The Occupation Of Palestine

By Max Kantar

26 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org


In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the news media, more times than 
not, does not reflect the reality or horrors of the situation on the 
ground. Just last year, according to Israeli human rights organization, 
B'Tselem, 660 Palestinians were killed by Israeli Military forces, 21% 
of which were children. On the Israeli side, Palestinians were 
responsible for killing 23 Israelis. With a murder ratio exceeding 28 
to 1, the Israeli occupation can no longer be disguised as a security 
measure in the name of peace. (13)

Through American and Global mainstream media outlets, this story of 
Palestinian despair and hardship is nameless and remains widely untold. 
The illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories is completely 
crushing and destroying the Palestinian people in every way imaginable, 
and amazingly, it is the Palestinians who receive no emergency aid and 
little sympathy outside the Arab world.

In violation of countless international laws including UN Security 
Counsel Resolution 242, Israel is applying ruthless military force and 
rule over an entire people in their own homeland, denying Palestinians 
their universal rights to self determination and suffocating all means 
of social and economic survival while annexing vast amounts resource 
rich Palestinian owned land. The indigenous Palestinians of 1967 and 
their families have been cut off from virtually all of their water 
supply, olive gardens/farms, interstate trade and free movement due to 
an Israeli government political and militarized campaign to control all 
of historical Palestine despite the 
internationally recognized Palestinian ('67) borders of the West Bank 
and Gaza Strip. This occupation is not only one in violation of 
international law and continuous promoting of socioeconomic 
instability, but also one of constant brutal military force consisting 
of the endless dehumanization of the Palestinian people. This is not a 
colonization or occupation waged by the Israeli public either, but one 
waged by its government under the deceiving guises of security, 
nationalism, and self preservation.

The idea of a fence or wall being built between West Bank Palestine 
and Israel has long been discussed as an option to prevent terrorism in 
Israeli proper. Plans for construction began in 2002 and the public was 
lead to believe that the 8 meter high fence would be built on the 350 
kilometer green border lines established in 1967. But this is not the 
case. The fence has been built around (98% of) the Jewish only 
settlements, water supplies and agriculturally resourceful land, and 
even East Jerusalem, all in the occupied Palestinian territories. (1)

Olive trees and farms were an integral part the Palestinians' economy; 
due to the wall, many of these rich resources have been stripped from 
the Palestinian farmers.

Israel is legally entitled to 78% of the region, in accordance with 
the borders established in 1949 that were approved by the United 
Nations. Upon the 'fence' construction, the Israeli government now has 
(illegally) taken an additional 12% of the total land, with estimates 
of Palestinian water seizure at about 85%, leaving large numbers of 
Palestinians with limited or 
no access to any water at all. According to the Hague Convention and 
more specifically, its 46th Article, these aforementioned practices are 
internationally "prohibited" and fall under the pretext of "the 
confiscation of private property in the occupied territory." (2)

Palestinian Civilian Life

Several hundred Israeli Military Checkpoints divide the West Bank 
villages halting Palestinian trade of goods and food supplies from one 
community to another. This accounts for the vast inconsistency in price 
and availability of food all throughout the west bank. Throughout these 
degrading military checkpoints, Palestinian civilians are forced by 
law, from the age of 16, to 
carry identification passbooks to travel anywhere, making everyday 
situations and errands very difficult for the Palestinian population.

It is by use of these checkpoints that systems of 'closure' are 
enforced, where the Israeli military will suppress any movement in or 
out of certain areas or cities in the occupied territories. For 
example, the Palestinian city of Hebron, was under closure for 167 out 
300 days in 2002-2003. Curfews are also enforced wherein Palestinians 
cannot even leave their own homes for any reason, making hunger and 
confinement an even deeper reality.

The checkpoint soldiers often deny farmers access to their own land 
and create difficult circumstances for Palestinian children on their 
way to school. This restriction of free movement has caused the 
inevitable depression of Palestinian economy, where markets and stores 
go out of business at frightening rates, making the task of finding 
employment quite hard. Furthermore, even when Palestinian farmers are 
granted access to their own land, (during very strict 30 minute 
intervals at dawn and dusk) they are prohibited from bringing 
additional laborers to help. Everyday life becomes a nightmare for 
Palestinians where going to pray or to visit family leaves some 
detained all day, while ambulances with women in labor are halted at 
the checkpoints at which they and/or their babies have died during 
childbirth waiting for permission to simply proceed to the hospital. 
(3)

In reality, these checkpoints and periods of closure do not serve any 
purpose but to sever the social and economic ligaments that would 
otherwise unify and converge Palestinian sovereignty and independence.

