Volume 9 - Issue 1 - Autumn 2006

Al-Aqsa Published By Friends of Al-Aqsa PO Box 5127 Leicester LE2 0WU, UK Tel: ++ 44 (0)116 2125441 Mobile: 07711823524 e-mail: info@aqsa.org.uk Website: www.aqsa.org.uk

Contents VOLUME 9 NUMBER 1 AUTUMN 2006 SHAWWAL 1427

ISSN 1463-3930

Editorial

3

The Muslim Fascination with Jerusalem: The Case of the Sufis SHAMSUDDIN AL-KILANI

5

EDITOR

Ismail Adam Patel SUB-EDITOR

Rajnaara Akhtar PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS

Azizul Hoque

The Israeli/Palestinian Struggle Over Water Resources: Gender, Ideology and Resources SARAH IRVING

11

PRINTERS

Impress Printers, Batley.

My War with Zionism ALAN HART

19

© 2006 Friend of Al-Aqsa WE WELCOME

Papers, articles and comments on any issue relating to Palestine and the Middle East conflict.

We especially encourage writings relating to the History, Politics, Architecture, Religion, International Law and Human Rights violations.

The word count should not exceed 2,000 words.

Reviews of Books relating to the issue of Palestine are also welcome and should not exceed 1,000 words. Letters on any related topics can also be sent and the Editor reserves the right to edit letters for the purpose of clarity. All contributions should be in Word format, Times New Roman font size 12 and sent to the Editor either via email or on a disc at the above address. It must include the author’s full name, address and a brief curriculum vitae.

Israel Seperation Wall: Apartheid, Illicit Ligtimate Self-Defence JAMES BARRETT

25

BOOK REVIEW

35

Jerusalem: Constructing the Study of Islamic Art, Vol. IV

by Oleg Grabar RVIEWED BY ABU HUZAYFA Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with the World’s most wanted Militants

by Phil Rees RVIEWED BY DR. ANTHONY MCROY The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestine

by Ray Dolphin REVIEWED BY DR. MARIA HOLT Politicide – Ariel Sharon’s War against the Palestinian

by Barugh Kimmerling REVIEWED BY HASAN LOONAT

Al-Aqsa 1

2 Al-Aqsa

E D I T O R I A L

2

S

urely they who recite the Book of Allah and keep up prayer and spend out of what We have given them secretly and openly, hope for a gain which will not perish. That He may pay them back fully their rewards and give them more out of His grace: surely He is Forgiving, Multiplier of rewards.

May Allahs blessing be upon all His Prophets from Adam to His final Messenger, Muhammad (saw).

At a time when violence in the Middle East has intensified, the Zionist-Anglo-American Alliance has made no secrets of its aims of destabilising and destroying the Hamas led Palestinian government in favour of a more moderate and pliable Fatah leadership. This ideal has translated itself on the ground in the form of severe oppression and Israeli tyranny against the Palestinians on a scale that possibly outweighs the worst of the intifada.

The Israeli led drive to ‘starve’ the Palestinian Authority of both finances and international ties has persisted for the majority of 2006. It was intended to compel the Palestinian President to call a new election but this has thus far failed to materialise. While the pressures brought to bear on the democratically elected Hamas are unprecedented, their popular support and refusal to compromise their rights continue. However, in the face of continuing economic pressures and international boycott, the change and reform promised by Hamas has not materialised. In its stead, Palestinians are facing fresh crisis’ every day and a new level of paralysis in their daily lives. The only factor that seems to make this endurable is the decades of suffering and poverty that has preceded it and which these people had to bear and thus have become hardened by.

Through the conflict with Lebanon, while eyes were turned away, hundreds of Palestinians died in

Gaza due to the Israeli incursions, the majority of which went unreported. Testimonies of greater brutality across the West Bank were also reported; telling a story of millions of besieged and devastated people. The impact of sanctions against Hamas on the Palestinian economy is unrivalled by any other stage of this long conflict, due to total Anglo-American complicity. The Alliance will maintain this condition until either one of two scenarios transpires: Hamas surrenders Palestinian rights and recognize Israel; or the Palestinians call another election in which the Zionist-AngloAmerican cast the deciding vote.

Unsurprisingly, it is little reported that Hamas has indeed renounced violence and has maintained a 20 month cease fire despite repeated Israeli offensives in Gaza and the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians. Hamas’ continued truce unfortunately seems to have been a green card for Israel to commit more and more atrocities, no doubt with the aim of provoking a violent response from Palestinians.

It seems clear that in the short term at least, Hamas are here to stay. The latest political manoeuvre has been to promote the formation of a new government of national unity, bringing Hamas into coalition with Mahmoud Abass’ Fatah. This is likely to be accepted by the Palestinians, and will pull the rug from under the feet of the ZionistAnglo-American Alliance as it would create a government that most of the international community would resume ties with; most notably Europe. This would cause a split in the international approach to the Palestinian Government, and thus provide it with some viability.

In any event, while the politicians continue to play their games, it is clear that, once again, the civilian population is bearing the brunt through yet more misery and devastation.

Al-Aqsa 3

A YOUTH EXCHANGE PROGRAMME WITH AN NAJAH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, NABLUS, PALESTINE 4 Al-Aqsa

The Muslim Fascination with Jerusalem: The Case of the Sufis (Part I) Shamsuddin Al-Kilani*

I asked About Muhammed within your walls I begged news Of Jesus in your streets O Jerusalem!

Swiftest path between heaven and earth!

Nizar Qabbani

F

rom the early beginnings of Sufism, devotees have been passionately drawn to Jerusalem; the city has held a profoundly sanctified place in the Islamic social imagination and consciousness, and this has led Sufis to travel there to seek blessing from its sites and venerated symbols. While Sufis have not been alone in this longing for Jerusalem, they have bestowed special traits on the longing. This is reflected in the distinctive way they have conceived the sense of holiness embodied in the Muslim faith vis-à-vis Jerusalem. This is also evident from the devotion shown in their ribats (hospices) to the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, particularly to the Holy Rock from which it is assumed the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) ascended to the Uppermost Lote-tree. These Sufis, in fact, gave new connotations to the panoply of Muslim sacred geography that has Jerusalem at its heart, enhancing the sacred Islamic implications of the city and adding creative meanings and symbols to these according to their particular aim of revelation and connection through sublimation.

Thus they saw in Jerusalem, in the Aqsa Mosque, and especially in the Holy Rock, the causeway connecting them to heaven.

Quite apart from these special connotations and attendant practices of the Sufis, there has been a general background of intimations shared by all Muslims. This background has comprised part of their Islamic religious consciousness, leading them all to yearn for Jerusalem and seek closeness to it so as to derive blessings from its holy sites. This is why the Companions of the Prophet, the Successors and other pious Muslims,

* SHAMSUDDIN

AL-KILANI

and indeed the Muslim rank and file as well, have come one after the other to visit Jerusalem. Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 626/1229) has provided a graphic illustration of the place Jerusalem occupies in Muslim religious consciousness. “The word muqaddas”, he says, “means ‘purified’ ... the meaning of ‘glorify Your Holy Name’ is that we purify ourselves for You ... Hence comes the name bayt almaqdis, that is, the purified home, through which people purify themselves of their sins”1 The merits of Jerusalem are many, and some of these should be mentioned here for the purpose of general information. According to Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 150/767), a major scholar in the field of Qur’anic exegesis: “When Almighty God says: ‘But We delivered him [i.e., Abraham] and [his nephew] Lût [and directed them] to the land which We have blessed for all beings’ (21: 71), He means Jerusalem. When He says: ‘And We made a Covenant with you on the right side of Mount [Sinai]’ . . . (20: 80), He means Jerusalem.

When He says: ‘And We made the son of Mary and his mother as a sign: We gave them both shelter and high ground, affording rest and security, and furnished with water springs’ (23:50), it is Jerusalem. When He says: ‘Glory to (God) Who did take His servant for a nocturnal journey from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque’ (17: 1), it is Jerusalem.

When He says: ‘... in houses which God hath permitted to be raised, and His name to be commemorated therein; therein glorifying Him, in the mornings and the evenings are men whom neither commerce nor trafficking diverts from the remembrance of God ...’ (24: 36), it means the Sacred House, that is, Jerusalem”.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) is quoted as saying that he who performs a prayer in Jerusalem his reward is multiplied by 1,000.2 Among Jerusalem’s merit is that

Thus they saw in Jerusalem, in the Aqsa Mosque, and especially in the Holy Rock, the causeway connecting them to heaven.

is the co-Author of al-Tariq Ila’l-Quds Al-Aqsa 5

Many other Sufis wished to spend the remaining period of their lives in Jerusalem and to be buried there, since they considered Jerusalem to be the earthly point closest to heaven.

6 Al-Aqsa

God raised Jesus, the son of Mary, to heaven from this city. The first spot from which the Deluge receded was the Rock of Jerusalem. It is also in Jerusalem that the Trumpet will be blown on the Day of Resurrection and on the Rock of Jerusalem the Caller will proclaim the Day of judgement.3 The Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) is quoted as saying: “Mounts are saddled to three places only: this Mosque of mine [in Madinah], the Sacred Mosque of Makkah and the Mosque of Jerusalem”.4 One single prayer in Jerusalem is better rewarded than a thousand prayers performed elsewhere.5 It is also the nearest point on this earth to heaven.6 The Antichrist will be forbidden to enter it and Gog and Magog will perish before they are able set their feet in it.7 Ibrahim immigrated to it, and it is in this city that people will be gathered together and resurrected.8 Jesus, when still an infant in the cradle, also talked to people in this very city of Jerusalem.9 In religious teachings, Paradise will be led to Jerusalem on the Day of Resurrection, and it will be from Jerusalem that people will go either to heaven or to hell.10 Ka’b (d. 50/670) is quoted as saying that all the prophets (peace be on them) visited Jerusalem out of veneration.11 ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abbas (d. 68/687), a Companion of the Prophet reportedly said: “The Sacred House [i.e.

Jerusalem] was built by prophets, and was inhabited by prophets. There is no space, even as small as a span of the hand, but has been a site of prayer for a prophet or an angel”.12 The famous Companion Abû Dharr al-Ghifari (d. 32/653), and one of the greatest of the Prophet’s Companions, a paragon of pietistic austerity and moral excellence, is reported to have said: “I asked the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him): ‘Which was the first mosque to be built on earth?’ The Prophet answered: ‘The Sacred Mosque of Makkah’. Then I asked him: ‘Which was the next?’ Thereupon he replied: ‘The Mosque of Jerusalem, with a period of forty years between them’ ’’. 13 Ka’b, another Companion of the Prophet, said: “Whoever visits the Sacred House [Jerusalem] out of pure longing, will go to Paradise.

Whoever prays two prostrations will come out as much cleansed of his sins as on the day his mother bore him, and he will be granted a thankful heart and a tongue that eloquently remembers and glorifies God”.14 This panoply of sacred symbols, especially the Night Journey and the Ascension (al-Isra’ and alMi’raj), seized the imagination of Sufis, linking the monotheistic faith from the Prophet Ibrahim (peace be on him) till the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him). From this panoply we learn how Muhammad (peace be on him) was the heir and seal of all prophets when he led them all in prayer near the Rock and on the floor of the

Sacred Mosque. This journey also forged a sacred bond between Makkah, Madinah and Jerusalem, extending, at its furthest, most distant extent to the Uppermost Lote-tree near the Throne of God. The journey has, besides, bestowed a vast and sanctified significance on the site of the Aqsa Mosque, from which opened the road that connects with heaven.

This miracle of the Ascension has since dazzled the imagination of Muslim Sufis, leading them, one after the other, to visit Jerusalem to seek blessings and to try to envisage, albeit at second hand, that moment of Ascension in which the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) acted as an intermediary between the terrestrial and the heavenly.

The significance of the Night Journey and Ascension has led Muslims to join the older symbol of holy locale to the newer orientation towards the righteous, holy personality, whereby it has become possible for man and locale to find the relation between the heavenly and the terrestrial.15 This found a gracious and dignified embodiment after the construction of the Dome of the Rock in the Umayyad period. It rose high above the ground to shade the Rock from which the Prophet (peace be on him) had ascended to heaven and drew Muslim Sufis to take up residence in its vicinity.

They tried to see how Muhammad (peace be on him) had lost his identity in the state of elation in the Divine Presence, seeing in this “annihilation of self ” a prelude to that “enduring survival” wherein humanity attains an exalted realization of self. The Sufis, therefore, hastened to Jerusalem, taking up their residence in the colonnaded porticos around the pavement, meditating on the symbols of the Rock from which the Prophet (peace be upon him) had commenced his Ascension. 16 Many other Sufis wished to spend the remaining period of their lives in Jerusalem and to be buried there, since they considered Jerusalem to be the earthly point closest to heaven. Jerusalem was also regarded as the venue for the resurrection of the dead.

17

PIETISTIC AUSTERITY AND SUFISM Sufism has deep roots in pietistic austerity which characterized the lives of many Companions of the Prophet especially those known as Ashab al-Suffah (“people of the ledge”), who confined themselves to worship at a ledge built for them by the Prophet (peace be on him) in his Mosque. Here they waited constantly to be enlisted for service in the Prophet’s armies. Some were required to teach

Islam in different regions. As teachers of the Qur’an they were an elite among the believers. The same austerity characterized the lives of many Successors (al-Tabi‘ûn) as it had characterized the lives of the Orthodox Caliphs, the muezzin Bilal (d. 20/641), Abû Dharr al-Ghifari; Suhayb (d. 38/659), Abû Hurayrah [‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Sakhr] (d. 59/679), ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar (d. 74/693), ‘Ammar ibn Yasir (d. 37/657), ‘Asim ibn Thabit al-Ansari (d.

4/625), those who were party to the ‘Aqabah Pact of allegiance to the Prophet (peace be on him), Shaddad ibn Aws (d. 58/677), Tamim al-Dari (d.

40/660), and other Successors such as Sufyan alThawri (d. 161/778), Ibrahim ibn Ad-ham (d. 162/ 779) and Dha’l Nan al-Misri (d. 245/859).18 The trend towards a pietistic austerity which began in the first century AH was marked by a cathartic moral attitude as embodied by Abû Dharr al-Ghifari. In the second half of that century, it developed a stance of protest on the part of the a number of pious people in Kûfah, Basrah and Egypt against the affluence of the Umayyad court.19 By the end of the second century AH, overly austere behaviour came to provide a nucleus for a mystical interpretive methodology in the hands of such renowned figures as Rabi‘ah al-’Adawiyyah (d. 185/801) and Ma‘rûf al-Karkhi (d. 200/815). We are now crossing the threshold of Sufism: Rabi‘ah al’Adawiyyah sets out the concept of “divine love”, while al-Karkhi introduces the concept of “taste knowledge”, leading in turn to God.20 Sufis, who subsequently combined their mysticism with philosophy, are unanimous that the aim common to all of them is union (ittihad), annihilation of self (fana’) or solitude through sublimation (al-tawahhud bi ‘l-ta‘ali). Sufism branched out into a number of directions, of which the most important were the Baghdad school with al-Muhasibi (d. 243/857), al-Junayd (d. 297/910), al-Saqati (d. 253/867); the Nisapûr school with al Qassar (d. 271/884); and the Syrian and Egyptian school with Dhû ‘l-Nûn al-Misri before the philosophy of illuminism (ishraq) and inspiration (ilham) reached its peak with the three famous Sufis, al-Hallaj (d. 309/922), alSuhrawardi (d. 587/1191) and Ibn al-’Arabi (d.

638/I240).21 Concurrently and subsequently, this further branched off into orders (tariqahs) each with its own rituals, hospices and cloisters.

THE COMPANIONS AND ‘PEOPLE OF THE LEDGE’ IN JERUSALEM The Muslim conquerors’ attachment to Jerusalem - and a great many of them were companions of the Prophet - was manifested most openly when they stood directly outside its walls, placing their full trust in the sacred connotations expressed by their religion. They

vied with one another for the honour of sharing in its conquest, so much so that, when they stood up for prayer outside the gates of Jerusalems: The call [to prayer] was made and people performed the dawn prayer. Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan recited the following verse ...: ‘O my people! enter that holy land which God hath assigned to you and turn not back ...’ (5: 21).

