Israel bans EU MPs from Gaza
Gaza – Ma’an - 09/12/2009
Israel banned a delegation of European members of parliament from entering the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing on Wednesday, despite previously approving the visit, the EU said.
“Israel had yesterday afternoon granted final permission for all members of our delegation to travel,” the European Parliament group said in a statement.
“However, some three hours later entry for all members of the delegation was rescinded ’on security grounds,’ without further explanation,”
“We insist on a full explanation of the security risks claimed by Israel,” the statement continued. “We received the news of the cancellation with bewilderment and dismay.”
“It is extremely curious that the cancellation came within a few hours of the announcement of the EU Council statement re-affirming Europe’s strong position in favor of an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and an end to settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” the statement added.
They were referring to a statement issued on Tuesday by the EU's foreign ministers calling for Jerusalem to become the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state.
The European delegation said it planned to check on humanitarian conditions in Gaza, meet with UNRWA operations director John Ging, and hold talks with members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
They said they intended to urge PLC members to reconcile with their colleagues in the rival Palestinian administration in Ramallah.
Palestinian sources confirmed that the delegation was scheduled to cross into Gaza at 8am on Wednesday for meetings with UNRWA and PLC officials.
A spokesman for Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
The delegation included Prosinsias De Rossa of Ireland, Kyriacos Triantaphyllides of Cyprus, Potit Salatto of Italy, Rosario Crocetta of Italy, Alexandra Thein of Germany, Nicole Kiil Neilsen of France, Robert Atkins of Britain, and Georgios Toussas of Greece.
Palestinian lawmaker Jamal Al-Khudari, who heads the Popular Committee Against the Israeli Siege of Gaza, said that prohibiting the entry of the delegation was the latest in a string of incidents where top European government officials were banned from Gaza.
Last week Irish Foreign Minister Michel Martin said he had been denied a request to enter Gaza.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto’lu and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner were also barred from Gaza recently.
The European delegation also said that the denial of access into Gaza was minor compared to Israeli violations of Palestinians’ rights: “The inconvenience caused to our delegation is minor compared to the constant tension and harassment to which Palestinians live with in the occupied territories including house demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem, and the appalling conditions under which the people are living in Gaza as reported to us by ECHO, the European Commission Humanitarian Aid office.”
They added that the ban “does not improve the relationship between this Israeli government and the European Parliament.”
“By denying elected members of the European Parliament the opportunity to meet our democratically-elected counterparts of the PLC is an unacceptable interference in the democratic process, and is contrary to international law,” the statement added.
Settlers torch Palestinian property, uproot trees
Ma'an News, Nablus, December 7th 2009
Angry at their government over a slowdown in the expansion of West Bank settlements, Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian vehicles and buildings and uprooted more than 50 trees on Sunday.
Settlers set ablaze two warehouses, two cars, and a tractor belonging to Palestinian farmers in the northern West Bank village of Einabus near Nablus on Sunday morning.
Palestinian sources said firefighters from the Civil Defense service and Nablus municipal council were alerted at 2:30am and headed to the home of Nadir Mufdi to extinguish a fire in his barn, as well as a tractor and private car.
Separately, eyewitnesses told Ma'an that Israeli settlers set fire to a car owned by Fayiz Allan in the same area. No injuries were reported in either apparent arson.
The Palestinian Civil Defense Department said it was able to contain the fire in the barn owned by a resident identified by the initials “HA.” Firefighters were able to stanch the fire and prevent it from spreading to adjacent areas.
In a statement the Civil Defense Department also said losses from the fire were estimated at 40,000 US dollars, including two cars and 20 haystacks.
Israeli Defense Ministry sources told Ma'an that while they could not confirm the attack was in retaliation for plans to temporarily freeze some settlement construction in the West Bank, a large contingent of military forces was in the area and operating under the assumption that the incident was "a revenge act."
Residents of the Yizhar settlement were likely involved, the sources added.
A spokesman for Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories would confirm only that the Civil Administration had received a complaint that settlers set fire to two vehicles and a building. Authorities are investigating the incident, the official added.
Bethlehem: Settlers uproot trees
Separately dozens of Israeli settlers uprooted more than fifty newly-planted trees on Sunday from fields in the West Bank village of Um Salamona, south of Bethlehem, Palestinian officials said.
The trees were planted last week during a campaign led by the Palestinian Authority governor of Bethlehem Abdul-Fattah Hamayil. The aim of the planting was to express solidarity with the people of Um Salamona whose lands are being confiscated by Israeli authorities to build the separation wall between it and the settlement of Efrat.