With this stagnantly bottom barrel consumer and job market, and access 
to Israel's sect of service and menial labor economy strictly off 
limits, the Palestinian people, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, have 
seen the continuous rise in their rate of impoverished people (less 
than $2 a day) reach 75% of their population, amid struggling with a 
$655 million 'national' deficit. This is also in part, attributed to 
the Israeli withholding of $660 million of Palestinian paid taxes; the 
only source of revenue to build roads, fund education/teachers, 
guarantee any kind of 
health care, or provide any form of public service for the Palestinian 
people (12). Globally, many post industrialized nations are 
participating in a boycott of occupied Palestine and withholding any 
kind of requested relief or aid in an attempt to 'punish' the 
Palestinians for electing Hamas as their political representatives. 
These forms of collective punishment are in 
violation of international law. (4)

To further make life unliveable for Palestinians under the occupation, 
they are not even allowed to build homes (in their own land) for 
themselves unless they receive a building permit from an Israeli 
agency. This is a catch 22 situation being that to even apply for a 
permit, a fee of $5,000 is assessed and it is very unlikely for 
Palestinians to be granted permission to build at all. As one can 
imagine, many homes are deemed "illegal" under Israeli Occupation 
policy and as a result, over 12,000 demolition orders have been carried 
out since the beginning of the occupation in 1967. Although Israel has 
continued this practice for forty years, it is completely illegal under 
the 53rd article of the Geneva convention which states that "any 
destruction by the occupying power of real or personal property [is 
prohibited]." Despite these international stipulations, home 
demolitions have increased in the past few years, while there are 
undoubtedly still hundreds, or even thousands of demolition orders to 
be established and carried out in the future. (5)

What you have in the occupied territories, is essentially, a large, 
open air prison, where the 'prisoners', although in their own land, 
have no authentic citizenship, protection, or any basic needs 
fulfilled, living as social and political refugees.

Territorial Expansion and Settlements; Apolitical?

Israeli built, Jewish-Only settlements on Palestinian land (Gaza/West 
Bank) began to officially emerge in the years immediately following the 
seizure and annexation of the land inside of the green lines following 
the 1967 war. These settlements have grown immensely in size, rising 
disproportionately by 300 percent in recent years, to the Israeli 
population that currently resides the within the legally recognized 
borders of Israel 'proper'. The suburbanesque settlements have often 
times been one of the main justifications for the Occupation as far as 
protection for the Jewish settlers from Palestinian militants. 
According the Jerusalem Post, in 2006, the number of settlers in the 
West Bank reached over 267,000, while East Jerusalem is home to another 
200,000 Jewish settlers. (6)

After the six day war of 1967, the Israeli government sought to make 
permanent their territorial expansion by enticing Israeli and 
International Jews alike to 'settle' in the newly received holy land, 
seized from the indigenous Palestinians. As one might guess this 
colonization process is illegal as stated in the 4th Geneva Convention 
(Article 49) where "the occupying power shall not transfer part of its 
own civilian population into territories it occupies." The houses in 
the settlements became hot commodities due to the 50-75% government 
subsidy that accompanied the mortgages. The settlers also saw a 7-10% 
reduction of their income taxes/social security, and large government 
subsides on education, employment, health care, and of course, military 
protection. (7)

The settlements are mirrors of upper middle class and upper class 
Israeli (or American) neighborhoods. They have nice schools and 
facilities, even pools, with water taken from the Palestinian annexed 
resources, often times separated by the fence. Meanwhile, the 
Palestinian neighborhoods, sometimes just a couple hundred meters away, 
like in East Jerusalem, look like third world ruins. These Jewish 
settlers need not bother with the checkpoints going around their cities 
and into Israel; they have 350km (still over 100km more to come) of 
their own unrestricted 'by-pass' roads and, licence plates, separate 
from the Palestinians. Obviously, the settlers do not need to produce 
identification passbooks either, to move freely. (8)

Some settlers are motivated to live in these areas because of their 
religious connections or self perceived, unqualified righteousness to 
the land. They also, as does sects of Israeli government, see it as a 
political stance and maneuver to sustain the Palestinian territory in a 
belief that it is strictly 'Jewish' land. These settlers are in the 
minority according to a 
survey produced by the Hopp Research Co. According to the survey, 
"80%" of the settlers lived in these territories only for the 
government subsidies, with "68%" willing to vacate settlements "if 
ordered to" (9).

