I receive so many emails on a daily basis that make me want to weep for all those who are suffering so much and with the frustration and anger that the world allows such atrocities to continue. I spend a huge amount of time sharing information, signing petitions, complaining to the BBC and writing to my MP. Sometimes it all feels very pointless, because the results of all that are, at best hidden and, at worse non-existent.
For those who believe that what I report is very one-sided and biased towards Palestinians, I ask these questions:
What is it that Israel is trying to achieve right now?
What is its end-game?
If it is to have a secure and peaceful existence; is the settlement building; the demolition of Palestinian property making many families homeless; the violent breaking up of peaceful demonstrations; the use of long and sometimes abusive prison sentences for stone throwing; the use of administrative detention (basically detention without charge or trial that can be extended indefinitely); the building of a barrier on Palestinian land, dividing Palestinian communities; the IDF support of settlers who daily attack and destroy Palestinian property, etc. etc. not to mention Israeli policy in and around Gaza, then is that the way to achieve peace with another group of people who just happen to have lived on that land for generations?
If Israel wants a 2-State solution, then the settlement building needs to stop immediately, because how can peace be negotiated over territory that is shrinking before the eyes of those whose land it is?
If it wants a one-state solution, then how can it remain a Jewish democratic State without creating an apartheid system enshrined in law that by definition cannot give non-Jews the same rights as Jews?
In all conscience can anyone claim that this is a dispute between equals when those who are occupying the land are a modern military power funded and supported by the USA, and those whose land has been occupied mostly live under the military law of the occupying power? People who have no freedom of movement or trade; no right to defend themselves even with the stones at their feet; who live under the constant threat of 'Price-Tag' revenge from settlers and destruction of property by the IDF and who are met with rubber bullets, skunk spray, tear gas and even live rounds if they so much as peacefully demonstrate against the injustice.
Fact: Israel continues to break both International and human rights law. That is not my opinion, it is fact. Please see below for more detail.
Between October 2009 and January 2010, I spent 3 months in Hebron as an EA with EAPPI. My mother was a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia in 1938. She had always been ashamed of the treatment of the Palestinians by her fellow Jews, so I've had it in the back of my mind for many years that I would like to go there to do whatever I could. I have been back a couple of times and now I will be traveling with a CPT delegation to the same area.
This blog seems a good way to record and share my experiences.
For those who believe that what I report is very one-sided and biased towards Palestinians, I ask these questions:
What is it that Israel is trying to achieve right now?
What is its end-game?
If it is to have a secure and peaceful existence; is the settlement building; the demolition of Palestinian property making many families homeless; the violent breaking up of peaceful demonstrations; the use of long and sometimes abusive prison sentences for stone throwing; the use of administrative detention (basically detention without charge or trial that can be extended indefinitely); the building of a barrier on Palestinian land, dividing Palestinian communities; the IDF support of settlers who daily attack and destroy Palestinian property, etc. etc. not to mention Israeli policy in and around Gaza, then is that the way to achieve peace with another group of people who just happen to have lived on that land for generations?
If Israel wants a 2-State solution, then the settlement building needs to stop immediately, because how can peace be negotiated over territory that is shrinking before the eyes of those whose land it is?
If it wants a one-state solution, then how can it remain a Jewish democratic State without creating an apartheid system enshrined in law that by definition cannot give non-Jews the same rights as Jews?
In all conscience can anyone claim that this is a dispute between equals when those who are occupying the land are a modern military power funded and supported by the USA, and those whose land has been occupied mostly live under the military law of the occupying power? People who have no freedom of movement or trade; no right to defend themselves even with the stones at their feet; who live under the constant threat of 'Price-Tag' revenge from settlers and destruction of property by the IDF and who are met with rubber bullets, skunk spray, tear gas and even live rounds if they so much as peacefully demonstrate against the injustice.
Fact: Israel continues to break both International and human rights law. That is not my opinion, it is fact. Please see below for more detail.
Between October 2009 and January 2010, I spent 3 months in Hebron as an EA with EAPPI. My mother was a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia in 1938. She had always been ashamed of the treatment of the Palestinians by her fellow Jews, so I've had it in the back of my mind for many years that I would like to go there to do whatever I could. I have been back a couple of times and now I will be traveling with a CPT delegation to the same area.
This blog seems a good way to record and share my experiences.
- The pre-amble of UN Security Council Resolution 242, which was passed shortly after the 1967 War, in November 1967, stresses “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” The text of Resolution 242, which is the cornerstone of the two-state solution and international efforts to make peace in the region for more than two decades, calls for the “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”
- Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War states that, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
- The Hague Convention also forbids occupying powers from making permanent changes in the occupied territory unless it is a military necessity.
- In its 2004 advisory opinion that deemed the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank illegal, all 15 judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also found Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, to be in contravention of international law.
- Successive Israeli governments have argued that settlement building does not violate international law, however a formerly classified document dated September 1967 shows that the legal counsel to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Theodor Meron, advised the government of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol that “civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention." Disregarding the opinion, in September 1967, Eshkol’s Labor government authorized the establishment of the first civilian settlement, Kfar Etzion, on the outskirts of Hebron in the West Bank.
- International human rights organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have all condemned Israel’s settlement enterprise as illegal.
- Numerous United Nations resolutions have also affirmed that Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land in the occupied territories is a violation of international law. In 1979, the Security Council passed Resolution 446, which states: “the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
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