“This assault by settlers reflects their barbarism which they practice even against trees and stones that belong to the Palestinians,” Hamayil commented.
He explained that such attacks were completion of an overarching Israeli government plan to confiscate Palestinian lands to build more settlements.
Hamayil said the uprooting of the trees in Um Salamona exposed Israel’s settlement freeze as an act of deception.
“Israeli claims about temporarily freezing settlement activities are nothing more than deception,” the governor said.
For his part, the head of Um Salamona’s village council, Mahmoud Rashid, explained that the governor of Bethlehem, along with Palestinian national security services chiefs, and representatives of Palestinian factions started a land reclamation campaign in the village last week. However, he added, Israeli authorities and settlers impeded the campaign through various means.
Price tag
Israeli settlers from Yizhar attacked Palestinians in the village of Asira on Friday, according to Gassan Doughlas, who holds the Palestinian Authority's settlements portfolio for the northern West Bank. Neighboring families came out to defend the families under attack, Doughlas said, and clashes erupted between both sides. He added, however, that there were no reports of injuries.
These incidents come amid reports that Israeli military officials are concerned settlers may escalate their attacks on Palestinian civilians in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's a 10-month, partial moratorium on settlement construction. Settlement leaders have attacked and harassed Israeli soldiers and inspectors delivering orders on the temporary lull.
Even before the partial moratorium on construction and the violent demonstrations that followed it, Israeli settlers had a "price tag" policy wherein any act preventing settlement expansion would be met with harsh resistance. In response to the dismantling of an illegal settlement outpost during the summer, settlers blocked roads, harassed Palestinian villagers and vandalized graveyards.
Netanyahu Pledges to Restrain Settlement Expansion--Does it Matter?
Foundation for Middle East Peace Settlement Report | Vol. 19 No. 6 | November-December 2009
By Geoffrey Aronson
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has adopted what he describes as “a policy of restraint regarding settlements which will include a suspension of new permits and new construction in Judea and Samaria for a period of ten months,” along with “a promise to enable normal life to continue for three hundred thousand Israeli citizens, our brothers and sisters, who live in Judea and Samaria.” During this period, construction continues without limitation in East Jerusalem settlements, where 200,000 Israelis now reside. Construction will continue as well on at least 3,000 West Bank settlement housing units, along with unlimited construction of public facilities, meaning that the rate of settlement expansion will at best be only marginally effected during 2010 by the new policy. “When the suspension ends,” continued Netanyahu in his November 25, 2009, announcement, “my government will revert to the policies of previous governments in relation to construction.”
Although both Netanyahu and U.S. officials describe the policy as a unilateral decision by Israel, it is the result of bilateral negotiations following a demand for a total cessation of settlement expansion, including in East Jerusalem, initially demanded by the Barack Obama administration. The United States will continue to monitor settlement activity, but there is no formal method for third-party enforcement of Netanyahu’s declaration or for sanctioning violations.
Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and a Netanyahu confidant, explained that “U.S. and Israeli spokespeople stressed that the Israeli decision on a construction moratorium in Judea and Samaria was a unilateral step, and this was in order to spare Washington the need to relate to the question of whether this was with the U.S.’s consent or not. . . . The importance of the official statements in praise of the government’s decision--statements made in Washington--is that they give the seal of approval.”
Washington’s closely worded response was led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who noted, “Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.”
Clinton, whose trip to the region in late October was billed as part of the effort to strengthen Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas caused a diplomatic storm when, in reply to Netanyahu, she explained, “What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements, which he has just described--no new starts, for example--is unprecedented in the context of the prior two negotiations.”
George Mitchell, Obama’s lead negotiator on the issue, noted in a press conference following Netanyahu’s announcement that the freeze idea is an instrument--a vehicle for creating conditions for a resumption of meaningful final status talks--not simply a process. On that score, the original U.S. aspiration for a complete freeze was understandable. An Israeli decision to declare, and more important, enforce a real suspension of settlement would have been “unprecedented” and if implemented on the ground would have reflected an Israeli decision to evacuate settlements. Abbas would indeed have been strengthened by the success of such a policy--which would have pointed the way to an end of occupation.
It remains to be seen how effectively Israel will restrain settlement expansion. Settlers and their allies regularly operate outside the law, undermining any attempt to simply legislate a new policy. Netanyahu will have to invest a significant amount of domestic political capital to enforce his commitment in the face of settler opposition. The support given to the new policy by Minister Benny Begin, a charter member of the Land of Israel club who resigned in protest from the Netanyahu government in 1996 over the Wye Agreement, is telling. Israel has a long history of walking away from commitments to limit settlement: Menachem Begin was the first in 1976. More recently, Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared in September that he will not dismantle outposts until final status talks resume, despite court orders and numerous commitments to Washington. U.S. officials explain to skeptical Palestinians that although Israel is committed to this policy for only ten months, the successful inauguration of final status talks will create conditions for a permanent freeze. Israelis look to the U.S. political calendar--particularly congressional elections in November 2010--to reduce Obama’s ability to pressure Israel.