The other field commanders are said to have recited the self-same Qur’anic verse as if they had been in absolute concordance with each other.22 During the conquest of Jerusalem and after it many Companions and Successors, including pietists and “People of the Ledge”, who are regarded as the harbingers of Sufism, went there one after the other. Books of Islamic history, along with books written on fada’il al-Quds (Merits of Jerusalem), took pains to mention the Companions and Successors who visited Jerusalem or died there, seeking the blessings of visiting it or being buried in it.

Foremost among those visiting Jerusalem was the second Caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 23/644), who went there at the time of the conquest and granted the famous Covenant to Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, pledging to safeguard the rights of religious freedom to the Christians. Abu ‘Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah (d. 18/639) was the commander of the armies that conquered Jerusalem. He died when he was on his way to visit it for the second time with the intent to pray in the Aqsa Mosque, and was buried to the west of the River Jordan.23 Bilal ibn Rabah, the Prophet’s muezzin, visited Jerusalem and made his first call for prayer after the Prophet’s death. When it was time for the midday prayer following the conquest of the city, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab requested Bilal to call people to prayer.24 Others entering Jerusalem with the Muslim conquerors included the great general, Khalid ibn al-Walid (d. 21/641) and Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 18/ 639). Mu‘awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 60/680) also received the oath of allegiance (bay‘ah) as caliph in Jerusalem. Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas (d. 55/675) came to Jerusalem and entered the state of ihram for pilgrimage. Some Companions came with the intent to proceed to hajj. They started with a visit to Jerusalem, where they entered the state of ihram on way to the Sacred Mosque of Makkah. They did so in compliance with the following hadith of the Prophet: “He who begins hajj or umrah from the Aqsa Mosque to the Makkah Mosque will be forgiven his previous sins”.25 Thus ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar came to

O my people! enter that holy land which God hath assigned to you and turn not back ...’ (5: 21). The other field commanders are said to have recited the self-same Qur’anic verse as if they had been in absolute concordance with each other

Al-Aqsa 7

On his departure he turned to his companions and said: “As for your previous sins, you have been forgiven.

Reflect now on what you will do with the remaining part of your lives

8 Al-Aqsa

Jerusalem and started his ‘umrah rituals from there.

He is said to have come to Jerusalem after the early morning prayer and to have sat in the Mosque. When the sun rose, he too rose to pray together with his companions, and then they made for their mounts. ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abbas also visited Jerusalem, starting his pilgrimage to Makkah from there in winter.26 Safiyyah bint Huyayy (d. 50/ 670), a wife of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him), came to Jerusalem, climbed the mountain called Tur Zeita and prayed there.

Standing on the mountainside, she said: “From here people will part company from one another on the Day of judgement and will go either to Paradise or to Hell”.27 Foremost among the pietists and “People of the Ledge” eager to visit Jerusalem were Abû Dharr al-Ghifari, Mu‘adh ibn Jabal al-Ansari (d. c. 25/645), ‘Abd Allah ibn Salam (d. 43/663), Abû Hurayrah, who was the greatest memoriser of the Prophet’s traditions, ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit (d. 35/655), Shaddad ibn Aws, and Tamim alDari. Abû Dharr al-Ghifari stayed in Jerusalem for some time in devotional kneeling and prostration. He became famous for his forceful pleadings to the rich that they share their wealth with the poor. Another famous visitor was Mu‘adh ibn Jabal al-Ansari. He came to Jerusalem and spent three days there in fasting and prayer. On his departure he turned to his companions and said: “As for your previous sins, you have been forgiven. Reflect now on what you will do with the remaining part of your lives”. Abû Hurayrah, who was with the conquerors when Jerusalem was taken, went there again, and it is who narrated the hadith: “Mounts are saddled for three mosques only”.28 A number of Companions known for their pietistic attitude resided in Jerusalem until they died and were buried there. An example was ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit al-Ansari who was a dignitary and a witness of the First and Second Pacts of ‘Aqabah. He was also present in the Battle of Badr and all the other battles led by the Prophet (peace be on him). ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab appointed him qadi and preacher in Greater Syria. He was also made qadi of Palestine and then of Jerusalem. It is said that he was seen weeping over the eastern wall of Jerusalem. When asked why he did so, he replied: “The Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) told us that it is from here that he had a vision of Hell”.29 ‘Ubadah resided in Jerusalem and died in Ramlah, but was buried in, Jerusalem.

Shaddad ibn Aws al-Ansari, a Companion of the Prophet, also resided in Jerusalem until he died, and was buried there. It was he who narrated the Prophet Muhammad’s saying to the effect that al-Sham [Greater Syria] would be conquered and so would Jerusalem. Shaddad’s grave is said

to be in the Rahmah Graveyard. Others interred in Jerusalem include: Wathilah ibn alAsqa’ (d. 83/702); Dhû ‘1-Isba‘ al-Tamimi and the Yamani prince of Persian origin, Fayrûz al-Daylami (d. 53/673)30 THE SUCCESSORS Jerusalem was frequented by many pious Successors who came to Jerusalem to obtain its blessings. The famous faqih, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Awza‘i (d. 157/774), said: “Qubaysah ibn Dhu’ayb (d. 86/705), ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhayriz (d. c. 100/719) and Hani’ ibn Kulthûm (d. c.

100/719) would [occasionally] come from Ramlah to Jerusalem for the performance of ritual prayers. They were devout worshippers with austere habits. The famous scholar, Raja’ ibn Haywah (d. 92/710) said about him: “If the people of Madinah are proud of their devout worshipper Ibn ‘Umar, we are proud of our own worshipper, Ibn Muhayriz.

Indeed, his being amongst us was a security for the people of the earth”. Hani’, on the other hand, declined - obviously out of pietistic considerations - the governorship of Palestine when it was offered to him. 31 Jerusalem was also visited by Muharib ibn Dithar (d. 116/734), the jurist and judge of Kûfah. It was said about him that he surpassed other in three fields: inordinate performance of ritual prayer, long silence and liberality.32 Another visitor was the pious servant, Muhammad ibn Wasi‘ (d. 127/744) from Basrah, who is quoted as saying: “Beware of the world; and if you are not able to do so, look upon the world as a thorn, taking good care where you set your feet”.33 SUFIS OF THE SECOND/EIGHTH CENTURY According to historians of Sufism, its most prominent figures were Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah, Sufyan al-Thawri, al-Layth ibn Sa’d (d. 175/ 791), al-Fadayl ibn ‘Iyad (d. 178/803), Ibrahim ibn Ad-ham, Yahya ibn Dinar and Sa’id ibn al-Musayyab (d. 94/713). To these they add the name of Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i (d. 204/819) because he kept company with Sufis for seventeen years. They also add the name of al-Awza‘i for the same reason.34 A careful examination of the lives of those who laid the foundations of Sufism reveals that most of them were eager to visit Jerusalem to earn the blessings of the various sacred sites there.

We shall now proceed to note the extent of the most prominent Sufis’ devotion to Jerusalem.

Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah (d.c. 185/801) According to Ibn Khallikan, she was one of the most distinguished figures of her time. Others say that she came from a poor family. When she grew up and her father died while she was still in the prime of her youth, a drought struck Basrah, and Rabi‘ah, together with her three sisters, wandered about aimlessly. She was captured by a man who sold her to another man, and the latter overburdened her with work.35 Al-‘Attar gives the following account of how Rabi‘ah’s spiritual message descended on her. One day when she saw a man casting evil looks at her she fled along the road to Syria. This is meaningful enough if we remember that Jerusalem lies in the heart of Syria, “in the land whose precincts We have blessed” (Qur’an 17: 1). On this road she had an intimate silent communication with God. She asked: “Are You pleased with me?” Thereupon she heard a voice saying: “Do not be grieved! For on the Day of judgement the favoured people in Heaven will look up to you and envy you”. She came back to her master’s home and spent the night in prayers.

When her master saw how pious she was, he set her free and she dedicated herself to worship and devotion, spending her life in continuous penitence.36 Rabi‘ah made for Jerusalem where she spent the rest of her life and died. Her grave is just outside Jerusalem at the top of the Tur Zeita mountain. Her grave was well known during the time of Shihab al-Din al-Maqdisi and was visited by people.37 According to Badawi, the author of Shahidat al-‘Ishq al-Ilahi, her grave is on the peak of Tur Zeita to the east of Jerusalem, near the place from where Jesus (peace be on him) ascended to heaven; it is to the south, in a cloister to which people come down by means of a staircase.38 The famous historian and traditionist Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597/1201) says that Rabi‘ah died in 135/752, while others consider her to have died much after that.39 It is said that when she was about to die, a large number of pious people thronged around her. Then she said: “Get up and go out. Leave the road open to the messengers of Almighty God” (meaning, God’s angels). They all left, and, as they shut the door, they heard the voice of Rabi‘ah reciting the shahadah, testifying that “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah”. After she had breathed her last, these devout people gathered again, bathed her and recited the funeral prayer over her, then rested her in her final abode.40 Ibrahim ibn Ad-ham (d. 162/799) He came from Balkh and was of royal lineage.

Once he went out hunting and an invisible caller wakened him from his heedlessness. Thereupon he abandoned his way of life, based on addiction

to worldly pleasures, and espoused a life of frugality and piety, refusing to take any of his rich and rightful inheritance. He made his way to Makkah accompanied by Sufyan al--Thawri and al-Fudayl ibn ‘Iyad and then went on to Syria.41 It is said that Ibrahim asked some religious scholars about what was permissible (halal), and they advised him to go to Syria to know these things thoroughly. He went to Tarsûs, and would say: “I have never enjoyed life and relished livelihood except in Syria. I fled in an attempt to maintain my faith, from one high place to another, and from mountain to another mountain, and whoever saw me would say I was obsessed and deluded”.42 Ibrahim ended up in Jerusalem, where he slept habitually beside the Rock.43 One day, while leaving the city, he passed by a group of armed troops, who asked him: “Are you a slave”? He answered: “Yes”. Then they said: “A runaway”? Once more he replied: “Yes”.

Thereupon they had him put in prison. When people in Jerusalem learned of this, they went all together to the governor of Tiberias to ask for his release. The governor summoned him and asked him: “Why were you imprisoned”? “Ask the armed troops”, he replied. They, in turn, said: “You are a runaway slave”. He said: “True. I am running away from my sins”. Thereupon he was released.44 Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/777) He was a famous Sufi, celebrated for his asceticism and piety. He came to the Aqsa Masjid where he offered his congregational prayer. It is said that he came to the Holy Rock and read the entire Qur’an there. Al-Walid ibn Muslim (d. 195/810) recounts how he met Sufyan at the Masjid in Jerusalem. He asked Sufyan whether he had visited the Dome of the Rock. “Yes”, Sufyan replied, “and I read the entire Qur’an there”.45 When in Jerusalem he was described as a shaykh who looked as if he were burned with fire, being dressed in a black cloak with a black turban, silent, noblelooking, with thick hair and looking very sad.

When advised to change this dress, it is said that he wept and said: “This is very much like the dress of one bereaved; in this world we are surely in a state of mourning”?46 Al-Layth ibn Sa‘d (d.175/791) Al-Maqdisi said of al-Layth that he was the most learned scholar in Egypt and the peer of Imam Malik (d. 179/795) in erudition. It was said that he was so open-handed that no year of his life ever passed without leaving him in debt. He went to Jerusalem and during Al-Aqsa 9

his stay there Caliph al-Mansûr (d. 158/775) visited the city. Upon meeting al-Layth, he told him: “I admire your strength of mind, and I thank God Who has created people like you among my subjects”.47 Thawr ibn Yazid (d. 153/770) He stayed in Jerusalem and kept company with a man from a village near the city. This man would come to Thawr at dawn and perform all prayers in Jerusalem, then return to his village after he had performed the evening prayer. This man heard Thawr tell how Khalid ibn Ma‘dan (d.

104/722) recounted to him a hadith which he traced back to the Prophet (peace be on him): “Anyone who witnesses something that shocks or terrifies him should say: ‘God is One, and there is nothing like Him. He is the One and the Subduer’. Anyone who says this will be relieved of his troubles, even if he were encircled with an iron wall”.48 Muqatil ibn Sulayman (150/767) He visited Jerusalem and prayed there. He sat at the southern door of the Holy Rock, where many people thronged around him, writing and listening to what he said.

(Part II in Next Issue) Notes 1. Shihab al-Din Abu ‘Abd Allah Yagut ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Hamawi, Mu’jam al-Buldan (Beirut: Dar Sadir,1977) 5: 166.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Hajj, Bab Safar al-Mar’ah Ma’ al-Mahram ila al-Hajj wa Ghayrih.

5. Yaqut Ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Hamawi, Mu‘jam al-Buldan, 5:166.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 5:166-167.

11. Ibid., 5:167.

12. Ibid.

13. Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Masajid wa Mawadi’ al-Salah.

14. Yaqut al-Hamawi, Mu‘jam al-Buldan, 5: 167.

15. Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem, trans. Fatimah Nasr and Muhammad ‘Anani, al-Quds: Madinah Wahidah wa ‘Aqa’id Thalath (Cairo: Sutnr, 1998), 380.

16. Ibid., 413.

17. Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Muqaddasi al-Bashshari, Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Ma‘rafat al-Aqalim (Leiden: Brill, 1906), 166.

18. Muhammad ‘Abdul-Mun’im Khafaj i, Dirasat f i alTasawwuf al-Islami (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahirah, n.d.), 74.

19. Karen Armstrong, God and Man, trans., Muhammad al-Jura (Damascus: 1996), 230. See also Ignaz

10 Al-Aqsa

Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans., Muhammad Yusuf Musa , al-Aqidah wa al-Shari ‘ah f i al-Isl a m (Baghdad: Maktabah al-Muthannah, 1959), 147.

20. Abu ‘1-‘Ula‘Afifi, al-Tasawwuf al-Thawrah alRuhiyyah fi ‘-Islam (Beirut: Dar al-Sha’b, n.d.), 85.

21. Ibid., 89-91.

22. Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Waqidi, Futuh al-Sham (Beirut: Dar al Jil, n.d.), 1: 231.

23. Shihab al-Din Abu Mahmud ibn Tamim alMaqdisi, Muthir al-Gharam ila Ziyarat al-Quds wa al-Sham, ed., Ahmad al-Khutaymi (Beirut: Dar al Jil, 1994), 299-300.

24. Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Azdi, Ta’rikh Futuh alSham, ed., ‘Abd al-Mun’im‘Abd.Allah ‘Amir (Cairo: Mu’assasah Sajill al-’Arab, 1970), 257.

25. Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn Ash’ath, Sunan Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Manasik, Bab fi Mawaqit; Diya’ al-Din Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahid al-Maqdisi, Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis, ed., Muhammad Muti‘ al-Hafiz (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1985), 88.

26. Mahmud Ibrahim, Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis (Kuwait: al-Munazzamah al-‘Arabiyyah li alTarbiyyah wa al-Thaqafah wa al-‘Ulum, 1985), 354.

27. Muhammad Hasan Shurrab, Bayt al-Maqdis wa al-Masjid al-Aqsa (Damascus: 1994), 174.

28. See Mujir al-Din al-Hanbali, al-Uns al Jalil fi Ta’rikh al-Quds wa al-Khalil (Aleppo: n.d.), 1: 234-236; Abu Mahmud ibn Tamim al-Maqdisi, Muthir al-Gharam, 332, 334, 338; and Muhammad Hasan Shurrab, Bayt al-Maqdis wa al-Masjid al-Aqsa, 355-56.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Muhammad Ibrahim, Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis, 37980.

32. Ibid., 379-84.

33. Ibid.

34. Muhammad ‘Abd al-Mun’im Khafaji, Dirasat fi ‘l-Tasawwuf al-Islami, 81.

35. Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-A‘yan, ed., Muhammad Muhyi ‘1-Din ‘Abd al-Hamid (Cairo: Maktabah al-Nahdah al-Misriyyah, n.d.), 2:48.

36. Cf. ‘Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Shahidat al-Ishq alIlahi: Rabi’ah al-‘Adawiyyah (Cairo: Maktabah al-Nahdah al-Misriyyah, n.d.), 12.

