village is back in court trying, so far in vain, to get the orders put into effect.

Ms. Schaeffer was explaining the case to the visitors, who go by the name The Elders. The group was founded two years ago by former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa and is paid for by donors, including Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, and Jeff Skoll, founding president of eBay. Its goal is to “support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.”

Both Mr. Branson and Mr. Skoll were on the visit to Bilin, as were Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland; Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil; and Ela Bhatt, an Indian advocate for the poor and women’s rights. Their visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories has also included meetings with young Israelis and young Palestinians.

Mr. Cardoso said that he had long heard about the conflict but that seeing it on the ground had made a lasting impression on him. The barrier, he said, serves to imprison the Palestinians.

Like every element of the conflict here, there is no agreement over the nature of what goes on here every Friday. Palestinians hail the protest as nonviolent, and it was cited recently by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a key step forward in the struggle for a Palestinian state. Recently, one of the leaders here, Mohammed Khatib, set up a committee of a dozen villages to share his strategies.

But the Israelis complain that, along with protests at the nearby village of Nilin, things are more violent here than the Palestinians and their supporters acknowledge.

“Rioters hurl rocks, Molotov cocktails and burning tires at defense forces and the security fence,” the military said in a statement when asked why it had taken to arresting village leaders in the middle of the night. “Since the beginning of 2008, about 170 members of the defense forces have been injured in these villages,” it added, including three soldiers who were so badly hurt they could no longer serve in the army. It also said that at Bilin itself, some $60,000 worth of damage had been done to the barrier in the past year and a half.

Abdullah Abu Rahma, a village teacher and one of the organizers of the weekly protests, said he was amazed at the military’s assertions as well as at its continuing arrests and imprisonment of village leaders.

“They want to destroy our movement because it is nonviolent,” he said. He added that some villagers might have tried, out of frustration, to cut through the fence since the court had ordered it moved and nothing had happened. But that is not the essence of the popular movement that he has helped lead.

“We need our land,” he told his visitors. “It is how we make our living. Our message to the world is that this wall is destroying our lives, and the occupation wants to kill our struggle.”