From the outset, Mitchell described the freeze idea as a measure to build Palestinian confidence in the prospects of diplomacy. Yet as the first year anniversary of the Obama administration approaches, Palestinian confidence in the U.S.-led process is at a nadir. There is no freeze, no negotiations (except between Israel and Hamas via Egypt and Germany over prisoner releases), the Palestinian leadership is in crisis, and Netanyahu is more confident of his ability to confront Washington and prevail. Netanyahu announced his restraint policy soon after Abbas decried his “betrayal” by Washington’s failure to win a complete freeze and announced his intention not to run for reelection. The increasing probability of agreement between Israel and Abbas’s rival, Hamas, on a large-scale prisoner release, perhaps including an easing of the siege on Gaza, highlights the contrast between Hamas’s successful dialogue with Israel, in which Washington is notably absent, and the stillborn U.S.-led effort to stop settlement and restart direct final status talks.
The real test of the policy in American eyes is whether it will bring Abbas to the table. Abbas said at a November 28 press conference that “as long as Israel fails to meet its commitment to stop construction in all the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, we will not return to the negotiating table,” adding that “Netanyahu’s statement about a construction freeze is nothing more than a statement without any backing, both on the declarative level and in practice.”
Abbas is in a box. Palestinians have never been able to condition talks on a settlement freeze. It is now clear that the United States will not support them effectively in this demand. If past is prologue, however, Abbas will nonetheless find a way back to the negotiating table. That is clearly the expectation in Washington and Jerusalem.
If he does, and negotiations resume, what happens then? Mitchell in his November 25 press conference, declared an interest in recasting the issue of settlement expansion as part of the broader task of negotiating a border between Israel and Palestine:
My personal and fervent wish is that we will during this process at some point have a resolution of the issue of borders so that there will no longer be any question about settlement construction, so that Israelis will be able to build what they want in Israel and Palestinians will be able to build what they want in Palestine.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made similar observations during the Bush administration. Mitchell, in contrast to Rice, appears to be promising to focus on evacuating settlements as part of the process of setting an agreed upon border.
The short but significant Clinton statement of November 25 includes language establishing the June 4, 1967 line as the Palestinian point of reference for an agreed border and recalls Israel’s interest in UN Security Council Resolution 242’s call for “secure and recognized boundaries.” Clin−ton describes the U.S. objective as “reconcile[ing] the Palestinian goal of an independent state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed [land] swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security needs”. The reference to “subsequent developments” recalls the George W. Bush letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April 2004. In it, Washington noted, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” The Obama administration has refused Israeli entreaties to reaffirm the Bush letter. Nevertheless, Ha’aretz reported on December 4 that Washington tried unsuccessfully to commit the Quartet to Clinton’s formulation. “The Russians argued that they did not agree with stating that Israel will be a Jewish State, and that the borders will be altered on the basis of ‘developments’ on the ground, namely Israeli annexation of the large settlement blocks. The Russians stressed that such formulation of the Quartet’s text predetermines the results of the negotiations.”
The United States can claim for its diplomatic efforts a limited Israeli commitment that will, at best, only temporarily reduce settlement expansion. The U.S. goal, repeated by Mitchell on November 25, of a “re-launch of negotiations as soon as possible in an atmosphere in which they can succeed” remains as distant as ever.
Tree Planting Workshop @ Bustan Qaraaqa, Sunday December 6th
This Sunday we will begin a series of tree planting workshops at Bustan Qaraaqa to develop a novel agroforestry system at our site.
Come and enjoy a day out in the open air and learn about trees and tree-planting as a method for protecting the environment and increasing self-reliance and resilience of communities.
The event will run from 10am until sundown. You are welcome to join any time you can make it. Call 02 2748994 for directions if you do not know the way.
Hope to see you there!
With love from
the Bustan Qaraaqa team
x
Poor olive harvest may see PA import oil for citizens
Maan News, Nablus, Palestine, 31/10/2009
A bad olive harvest and depleted access to agricultural lands has left Palestine with a deficit of 10,000 tons of olive oil.
The head of the Palestinian olive oil council Nabih Ath-Thib said he expected the total olive harvest would yield approximately 5,000 tons, short of the 15,000 he said was needed to cover the needs of Palestinians in Green-line Palestine (West Bank including Jerusalem, Gaza).