37. Al-Maqdisi, Muthir, 350.

38. ‘Abd al-Rahman Badawi, Shahidat al-Ishq alIlahi: Rabi‘ah al- :Adawiyyah, 97.

39. Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-A’yan, 2: 48.

40. Badawi, Shahidat al-Ishq al-Ilahi, 157 41. Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Sulami, Tabaqat al-Sufiyyah, ed., Nur al-Din Sharibah (Cairo: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi,1953), 27.

42. Abu al-Fida’ Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wa alNihayah (Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1966), 10: 136.

43. Ibrahim, Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis, 393.

44. Ibid., 139.

45. Al-Hanbali, al-Uns al-Jalil, 1: 261.

46. Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Suyuti, Ithaf al-Akhissa’ bi Fada’il al-Masjid al-Aqsa, ed., Ahmad Ramadan Ahmad (Cairo: al-Hay’ah alMisriyyah al-‘Ammah li al-Kitab, 1988), 2: 46.

47. Al-Maqdisi, Muthir, 355.

48. Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Suyuti, Ithaf alAkhissa bi Fada’il al-Masjid al-Aqsa, 2: 47.

The Israeli/Palestinian Struggle Over Water Resources – Gender, Ideology and Natural Resources Sarah Irving*

I

n the summer of 2004, a day-tour designed to show foreigners the situation of Palestinians living in the Jerusalem area took me through the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. Amongst its pristine new homes and glossy shopping centres were swathes of bright green lawns and bright flowerbeds, being watered by drip irrigation and sprinklers which glistened in the sun. A public swimming pool advertised activities, and in the gardens of private houses, bushes and trees were growing.

I had been staying in the comparatively comfortable, affluent Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem in the West Bank.

Although water was freely available, it tasted unpleasant and we were urged to have quick showers. Visiting refugee camps I had encountered houses where running water was available for only part of some days and sometimes standpipes had to be used. I also knew that the camps were often under curfew or military attack, and that going outside to collect water was not feasible. I had also read the accounts of Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist who had lived in Gaza, who described the brown, rusty, foul liquid which came out (occasionally) of the taps in Gaza City.

There is a substantial body of academic and institutional literature on the issues of water distribution in the West Bank and Gaza, and the subject was one of the five main areas of discussion in the doomed Final Status Negotiations of the Oslo Accords1. Amongst the Palestine solidarity community, however, water has been less widely picked up as an issue.

Settlements and the Separation Wall can be seen; human rights abuses listened to and agonised over.

But the details of aquifers and rainfall can seem scholastic and dull, and the key significance of water – for Palestinian survival and in Israeli strategic considerations – is easily passed over.

Even more commonly discounted is the role of ideology in the way that water is regarded, and the differential impact that water appropriation has on different groups; especially women, within Palestinian society. I particularly want to focus

on these two aspects of the water issue in Palestine and Israel, as I believe that highlighting them adds considerably to understanding of the way that access to water has been used as a weapon against the Palestinian people, and has affected relations within Palestinian society.

PART 1: THE NORMATIVE STATUS OF WATER

water has been used as a weapon against the Palestinian people, and has affected relations within Palestinian society.

Israeli Uses of Palestinian Water Access to Palestinian water was recognised by the architects of the State of Israel as vital to their plans. The Zionist leaders, coming from a rapidly industrialising Europe, aspired to standards of living which were much more resource-intensive than those pursued by the inhabitants of Palestine under the Ottoman Empire and British Mandate. This included plans for hydroelectric power generation and for intensive forms of agriculture that were already, even in the 1920s, causing dangerous levels of salinisation of soil around Jewish farms under the British Mandate2.

In 1946 the American Zionist Association employed Tennessee Valley Water Authority engineers, who had been responsible for some of the biggest water management projects in the modern world, to present plans for the diversion of the Jordan River to the Negev3.

The Haganah Museum in Tel Aviv attaches great significance to water in the founding of the country and in the military aims of the ‘Founding Fathers,’ and features maps linking the lines of water control between the Mandate era Jewish settlements of the 1930s. Just five years after the establishment of Israel, the UN intervened to prevent conflict with Syria over Israel attempts to divert water from part of the Jordan River in the demilitarised zone down to the Negev. With this plan foiled, the National Water Carrier was built between 1959 and 1964, using a network of pipes and tunnels

* SARAH IRVING is a freelance writer with a long history of involvement in the environmental justice, antiglobalisation and Palestine solidarity movements. She was involved in the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine in 2001-2 and is a director of Olive Co-operative, which runs tours to Palestine and sells fairly traded Palestinian products.

Al-Aqsa 11

Israel takes 40% of its groundwater and 25% of renewable water supplies from Palestinian sources

12 Al-Aqsa

to draw water from the Sea of Galilee to the desert South4.

This level of water appropriation was still, however, insufficient for Israeli usage. The occupation of the West Bank in 1967 increased Israel’s accessible water by 50% due to its occupation of the three West Bank aquifers5. Israel used Military Orders to enforced control over Palestinian water. In addition, the Golan Heights, also occupied by Israel in 1967, increased Israel’s water supply by giving it control of two Jordan tributaries; the Banyas and the Yarkon, and provided a “water tower”6 for the country.

Despite this widespread appropriation of other countries’ water resources, and the availability of efficient water-saving technologies, Israel still massively over-uses water, and has done so since the 1970s7, aspiring to the lifestyles of water-rich industrialised nations. Israel takes 40% of its groundwater and 25% of renewable water supplies from Palestinian sources; draws heavily on its own stocks; and still needs to undertake negotiations with Turkey to buy water capacity from this and other countries. With a projected population in Israel of 8 million by 2025, this desperation for water can only increase. In addition, Israel is the only country of the Jordan basin not to have signed up to the UN Watercourse Convention, which aims to promote dialogue between countries sharing water resources8. Solutions to water shortages are the subject of great interest in Israel – from desalination plants to the use of wastewater for agricultural irrigation9 – but it is unlikely that any of these will be able to meet the kind of increases in demand that are projected.

While the over-use of water by Israel is the result of individual habits and a reaction to the availability of water, I would contend that it is also influenced by the way that Israeli society wishes ideologically to see itself and to promote itself worldwide. This is as a ‘modern,’ ‘Westernstyle’ nation with unlimited resources and access to pastimes such as swimming pools, lush gardens and keeping expensive cars sparkling clean. An Israeli elite that has often grown up in European countries or the USA, or has family links with these countries, has profited considerably from its identification as being ‘like’ these countries, in an international climate where non-whites are categorised as inferior. It is their success in maintaining this racist differentiation that has been so useful to the Israeli state in presenting itself to the West as rational, victimised and ‘white’, so that its enemies – Palestinians and the wider Arab world – are constructed in opposition to this; as the violent attackers. Western anti-Jewishness has been overcome by another layer of prejudice, which Israeli politicians have successfully manipulated in the international arena to create a racist stereotype of their opponents. Water is

fundamental to this lifestyle, both for Israelis themselves and for the experience that Western visitors to Israel have of a country that is ‘civilised.’

Symbolism And Ideology My contention about the normative role of water leads into a discussion of the symbolism and ideology which surrounds water in Palestine and Israel. The conflict is ridden through with emotional, ethnic and religious significances which further complicate any notion of ‘rational’ decisions that international relations scholars might attempt to apply. As Miriam Lowi, one of the first scholars to consider the subject of Israeli and Palestinian water in an international context, pointed out: “What is more important to understand, though, is that interests emerge within the context of a particular belief system and historical experience. Both the neo-realists and neo-liberals fail, in general, to take sufficient account of this. Indeed, national interests and foreign policy behaviour are responses to environmental constraints that are normative and ideational in nature, as well as being structural and material”10.

For right-wing religious Jews, such as Rabbi Ariel of the violent exclusivist movement Gush Emunim, “the real Zionism, the holy one with profound roots, exists only where the really religious Jews are living; in the mountains of Judea and the valleys of Samaria” 11 . Both land and water have profound religious significant, and the racism which is implicit (and often explicit) in such religious fervour rejects the validity of any other ownership of ‘God-given’ natural resources, and therefore lays religious claim to water as well as land: “[Gush Emunim] argue that what appears to be the confiscation of Arab-owned land for subsequent settlement

by Jews is in reality not an act of stealing but one of sanctification”12. Thus taking possession of Palestinian-owned land is seen as not only a matter of resource control but also a religious duty.

For Israeli Jews who are not of religiously fundamentalist leanings, there are still significant normative values associated with water. The place of agriculture in the Israeli psyche is particularly prominent, associated with Zionist slogans about ‘greening the desert’ and symbolic of the fertile ‘promised land.’

Its significance in this respect is out of all proportion to the contribution it makes to the country’s economy. In 1999, for example, economists proposed a solution to the summer drought which entailed giving water to Palestinian farmers, in order to maintain the

Palestinian economy and Palestinian consumption of Israeli goods. In monetary terms, this would benefit the Israeli economy more than giving the same water to Israeli farmers. The public outcry and political opposition that crushed this idea is a clear illustration of the overwhelming of economics by ideological passions13.

The symbolic value of water has also made it an effective weapon, not only in disrupting people’s lives but also by humiliating and depriving them. All societies have notions of cleanliness and pollution which go beyond the immediate biological or chemical properties of substances, which means that actions such as urinating in water tanks (recorded in both the first and second Intifadas); serve to enforce the helplessness of people under occupation and the contempt of their occupiers, as well as to affect their health and physical cleanliness.

It is factors such as these which go some way to explaining the inadequacy of Israeli macroeconomic analyses of the water situation.

One such analysis suggests the settlements are not a significant tool of water policy because to use conflict to control water is more expensive for Israel than to buy it from other countries14.

To rely solely on the pragmatic issues around water is to fail to understand the normative significance it has for the Israeli policy-makers and public.

Land, agriculture and water also inhabit significant normative spaces for Palestinians, though without the kind of ethnic exclusivism expressed by Israeli Jewish fundamentalists.

Women interviewed by Tamar Mayer during the first Intifada regularly used words such as ‘holy’ to express their perception of the land and its resources. For these women, farming (often under difficult conditions) and their relationship to the land had become part of their resistance to the Israeli occupation and had taken on emotional and nationalistic connotations15. Unlike the Israeli religious right, for Palestinians keeping control of their land and its resources is not only a matter of physical survival, but also of identity and of spiritual resistance. As two female Palestinian citizens of Israel wrote in 2002: “land is fundamental to Palestinian culture, economy and identity. The current destruction of olive groves

by Israeli military and settlers is not simply the destruction of thousands of trees, but of the Palestinian soul.”16 The normative role of water and land also underlies a significant problem of dealing with water issues for the Palestinians. As water has become a symbol of the oppression, and a significant factor in day-to-day difficulties for them, a discourse has developed which only allows water problems to be attributed to the Occupation. This means that other problems which became rife in the West Bank and Gaza

due to water shortages cannot be properly dealt with, because their root causes cannot be acknowledged. These problems include corruption, water theft and mismanagement, the chaos caused by different agencies and aid organisations failing to co-operate with one another in the Oslo period, and the failure of some villages to acknowledge the consequences of their own choices to be attached to the Israeli state water network17.

Trottier uses the concept of ‘sanctioned discourses’ to explain the circumscribed way in which certain ideas and concepts are allowed – or not allowed – to exist within the way that water is talked about by Palestinians. The ‘sanctioned discourse’ of a simple Israeli appropriation of all West Bank water is undoubtedly a useful rallying cry for the Palestinian Authorities, but it also obscures inquiries into bureaucratic incompetence and corruption18.

The symbolic value of water has also made it an effective weapon, not only in disrupting people’s lives but also by humiliating and depriving them

Ideology And The Sitting Of Settlements Despite official denials, the use of the West Bank settlements to control water resources is well known and widely admitted. The pattern of settlement building since the 1970s has followed the ridges and edges of aquifers in the hills of the area, allowing settlers to dominate aquifers and more easily access their contents19. It is widely acknowledged that settlers use between three and four times as much water per head as their Palestinian neighbours 20 . Their access to more sophisticated drilling equipment allows them to drill deeper wells to access clean water, which many Palestinians believe saps the supplies of their own older, shallower wells.

The Taba agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, signed in 1995, ceded Israel the rights to 82% of West Bank water, setting in stone Israeli control over Palestinian resources. This agreement was facilitated by the ‘facts on the ground’ created by the settlements. This also reinforced the kind of situation, typical in the West Bank, commented on by Hanna Nasir, mayor of Bethlehem, in 2002: “Here we are surrounded by settlements.

They are grabbing the land around the clock and taking eighty-one percent of our water.

Oppression to this extent doesn’t help the cause of peace”21.

Those who attribute the sitting of settlements to Israeli desires to control water resources are still largely dismissed as conspiracy theorists despite evidence to the contrary coming from many quarters. Even Malcolm Rifkind, for mer Conser vative defence minister in the UK, acknowledged that this was the case and that it was illegal22. A Al-Aqsa 13

The pragmatic concerns of Israeli planners; to control water resources; further coincides with the ideological motives of racially and religiously discriminatory Israelis whose primary objective is the expansion of the state of Israel.

study cited by Trottier denied strenuously that water grabbing motivated settlement construction – but admitted that the IDF’s planning department included an officer whose responsibilities included “the evaluation of the strategic influence of water resources”23. And maps produced by Palestinian organisations such as HDIP and Israeli human rights groups such as B’tselem confir m the congr uence of settlement construction and the position of water.

The most recent of these maps also confirm the role of the Separation Wall in reinforcing this control, throwing long spurs into the West Bank to strengthen ownership of strategically important settlements such as Ariel and Barkan.

Thus, the pragmatic concerns of Israeli planners; to control water resources; further coincides with the ideological motives of racially and religiously discriminatory Israelis whose primary objective is the expansion of the state of Israel.

Ideology and Israel’s International Water Relations The appropriation of Palestinian water has not been Israel’s only controversial acquisition.

Water conflicts have been key to interethnic conflicts in the region since Biblical times, and in their plans for a state the early Zionists were well aware of the issue. They were the only group to bring the subject into the peace conferences at the end of World War I, whereas the Hashemites complacently assumed they would control the entire region and did not need to consider specific areas. Even Zionist founder Theodor Herzl commented that “the real founder of the newold country were the hydraulic engineers”24.

In 1953, the UN had to prevent the newly formed state of Israel from diverting water from the demilitarised zone between Israel and Syria, in order to draw it south to the Negev desert25.

Having been thwarted in this, Israel built the National Water Carrier; a network of pipes which took water from the Sea of Galilee to the southern desert. Israel’s 1967 occupation of the Golan Heights was also partly inspired by the desire to take control of this source26. It was access to this water and its channelling southwards which allowed Israel to carry out the Zionist dream of ‘greening the desert.’

Prior to 1948, Zionist organisations entered into a deal with King Abdullah of Jordan, offering him the West Bank aquifers and parts of the Jordan River in return for co-operation27.

The two countries co-operated from 1963 onwards and more so after 1967, although the relationship was kept quiet because of hostility from other Arab states 28 . A 1994 treaty formalised exchanges of water between the two countries in times of crisis, setting in law the de facto control by Israel of the Wadi Arabah,

14 Al-Aqsa

captured in 1967. However, the deal was not well thought out on the Jordanian side, as the absence of a clause specifying water quality has meant that Israel has handed over dirty, high-salinity water after receiving cleaner supplies29. Israel’s lack of respect for its Arab neighbours makes sending them dirty water an act of symbolic aggression, as well as of short-term economic pragmatism.

PART 2: WATER AND DAY-TO-DAY LIFE FOR PALESTINIANS UNDER OCCUPATION Water in Israeli-Palestinian Peace and War As Birgit Schlutter noted at the end of 2005, “With the beginning of new peace negotiations under Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, the topic of water and its allocation to Palestinians and Israelis is back on the negotiation table.” Water has of necessity featured in the provisions of all Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since the Madrid talks and Oslo accords of the early 1990s. However, Israel has held a hard line on the subject. At Madrid it refused to discuss the ‘political’ aspects of water, insisting on covering only ‘technical’ areas and programmes of capacity-building in Arab states and areas, including resurrecting the idea of a canal between the Nile and Gaza30.

