Friday 16 August 2013

Israel trip, final part - Days 9 & 10

Day 9 - Tuesday
We were guided today by Jonathan Cook - a journo who has lived here for 11 years & is married to a Maronite Palestinian. He gave us some very interesting info about the 'tidying up' of Nazareth before the Pope’s visit in 2000, which included shutting down the market for about 4 years while everything was repaved, drains put in etc. For those years the market was 'temporarily' relocated to Nazareth Illit (translates as elite in either the higher or the better sense - both intended here - & commonly called Upper Nazareth to outsiders) - where it still operates -with the result that this art of the town died and has never really recovered. This is also partly because Nazareth was not tourist zone A, not to be confused with the Oslo Accord zones. These are areas within Israel rather than the occupied territories which the Israeli government has decided to promote for tourism. Developers in a tourist zone A get 30% of the development costs back from the government, so naturally no-one did any development in Nazareth which wasn’t zone A. Consequently, there were no decent hotels, & no-one stayed here - they went to Tiberias, which was Zone A (and indeed still is). Nazareth got upgraded to Zone A for the Pope’s visit, so some hotels were built in time for it - and, co-incidentally for the start of the Second Intifada, which effectively killed all tourism for several years, so those hotels went bust... Public belief in the safety of the area is now beginning to recover and some tourism coming here - so hopefully the souq can re-invent itself as a tourist destination and may then recover. 
He also gave us a fairly thorough general historical briefing, the gist of which follows:
When the state of Israel was founded about 500 Palestinians villages were destroyed, some of then replaced with Israeli villages and some simply razed to the ground & forest planted in their place - fir/pine trees which are
A) unproductive food-wise
B) by their presence prevent other crops being planted/houses being re-built 
C) sour the ground, so even if they are felled nothing will grow for a while
D)  hide the fact that this has happened in the first place and
E) make it look more like home for immigrants from northern Europe!

The inhabitants of these settlements are now either 'absent absentees' (i e living abroad) or 'present absentees' (i e living in Israel, but not in their home towns) – come back Rumsfeld, all is forgiven!
Of the Palestinian settlements that survived - about 200 - only 124 were recognised; the other 76 still exist but are 'unrecognised' - not on any maps, have neither any roads to them, nor water, electricity or any other amenities (though apparently this is slowly improving). These are mostly in the Negev (Bedouin settlements) but also some in the part of Israel north of the current border with the West Bank. There are now plans to clear a large number of those in the Negev and 're-settle' the inhabitants in new towns away from their land.
Of the 124 recognised Palestinian settlements in Israel the only city is Nazareth  - the only Palestinian city in Israel - and therefore a prime target for Judaisation...The reason it was spared is the Basilica of the Annunciation -  Ben Gurion realised it would not be good publicity for the fledgling state to destroy this! He was already way outside the border agreed by the UN and he needed allies not enemies at the UN.... so despite loads of surrounding villages being destroyed the city was spared, and many refugees fled to it. Up to 1948 Christians had been in a majority in Nazareth, but the influx of refugees, although it contained a mix of Muslim & Christian, was mostly Muslim and has tipped the balance the other way. It's now 60% is Muslim, but Christians still run all the institutions. To counter the perceived threat this Muslim influx presented Nazareth Illit was founded, the civil institutions which had been run from Nazareth (which had been the capital of the Galilee) were moved to Nazareth Illit, and the industrial areas and military bases which are in (or at the edges of ) Nazareth were annexed into Nazareth Illit, so their rates went to Nazareth Illit not to Nazareth - keeping the municipality strapped for cash... Despite this, Nazareth is a highly privileged city - a good place for a Palestinian to live, whereas Nazareth Illit is a lousy place for a Jew to live - who wants to live cheek-by-jowl with a bunch of terrorists after all...??? - so houses in Nazareth Illit are very hard to sell, but loads of people are wanting to do so. The Mayer has bought-in advice which includes building a district for the ultra-orthodox Jews.... (which will of course be on annexed land).
 In Nazareth there was a fair bit of friction as a result of the clean-up operation... this was in part due to the Christian sites and their lands being retained by the Christian denomination which owned them before 1948, whereas the land and buildings owned by the Muslim mosques (and the land held by them for the community - about 10% of the total) was all appropriated by the state with the imams being re-instated as state employees, but under the control of the state which the Christian priests are not. Consequently when the plaza in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation was to be re-developed (having demolished a rather dilapidated Muslim school) there was a call for it to be a BIG mosque - not least because it was a site revered by followers of one of Salah a-Din’s nephews. This did not happen - it was developed as a 'holding area' for the tourists coming to the Basilica - though with a frame-work which is in the shape of a mosque so they immediately thought 'OK, we have our mosque' and put out their prayer mats. These they were forced to remove (but a compromise was worked out that they could use it as a mosque on Fridays, provided it is cleared the rest of the week). However the frictions from this meant that there was a demonstration by the Mohammedans and the Christians called for a counter-demonstration to 'defend their holy sites' and a riot ensued...
Later, shortly after the second intifada erupted in 2000, the Israeli police entered Nazareth and shot dead three people from Nazareth – 13 across the Galilee - and injured hundreds more while they were holding peaceful protests against the killing of pals in the Occupied Territories. The police lied, saying the protesters had shot their own in the back of the head but actually an inquiry later proved the police had used live ammo.