Appearing on the Ma’an News Network show “Our Economy” (Iqtisadina), Ath-Thib said the price of olive oil in Palestine has skyrocketed to 10 US dollars a kilo. Advisor to the minister of agriculture Fares Al- Jabi estimated that each adult in the Palestinian cities would need an average of four liters of olive oil per year, with adults in the countryside requiring an average of 16 liters of oil a year.
“For this reason,” Ath-Thib told the show’s host, “The Palestinian Authority will import olive oil from abroad.”
Officials on the show discussed reasons for the poor 2009 harvest, citing the two-year cycle of the trees (with one good year followed by a bad one), which was exacerbated by a dry winter of 2008-9.
Palestinian cave-dweller fights Israeli eviction
This is a story about Abed, one of our closest partners. It is not 100% accurate - Abed has 8 children not 10, and grew up in Dheisha refugee camp, not the cave, but otherwise it gives a good overview of his general situation at the moment......
Reuters, November 12th 2009, Israeli News
Palestinian cave-dweller fights Israeli eviction
Man camping in ancient cave near Jerusalem says has been told by Israeli authorities to get out because hillside is slated for housing development, his 'illegal' home will be demolished.
A Palestinian camping in an ancient cave near Jerusalem says he has been told by Israeli authorities to get out because the hillside is slated for a housing development and his "illegal" home will be demolished.
The predicament of Abdel Fattah Abed Rabbo, a 48-year-old father of 10, highlights the dispute between Israel and Palestinians living in the steep hills between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, on land the Israelis annexed in 1980.
Abed Rabbo says he was actually brought up in the cave by his parents but occupies it now simply as a way of upholding his claim to 5 acres of stony hillside. His family lives in an apartment in a Bethlehem refugee camp.
"Three days ago, Israeli building planners came. They started landscaping this entire area," he told Reuters Television this week.
"The purpose is, of course, to build an Israeli settlement, called Givat Yael, which is to become the biggest settlement in the Jerusalem area," he said.
Abed Rabbo says he received his first demolition warning five years ago, and got a follow-up notice last December. In the meantime, he says, Israeli authorities have three times knocked down the tent camp he put up on the land at al-Walajeh.
He is tangled in a complex legal maze that Palestinians say is really all about national rights but Israel insists is simply about property rights and unauthorized building.
The land straddles the 1948 Green Line which formed Israel's eastern border at the establishment of the Jewish state. It lies just west of the Jewish settlement of Gilo, a suburb community of Jerusalem which is actually in the West Bank.
The World Court has ruled that Israel's settlements are illegal. Israel rejects that and officials say, in any case, the community planned for Givat Yael will not be a "settlement", since the land has been part of Jerusalem for nearly 30 years.
Town planning
Givat Yael is planned to house 45,000 people, with a commercial zone and sports centre. The Interior Ministry's district planning office recently granted final approval.
"They consider my presence here a problem, because they want to be build 14,000 housing units on al-Walajeh lands," said Abed Rabbo. "I tell them the owners of this land are here, they are the rightful owners, and you've no right to build here."
Some 500,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, whose legitimacy is also disputed by the United Nations, the United States and most major powers.
City councilman for East Jerusalem Yakir Segev rejected claims that the hillside will become yet another settlement, taking land the Palestinians want for a future state.
"First of all, it's not a settlement," he said. "It's a neighborhood within the municipal borders of Jerusalem."
"Second of all ... they were given court orders -- not military orders ... It's not a matter of political dispute or political argument as far as we are concerned," he said.
The Israeli-run Jerusalem municipality has rejected a request by al-Walajeh Palestinians to legalise 95 homes in the village built without a permit and at risk of demolition.
"The village will disappear, because most of the houses are under the master plan of Gival Yael," says Meir Margalit, a left-wing opposition member of Jerusalem City Council.
Palestinians say Israeli planners have offered a number of concessions in return for consent, including retroactive permits for homes already built, a change in the route of Israel's West Bank separation barrier in the vicinity of the village, and easier access to Jerusalem.
So far they have refused these offers.
If al-Walajeh is legally part of Jerusalem, its residents might expect to have Jerusalem identification cards. But they do not "because of the Givat Yael project", says Margalit.
"It would be more difficult to expel them from their land if they had Israeli ID's."
And without a Jerusalem identity, Abed Rabbo is an illegal resident in his own cave.
UK boycott of illegal Israeli produce underway
Maan News, Bethlehem, 09/11/2009
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in the United Kingdom initiated a week long boycott of two supermarkets stocking illegal Israeli produce from settlements in the West Bank.