The Oslo agreement included an annex specifying ‘co-operation’ on water issues31, but the 1994 Cairo agreement placed the Palestinian Authority in an untenable position of being responsible for water and sewage in the West Bank and Gaza, but keeping supply in the hands of the Israeli Mekorot Water Company32.

As is often the case, many people – the press, the international community, and the governments of the countries concerned – spend a lot of time talking about the ‘big’ questions – of geology, of international politics, agreements and treaties. What so often fails to appear in such discussions is the impact on millions of ordinary people.

Israel’s controlled manipulation of water sources has been used as a weapon during both Intifadas. During the first Intifada even the Mayor of Jerusalem cited the illegality of collective punishment in his objections to army cutting of water supplies in East Jerusalem as punishment for communities in resistance33.

Similar tactics were still being employed in the second Intifada, for example in Bethlehem in 2002 Israeli soldiers cut domestic water pipes while keeping the city centre under 24-hour curfew for weeks34.

The Situation for People in the West Bank In January 2006 the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz printed a story that will be familiar, in essence if not in detail, to anyone who pays attention to Israeli incursions onto West Bank land. According to the piece: “Wadi Fuqin is known far and wide for its traditional farming practices, considered by many to be the finest, most impressive agricultural system in any Palestinian village. However, extensive [settlement] expansion plans are now threatening the preservation of this farming tradition by endangering, among other things, the village’s water supply. If the plans materialize, the village will be surrounded on nearly all sides by new Betar Illit neighbourhoods and the separation fence. A planned road will also cut through village fields.

This tale illustrates the breadth of the impact that Israel’s attitude to Palestinian water has. It not only affects people’s livelihoods by curtailing agriculture, but destroys heritage and ways of life that have lasted for generations. In urban settings, where supplies can not be just disrupted but cut altogether, it impacts on health, causing unsanitary conditions and an inadequate supply of clean drinking water. Everyday tasks such as washing clothes and bathing are restricted, and stereotypes about ‘dirty Arabs’ reinforced, despite Israeli imposition of any lack of cleanliness. Increasingly, environmental problems occur as a result of Israel’s over-exploitation of its own and others’ water. Chemicals, fertilisers and sewage pollution are starting to concentrate in the aquifers, damaging future water resources35, while even the Jordan River is drying up as the sources feeding it are used to excess. According to environmental groups, fifty years ago “some 1.3 billion cubic metres of clean water flowed through the Lower Jordan each year. Today, the total is less than 100 million cubic metres, much of it either sewage or diverted saline water. Massive water diversion programs, closed borders and sewage discharge have almost completely destroyed the natural and cultural heritage of this river”36. This not only damages current agriculture and domestic access, but also has considerable implications for a putative Palestinian state built on industries such as agriculture and tourism. It also contributes to the high levels of unemployment in the West Bank, where an estimated 60% of the population lives below the poverty line37, as jobs lost to inadequate resources join those cut off by movement restrictions such as the Wall and checkpoints.

Israeli control of Palestinian water has also had longer-term impacts, preventing development and planning. The (in)famous Military Order 158 of 1967 subjected all drilling of agricultural or industrial wells in the West Bank to Israeli licenses, and only 23 were granted between 1967 and 199038. Domestic wells were largely allowed, indicating that the intention was to stifle economic

activity and ensure that Palestinians, until the first Intifada, remained a source of cheap labour for Israeli agriculture and industry.

Economic uses of water were further prevented by high prices; well above the subsidised rates for Israelis served by the same supplier; which were set by a board dominated

by Israeli farmers39 in whose interests it was to price their Palestinian colleagues out of existence. Despite some allocation of governance to the Palestinian Authority, under the Taba agreement, the Israeli state retained a veto 40 , allowing it to forever inhibit Palestinian development and curtail the Palestinian authorities’ ability to plan or to deal adequately with fraud and theft (should it be inclined to). The ideological element of this process is illustrated by the fact that under slightly more ‘dovish’ Labour governments, the committee determining water licenses met frequently allowing decisions to be made quickly. Under the ‘hawk’ Netanyahu, the timing was cut to just four times a year, slowing the process even further41. As well as the economic impacts of such constraints, they continued to function as impediments to the Palestinian people’s sense of being in control of its own affairs and contributed to a situation of disempowerment in which the impetus and energy was drained from Palestinians who were continually denied the chance to make decisions or have a say in their own futures.

Massive water diversion programs, closed borders and sewage discharge have almost completely destroyed the natural and cultural heritage of this river

The Situation for People in Gaza The water situation in Gaza is in some respects worse than that in the West Bank, where, although the Israelis draw large quantities of water out, rainfall is more abundant and the Israeli state has largely stayed out of domestic water issues. In Gaza, however, the underlying aquifer has been seriously depleted and what water remains is polluted and saline. The population of Gaza was massively increased by refugees of 1948 and 1967, increasing demand on already diminished supplies, and proper wastewater treatment only started in the 1990s42. Although the occupying authorities had been more inclined to allow wells to be dug than in the West Bank, where they wanted to keep the water for Israeli use43, this now leads to a complex situation for the post-withdrawal Palestinian Authority, which must decide whether to allow more wells to be dug – further depleting the already scanty aquifer – or to try and take a longer-term approach which may be unpopular with a public which has had to put up with desperately scarce running water. In addition, the occupying Al-Aqsa 15

The poor, sparse plants are those of Palestinian Israeli farmers, who are frequently denied irrigation permits and have to struggle to grow crops that are reduced in quantity and quality,

Israeli authorities have refused to invest in infrastructure, resulting in a situation of poverty and hardship, as described by Amira Hass: “The Israeli military government set up in 1967, and the civil administration after it, were distinguished by their budgetary niggardliness, by a lack of provision for development, by heavier taxation than in Israel, by an education system that could not or did not try to keep up with the increasing number of schoolchildren, and by monumental neglect of Gaza’s infrastructure: its roads, its water, sewage, telephone and electricity systems. Families compensated for the neglect with their own improvisations, and the cost was shouldered by sons and daughters and siblings and in-laws. Such improvisations often included makeshift sewage systems, private water tanks, illegal wells, or even just a battery of jerry cans filled with unpolluted water taken from pipes near the Jewish settlements or the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood – all to avoid the foul-tasting water in most homes and to cope with the frequent interruptions in its flow”44.

The situation for Palestinians in Israel and East Jerusalem

Do you think it was for their good, for their welfare?

Forget it! There were some cases of cholera there, and the Jews were afraid that they would catch it

16 Al-Aqsa

The Israeli State’s ideological desire to control water resources, and to reserve them for its Jewish population, does not only impact on Palestinians resident in the West Bank and Gaza. Hadas Lahav, a left-wing Israeli activist with labour rights and women’s organisations, takes visitors to the Galilee through the countryside alongside either side of the main roads. She points out that on one farm a crop will be tall and robust, while the same species growing in a neighbouring field will be stunted and sparse, yielding far lower harvests.

Jewish Israeli farmers, who are granted licenses to irrigate their fields and use considerable amounts of water, own the lush, healthy farms.

The poor, sparse plants are those of Palestinian Israeli farmers, who are frequently denied irrigation permits and have to struggle to grow crops that are reduced in quantity and quality, confining their sale to local markets and denying the farmers access to lucrative export sales.

Restrictions on access to water also affect Palestinian-Israeli towns; where water supplies are often inadequate for the population size, and Israeli state polices which deliberately under-fund Palestinian towns mean that amenities such as public swimming pools, common in Jewish towns, are rare in Arab neighbourhoods.

Palestinian residents of Jerusalem live under much more direct day-to-day control of the Israeli state than West Bank and Gazan Palestinians. Like Israeli citizens of Palestine, East Jerusalemites also exist as second-class citizens when it comes to access to water and sanitation, with many neighbourhoods still lacking proper running

water 45 . Many existing water lines were installed in the early 1970s, in the immediate aftermath of Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, and are inadequate for current population levels. The lack of will of the Israeli authorities, combined with tensions between the communities which at times has made it difficult for Israeli water engineers to carry out repairs in Palestinian areas, has also meant that many pipes are broken and leaking46.

Again, normative considerations – racism and concepts of exclusive rights to resources – govern decision-making about access to water.

This attitude is illustrated by the comments of a former Mayor of Jerusalem, whose policies ensured sub-standard conditions for Palestinians: “Only when the lack of infrastructure threatens to produce wider problems for Jewish populations has the Israeli state invested systematically in modernising occupied Palestinian communities. On retiring, Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem between 1967 and 1993, made a startling admission: ‘For Jewish Jerusalem I did something in the past 25 years,’ he reflected. ‘For East Jerusalem? Nothing!

Sidewalks? Nothing! Cultural institutions? Not one! Yes, we installed a sewerage system for them and improved the water supply. Do you know why? Do you think it was for their good, for their welfare? Forget it! There were some cases of cholera there, and the Jews were afraid that they would catch it!’”47.

Gendered Impacts Different groups within Palestinian society are affected in different ways by the problems of water shortages and appropriation. I want to look specifically at the way that women; particularly those living in the refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza, and women in other working-class areas, both urban and rural, are impacted on. It is a truism of development studies that women are most affected by poverty, as in many societies they are more likely to be confined to the domestic sphere and to be responsible for allocating scarce food resources within the family, resulting in less resources being allotted to themselves. So, as well as the issues discussed below, it must be understood that Palestinian women are likely to be on the receiving end of the declines in income caused by unemployment, economic closures of large areas of Palestine, and the decline of agriculture48.

Around a third of the Palestinian population lacked piped water to their homes in the early 1990s. Although aid donors and the PA have improved this situation, many

rural households still have no running water49. In areas such as refugee camps this pattern is repeated because they are most likely to be subject to attack by Israeli troops, including severing of water supplies, and the inhabitants of the camps are least likely to be able to afford illicit extensions from the established water network. In addition, many urban areas with pipes fitted only actually receive water through them for a few days a week50. The result for women is that they are often expected to carry water for long distances, either from wells and springs, or from standpipes51.

During the first intifada, women were shot at by soldiers and settlers while collecting water, and were extremely vulnerable during the 2-6 hours it can take to gather water for an average-sized family of 6 people. The collection of water was also often a job allocated to older girls in a family, meaning that they were even less likely to be able to choose whether to stay in education52.

Many of the houses with poor water supplies also have substandard sewage and sanitary provision, due to decades of underinvestment, as observed by Karen Assaf: “sewage disposal and treatment has been systematically neglected since the days of the British Mandate which ended in 1948. All types of development in the OTs have been more directly hindered by the Israeli occupation”53. The pressure on this infrastructure is increased by the growth in population density, especially in Gaza and the refugee camps. This results in widespread problems typical of the kind found in the presence of poor sanitation, such as endemic dysentery and other digestive tract problems, especially amongst children. When such diseases become chronic they also have longerterm effects, such as malnutrition54. The dangers for women in childbirth also increase when water is scarce, as sterilisation becomes impossible55. The health effects of water shortage are disproportionately heavy on women and female children, as they tend to spend more time within contaminated areas, while men are more likely to work or socialise away from home, and boys are more likely to be permitted to go to school or play further from home56. Some commentators have even seen this as a means of covert population control by the Israeli authorities of a ‘despised population’57.

The contamination of water sources with substances such as unregulated pesticides, which the Israeli authorities have allowed to enter the West Bank and Gaza while banning inside Israel, also disproportionately affects women and children, as they are again more likely to be routinely drinking water from a single source.

Water supplies in the West Bank have never been regularly tested for pesticide residues. It must, of course, be noted that such health problems are likely to be increasing amongst men in the West Bank, as they too have been more confined to

small areas and to the home since the beginning of the second Intifada brought checkpoints and mass job losses.

Conclusion Water, the little-discussed and unglamorous but utterly vital resource, is key to so many aspects of the situation of the Palestinian people and their Israeli occupiers, from the smallest everyday acts to the grandest dreams of men forging international agreements and launching international wars. Its significance in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship is not as simple as a blanket scarcity affecting all Palestinians, or a pragmatic concern of the Israeli state. It is crosscut by myriad factors of class, ethnicity, geography and, as I have highlighted in this essay, gender and ideology.

It is these complexities which make resolution of the water issue – even should the Israeli state desire such a resolution – so difficult.

Because water has such symbolic significance, creating fair agreements on it is not simply a matter of technical issues but of emotion and ideology. For the Israeli state to relinquish even a small percentage of the water it currently controls, it would not only impact on its people’s lifestyles but also their self-image and the international standing of their country, so vital to its continued defence by the states that currently determine the world’s balance of power. And because the voices of women, especially working-class ones, are largely absent from political and international negotiations, in Palestine as in so many other parts of the world, their specific needs and the particular challenges they face in their roles as women continue to remain unaddressed.

Some commentators have even seen this as a means of covert population control by the Israeli authorities of a ‘despised population

Footnote: the geography of Palestinian and Israeli water Palestine lies at the Western end of the Fertile Crescent, the site of humankind’s first domestication of plant and animals. Although there is sufficient water for agriculture, many areas are very dry, and water was key to the sitting of some of the earliest towns in the region, such as Beersheba. Early inhabitants of what is now Israel and Palestine, such as the Nabateans, were amongst the first desert farmers, and the techniques they developed are still used today amongst the Bedouin.

Ironically, the Romans wrote of these people ‘making the desert bloom,’ a phrase which echoes the propaganda of Zionist projects to bring agriculture to the Negev desert .

Nevertheless, water has always been in short supply in the region, and fertile land goes uncultivated for lack of it.

Al-Aqsa 17

There are five main aquifers – underground rock formations where water is stored – in the land making up Israel and Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza). The Israeli coastal aquifer stretches from Mount Carmel south to Gaza, while the Yarkon-Taninim runs from Mount Carmel inland to Beersheba, and is partly fed by rainwater which falls in the West Bank and percolates downwards through the rocks.

In addition to these, the West Bank area of Palestine contains three further aquifers. One is situated in the West of the area, another in the East, where its water flows down to the Jordan River, and one to the North, where its water ends in the Galilee in Israel. The position of these aquifers, and the direction of their water flow, is key to understanding much of Israel’s behaviour towards the Palestinian people and the territory they live on.

Notes

1. Trottier, Julie (1999) Hydropolitics in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, PASSIA (Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs), at 1.

2. Ibid, at 42, 45.

3. Ibid at 13.

4. Bregman, Ahron and Jihan el-Tahri (1998), The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs, Penguin, at 257-259.

5. Supra note 1, at 60.

6. Ibid at 59.

7. Hunt, Constance E (2004)., Thirsty Planet: Strategies For Sustainable Water Management, Zed Books, at 51.

8. Ibid at 56, 269.

9. Ibid at 125.

10. Quoted by Trottier, supra note 1, at 9.

11. Quoted by Shahak, Israel and Norton Mezvinsky (2004), Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (2nd ed.), Pluto Press, at 88.

12. Ibid at 67.

13. Supra note 1, at 192-193.

14. Ibid at 15.

15. Mayer, Tamar “Heightened Palestinian nationalism: military occupation, repression, difference and gender”, in Tamar Mayer (ed) (1994) Women and the Israeli Occupation: the Politics of Change, Routledge, pp 62-87, at 81.

16. Shaheen, Wafaa and Trees Zbidat-Klosterman (2002) “We have to change our lives”, in Trouble & Strife: Feminist Perspectives After September 11th, pp37-45, at 37.

17. Supra note 1 at 23, 77 and 163.

18. Ibid at 164.

19. Philo, Greg and Berry, Mike (2004), Bad News from Israel, Pluto Press, at 94.

20. Ibid. See also, Hunt, supra note 7, at 51.

21. Schubert, Katharine von (2005), Checkpoints And Chance: Eyewitness Accounts From An Observer In Israel-Palestine, Quaker Books, at 25.

22. Supra note 19, at 92.

23. Supra note 1, at 11.

24. Supra note 1, at 40.

25. Supra note 4, at 257.

26. Ibid at 230.

27. Supra note 1, at 50.

28. Ibid at 7-8.

29. Ibid at 10, 60, 68.

30. Ibid at 63.

31. Supra note 4, at 230.

32. Supra note 1, at 65.

33. Cheshin, Amir S., Hutman, Bill and Melamed, Avi (1999), Separate and Unequal: the inside story of Israeli rule in East Jerusalem, Cambridge/London, Harvard University Press, at171.

