An Orientation, through History & Geography

Nearly two months after I've returned from the delegation, I'm still processing what I learned in Palestine. I was immediately thrown back into "everyday life" upon return home, and although I've kept all victims of the occupation at the center of my thoughts & prayers over the past few months, free hours to go through my notes & reflect have been few and far between.

Here's an entry I've put together as I prepare for two upcoming presentations - The March 25 Lenten Soup Supper at St. Patrick Church in Rockville, MD (along with Fr. Jacek Orzechowski)and after mass on April 3 at Sacred Heart in Columbia Heights, DC:

The first hours of our first full day of our delegation were spent waiting. Breakfast had been promised at the hostel, but none had arrived. When it finally did, we learned that the hotel staff had been delayed at a checkpoint entering Jerusalem, because of an unexpected paperwork issue. This was the first taste in experiencing what living in an occupied territory is like.

We began our day on a tour with ICAHD –the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Our guide was a young Israeli lawyer. In fact, many of our speakers and guides were people not much older than myself, very articulate and well-trained - the generation, I pray, that will work tirelessly for peace in the Holy Land.

She began to give us a brief history of the region, with a number of maps to illustrate the geopolitical changes throughout the years. You can view those same maps which help illustrate the following history she relayed to us:

Zionism, the idea that Jews should have a sovereign homeland, developed in Europe around the same time other nationalist movements were developing in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. The British Mandate for Palestine was established in 1920 in the region, and both Jews and Palestinians had nationalist aspirations, hoping to receive control of the area.

Because of violence, the British eventually pulled out and the UN was brought in. The partition plan was developed in 1947, which attempted to ethnically divide the land, but this proved difficult because the populations were intermixed. Jews comprised 32% of the population and owned 6% of the land but received 55% of the land in the plan. As a result, neither the Palestinians nor the surrounding Arab states accepted the plan.

In 1948, the event called the War of Independence for the Israelis, and the “Naqba” (disaster) for Palestinians allowed Israel to gain control of 78% of the land, including half the territory the UN had allocated to Palestinians.

During this conflict, 750,000 Palestinians were displaced and only 100,000 remained in their homes. These internally displaced people have grown to nearly 4 million people in present times. They were never allowed to return to their homes and never compensated for their property loss. Later, in the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israeli state took control of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.

Attempts at peace negotiations had consistently failed but in the early 1990s, Israel agreed to meet with the Palestinian Liberation Organization face-to-face for the first time. In 1995, the Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into areas A, B, and C. Area A (area under full Palestinian control, 18% of the land) was supposed to increase over the next five years until it covered all of the West Bank except for the Israeli settlements. Area C (area under full Israeli control) comprised 60% of the land, including most Palestinian farmland.

The area has not been turned over to Palestinian control. In fact, since 1967 the Israel has transferred half a million people to the Occupied Territories, who live in settlements declared illegal under international law.

The major Israeli settlement blocks – Jordan Valley, Ma’ale Adumim, Gosher Sherim and Ariel, divide the West Bank into four separate cantons with no movement between them – no internal contiguity, no access to the capital, no control of border with Jordan, and very few water resources. The separation barrier helps to ensure the development of the distinct land regions as well.

Because of the near full creation of these separate cantons, many Palestinians now believe there is no way to truly have a two-state solution. In any case, in our ICHAD guide’s view, an offer of this land amounts to nothing more than apartheid. She believed that the Israeli state was creating a situation of apartheid on the ground through the separation barrier, control of roads and creating separate roads for Palestinians, and limiting the number of Palestinian building permits.

There are a quarter-million Israelis living in settlements in the Jerusalem area. Called the Holy Basin, it is an area of intensive settlements just south of the Old City strategically developed to eliminate Palestinian access to the West Bank. The separation wall also runs through this corridor.

We drove through the Nos Zion settlement in East Jerusalem, which was very normal looking with apartments, playgrounds, nice landscaping.
Our guide explained that most settlers are economic settlers who settle because its cheaper to do so; there are a number of different ways the government subsidizes them. There is free security, free bus lines and stations, good schools, cheaper rent, and subsidized child care. (It is clear there is a high level of cooperation between the government and the settlements!)

The distinction between the settlement areas and the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem was marked – immediately as we descended the hill into the Palestinian neighborhood, there was no sidewalk, no trash collection, and a road pitted with potholes.

We were told that Jerusalemite Palestinians and Israelis pay the same taxes, but Palestinians pay disproportionately. Although about 35% of Jerusalem’s population is Palestinian, they pay about 40% of the taxes. They need to demonstrate they are paying their taxes faithfully so that they can keep their Jerusalem ID cards, therefore, they are very conscientious about it.
Despite this fact, Palestinian neighborhoods only receive about 8% of the municipal services spending in Jerusalem. - On a related note, we were told there was a 1000-classroom shortage at the start of this school year in East Jerusalem.

There are black H20 collection tanks on the tops of all of the Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem but almost none on the Israeli homes in the settlements we visited. Water shortages are common in Palestinian neighborhoods here, the Israeli-run water company shuts off the water in those neighborhoods before the Israeli ones.

Because Israel claims to be both a Jewish and democratic state, maintaining a particular (i.e. Jewish) demographic is crucial. Israel hasn’t made up its mind on how to handle this situation. It doesn’t naturalize the citizens of the West Bank but it also doesn’t declare sovereignty over the area. The above-mentioned building permits are another way that the government controls where Palestinians live.

After ’67, all green spaces and open lands (even if privately owned by Palestinians), was zoned by Israel, and new construction was not allowed there without a permit. Permits are notoriously hard to get. To build without a permit is to risk demolition.

There are 600,000 outstanding demolition orders and they cannot all be completed, so demos happen at random, which instills fear in all those who risk demolition. If you have a demo order on your house, you’re afraid to leave it because maybe they will come demo it while you’re gone. Fear is a powerful paralyzer.
There are actually around 100 actual demos a year in Jerusalem area. When a home is to be demolished, the owners are told that they can either demolish their own home, or pay for the demo and cleanup!
Since 1967, 12,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by the Israeli government.

A Palestinian that illegally built was sentenced to prison for defaulting on the fine he was given. He went to court, got the fine. When he had served his one year prison term, he went back home and his house was demolished a second time within 3 weeks!

Needless to say, in our first ours of the delegation, we took in a lot of information and saw a lot of blatant injustice before our eyes. I knew at that point that the trip would be life-changing and at points overwhelming. At times, things seemed dismal. But the work towards a sustainable peace continues, despite the odds.

To close, I'd like to share an interesting article by ICAHD’s founder and director, articulating how we can arrive at a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, viewing 2011 as a “breaking point.” He says, “Life in the Occupied Territories is about to get even more difficult, I believe, but perhaps we are finally approaching the breaking point. If that is the case, we must be there for the Palestinians on all the fronts: to protect them, to play our role in pushing the Occupation into unsustainability, to resist re-occupation, to act as watchdogs over political “processes” that threaten to impose apartheid in the guise of a two-state solution and, ultimately, to ensure that a just and lasting peace emerges. As weak and failed attempts by governments head for collapse, we must pick up the slack.”