Two of the UK’s largest supermarket chains, Waitrose and Morrisons, are the object of a “Week of Boycott Action”, in protest of their continued sale of produce from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the PSC announced on Thursday.
In addition to holding demonstrations outside the supermarkets, the PSC has organized coordinated phone calls to the supermarkets’ headquarters on Wednesday, calling for a halt to supplying Israeli goods.
In a news statement released on Thursday, the UK-based organization announced, “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling for an end to the import of goods and food produce that has been sourced from the illegal Israeli settlements. Until this happens, PSC calls for all goods from the settlements that are sold in the UK to be clearly marked as originating from Illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”
The PSC asserts that “the settlements are built on stolen land” and notes that in September 2009 the Trades Union Congress in Britain voted to support a campaign of “boycott, sanction and disinvestment, targeting Israeli goods as well as companies which benefit from Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.”
The “Week of Boycott Action” coincides with a week of efforts organized by the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, a coalition of Palestinian NGOs and popular committees.
Israel rations Palestinians to a trickle of water
Amnesty International, October 27th 2009
Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.
These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.
“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.
In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.
Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.
The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.
While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.
In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations.
Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater.
In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools.
Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.
In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.
Stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point.
To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price.
Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development.
“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera.
Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.
It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.
Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even just to distribute small quantities of water.
Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water.
In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.
In comparison, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun in nearby Israeli settlements, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground.
In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.
“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Donatella Rovera.
“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.”
Fundraising party @ Abed's place: Thursday October 29th
Come and join us for an evening of good food and good company in a beautiful setting!
50 NIS entrance fee (food included), party starts at 6.30 pm (assemble at Soukshab at 6.00pm if you want us to show you the way).
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Abed is a farmer from the village of Al Wallaja who is resisting land
confiscation in an innovative and courageous way. For the past few years he has been staying permanently in a cave on his threatened land, supporting himself by farming and hosting a market selling locally produced food.
As he has no infrastructure, he is forced to be very innovative in the way he lives and farms, using green techniques such as rainwater harvest and a composting toilet.
On Thursday we hope to raise enough money to put a roof and rainwater harvesting system outside his cave, providing shelter in the winter and a space to grow
additional food; as well as providing water for living and for farming.
Bustan Qaraaqa has managed to raise 2000 shekels towards
this venture, but we need to raise a little more to make it a reality. Join us at Abed's place in Al Wallaja this Thursday, meet his network of friends from both sides of the Wall, enjoy an evening of good food and good company (b.y.o. drinks), and contribute to this positive project! If you would like to sleep
over, bring a sleeping bag and it will be no problem to find a comfy space to crash :)
Hope to see you there,
love from
Abed and the Bustan Qaraaqa team
x
For more information, call 02 2748994
Bustan Qaraaqa Volunteers embark on bike-ride to Palestine from the UK
Phil and Lorena, who volunteered with us over the autumn and winter of 2008-2009 have decided to return to the farm to implement an aquaculture project in the summer of 2010.
In an innovative move, they will raise money for their project and awareness about the Palestinian environmental crisis by cycling from Britain to Palestine.
Phil and Lorena are both highly skilled professionals with Masters degrees in 3rd World Development Studies and Marine Environmental Protection; and field experience of implementing environmental projects in the Palestinian Territories and Mexico. We are extremely pleased to welcome 2 such able volunteers to the team, and look forward to their arrival in the summer of next year.
You can learn more about this exciting project and keep up with their progress as they travel across Europe to the Middle East by visiting their website: byspokes.org. They are currently seeking sponsorship for this undertaking, so if you can help in any way, please do contact them.
Bustan Qaraaqa team members denied entry to Israel
We are very sorry to report that two members of our team were denied entry to the country at the Taba border between the Sinai peninsula and Israel over the weekend.
Volunteer coordinator Roman and long-term volunteer Dan had gone to Sinai to renew their visas, expecting to receive 3 month tourist visas after spending a few days in Sinai. Unfortunately this was not to be and both were turned back at the border and their passports stamped with a 'Denied' mark.
Israel controls all entry points to the West Bank, and it is impossible to enter without acquiring an Israeli visa. This makes our lives very difficult in the long-term, as it is also very tricky to get a long-term visa for working in the Palestinian Territories.
Thus many international working for small NGOs in Palestine have to rely on the chancy business of getting 3 month tourist visas for their stays, leaving and re-entering the country 4 times per year. Each visa run carries with it a risk of being denied entry, as has just happenned to Roman and Dan. It is unclear at present whether either will be able to overcome this decision and return to Bustan Qaraaqa.