34. Irving, Sarah (2004), Besieged in Bethlehem: letters home from Palestine March-April 2002, at 10.

35. Supra note 15, at 13.

36. Friends of the Earth Scotland 2005. ‘What on Earth’ magazine Winter 2005, at 15.

37. Gavrilis, George 2006. ‘The Forgotten West Bank.”

Foreign Affairs, January-February 2006, http:// w w w. n y t i m e s . c o m / c f r / i n t e r n a t i o n a l / 20060101faessay_v85n1_gavrilis.html?_r =1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin 38. Supra note 1, at 60.

39. Ibid at 62.

40. Ibid at 67, 184.

41. Ibid at 184.

42. Ibid at 71, 120.

43. Ibid at 171.

44. Hass, Amira (1996) Drinking the sea at Gaza: days and nights in a land under siege, New York, Henry Holt & Co, at 59.

45. Supra note 33, at 21.

46. Ibid, at 84, 130 and 174.

47. Graham, Stephen (2002) ‘Clean Territory:’ urbicide in the West Bank, www.opendemocracy.net, http:// w w w. o p e n d e m o c r a c y. n e t / c o n f l i c t politicsverticality/article_241.jsp (last visited February 2006) 48. Assaf, Karen (1994), ‘Environmental problems affecting Palestinian women under Occupation’, in Tamar Mayer (ed) Women and the Israeli Occupation: the Politics of Change, London, Routledge pp 164178, at 173.

49. Ibid at 170.

50. Ibid at 169, and supra note 44 at 60.

51. Supra note 48 at 170.

52. Young, Elise G. (1994), ‘A feminist politics of health care: the case of Palestinian women under Israeli occupation 1979-1982’, in Tamar Mayer (ed), Women and the Israeli Occupation: the Politics of Change, London, Routledge, pp178-198, at187.

53. Supra note 48, at 171.

54. Supra note 52, at 188.

55. Ibid at 187.

56. Supra note 48, at 165.

57. Supra note 52, at 178.

18 Al-Aqsa

My War with Zionism Alan Hart*

E

vents at the time of writing oblige me to begin this article with a confession.

I am ashamed, deeply ashamed, to be a citizen of a nation with a government which, along with the Bush administration, is complicit in Israel’s collective punishment of two peoples – the Palestinians and the Lebanese. Collective punishment is a war crime, so it can and should be said that Prime Minister Blair and President Bush are complicit in the war crimes of Israel’s generals and those Israeli politicians who rubber stamp their demands.

What I think we have been witnessing in the Zionist state of Israel since 12 July 2006 – some would say since Israel’s unilateral declaration of existence in 1948 - is the emergence into the full light of day of the New Nazis – Zionist Nazis. And that’s not only the opinion of this Gentile.

On 15 June I chaired a panel presentation and debate at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University (SOAS) on the subject of “WHY ANTI-ZIONISM IS NOT ANTI-SEMITISM.” One of my four distinguished panellists was a German-born Jewish gentleman, Dr. Hajo Meyer. As a youth fighting in the Jewish underground, he was captured by the Gestapo in Holland and transported to Auschwitz. In other words, he is a holocaust survivor. On the platform he said that Israel’s behaviour could and should be likened to that of the Nazis in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.

It might well be that there is much more to Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon than collective punishment of a whole people as part and parcel of a stated objective – the destruction of Hezbollah as a Muslim David which can hit and hurt the Zionist Goliath.

In one possible scenario, the Zionist state’s real game plan is to ethnically cleanse Lebanon up to the Litani River, with a view to occupying and then annexing the ethnically cleansed territory. For Zionism this would be the fulfilment of the vision of modern Israel’s

founding father, David Ben-Gurion. His vision was of a Zionist state within “natural” borders, those borders being the Jordan River in the East and the Litani River of Lebanon in the north. Israel gained control of the Jordan River border in its 1967 war of expansion, but all of its attempts to date to establish the Litani border have failed.

It might also be that Zionism’s real game plan includes the installation of a Christian puppet government in Beirut, one that would make peace with Israel on Israel’s terms. In other words, Israel’s New Nazis may be seeking to succeed where Sharon failed in 1982. And it’s not impossible that this what the neo-cons in and around the Bush administration really want. They would view such an outcome to the recent events in Lebanon as proof that they can create “a new Middle East” on their terms.

In my opinion a new Middle East based on more Zionist ethnic cleansing, and the fortification of the Zionist state of Israel as the hammer of American policy in the region, would make the so-called “war against terrorism” (with Syria and Iran) less, not more, winnable. I think it would make a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, unstoppable. And perhaps that, a Clash of Civilisations, is also what the neocons and their Christian fundamentalist and Zionist allies really want.

It was to assist the understanding, so desperately needed, if the longest running conflict in all of human history is not to end in catastrophe for us all, that I devoted more than five years of my life to researching and writing Zionism: the Real Enemy of the Jews. It has two central and related themes.

One is how the modern state of Israel, the child of Zionism, became its own worst enemy and a threat not only to the peace of the region and the world, but also to the best interests of Jews everywhere and the moral integrity of Judaism itself.

the Zionist state’s real game plan is to ethnically cleanse Lebanon up to the Litani River, with a view to occupying and then annexing the ethnically cleansed territory

* ALAN HART is a former ITN and BBC Panorama reporter who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world. His latest book, an epic in two volumes, is ZIONISM: THE REAL ENEMY OF THE JEWS Al-Aqsa 19

It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of antiSemitism

It is a fact that prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust most informed and thoughtful Jews everywhere, including the very small number of Jews then living in Palestine who had maintained the Jewish presence on the land throughout everything and who regarded themselves as Palestinians, were opposed to Zionism’s colonial enterprise. Why? Because they believed it to be morally wrong. Because they feared that it would lead to unending conflict given the opposition of the entire Arab and Muslim world. And because they also feared that the creation in the Arab heartland of a Zionist state for some Jews (a minority) would not be in the best interests of those (the majority) who preferred to live, as they still do, as integrated citizens in the many lands of the mainly Gentile world.

A more recent expression of the latter fear can be found in Israel’s Fateful Hour

by Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s longest serving and most enlightened Director of Military Intelligence. In this seminal book, published in English in 1988, Harkabi wrote the following (my emphasis added): “Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism.

Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.”

The other central and related theme is why, really, the whole Arab and wider Muslim world is an explosion of frustration and despair waiting for its time to happen.

In this context I describe the Palestine problem as the cancer at the heart of international affairs; and I summarise what I mean with this statement. If an America President had a magic wand, and if he could wave it to get Israel back behind its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war, with Jerusalem an open city and the capital of two states, he would have (with one wave of the wand) the thanks, respect and support of not less than 95 percent of all Arabs and Muslims everywhere.

20 Al-Aqsa

The way to put violent Islamic fundamentalism out of business is not with bombs and bullets (the neo-con and Zionist way) and draconian “anti-terror” legislation which degrades the human and civil rights of all, but by curing the cancer at the heart of international affairs, the cure being justice for the Palestinians.

I insisted on Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews as the title because it reflects in seven words two related truths for our time. The first is that the sleeping giant of antiSemitism has been re-awakened. The second is that the prime cause of the re-awakening is the behaviour of Zionism’s arrogant, selfrighteous and aggressive child, Israel.

Do I really believe that a book could help to change the course of history?

Yes, in principle, if… If with it, and the assistance of peoples of all faiths and none who share my passion for the truth of history, I can succeed in setting a new agenda for informed and honest debate about who must do what and why for justice and peace in the Middle East; by definition a debate on something other than Zionism’s terms.

Why, really, is such a debate needed?

From the Nazi holocaust and Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence in 1948 to the present, informed and honest debate has not been possible throughout the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world. Why not? Because its first and still existing draft of history – which to my shame today I helped to write as an ITN and Panorama reporter – is constructed on Zionist mythology.

The core assertion of this mythology is that poor little Israel has lived in danger of annihilation – the “driving into the sea” of its Jews. The truth of history, which flows fully documented through both volumes is that Israel’s existence has never, ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab force. Not in 1948. Not in 1956. Not in 1967. And not even in 1973.

1948 It is true that on 15 May 1948 it was the Arabs, elements of the armies of five states – Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Transjordan – which initiated the first ArabIsraeli war in response to Israel’s unilateral declaration of existence. But the prospect of Israel being annihilated was not a real one accept in Zionist mythology, which was able to present itself as truth to the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world because of the ignorance of public opinion and the bellicose rhetoric of some Arab spokesmen;

and this against the background of the Nazi holocaust.

In reality as opposed to rhetoric, the Arabs had neither the ability nor the intention to destroy the Zionist state at birth. The actual intention of those Arab leaders who went through the motions of fighting Israel was to hold the territory assigned to the Arab state of the UN General Assembly’s partition plan – to prevent the Zionists grabbing it, too. During a 30-day truce which ended on 9 July, the IDF came formally into being with 60,000 men added to its fighting strength. When the war was resumed it was no contest. Some 90,000 wellarmed Israelis were taking on not more than 21,000 Arab regular soldiers who were without the ammunition and weapons to offer more than token resistance. From that point on it was the Arab (Palestinian) state of the partition plan that was in danger of annihilation. Not the Zionist state. And from this point on, Israel was, actually, the Goliath.

Still today there is a great deal of ignorance about what really happened in the countdown to the first Arab-Israeli war and whether or not Israel has “a right to exist”.

The truth is that because of the circumstances of its creation, the Zionist state of Israel had no right to exist unless….. Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians can give Israel the legitimacy it craves.

According to first and still existing draft of history, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947.

In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.

Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.

The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the US knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented

by force; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.

So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what to do about Palestine was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the US was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what to do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence.

The truth of the time was that the Zionist state came into being as a consequence of Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

A question raised by the events of the time is, why did President Truman give the unilaterally declared State of Israel de facto recognition and thus an apparent degree of legitimacy, and why, also, was he the first to give it?

The answer according to those who have bothered to ask the question is that Truman did what he did, probably against his own best judgement and certainly against the advice of his Secretaries of Defence and State, to secure the Jewish votes and campaign funds needed to guarantee his reelection for a second term. But there is another possible explanation. Truman may have feared that if America did not recognise the self-declared state of Israel and was not the first to do, the Soviet Union would be the first and that Israel would then look to it not the U.S. for superpower backing.

I think there is sufficient evidence to support the view that Ben-Gurion had Truman put on notice that Israel would play its cards through the Soviet Union if the U.S. was not the first to recognise Israel. And I speculate that Truman’s real problem was that he did not know whether Ben-Gurion was bluffing or not.

The actual intention of those Arab leaders who went through the motions of fighting Israel was to hold the territory assigned to the Arab state of the UN General Assembly’s partition plan

1956 If governments had had their way, we would still be ignorant of what really happened in 1956. But today there are no serious historians or writers of any kind who dispute the truth – that Israel went to war with Nasser’s Egypt in a conspiracy with France and Britain. There is also no dispute about how this war ended. President Eisenhower read the riot act to the conspirators, and then confronted Zionism by insisting that Israel withdraw unconditionally from the Egyptian territory it Al-Aqsa 21

The truth about that war only begins with the statement that the Arabs did not attack and were not intending to attack

had occupied while doing the dirty work for France and Britain, and from which it had not been intending to withdraw unconditionally.

When Kennedy entered the White House it was his intention to continue Eisenhower’s policy of seeking to contain both Zionism and the MIC (Military Industrial Complex). If he had been allowed to live there would not have been a shift of U.S. policy in favour of Israel right or wrong; in all probability the1967 war would not have happened – Greater Israel would not have been created; and the Zionist state would not have been allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Really?

That, on balance, is my conclusion and why Volume Two begins with a chapter headed “Turning Point – The Assassination of President Kennedy”.

Dayan, Zionism’s warlord and master of deception. Four days after Dayan got the portfolio he wanted, and the hawks had secured the green light from the Johnson administration to smash Egypt’s air and ground forces, Israel went to war.

What actually happened in Israel in the final countdown to that war was something very close to a military coup, executed quietly behind closed doors without a shot being fired. For Israel’s hawks the war of 1967 was part of the unfinished business of 1948/49 – to create Greater Israel with all of Jerusalem its capital. (In reality Israel’s hawks set a trap for Nasser and, for reasons of face, he was daft enough to walk into it).

1967 Nearly four decades on from the Six-Day War of June 1967 which resulted in the creation of Greater Israel, almost all Jews everywhere, and very many Gentiles, still believe that Israel went to war either because the Arabs attacked (that was Israel’s first claim), or because the Arabs were intending to attack (thus requiring Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike).

For ITN I was the first Western correspondent to the banks of the Suez Canal with the advancing Israelis; and because of the quality of my contacts – they included one of the founding fathers of Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence - I was privy to some of the plotting behind closed doors on the Israeli side in the countdown to war.

The truth about that war only begins with the statement that the Arabs did not attack and were not intending to attack. The complete truth includes the following facts:

Israel’s prime minister of the time, the much maligned Levi Eshkol, did not want to take his country to war. And nor did his chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin. They wanted only very limited military action, an operation far, far short of war, to put pressure on the international community to cause Egypt’s President Nasser to reopen the Straits of Tiran.

Israel went to war because its military and political hawks insisted that the Arabs were about to attack. They, Israel’s hawks, knew that was nonsense, but they promoted it to undermine Eshkol by portraying him to the country as weak.

The climax to the campaign to rubbish Eshkol, who was wise not weak, was a demand by the hawks that he surrender the defence portfolio and give it to Moshe 22 Al-Aqsa

1973 On 7 October 1973 it was the Arabs – the Egyptians and the Syrians – who initiated the fighting. But… Their intention was only to liberate (take back) territory Israel occupied in 1967, in Egypt’s case only a small amount of it, to give Henry Kissinger the opportunity to get a peace process going – a peace process in which Israel prior to that war had no interest. At that moment in history, even Kissinger was troubled by Israel’s intransigence and the threat he believed it posed to America’s and Israel’s own best, real interests in the region.

Question: How did Zionism get away with it?

The short answer is publishing and media complicity in the suppression of the truth of history.

My own experience of this complicity can be summarised as follows.

To get the first book published in the UK, I had to set up my own publishing company, (World Focus Publishing). This despite the fact that my literary agent had on file letters of rare praise for my work from some of the chiefs of the major, conglomerate-owed publishing houses. One letter, as I note in the Acknowledgements of Volume One, described my manuscript as “awesome… driven by passion, commitment and profound learning.” This letter added: “There is no question it deserves to be published.” But, out of fear of offending Zionism, they were all too frightened to publish. Sadly, and as many authors including Jewish critics of Zionism know, that’s par for the course in the conglomerate-owned world of book publishing.

Why, you might ask, are major publishing houses everywhere (including some with Jewish ownership) frightened of offending Zionism?

Behind closed doors on one of many visits to America I was given an answer by a number of publishing executives. I was in New York trying to interest them in my first book, Arafat, Terrorist or Peacemaker? It was published in the UK by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1984 and subsequently in updated editions over a decade.

It was the first ever book to tell Arafat’s side of the story as told to me by the man himself and his most senior leadership colleagues. The conclusion it invited, and which I asked readers to consider, was that Arafat had completed a journey into reality, the reality of Israel’s existence, and was ready to make peace on terms which any rational government and people in Israel would accept with relief.

In New York a number of publishing executives said they really would like to take the book on. Some even declared that it was well written. But each in turn said they could not publish it. Naturally I asked why. The answer I was given was that “our friends” (supporters of Israel right or wrong) would organise boycotts of major stores carrying my book and, as a consequence, no books in the boycotted stores would sell.

There’s much more that could be said about how, over the years, Zionism has used its awesome influence to prevent the publication of books which exposed its version of history for the propaganda nonsense it mainly is; but those are revelations for another time and place.

When I had secured access for Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews to the retail trade in the UK (bookshops and on-line Amazon), something I was not supposed to be able to do, I assumed that I had overcome Zionism’s veto on truth-telling. How naïve I was!