These statistics show in part how Israel's governing powers, not its 
people, are the ones waging many of the fundamental strategies and 
initiatives of the occupation and desired conquest and colonization of 
the Palestinian owned West Bank. Furthermore, varying statistics (62%, 
70%, etc.) also show that the vast majority of Israeli Jews oppose the 
occupation and settlements and unlike their government, are more 
concerned with achieving peace with Israel's neighbors rather than 
expanding Israel's land and militarization. (9)

The Reality of a 'Peace' Process

Take into consideration: the laws, regulations, and practices of the 
forty year long brutal and repressive occupation, the denial of return 
for the (nearly one million) Palestinians who were displaced in 
Israel's modern creation, and the lack of any sincere peace agreement 
granting the indigenous Palestinians any right to political autonomy 
and self determination in their own state. If one looks at what is 
really taking place before the world's eyes, it is clear: The Israeli 
government will only welcome peace if it is on their own strict terms 
of domination and complete control of the entire region. What started 
off as 55-45% compromise favoring Israel in the UN 1947 resolution, 
turned into a 78-22% differential, Israel again being the former. This 
generous division of land has been not only internationally accepted 
(UN Res. 242), but taken in writing by Yasser Arafat and the PLO during 
the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords in their recognition of Israel. 78%. That 
includes all of historic Palestine outside of the tiny Gaza strip and 
the West Bank. Israel, on the other hand, was the party who, in the 
Oslo accords, did not genuinely recognize or accept Palestinian 
sovereignty in the form of their independent state. (5) Saudi Arabia, 
in 2002, also extended an agreement with Israel promising peace from 
neighboring Arab nations in exchange for an end to the Occupation of 
the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel declined.

With the invasion of right wing ideologues into the Israeli Junta, 
Zionist extremism has taken precedence over democracy by means of 
demographic and geographical fundamentalism. These religiously and 
politically motivated afflictions have been echoed most distinctly 
throughout the newly admitted party Yisrael Beitenu, whose leader, 
Avigdor Lieberman, urged for "Zionism" over "Democracy" while openly 
calling for the displacement or "transfer" of the indigenous 
Palestinians of 1967 and Arab-Israeli Palestinians of 1948 (10).

What is currently occurring in the Occupied Territories is the 
creation of conditions that are unliveable for human beings. There is 
no justification for it on the basis of security, no justification for 
it on the basis of legal state land ownership, and absolutely no 
justification for it on the basis of humanity.

Israel has the right to exist, undoubtedly, and a right to secure 
their proper borders for the safety of their population. Military 
occupation and annexation of Palestinian land, and colonization of 
foreign land, is not a means of security, but a means of conquest and 
application of force to drive a people from the desired geographic 
mass.

And this current practice shall never achieve peace.

Initiating Responsibility

In American media outlets, the Israeli/Palestinian 'conflict' is 
always portrayed to the people as Israel being on the defensive from 
terror. Terror has been real in Israel's history, but everything must 
be put into context to be understood. The truth is, that somewhere 
between the six day war of 1967, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the 
current circumstances of the occupation, Israel has clearly made the 
transition from David to Goliath and from the underdog, to aggressor.

Once again, to understand this metamorphosis, one must recognize the 
historical significance and relevance to combat false notions. The 
Jewish people formed a Jewish state for the same reasons (respectively) 
the Palestinians need to now: to be sovereign and self determinant. 
Somewhere along the way, when Israel obtained significantly high 
command on the determining factors of future peace among herself and 
surrounding nations, peace was no longer enough and humanity was 
forgotten.

This change took place through unconditional American funding to 
Israel, primarily militarily. According to 2002 Palestine Monitor 
reports (11), since 1949, the United States has provided over $134 
Billion in aid, making Israel the largest recipient of U.S. funds in 
the world's history. Israel could never have become the world's fourth 
most powerful military without help from the United States of America. 
Therefore, to just say that America, who is ultimately and knowingly 
funding the occupation, is not absolved of responsibility for bringing 
justice and peace to Israel and Palestine, is a grave understatement.