For now we are extremely sorry to lose two such competent members of our team, and will hang on in hope that one or both will be able to come back to us.
Bustan Qaraaqa starts new cooperation with Paidia
Paidia International Development (www.pidev.org) is an NGO working to empower youth to transform themselves and their communities.
We at Bustan Qaraaqa have worked with the people at Paidia since we founded the organisation; acting as environmental consultants on their programs and devising activities to enhance environmental consciousness amongst the students they work with.
Paidia have recently started to develop a new site for their activities, and we are proud to announce that we will be acting as consultants to incorporate permaculture into the design of this project. We will also be providing some volunteer power over the coming months. Our first project is to build a composting toilet, and after that to help in the establishment of a food garden, rainwater harvesting system, chicken house, and composting zone that will be built and maintained together with the students participating in the Paidia programs.
We are very excited about this opportunity, which will bring the possibilities of permaculture to the attention of hundreds of young Palestinians, and teach them practical skills that will allow them to implement their own initiatives in the future.
Israelis bring Green Power to West Bank village
by Tia Goldenberg, Associated Press, 09/10/2009
SUSYA, West Bank – Residents of a West Bank village with no electricity have been helped out of the darkness by unlikely benefactors — a group of Israelis who installed solar panels and wind turbines to illuminate the Palestinians' makeshift homes.
The villagers of Susya live in tents and caves with power lines darting right above their dwellings, connecting a nearby Jewish settlement to the power grid while bypassing them entirely.
It was this lack of basic services that drew the physicists from Comet-ME, a group of pro-peace Israeli scientists and activists, to this dusty, desolate area. Now the entire village of 300 people has access to power that is reliable, free and green.
At night, rudimentary streetlights dot the otherwise pitch-black village and each home is lit by an energy-saving bulb. Villagers have no access to phone lines, but the power allows them to charge their cell phones.
"Life is easier now," said Susya villagers Widad Nawaja, standing below the solar panel that powers her home. "We have light. Children can do their homework at night if they couldn't finish it during the day."
The residents also hope the new amenities will help them make more money: an electric butter churner means they can produce butter faster than by hand, and two green-powered refrigerators can preserve their produce until it can be sold.
"The communities here are in deep poverty. The project is targeted to help them make more revenue from their own work," said Noam Dotan, an activist and physicist with Comet-ME.
Comet-ME says it seeks to use renewable energy to empower Palestinian communities like this one, which is among the poorest in the West Bank.
The West Bank, home to some 2.5 million Palestinians, is controlled by the Israeli military, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority governing some areas. Some 300,000 Israeli settlers also live in the territory. The Palestinians want to make the West Bank part of their future state.
Israel provides power to Jewish settlements and military facilities in the West Bank, as well as to most Palestinian cities and towns.
But Comet-ME says some 500 Palestinian families in communities not officially recognized by the Israeli military authorities in this part of the southern West Bank are forced to live off the grid. The Israeli military said it never received a request for power from the community and if it did, the army would study it "in accordance with the relevant laws."
Susya villagers used to depend on diesel generators which were costly and polluted the air.
The community has faced a series of evictions by the military and has clashed with Jewish settlers in the past. But the villagers and the activists say the work to set up the new power system — done by both Israelis and Palestinians — helped temper mistrust.
"This is an example of the coexistence between Arabs and Jews, and this is a very important thing," said Mohammad Ahmed Nasser Nawaja, wearing a traditional Arab robe and carrying the cell phone he charged thanks to the new power system.
Meanwhile, word has spread to other villages lacking electricity. Comet-ME hopes to power up the remaining off-grid families in this area over the next four years.
October Newsletter
Dear friends,
October has arrived, bringing with it some let up in the furnace-like heat we have been experiencing over the last few months and even a little life-giving rain; and it seems that both we and our tree nursery have survived another Middle Eastern summer. Al hamdoolilah. Of course, far from enjoying the respite from the physical ordeal of the extreme heat, most of our neighbours have spent the last month fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, taking neither food nor water between sun-up and sun-down. Since the sun rises at about 6am and goes down at 7.30pm and temperatures are still topping 30˚C in the middle of the day, this is no mean feat, and one that we decadent Westerners are only too happy to forego.
The summer has passed in something of a haze, and it seems a very long time since we were enjoying eating all the spring greens and admiring the wild flowers. A lot of our time and thought since then have been used up in bringing ourselves and the farm through the water crisis, which seemed to bite even harder this year than the last. This is possibly because we have had on average about 3 times as many people at the farm compared to last summer, and also have had much greater water commitments to keep all our trees alive. Nonetheless, cut-offs have been frequent and lengthy, with the longest lasting for 26 days in July.