Because conflict in the Middle East is a hot and almost constantly running news story, my book is topical and timely, so I had also assumed that the media – some mainstream newspapers and some TV and radio programmes – would give it and me some attention. However, the mainstream media refused to give my book any attention, review or other; and this despite the fact that in the months prior to publication of the first hardback edition of Volume One, I put great effort into seeking the interest of the literary editors and/or editors of most major newspapers in the UK, and programme decision makers in TV and radio organisations. In addition to briefing them in writing on what I regarded as the significance of the book and the need for the information it provides, I invited them to receive advance copies of both

volumes. Not one of the media people to whom I wrote, repeat not one, had the courtesy even to acknowledge my overtures.

In total I sent 21 letters with enclosures to different BBC production people and programme editors. None of them responded. And when I wrote challenging letters asking why not to Chair man Michael Grade and Director General Mark Thomson, all I received in reply, eventually, was unsatisfactory and silly responses from an information officer.

At senior management level the BBC is more terrified of offending Zionism than any other media organisation. Just how frightened (perhaps I should say intimidated) BBC news executives are is indicated by the following comment one of them made in conversation with Greg Philo, director of Glasgow University’s internationally respected Media Group.

“We live in fear of the incoming call from the Israelis. When it comes we ask only two questions. The first is: From what level did it come – the press office of the Israeli embassy, the ambassador himself or an Israeli government minister? The second is: To what level in the BBC’s chain of command did it go – to a middle order executive or all the way to the top, Director General or Chairman?” (This executive went on to say to Greg, “If you quote me by name, I’ll deny it.”)

In many cases the media’s refusal to come to grips with the difference between Zionist mythology and the documented truth of history is born of self-censorship

In many cases the media’s refusal to come to grips with the difference between Zionist mythology and the documented truth of history is born of self-censorship out of fear of offending Zionism.

But why, you might ask, is the media frightened of offending Zionism?

One part of the answer is in the fact that since the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust – a Gentile crime for which, effectively, the Arabs were punished – the charge of antiSemitism is a blackmail card Zionism has played, ruthlessly and brilliantly, to silence criticism of Israel and suppress informed and honest debate about who must do what and why for justice and peace in the Middle East. The point is that there’s nothing media people (and politicians and all in public life) fear more than being accused of antiSemitism, even when they know the charge is false. They just don’t want the hassle of having to deal with it.

The other main cause of self-censorship is the fear managements have of their newspapers or their commercial TV and Al-Aqsa 23

radio stations being punished by the withdrawal of advertising revenue (In 1984 The Observer changed its mind about running extracts from my Arafat book on the advice of its then advertising manager).

Because I am aware of the media’s fear of offending Zionism, I emphasised in my overtures to literary editors and others that Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews is the opposite of anti-Semitic, and contains the call of a concerned and caring Gentile, me, for the Jews to become the light unto nations. My summary view of how they could become that is contained in the text on the back cover of Volume Two, and I drew this text to the attention of all the media people to whom I wrote. It reads as follows: If the Jews of the diaspora can summon up the will and the courage to make common cause with the forces of reason in Israel before it is too late for us all, a very great prize awaits them. By demonstrating that right can triumph over might, and that there is a place for morality in politics, they would become the light unto nations. It is a prize available to no other people on earth because of the uniqueness of the suffering of the Jews. Perhaps that is the real point of the idea of the Jews as Chosen People… Chosen to endure unique suffering and, having

endured it, to show the rest of us that creating a better and more just world is not a mission impossible.

I had hoped that those words, from my heart, would inspire at least some media people to find the courage to take the risk of offending Zionism, but they didn’t.

Nearly a year on from the publication the Wall of Silence the media has constructed around it, and the documented truth of history it represents, is as solid as ever.

When I joined ITN as a very young reporter, it’s then Editor-in-Chief, Geoffrey Cox, gave me a most explicit mission statement. Our job, he said, like that of the media as a whole, was to “sustain democracy” – to help keep it alive by providing the infor mation which makes possible the informed and honest debate which is the very lifeblood of democracy. By its complicity in the suppression of the truth of history as it relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, I think the media has betrayed democracy.

I wrote Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews not only to set a new agenda for informed and honest debate, but to empower citizens of all faiths and none, so-called ordinary folk especially, to become engaged and participate in debate.

Information on Palestine

www.aqsa.org.uk Journal – Referenced articles from previous issues of Al Aqsa.

Newsletter – Quarterly printed by Friends of Al Aqsa.

Publications – History of al Masjidul Aqsa and Guide to al Masjidul Aqsa.

Flyers – On Jerusalem, Refugees, al Masjidul Aqsa, UN Resolutions and Much More.

News From Palestine – Important news and views from Palestine.

Photographic Gallery – Photos from the ground in Palestine.

Book Reviews – Reviews on books related to Palestinian issues.

PLUS * CAMPAIGNS * ACTIVITIES * EVENTS

24 Al-Aqsa

AND

* MUCH, MUCH MORE

Israel’s Seperation Wall: Apartheid, Illicit Legitimate Self-Defence James Barrett* Introduction – Outlining the Wall in Palestine In assessing the nature of the “Separation Wall”, it is first necessary to sketch out its physical characteristics. In the West Bank, the route of the final Wall will be approximately 700 km long.1 Over 300 km of the Wall was finished by February 2006. The first stage of the project in the West Bank began in Jenin district in mid-2002, costing $4.7 million per kilometre. Construction cut deep into Palestinian lands, running southwards from the north-western side of the West Bank. The second stage of the Wall saw this process continue further south, through the districts of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron where construction is ongoing. The total western route of the Wall, confirmed by the Occupation Forces in January 2005, annexes 9.5% of the West Bank, isolates Palestinian communities from their lands, and bars Palestinians from their capital Jerusalem.2 In the east of the West Bank, a third stage of the Wall project is beginning to take shape, enabling the annexation of the Jordan Valley to the Occupation. Meanwhile, a Wall built in the 1990s already imprisons Gaza’s population of 1.3 million. The Wall here – which is not built on the 1949 “Green Line” but on Gaza’s lands – is being bolstered by the current construction of a second Wall. This seals the Strip’s status as the world’s largest open-air ghetto.

Mainstream media and international agencies such as OCHA and the EU tend to ignore the presence of the Wall beyond that which runs on the western side of the West Bank. Together with a lack of cognisance for the way in which the Wall is designed to cut Palestinian towns and villages off from their lands, it has helped to fuel misguided perceptions that the Wall forms a separation or barrier between Jews and Palestinians. To the contrary, we will demonstrate that it forms a highly effective tool to divide and imprison Palestinians into a series of

miserable and disparate cantons, for the direct benefit of the Occupation and the expansion of its settlements.

Moreover, the Wall takes on various forms often negated in coverage and analysis of the Occupation of Palestine. From the daunting 8 meter-high concrete structure, to razor wire reinforced fences, to militarised settlement infrastructure and fenced in settler-only roads, the Wall in Palestine is a myriad of forms that prevents Palestinian movement and steals Palestinian land. Taken together, we suggest that the Wall advances a specific system of Apartheid that confines Palestinians to ghettos and appropriates their lands. Creating a hellish existence for Palestinians trapped behind the Wall and its fortified checkpoints, a total of 50% of the West Bank is being stolen by the Apartheid Wall project. It facilitates settlement expansion currently being stepped up on Palestinian lands from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. In Gaza, where 85% of the population are refugees from 1948, the Wall serves as a permanent barrier to their right of return, in clear defiance of international law and convention.

We will argue that the Wall continues a project begun in 1948 when the Nakba forcibly drove over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes into exile. Over the last 58 years the Occupation has sought by various means to facilitate the exile of Palestinians from their lands, as well as controlling, regulating and profiting from Palestinian life under Occupation.3 This has created a dualism to Israeli colonialism, which distinguishes it from other forms of imperialism, racism and Apartheid. Thus a brief deconstruction of Israel as an Apartheid and pariah state will flesh out important similarities, but also fundamental differences, with experiences of Apartheid in South Africa.

it forms a highly effective tool to divide and imprison Palestinians into a series of miserable and disparate cantons, for the direct benefit of the Occupation and the expansion of its settlements

* JAMES BARRETT studied history (BA Hons.) at the University of Sheffield and obtained a Masters in Politics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg , South Africa. His thesis explored anti-capitalist social movements in pre and post-Apartheid South Africa. He is also a founding member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee at Wits.

Al-Aqsa 25

Buying into the “security” rhetoric forges complicity with the Wall project and the catastrophic realities it entails

In conclusion, our analysis will suggest that any portrayal of the Wall as “security” apparatus is misguided and buys into the discourse and aims of the Occupation. Israel as an occupying and colonial power cannot claim legitimate selfdefence until it fulfils the obligations it has under international law and convention to respect the intrinsic rights of the Palestinian people to their lands, and provide adequate reparations for the injustices they have suffered over the last 58 years. While the Wall is illicit, and has been declared illegal by the highest organ of international law in The Hague (the International Court of Justice – ICJ), we will argue that characterising the Wall as “illicit” or “illegal” cannot possibly encompass the ideological framework under which it is being created and the realities it shapes. We will suggest that while both “separation” and “illicit” reflect some characteristics of the Wall, they remain inferior definitions if compared to the overall dynamics emphasized by the terminology of the “Apartheid Wall”.

Through its enclosure of Palestinian life, racist segregation, and land annexation, the Wall requires people of conscience from across the global community to stand side by side with Palestinians struggling under the latest stages of the most brutal military Occupation.

Understanding that the central tenet of the Israeli Occupation is based upon an imposed system of Apartheid which necessitates resistance provides an analysis from which bonds of solidarity can be strengthened with Palestinians struggling for their freedom and liberation.

The Wall as a “Security Barrier”: Rhetoric and Reality Significant attempts by Zionists, in and outside Israel, to suggest the Wall is a “security” mechanism or barrier, have had some resonance within the way mainstream media and international institutions alike portray the Occupation of Palestine. In mass media the Wall is all too often presented as some kind of division between two peoples seen as being in some kind of inextricable conflict with each other. With no historical context of the Occupation of Palestine and the right of an occupied people to resist, popular Western news is often littered with references to Palestinian suicide bombers and the Wall as a final measure forced upon Israel to protect its citizens and borders. It has been described as a “temporary” measure that can be dismantled once Palestinian “terror” has ended. Popular statistics churned out to justify the Wall include the drop in bombings and reduction in Palestinian militancy since its construction.

26 Al-Aqsa

Moreover, the largely cosmetic changes made over the route of one section of the Wall – announced by the Occupation Forces in February 2005 – was viewed in some quarters as proof of Israel as a moderate and sincere force capable of making compromises for the sake of “peace”.4 The myth and hype around “disengagement” was also tainted by such distortion, failing to show any comprehension that Israel was actively engaged in the further conquest of Palestinian land in the West Bank while making Gaza a fortified prison.

Denying the role of historical context in determining Palestinian resistance, and negating the continual conquest of Palestinian land by Israel, forges an understanding of the “security” Wall and selfdefence, which is profoundly politicised within the Zionist ideology that Palestine and Palestinians don’t exist. Buying into the “security” rhetoric forges complicity with the Wall project and the catastrophic realities it entails. Yet, perhaps more dangerous, is that such complicity does not restrict itself to popular western media, but dominates the policies and actions of significant players in the international community.

Israel, The World Bank and International Community: Complicit Partners in Crime Acceptance of the myth around Israeli expansionism as “self-defense” by influential global powers has helped to shape the conditions by which the Wall and Occupation become sustainable. It is useful to briefly elaborate on the role of such agencies if we are to deconstruct claims over “security” functions of the Wall.

One of the most influential external institutions working in Palestine – and which works to promote the crimes of the Occupation – is the World Bank. Its history in the region dates to the early 1990s when the Bank were approached by the organizers of the 1992 “Middle East Peace Talks”, headed by the USA, to prepare a study of “economic prospects and development challenges”.5 This culminated in the report of September 1993, “Developing the Occupied Territories: An Investment in Peace”. So suitably impressed with the World Bank’s negation of the cr ucial precursors for genuine development such as dismantling the settlements, ending the Occupation and actualising the right of return for refugees, that the Bank was praised by global players for being “technically competent and politically

neutral.”6 When the Oslo Accords were signed, the Bank took on responsibility for coordinating development and investment in the WBGS. One of its first tasks was to create the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to administer the disparate Bantustans of the WBGS. It established an economic formula based upon neo-liberal, export based principles, together with the “security” reservations of the Occupation, shaping a highly politicised brand of “development”. The Bank became deeply entwined with policy making mechanisms within the PNA and consistently threatened – on occasion doing so – to withhold “aid” when the Authority failed to meet the conditionalities being imposed.7 The Al-Aqsa Intifada reflected a fundamental rejection of Oslo, and specifically the creation of a fractured Palestinian Bantu-State, in which the Bank were playing an important role in attempting to construct and make viable.

By 2003, as the intensity of the Intifada declined (after the killings and imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians), the Bank rekindled its relationships with the institutions it had built in the PNA and began to proselytise the form of “development” needed to reinforce what it called the “peace process”. This led to the publication of two key documents in 2004. The larger of the two reports, “Stagnation or Revival?

Israeli Disengagement and Palestinian Economic Prospects”, made a series of premises that once again revealed an acceptance by the Bank of the Occupation’s realities on the ground and now included the Apartheid Wall.8 The Bank, unsurprisingly given its history as a strong supporter of the Occupation, welcomed the construction of the Wall in two ways. Firstly, for producing the conditions by which the “security” requirements of the Occupation could be met in regards to concerns over the use of cheap Palestinian labour. 9 Arguing they could be efficiently screened and funnelled through the terminals in the Wall, the Bank pleaded with Israel to change its position after Ehud Olmert announced that from 2008 there would be no more Israeli work permits for Palestinians from the WBGS. Moreover, the Bank has strategically placed plans for massive industrial zones around the Wall in order to meet the “security” requirements of business interests. 10 The Bank sees opportunities for development stemming from the abundance of cheap labour in Palestine – currently being increased by the Wall stripping far ming communities of their lands – and seeks their integration into the industrial zones. This forms the prototype for Palestinian development; mass export production by a cheap workforce, locked behind walls, for the benefit of foreign consumers and profits.

Secondly, the Wall has been welcomed for creating a climate in which other closures in Palestine can be removed. Ex-Bank President James Wolfensohn is currently engaged in the role of “special envoy”, overseeing disengagement and some of the Bank’s operations on the ground. He expects a reduction in checkpoints because the “security barrier” has rendered them “obsolete”.11 He calls for roadblocks, internal permits and other closures to be removed as “taken together, this system constitutes a formidable barrier to economic efficiency.”

He states that discussions need to focus on concrete steps to reduce “these barriers” but not the Wall.12 Wolfensohn’s belief, that he is striking a “creative balance between security and development”, believe the emphasis he has placed on coordinating “development” in the West Bank which is centred upon the permanency of the Apartheid Wall.13 It reveals the acceptance of evershrinking Palestinian areas and the building of “state” infrastructure that continues Palestinian dependency upon Israel as an occupying and colonial state. Meanwhile the illegality of checkpoints and zones which fit in with the infrastructure of the Wall has not deterred the Bank from pursuing their construction as part of the export orientated economy. It cites how such projects can go ahead on the basis of “humanitarian” grounds.14 The United States has provided considerable funding for these fortified terminal checkpoints, to the tune of $150 million, in direct support of the Occupation project.

The Bank recently stated how it was working to continue work permits for cheap Palestinian labour so that: “Israel would cushion the shock that completion of the Separation Barrier will otherwise cause to the Palestinian labour market, while replacing illegal labour with an equivalent quantity of permitted – hence safer – laborers.”15 The Bank’s manipulation of the Wall, and its willingness to buy into the “security” arguments of the Occupation, are at odds with international law and the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people. The international financial institution (IFI) is considerably powerful and influential in shaping the economic policies in the “developing” world, and its role in Palestine is significant. With the mandate of the Quartet, the Bank has and is playing a central role in legitimising the Wall by treating it as a necessary security feature. Headed by archZionist Paul Wolfensohn, the policy makers of the Bank in Washington are engaged in

With the mandate of the Quartet, the Bank has and is playing a central role in legitimising the Wall by treating it as a necessary security feature

Al-Aqsa 27

More blatant have been the comments of “Defence” Minister Mofaz, who has outlined the intentions of the Occupation Forces in re-defining the borders of Israel

developing the means by which Palestinians can be “calmed” and coerced into willing players in a peace process where they suffer further dispossession.16 In order to circumvent international law and whitewash their crimes, the Bank and powers within the international donor community, have created the most outlandish euphemism behind which they justify their actions: “for the benefit of Palestinians”. 17 Taken with the Orwellian double-speak around notions of terror, peace and justice, such discourse has contributed to the climate in which the Wall has been removed from reality and cast as a legitimate and justified security measure. Yet if some powerful elements of the global community have attempted to cloak the role of the Wall, creating illusion and fantasy, statements from the Israeli Occupation Forces themselves have revealed the real role of the Wall as a political device of colonial conquest.