Frankly, the vast majority the responsibility for initiating peace and 
coexistence rests on Israel's shoulders. Both the Israelis and the 
Palestinians need to find common ground acceptable to each other, but 
it is in fact, the occupying power that will have to make the most 
concessions from the current state of existence and affairs. As it is 
today and has been for decades, Israel controls the destiny and welfare 
of the Palestinian population and ultimately holds the key to the 
Palestinians' development and establishment of a self governing state. 
Terrorism may always remain to be a concern for Israel, but total 
occupation and oppression of another state is a far cry from 
establishing positive relations and peace for both peoples.

An End to Destruction

At this time, Israel has two viable choices: end the occupation, as 
the West Bank and Gaza Strip become a self governing Palestinian state, 
or exist as an oppressive Apartheid regime, similar to 20th century 
South Africa. Either way, the occupation cannot continue forever as it 
will meet constant and violent resistance from inside and out. The 
Occupation is not only destroying the Palestinians, but it is 
perpetuating the neglect of Israeli peoples' welfare.

Israel has strived to remain a social democracy inside its borders, 
similar to those of Scandinavian governments, but now more closely 
resembles the 'self-help' American economics. With all of Israel's aid 
and expenses going towards the illegal occupation, welfare and public 
service entitlements have been reduced and neglected. Israeli poverty 
has reached 1.2 million 
citizens, or 20% of their population. Coincidently, trade unions have 
also been restricted in their rights to strike by the government, 
despite the low wages. (11)

Concessions for anything but the following are unacceptable: 
evacuation of all Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, 
complete and unconditional withdrawal of IDF troops, dismantling of the 
current fence, legitimate and diplomatically acceptable resolution of 
1948 Palestinian refugees, and a guarantee of real Palestinian 
Authority concerning the social, economic, and political welfare of the 
Palestinian state. Lastly, financial grants must be provided to the 
Palestinian people, from Israel and America, for the withheld taxes and 
aid, the uprooting of olive trees, home demolitions, and for the 
overall damage to liberty, property and life received by the 
Palestinian people and economy at the hands of Israel and the checkbook 
of America.

These are the responsibilities of the occupying power(s).

Although it's hard to believe, Jewish and Arab coexistence was once a 
legitimate possibility in the middle east. A day such as that, for many 
people, may surely seem far into the future, if ever. But it is long 
past time that the first step be made towards it, by initiating the two 
state solution, signaling the end of Israeli military occupation of 
Palestine. Programs uniting, familiarizing, and establishing personal 
identification between Jews and Arabs such as Playing for Peace and 
ICAHD, need to become more commonplace, presently and especially in the 
event of the conflict 'resolution'. Aside from some religious 
fundamentalism on both sides, this author believes that despite public 
perception, if nothing else, many Jews and Arabs do share a desire for 
harmony, tolerance, and coexistence in the future. Only time will tell.

Max Kantar is a undergraduate of Sociology at Ferris State University. 
He can be contacted at [log in to unmask]


Bibliography

1. www.stopthewall.org, "The Apartheid Wall" (Fact sheet)

2. antiwar.com/hachoen/?articleid=796, "Palestinian Enslavement 
Entering a 
New Phase" Hacohen, Ran, 5/24/02

3. www.jatonyc.org/eric/gates.html, "The Gates of Mah'sa" 7/29/03

4. palestinemonitor.org/factsheet/Fact_Sheet_Poverty.htm, "Poverty"

5. icahd.org, "The Problem with Israel" Halper, Jeff, 11/16/06

6. jpost.com, "Report 12,400 New Settlers 2006" The Jersusalem Post, 
2006

7. fmep.org/reports/vol07/no6/03-settlements_
gain_maximum_incentive.html

8. icahd.org/eng/faq.asp?menu=9&submenu=1 (ICAHD, FAQ)

9. palestinemonitor.org/factsheet/Coin%20of%20Empire.htm, "U.S. Aid 
to 
Israel", 7/9/03

10. countercurrents.org/pa-abunimah261006.htm, "World Silent As 
Fascists Join Israel Government" Abunimah, Ali, 10/26/06

11. palestinemonitor.org/factsheet/US_Aid_to_Israel.htm, "Palestine 
Fact 
Sheets"

12.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070221/
wl_mideast_afp/ mideastpalestinian_070221190255;_ylt
=AoU2AGIWaL_7Ljp33K71AWZn.3QA

13. http://www.btselem.org (See casualties or 'more statistics') or 
http://countercurrents.org/pa-abunimah080307.htm

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