When there was water coming through the pipes, it did not have sufficient pressure to reach the roof tanks that supply the house, and so we were only able to fill lower tanks (meaning there was no water inside the house for more than 2 months). Episodes of water supply would only last a few hours every few weeks, and each time we would scramble to fill as many containers as possible, knowing that whatever we could store would have to last us and our plants, trees and animals for many days, weeks or even a month.
I think very few of us will ever think about water in the same way again after this summer. We will be forever flinching at taps left running for no reason, horrified by the idea of the wastage of this most vital resource. Particularly sobering is the knowledge that we are probably better off than over half of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the vast majority of Gazans. At least we have a pipeline to our house (over 250 000 West Bankers do not). At least the water coming out of it is drinkable (over 90% of the water in the Gaza network does not meet international drinking water standards).
To cope with the water shortage we developed some fairly rough and ready but nonetheless effective strategies. Our first problem was obviously one of conservation – how to use the water available to us in the most efficient way possible. On average, Americans, Europeans and Israelis use about 150 litres of water per person per day in their homes to maintain the sort of lifestyle we are used to (showers, washing machines, flush toilets etc). This water use is broken up as follows:
Toilet flush: 29%
Toilet leaks: 5%
Dish washing: 3%
Bath: 9%
Taps: 12%
Shower:21%
Washing Machine: 21%
If we did that at Bustan Qaraaqa, we would be in bad trouble and fast. With an average of 10 people at the house we would need 1500 litres of water per day just for the people, never mind the plants (which require at least 3000 litres per week). We have a storage capacity in and around the house of just 16 cubic metres (16 000 litres), so we would not last very long (and certainly not 26 days). Fortunately, because we have a composting toilet, we already cut out about 34% of this total (toilet flush and toilet leaks). Just this one thing saved us about 500 litres of water per day, and prevented us from contributing to the huge untreated sewage stream pouring out of Bethlehem into the Judean desert to poison streams, soil and groundwater.
Just the other day I turned the first of our ‘humanure’ heaps that has been ‘cooling off’ for the last 9 months (meaning that we didn’t add anything to it, except the occasional bucket of greywater to stop it drying out). I was able to reflect on the beautiful alchemy of nature as I heaved spades full of rich, dark, good-smelling compost teaming with soil invertebrates into a heap to be used for tree planting this autumn and spring. How much better than a poisoned stream is this?
After the toilet, the next biggest water users in a normal household are showers and washing machines, at about 30 litres per person per day each. To cut these quantities down, we developed The Ultimate Bustan Qaraaqa Conservation Shower, using one bucket of water to wash ourselves, our clothes and the floors. This is achieved by the simple expedient of standing atop a pile of laundry and detergent in a large basin whilst washing so that all the water falls into the basin. Since our shower didn’t work for most of the summer due to the lack of water pressure, we would always wash with a bucket of water in any case, cutting 30 litres down to about 18. Once we had finished washing ourselves we would wash our clothes (stamping on them seems to be pretty effective), and then pour out the water to wash the floor. In our house all the water from the drains goes out to water plants via the greywater system, adding a fourth use to the list for just one bucket of water.
Thanks to a generous donation by the Chaput family and a successful fundraising party in early June, we were able to fill and shade the new cistern and install a drip irrigation system for the tree nursery, giving us greater water security for our plants and saving us a lot of water and hours of work in the nursery. This also provided us with a place to cool off during the hottest hours of the day, when staff and volunteers were frequently to be found wallowing like hippopotami in the cool green water.
Another problem we had to overcome was one of water quality. Storing water for days on end in tanks that stand in the sun and are not completely sealed to incursions by lizards and birds at least places a question-mark over the wisdom of drinking the water without any form of treatment. Boiling the water is one way to ensure that it is sterile, but this takes a lot of energy (electric or gas). So instead we used the power of the ever-present sun to cleanse the water, laying it out on the roof in clear bottles for a day. A combination of the heat and the ultraviolet rays passing through it kills pathogens and renders it safe to drink.
Building on this idea of using the sun’s energy, Tom and Julian spent several weeks designing and constructing a solar oven, using mirrors to focus the heat through a glass panel and into an insulated box. After some trial and error we found that this oven could reach a temperature of about 150°C during the hottest part of the day and was excellent for slow-cooking casseroles or roasting vegetables.