They have felt no need to make secret the motives of the Wall in securing Occupation expansion upon Palestinian land. It is here where we begin to discern the discrepancies between the rhetoric of Zionists and their sympathisers, and the realities being inflicted upon the Palestinian people.

Creating Facts on the Ground

the ICJ called upon the international community not to “recognize nor render aid and assistance to the Wall

28 Al-Aqsa

In understanding the impetus for the Wall, we need look no further than the numerous comments made by figures and institutions within the Occupation Forces. They have felt little reason to conceal Israel’s actions within the rhetoric of “self-defense”, shedding light on the Zionist mentality behind the latest round of colonial expansion on Palestinian land.

In 2005 Israeli “Justice Minister” Tzipi Livni noted to a conference in Caesarea that, “One does not have to be a genius to see that the fence will have implications for the future border.”18 The Occupation’s High Court, when considering the Wall in Qalqiliya, stated: “We were completely unconvinced that there is a decisive military-security reason for placing the route of the fence where it currently runs”.19 More blatant have been the comments of “Defence” Minister Mofaz, who has outlined the intentions of the Occupation Forces in redefining the borders of Israel. He stated the future borders would encompass “the settlement blocs, including the Jordan Valley” adding that: “Israel is taking a step to shape a new reality.

Disengagement will continue after Gaza.

Together with the Fence in Judea and Samaria [West Bank] it will bring a strategic achievement, enforce real negotiations and coexistence in defensible borders.” 20 Mofaz also noted the Wall’s role in maintaining the demographics of Israel in which Palestinians are a minority.

Such comments require little elaboration and are not considered unusual in Israeli society where a popular anti-Zionist movement has yet to take shape. For the moment, the society continues to be hinged upon the continual colonisation and domination of Palestinian land, creating and re-creating facts on the ground.

The motivations and ideology which underpin the Wall project have been understood by Palestinians from the Wall’s inception, and recognised as further stage in Israeli colonialism. The comments of the Occupation Forces dispel any myths around the legitimate “security” or “self-defense” of Israel, and reinforce the assertions consistently made by Palestinians. It was their petitions and refusal to accept the Wall, which raised its profile on a global level, and was in part responsible for the issue reaching the ICJ in The Hague in 2004.

The Wall and International Law Palestinian calls and resistance to the Wall brought the attention of the highest organ of international law, the ICJ in The Hague.

After several months of deliberations the court declared the Wall to be illegal, called for it to be immediately dismantled and for suitable reparations to be made available to Palestinians whose lives had been destroyed by it. Moreover, in the ruling made on the 9 th of July 2004, the ICJ called upon the international community not to “recognize nor render aid and assistance to the Wall”.21 The ruling was subsequently supported by an overwhelming majority of states in the United Nations General Assembly (GA), meeting opposition from just a handful of the usual suspects such as the United States.

The subsequent failure of the international community to implement the ICJ decision, and apply the necessary pressure on Israel, has caused much resentment amongst Palestinians for the double standards shown by the most powerful global powers. Moreover, it repeats the familiar narrative in which the international community have consistently failed to act in ways which can secure the rights of the Palestinian people. While the ICJ and the UN were both clear regarding the illegality of the Wall, it has not catalysed any serious international effort to support the Palestinian people who challenge the Wall with their bare hands on a daily basis. To the contrary, companies from across the world are allowed to continue to reap profits from the Wall and Occupation expansion, at the expense of the blood, tears and misery of

Palestinians.22 The United States provides direct funding for the Wall’s fortified terminals. The World Bank works to create industrial zones around the Wall for the benefit of global capital, creating the most devastating system of racial capital seen since the days of Apartheid South Africa. While international agencies such as the UN remain idle, and thus complicit partners in the Israeli project, global powers such as the US are actively engaged in the attack upon Palestinian communities. The Palestinian right to resist remains as vital now as ever before.

The Palestinian Right to Resist Given the scenario we have outlined, any basic analysis of the Wall in Palestine leads to the realisation of the basic Palestinian right to resist a military Occupation. This Occupation, to the contrary of abating, increases in its temerity via the Wall on a daily basis. House demolitions, confiscation orders for Palestinian land, assassinations, expansion of settlements and their roads, incursions and harassment at checkpoints, form the daily experience of Palestinians in the West Bank. In Gaza, the Occupation continues as before, leaving Palestinians ghettoised and cut-off from the rest of the world. The following quote from the Israeli Disengagement Plan (IDP) of 2005 illustrates the nature of such an Occupation: “Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip.”23 Israel states that, “the completion of the plan will serve to dispel the claims regarding Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”. 24 However, international conventions suggest otherwise. The consensus within international law for describing the status of an Occupation can be seen within notions of “effective control” over a population. Stemming from the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Gaza Strip is still considered under such definitions as under “effective Occupation”, thus reasserting the right for Palestinians to continue their resistance. Moreover, the Wall around Gaza is not built on the 1949 Armistice Lines, and the majority of the population are waiting to fulfil their right to return to their homes and communities in the 1948 areas. Indeed, until the latter goal is achieved, “self defence” via the construction of a Wall around Gaza can never be justified as a legitimate measure by Israel. The increasing severity of the Occupation and the Wall has sharpened the

experiences of racism and Apartheid for Palestinians in the WBGS, who are denied the most basic rights and freedoms, and struggle under conditions that threaten a new Nakba in the 21st century.

Israel’s Wall: An Apartheid Mechanism “There are few places in the world where governments construct a web of nationality and residency laws designed for use by one section of the population against another.

Apartheid South Africa was one. So is Israel.”25 Chris McGreal - January 2006 So far we have only touched upon the conditions of Palestinian life in the WBGS, and pointed to the impact that the Wall has for Palestinians squeezed into tighter ghettos, isolated from their lands. However, the Wall is equally fundamental in the role it plays for Palestinian life remaining in Israel. It is here that we might begin to piece together the ways in which the Wall is designed to elaborate a twin system of Apartheid.

The first goal of the Wall is, as Mofaz revealed, to protect the demographic Jewish majority in Israel, and to expand this through the re-creation of borders and Jewish settlements. The Wall acts to shut Palestinians out from their capital, prevents any contiguous Palestinian state and serves to sustain the demographics of Israel in which Jews make up around 80% of the total population. McGreal’s comments point to the systematic discrimination against the 1.1 million Palestinians who hold Israeli IDs. These Palestinians face a plethora of discriminatory laws and practices, which control and regulate every aspect of life.

93% of the land is reserved for exclusive Jewish use through state ownership, the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Lands Authority. This has halted any natural expansion of Palestinian areas, while Palestinians remaining in the Negev and Galilee are surrounded by new Jewish-only settlements funded with grants from the United States.26 From de-facto pass laws, restrictions on movement, house demolitions, denial of access to basic services such as electricity and water, to the propagation of Zionist propaganda in the educational curriculum, Israel is characterized by a political, social and cultural system in which racism and oppression are central. It is not necessary to detail every element of Israeli Apartheid this has been done convincingly elsewhere but for us to make the basic assertion that Israeli society is one which bears a marked

the Wall is designed to elaborate a twin system of Apartheid

Israel is characterized by a political, social and cultural system in which racism and oppression are central

Al-Aqsa 29

Contiguity for Israeli settlements is assured through an elaborate system of Apartheid bypass roads which yield total Occupation control of the land

30 Al-Aqsa

resemblance to that of the previous regime in South Africa.27 However the Wall fulfils another fundamental role, squeezing Palestinians in the 1967 areas into ever-tighter ghettos and Bantustans in which they can be totally controlled. Existence is suffocated to the extent that livelihoods are crushed, life becomes unbearable, and exodus becomes an inevitable outcome. It is worth pausing here to draw out a few examples of how the Wall creates the catastrophic conditions by which to secure continuous Palestinian exile.

The first stage of the Wall entailed construction throughout the districts of Qalqiliya, Tulkarem and Jenin. Cutting in deeply from the “Green Line”, the Wall isolated huge chunks of Palestinian land and weaved in and out to annex the settlements. Palestinian communities found themselves isolated from their farming lands and basic resources such as groundwater wells. Initially Occupation Forces set up a “permit system” which would supposedly lead to continued access for Palestinians to their arable lands. For the first few years after the presence of the Wall, a few permits were granted, often arbitrarily and subject to restrictions whenever deemed necessary by Occupation Forces. As a result Palestinian crops rotted and livelihoods were destroyed. However, even such limited Palestinian access has now begun to come to an end. Over the last few months, permits have been withdrawn and steps are being taken to incorporate isolated Palestinian lands into settlements or new military camps.28 In Qalqiliya city itself, the population is completely encircled by the Wall. A single military checkpoint provides the only entrance and exit to the ghetto. In total, 41,600 people in what was the regional administrative and economic centre are now cut-off from the rest of the world, and subject to Occupation behind Walls.

Already, over 4000 people have left.

As the Wall runs southwards, it continues to dispossess Palestinian communities of their farming lands. In Jerusalem, 181 kilometres of Wall is being constructed in order to shut Palestinians out of the city and strip away their lands for the expansion of the settlements. This is creating an exodus of Palestinian social and cultural organisations, businesses, and institutions into the cantons of the West Bank and devastating Jerusalem.

In Bethlehem district, two Walls work in parallel to each other to imprison Palestinians.

A total of 71,000 dunums of land are taken in the district, with the Apartheid Wall encroaching into the heart of Bethlehem city to annex Rachel’s Tomb (Bihal Mosque). Villages around Bethlehem are totally isolated between two Walls

enabling the Gush Etzion settlement bloc to expand by 40% on confiscated lands. These villages already lost large amounts of land after 1948 and life will now be unbearable after the latest theft. Checkpoints built into the Wall and the fenced in settler-only highway roads reveal Occupation infrastructure working in tandem to prevent Palestinian movement. Contiguity for Israeli settlements is assured through an elaborate system of Apartheid bypass roads which yield total Occupation control of the land.29 Meanwhile, in the Jordan Valley, massive settlement expansion schemes are underway.

Working within the framework of the third stage of the Apartheid Wall project, Palestinians who use the Valley to grow crops and for pasture are being expelled, and their lands per manently annexed by the Occupation.

The Valley is a rich fertile area, the traditional and historic centre of agriculture for various Palestinian farming communities including Bedouins. Providing access to significant water reserves and the hilltops that overlook the West Bank, the Valley has long been a key target for the Occupation. Since 1967, 21 colonies have been built in the Valley, currently occupied by 6300 settlers.

Israeli agricultural minister Binyamin Rom pronounced in an interview with Ha‘aretz newspaper (8/9/2004) that Israel’s intentions are to confiscate 32,000 dunums of land to expand these settlements. This includes 3,200 dunums used as military camps that will be evacuated and handed over to Jewish settlers.

The remaining 28,800 dunums will be confiscated directly from the Palestinian population.

Rom explained how the vast amount of land should be secured for Jewish rule and supremacy: “The plan which has already won approval from within different ministries will increase the number of residents in 21 settlements by 50 percent in a year and then by a further 50 percent in the following year.”

The full extent of the land theft is laid bare from some basic statistics. Out of 2,400 km2 that make up the territory of the Jordan Valley, 455.7 km2 is already designated as “military closed areas.” This project will put a total of 1655.5 km 2 of lands under the control of already existing settlements. The total figure of confiscated lands will reach 2354.2 km2. This leaves only 45 km2 of lands for Palestinians use, 10km2 of which is taken up by built up areas.

By the end of 2005, this process was well underway. Palestinians were being cut off from the entire eastern sector of the West

Bank. Farming communities were under attack, suffering house and property demolitions and in some instances forced expulsion. A state driven Zionist development project invested 60 million NIS ($13 million) in 2004, joined by an additional 58 million NIS ($11 million) in 2005, with a further 85 million NIS ($19 million) slated for 2006- 2008.

Development of Apartheid infrastructure to ensure the permanent annexation of this land will develop from the fenced in settler roads and highways which already pepper the landscape of the Jordan Valley. Such infrastructure deploys razor wire fencing, checkpoints, trenches and roadblocks in a contiguous form that mirror the cement Walls that enclose Palestinians from the west.

Meanwhile, surveyors have arrived in the north of the Valley undertaking research, which Palestinians assert to be for the continuation of the Wall from Jenin district into the Valley.

to dump and flood with products, and in which domestic Palestinian produce is stifled, Israel profits immensely from the Occupation of Palestine.

The issue of the industrial zones is of particular relevance, given their role in continuing the asymmetrical relationship between the economies of Palestine and the Occupation. In a confidential report from 2001, the World Bank noted how:

Pariah States: Israel and South Africa

Palestinians, currently being disposed of their lands and livelihoods, are reduced to the role of a cheap labour force. Meanwhile, Palestinian businessmen and elites associated with PIEDCO, a subsidiary ar m of PADICO which receives substantial funding from the World Bank, have been linked to an industrial zone being built on land stolen from Palestinian farmers in Irta (Tulkarem district). 31 The land, isolated behind the Apartheid Wall has been significantly built up over the last year with farmers now resigned to the loss of their land. Mr. Munib Rashid Masri, PADICO Chairman noted in June 2005 how the company had “plans for development and management of industrial zones”.32 Details of such schemes, and if they are funded with World Bank or donor money, are expected to emerge shortly and could be the target of significant outcry and protest if they are built around the infrastructure of the Apartheid Wall.

A system of racial capital for the direct benefit of Israel as a colonial power forms strong parallels with the South African experience. Yet the ghettoization caused by the Occupation adds features to Israeli Apartheid which surpass the system of racist discrimination of South Africa. For Palestinians remaining in the 1948 areas, subjugated to systematic racist and discriminatory laws and practices, identity, life and culture as a Palestinian is denied. It leads us to conclude how the Wall as a manifestation and extension of this Apartheid, and a crime of humanity against the Palestinians can be dismantled.

Moreover, it leads us to consider how tearing

“This is much worse than apartheid … the Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never had jets attacking our townships. We never had sieges that lasted month after month.

We never had tanks destroying houses.

We had armoured vehicles and police using small arms to shoot people but not on this scale.”

Ronnie Kasrils - 2004 Kasril’s statement touches on the major distinction that exists between Israeli and South African Apartheid, the goal of cleansing a nation of people from their lands. While the racist regime in Pretoria coerced blacks into the Bantustans upon 13% of the land, Israeli Apartheid continuously re-defines borders to suffocate the indigenous Palestinian population.

The Wall is the current manifestation of this process and is creating new facts on the ground which are having a devastating effect upon Palestinian existence.

Israeli Apartheid is unique in that it incorporates dual colonial processes that complement, and at times, contradict each other.

The Wall provides a clear example of this.

Ramifications of its construction include the dispossession of Palestinian towns and villages of their lands, the denial of movement, right to dignified and sustainable livelihoods, and access to basic services. In this way it facilitates Palestinian exodus by making life in ghettos unbearable. Yet, the dynamics of the Occupation have also ensured a continual relationship with Palestinians based upon dependency. As a site for cheap labour, a market

“The initial conception of the industrial estate development program was one of fostering business clusters on the borders between Israel and the Palestinian territories (“border” estates), so as to permit employment by international and Israeli entrepreneurs of Palestinian workers free of securityrelated restrictions on the entry of Palestinians into Israel proper.”30

Kasril’s statement touches on the major distinction that exists between Israeli and South African Apartheid, the goal of cleansing a nation of people from their lands

Al-Aqsa 31

down the Wall can come as part of a sustained campaign to realise the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people to their lands.