Israel has a peculiar legal situation... To start with there are two different citizenship laws depending on ethnicity. The Right of Return Law of 1950 gives all Jews worldwide the right to immigrate to Israel and instantly become full citizens. They are considered to be Jewish nationals who have not yet taken up citizenship. This right extends to anyone who has a single Jewish grandparent. This complicates things as the Rabbis only accept as Jewish someone whose mother is a Jew… and there are no secular institutions (only religious ones) for things like registering hatches, matches & dispatches; so for example you have to get married in church (or go abroad to get married in a secular venue, which is recognised on your return). Other ethnic/religious groups have a different level of citizenship under the Citizenship Law of 1952, (which, for example, precludes joining the IDF for Palestinians, which in turn prevents application for a lot of jobs open only to people who have served in the IDF). Before the Oslo accord it did not present too much of a problem as you could move relatively freely between Israel & the West Bank, but after it you had to decide which side you were going to live and stick with it. A Palestinian can't easily get citizenship of Israel - every time they think they are about to qualify the rules get changed to require even longer residence or whatever. Although there are (supposedly) "only" 57 laws which actively discriminate against Palestinians there is a lot of sub-legal discrimination (like the jobs example above), so those laws are the tip of the iceberg. There are 137 different ethnicities or nationalities recognised by the Interior Ministry for citizens of Israel, only one of which is a full national - i e Jews - and those 137 nationalities do not include Israeli - who is an Israeli? "Israeli" exists only as a citizenship (i e someone who lives in the country of Israel), not a nationality. Civic or individual citizenship rights are superseded by national rights and only Jews are entitled to national rights. This is the basis of the discrimination. Both Jew & Palestinian live in the country of Israel & the Jews want these to be separate nationality categories. The passport says Israeli, but that simply means from Israel (which is the name of the land rather than the race). For example Jonathan said he was an Israeli citizen but a British National. Only Jewish nationals have full citizenship rights. (ID cards distinguish between Jews & Gentiles by the calendar used for the DOB!) - and no-one can buy the freehold of a property in the 93% of Israel designated as ‘state land’ - only a 99-year lease on land 'held in trust for the Jewish Nation'.

After this history briefing we went for a picnic on the site of one destroyed village, Lubia, which has now been planted with forest, then drove to another, Hittin, which has just vanished apart from the old village well and, several kilometres from it, a mosque built by Saladin to commemorate the final decisive battle at which he defeated the Crusaders who were then forced to leave the Holy Land. Being (Jonathan believes) one of only 3 built by Saladin and still standing, this should be a UN world Heritage site, but is currently threatened by some road building which is rather close.... and finally to a third one, Saffuriya, which we just drove to & from without leaving the bus, but which has now got a moshav (similar to a kibbutz) built over it. These were all large and important villages before ‘48. After this we went to a private museum put together by one of the ex-residents of the last village, Saffuriya, who had fled to Lebanon as a 13-yr-old but returned a few months later (before the border was closed). When his sister died (probably of meningitis) and his mother started spending all her time at the grave-side, his father decided the only answer was to get her away from that place & return home - so they did. He gave a very dignified & moving talk about it all...
Back to the hotel for supper and a final briefing before painting the town red (I wish :-)  ) then to bed.

Reflection: Shortly after our return one of us spotted an article on the Guardian in which a Jew was trying to justify the settlements as ‘being on sound moral ground’, and as part of that justification claimed that ‘no Jewish settlements have been built on destroyed Palestinian villages’. (There were a lot of other claims which even if correct - which was debatable! - were not justifications, despite his attempt to use them as such.) However this particular claim stands out as manifestly false, having been to just such a settlement. It makes me wonder how much the Jews in Israel, and, indeed, the rest of the world, actually know what is really happening in Israel – have they looked for themselves or just accepted the line fed to them by the Israeli government? Someone in the group, when asked ‘how can they do this?’ replied ‘how can someone who was abused as a child become an abuser?’ Makes you think….


Day 10, Wednesday.
9.30am Having loaded all our bags onto the bus, we had a short ride down the High Street & were dropped off for a final thought at the Church of the Synagogue (very beautiful & peaceful) before having some shopping/sight-seeing time, then back on the bus at 12 for the ride to the airport.

In the final briefing before the bus to the airport, Nive mentioned the following points (among others):
This is the 65th anniversary of Al Nakba - retirement age! – Amos Trust trying to do 65 events to raise awareness. A secure peace for Israel can only come through a just peace for Palestine. Remember the 'living stones', and the different historical narratives.

If nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?



If you are affected by any of what I have written, I would be happy to discuss it with you, or you can find out more from the links below....
Either way, and whichever side you are on, please pray that the current round of peace talks bears lasting fruit! As I say above,  secure peace for Israel can only come through a just peace for Palestine.


Links:
Amos Trust: http://www.amostrust.org/
Holy Land Trust: www.holylandtrust.org
Combatants for Peace: www.combatantsforpeace.org
Another member of the party's blog: http://10daysmay.wordpress.com/

Jonathan Cook: www.jonathan-cook.net

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