In August we were proud to participate in the first ever Occupied Palestine and Golan Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI) volunteer camp, hosting groups of youths from all over the West Bank to learn about the mission of Bustan Qaraaqa and participate in green building activities with us; helping us to construct beds out of old tyres stuffed with rubbish and covered in cob in one of our empty caves. Hopefully this project will be completed soon and we will add another dormitory to our sleeping accomodation, in time for the Olive Harvest influx.
Throughout the summer, we have continued to work with out good friend Abed Rabbo on his land in Al Wallaja, rebuilding water catchments around the trees and cutting back encroaching weeds. Unfortunately, Abed’s situation has worsened recently, with increasing attempts to expel him from his land by Israeli authorities. Abed has been arrested several times in the last few weeks and held at the police station in Talpiyot for questioning. It turns out that Abed’s ownership of his land is not in question, since he holds deeds stretching back to the time of the Ottoman empire. However, since the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem have been changed, the land is now classified as being inside Jerusalem despite being on the Palestinian side of the Green Line. Therefore it is now considered illegal for Abed to go to his land without a permit, which he does not currently have.
Legal aid is being sought, and we are trying to support Abed by maintaining a presence at his land as much as possible to protect his trees and his possessions from interference, and to witness any violations of his human rights. We intend to continue to support him in developing his site, and hope to install a rainwater harvesting system before the winter, as he still lacks any piped water supply. We are currently seeking support for this project (we need about 3000 shekels or £500), so if you would like to help, please check our website (www.bustanqaraaqa.org) for channels of donation.
And so having come through the summer, we are looking forward to our most exciting season yet. After we have harvested our olives in October/November we can begin the work of planting out the 2000 trees we have raised in our nursery this year. We plan to use approximately half of the trees on our own site to begin to establish a unique food forest, and to plant the other half with our partners in the local community, holding workshops with local schools, restoring degraded land, establishing community gardens and a number of other projects. We can also then begin to reseed and expand the nursery so that we have even more trees to plant next season.
Bustan Qaraaqa will also see some staffing changes in the next season as our co-founder Steve and his lovely wife Rania will be leaving for the UK, where they will continue to network and work to support the farm. Our permanent staff on the ground in Palestine will therefore now consist of Alice, Tom and Roman (as ever) and new team member Lyra, who has rashly agreed to manage the guesthouse for us. We are also excited to welcome Daniel as a long-term volunteer for the coming year.
As ever we have to thank our multitude of volunteers and supporters for their generous contributions to the project. In particular we thank the Chaput family, Imogen Bright, the British Shalom Salaam Trust, Phil Olive and M Hussein for their kind donations; Julian for funding and designing the solar oven; Adam for his continued work on the website; Phil and Mary for running around administering the project on the UK side; and Jared, Faith and Baha for their help with the fundraising party.
That’s all for now. You can keep up with us in the coming months by checking our website (www.bustanqaraaqa.org) and our blog (www.greenintifada.blogspot.com) for news. We wish you all joy and light wheresoever you may be and we warmly invite you to join us at Bustan Qaraaqa for the coming season (it’s the Olive Harvest in October!).
With love from
Alice, Lyra, Nick, Roman, Rania, Steve and Tom
The Bustan Qaraaqa team
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De facto Gaza gov't advocates compost during fertilizer blockade
Gaza – Ma’an – Agricultural engineers of the de facto ministry of agriculture will begin to implement the use of compost to make up for the total blockade on fertilizers for the Strip’s agricultural sector, head of the planning department said last week. The department received instructions from the de facto government in Gaza’s Minister of Agriculture, Mohammad Ramadan Al-Agha, to “solve the problems around long term prevention of fertilizers entering the Strip,” Nizar Al-Waheidi , head of the planning and policies department in the ministry of agriculture said. “ I displayed the idea in front of two recent engineer grads, Shaher Ar-Refi and Mohammad Al-Muzein, who began research and assessments around the design of equipment” that would use available resources to manufacture fertilizer for the agricultural sector. Project engineer Ar-Refi noted the largest setback to designing is the impossibility of examining other examples or prototypes. “We are limited to browsing the internet and doing primitive field research where the compost was prepared in evacuated Israeli settlement areas,” he lamented. Al-Muzein, the co-project engineer said that ultimately the organic fertilizer should cut farmers workloads under the no fertilizer system by 90%, and decrease the costs assumed in purchasing smuggled fertilizer dramatically. Prototypes for the organic composter use car parts and used machinery, much of which was destroyed by Israel during its war on Gaza in December and January. The cost of building or purchasing an organic composter will be no more than 90 US dollars, Al-Muzein said. The new composters will make selective use of city and agricultural organic waste. Farmers will be educated on what materials to use for which agricultural products.
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