The Wall is illicit, it does separate (Palestinians from Palestinians), it also annexes, but fundamentally it is designed to sustain the Apartheid nature of Israel

32 Al-Aqsa

Conclusion - After the Wall: A framework for Palestinian Rights Even if the Wall were to be switched to the “Green Line”, it would continue to preserve Israel’s nature as an Apartheid state. Until the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the ending of racist and discriminatory laws and practices against Palestinians in the 1948 areas, and until the end of the Occupation of the WBGS, Israel cannot lay claim to legitimate selfdefense. That the Wall is built to exact even further conquest of Palestinian land perhaps makes the term “Annexation Wall” – which is used in some quarters - more suitable than Apartheid. However, Apartheid captures the overall dynamics and ramifications of the Wall for Palestinians in the WBGS and in the 1948 areas. The parallels it draws with South African experiences are by no means entirely accurate, but it serves as an important mobilisation tool for a global justice movement to target Israeli Apartheid and develop the means by which to support all Palestinians who are struggling for their freedom and liberation.

The Wall threatens to enact another Nakba on Palestinians in the WBGS, and create a fractured Bantu-State made up of miserable and disparate ghettos. It seeks to enshrine a highly racialised system of exploitation from dispossessed Palestinian communities with the creation of industrial estates. It represents the continual Israeli conquest of Palestinian land and the re-definition of borders as settlements expand. The World Bank’s attempt to “cushion” the impact of the Wall symbolises the direct complicity many global powers and agencies have chosen to take in direct support of the Occupation and its crimes.

The Wall is illicit, it does separate (Palestinians from Palestinians), it also annexes, but fundamentally it is designed to sustain the Apartheid nature of Israel and continue the Bantustanisation of areas in which Palestinians still live. The Wall as a manifestation of Apartheid can be seen as a mechanism of “selfdefense”, but only in the sense that it attempts to prop up a system of Israeli Apartheid, and extend the Zionist project for the further conquest of Palestinian lands.

Its removal, followed by the settlements, along with the implementation of the right of return into the 1948 and 1967 areas, provides a blueprint by which people of conscience and justice movements across the world can offer the solidarity which Palestinians are asking for.

Standing side by side with communities who

resist Israeli Apartheid and the Wall on a daily basis heralds the means by which international law and convention, but most importantly, the rights of the Palestinian people can be won.

Abbreviations

− Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) − Consultative Group For Palestine (CG) − Emergency Assistance Program for the Occupied Territories (EAP) − European Union (EU) − International Court of Justice (ICJ) − Israeli Disengagement Plan (IDP) − International Monetary Fund (IMF) − Joint Liaison Committee (JLC) − Local Aid Coordination Committee (LACC) − Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) − UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) − Palestine Development and Investment Company Limited (PADICO) − Palestine Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (PIEDCO) − Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) − Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) − Palestinian National Authority (PNA) − Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations (PNGO) − Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator (UNSCO) − United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) − United Nations General Assembly (GA) − United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) − United States Agency for International Development (USAID) − West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) World Health Organization (WHO) Notes 1. The references to basic features, facts and characteristics of the Wall used in this work can be found in the resources and materials available from the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign at www.stopthewall.org 2. View maps at www.ochaopt.org and www.stopthewall.org 3. For detailed exploration of this issue see Samara, A. (1992), Industrialization in the West Bank: A Marxist Socio-Economic Analysis, Al-Mashriq Publications for Economic and Development Studies, Jerusalem 4. For the modified route of the Wall refer to maps available from www.ochaopt.org

5. World Bank (2002), West Bank & Gaza: An Evaluation of Bank Assistance, Washington, p. 7 6. Ibid. p. 7 7. The latest incident coming at the end of 2005 when the Bank held back payments to the PNA due to its failure to meet the targets the Bank had set.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is developing new fiscal measures, which the PNA will be required to meet.

8. Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (2005), Israel, The World bank and ‘Sustainable Development’ of the Palestinian Ghettos, La Citta Del Sole, Napoli 9. See Office of the Special Envoy for Disengagement (2005), Periodic Report: 17th October and also World Bank (2005), The Palestinian Economy and the Prospects for its Recovery: Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, Number 1, December 2005. The Bank in the same document has praised continuing levels of Palestinian labour used in the settlements as a “positive trend”, and is currently engaged in brokering an agreement to secure the continuation of cheap Palestinian labour into Israel.

10. Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (2005), Israel, The World Bank and ‘Sustainable Development’ of the Palestinian Ghettos, La Citta Del Sole, Napoli 11. Office of the Special Envoy for Disengagement (2005), op. cit. p. 2 12. World Bank (2005), The Palestinian Economy, p. 2/3 13. Ibid.

14. World Bank (2004), Stagnation, Overview, p. 37 where the Bank note that “It is understood that projects considered ‘borderline’ from a political perspective, but which serve important humanitarian needs, could be approved”.

15. Ibid.

16. The Bank’s own evaluation has noted its success in calming the Palestinians throughout the 1990s, see World Bank (2002), West Bank & Gaza: An Evaluation of Bank Assistance, Washington, p. 7 17. See Inter Press Service News Agency (February 24th 2005), “World Bank May Fund Israeli Checkpoints”, h t t p : / / w w w. i p s n e w s . n e t / interna.asp?idnews=27620, where Bank Official Markus Kostner considers World Bank Funding for

Terminals in the Apartheid Wall “for the benefit of Palestinians”.

18. Reported by various Israeli and Palestinian media.

19 Ibid.

20. Mofaz inter view with Yedioth Aharonot newspaper, 29/09/04 21. ICJ ruling available from http://www.icj-cij.org/ icjwww/icjhome.htm 22. Caterpillar is example of a company directly profiting from the Wall.

23. The Israeli Disengagement Plan can be accessed http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ from, Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/ Israeli+Disengagement+Plan+20-Jan-2005.htm 24. Ibid.

25. McGreal, C, (2006) Worlds Apart, for The Guardian (UK) h t t p : / / w w w. g u a r d i a n . c o. u k / i s r a e l / S t o r y / 0,,1703245,00.html, February 6 26. Humphries, I. (2005), From Gaza to the Galilee: Same Policy, Same Agenda, http://www.miftah.org/ Display.cfm?DocId=8698&CategoryId=5 which details the Judaization of the remaining Palestinian areas of the 1948 lands.

27. For more details of the crimes of Israeli Apartheid see Davis, U. (2003), Apartheid Israel: The Struggle Within, Zed Books, New York and Patel, I.A, (2005) Palestine: A Beginners Guide, Al-Aqsa Publishers, Leicester 28. Refer to www.stopthewall.org where the “Latest News” section documents such developments.

29. For more detail of the Apartheid Roads see Hass, A. (2006), Israel cuts Jordan Rift from rest of West Bank, in Haaretz, http://www.haaretz.com/ hasen/spages/681938.html, 13th February 30. Samara, A (2001), Globalization, The Palestinian Economy and the ‘Peace Process’, http:// w w w. w p b . b e / i c m / 2 0 0 1 / 0 1 e n / Palestine_Samara.htm, where he cites a confidential World Bank document.

31. Rapoport, M. (2004), Israel: Industrial Estates Along The Wall, http://mondediplo.com/2004/06/ 05thewall 32. PADICO (2005), Press release – June 30th, http:/ /www.padico.com/Press%20release6-2005.htm

Books Available For Review 1 2 3 4 5 6

HAMAS – A Beginner’s Guide, by Khaled Hroub The Second Palestinian Intifada, by Ramzy Baroud Checkpoint Watch, by Yehudit Kirstein Keshet A threat from within – A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, by Yakov M. Rabkin The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, by Joseph A. Massad Blood and Religion – the unmasking of the Jewish democratic state, by Jonathan Cook

Interested individuals contact Friends of Al-Aqsa Al-Aqsa 33

34 Al-Aqsa

B O O K R EV I EW

Jerusalem: Constructing the Study of Islamic Art, Volume IV

BY OLEG GRABAR, 2005, ISBN: 0 86078 925 X HB, P 284 and Includes 48 B&W illustrations, £65.00

O

leg Grabar has dedicated his academic life to Islamic art and architecture and in these four volumes he brings together 50 years of his work.

Jerusalem is the final volume in a set of four selections of studies on Islamic art. Between them they bring together more than eighty articles, studies and essays; work spanning half a century by an academic of the field.

Grabber is Emeritus Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Islamic Art and Architecture at Harvard University, USA. In Jerusalem he brings to the fore the Islamic city of Jerusalem, today known as the ‘Old City’. Within the Old City, the Dome of the Rock gets particular attention and Grabar’s fascination with the Dome of the Rock appears to absorb him and he rises on most occasions towards understanding this enchanting and mystical building.

There is no doubt of Grabar’s academic dedication to Jerusalem and his scholarly approach to the art. However, just beneath the surface lurks an element of suspicion with Islam and Muslim scholars that seems to rear its head every now and again in his writing.

To Grabar, many Islamic structures and their purposes post the 7th century are debatable if not questionable. On the other hand, he states as a matter of fact information about structures pre 7th century: ‘[the buildings within alAqsa Sanctuary] … repaired and restored by the Romans, throughout the Middle Ages and in the modern period, this platform can be assumed to have been a Herodian creation of the Jewish Temple’ (p60). Further to this, on p64 he states: ‘It is the accidental inheritance by the Muslims

of such vast area and precise developments in the history of the Muslim faith that made it a unique sanctuary’. The connotations are clear; Jerusalem only became important to Muslims accidentally because they happen to conquer it. Whereas most elementary students of early Islamic history and of the Prophet Muhammed [pbuh] are well aware of the Prophet Muhammed’s [pbuh] effort to inculcate upon his Companions the importance of Jerusalem as early as the 9th year of Prophethood, long before the establishment of an Islamic state or the expansion of Islamic lands.

Again one is concerned with Grabar’s political intention for stating: ‘Also it is located on the site of the Jewish Temple, in the Holy city of Christianity’ under the subtitle of ‘Significance’ in the chapter of ‘Qubbat al- Sakhrah’.

Grabar successfully narrates in several places the three main thoughts behind the purposes of building the Dome of the Rock; a building to commemorate the Prophet’s [pbuh] night journey and ascension; to replace the Ka’ba as the site for pilgrimage; and a monument celebrating the new faith’s presence in the city of Jerusalem. Although the second reasoning has been academically successfully demolished, in almost every chapter Grabar repeats it.

The anti-Islamic angle mares yet again an excellent chapter on ‘Al-Kuds Monument’ in which Grabar states, regarding lack of pictures of living creatures in the Dome of the Rock, ‘the other one is absence of any representation of living beings several decades before we become aware of a partial Muslim prohibition of images’ (p120). In fact Imam Abu Hanifa (b.80 AH) in his Hidaya within the first century of Islam recorded what was practiced and orally transmitted regarding the prohibition of representing living creatures.

In the first chapter Grabar contends the Dome of the Rock, ‘can only be understood in all its complexity and uniqueness when seen in its Umayyad context. As a political …structure it soon lost its meaning. But as a religious building it continued the great tradition of the Temple (Jewish) …’ (p46). Irrespective of the political motives of Umayyad’s, which may be debatable, there already existed at this early stage within Muslims the desire to establish Mosques as a testimony of their devotion to their faith.

Grabar unfortunately skims through the potential socioreligious aspects behind the building of the Dome of the Rock.

There is an interesting hypothesis in chapter IX substantiated from Professor Goitein’s remarks that Muawiyah may have initiated the idea of building the Dome of the Rock on its present location. This is probable because there are historical sources which ascertain that an oath of allegiance to Muawiyah (as a Caliph) was taken in Jerusalem.

Undermining Islamic historians if not history and Islam itself appears again in chapter XII : ‘Whether or not the

Al-Aqsa 35

caliph Umar came for the occasion (liberation of al-Quds) is not clear, although the various events which are said by later legends to have occurred as he arrived and as he visited the city are fascinating exercise in the formation of highly creative and imaginative historical myths’ (p187) and ‘It had been the place where Herod the Great (71-4 BCE) and his successors built the spectacular Jewish Temple with full use of Hellenistic architectural technology and design’ (p188).

This book attempts to provide an understanding as to how buildings can be and are used by competing faiths and politicians to stamp authority. It has been lucidly presented and is a valuable source for anyone interested in not only art and architecture but also the politics of the city.

This is a valuable reference book for all and a must read for Muslims who wish to understand how ‘others’ view the Islamic holy city of Jerusalem in which Muslims proudly proclaim the sanctity of Jews and Christians.

Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with the world’s most wanted militants

BY PHIL REES, Macmillan 2005, ISBN: 140504716X, 400pp., HB £18.99

Contents The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; A new inscription from the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem; AlHaram al-Sharif; The earliest Islamic commemorative structures, notes and documents; Qubbat al-Sakhrah; AlKuds, monuments; A note on the Chludoff Psalter;AlMasjid al-Aqsa; The meaning of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; Le Temple, lieu de conflit: le monde de L’Islam; Jerusalem elsewhere; The making of the Haram al-Sharif: the first steps; Space and holiness in medieval Jerusalem; The Haram al-Sharif: an essay in interpretation.

Leicester

36 Al-Aqsa

Abu Huzayfa

R

ees is to be congratulated for producing a readable, at times enthralling book on a vital issue. Frankly, one cannot put it down. Objective yet penetrating, its value is heightened by the fact that it does not only deal with ‘Islamic terrorists’. These days, we could be forgiven for thinking that guerrilla warfare is the sole prerogative of Islamists, but as Rees addresses situations in Colombia, meeting FARC, the Tamil Tigers, the IRA, etc., we can see that the situation was always more complicated than that. One criticism; having met the IRA, Rees should have dealt with corresponding Loyalist groups, especially as in his chapter on Colombia, he meets not only the FARC Marxist terrorists, but their right-wing opponents, and in Kosovo he encounters not only Albanians supporting the KLA, but also their Serb mirror-images.

The diversity of guerrilla organisations and their differing, often contradictory aims reveals the central problem concerning ‘terrorism’; not how to stop it, but how to define it. After all, as the famous cliché states, ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’, p. xv. It must be galling for Americans to read that if this cliché had existed in 1776, Washington would have been labeled as a ‘terrorist’ by the British government. The Apartheid regime labeled Mandela as a terrorist, but we know how most people viewed him. Rees notes that every global effort to give an objective definition of the term since 1996 has failed, p. xvii.

The problem is complicated by several factors, among them the identification of legitimate targets, and the methods used.

Another is the issue of justification – is it unethical to oppose an occupying army that enjoys conventional military superiority?

Rees observes that the US invasion of Iraq, not sanctioned by the UN, caused a resistance to emerge which the US often designates, and certainly where ‘foreign fighters’ are concerned, as terrorists’, p. 4. However, Rees asks the pertinent questions of how, if using the same justification as the US and UK, Iraqi troops occupied Britain, what would be the popular reaction, or if Hitler had occupied London in 1940, whether Britons would have accepted his rule, p. xvii?

This is one area which Rees could have developed further.

The obvious response to this from the US and UK is that they are democracies, but how do we respond if democracies do not act democratically – at least in their treatment of others? The US may be democratic but it supports an Israeli regime whose treatment of the Palestinians is anything but democratic.

Remember also that part of the aim of the US blitz of Iraq in 2003, as Rees observes, was to ‘terrify the civilian population into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’, p. xvii.

Was the US acting democratically or was it guilty of state terrorism?

The global overview of ‘armed militants’ is one of the most fascinating aspects of Rees’ book. From Latin America to the Balkans, from North Africa to Sri Lanka, and from Palestine to Cambodia, the trail of tears is gripping. It is also frequently stomach-turning. The section of the Khmer Rouge and their genocidal policies in Chapter Seven goes over familiar ground, but the display of Man’s inhumanity to Man never fails to shock.

When we consider their policies and practices, could we ever consider this group as ‘freedom fighters – even after the 1979 Vietnamese invasion which transformed them into a guerrilla group once more, resisting foreign occupation, and enjoying support from China – and the West, p. 166? If not, then how should we regard the Zionist guerrilla groups such as the Irgun and Stern Gang who terrorised Palestinians with slaughter and ethnic cleansing, or the Serb ‘paramilitaries’ who did the same to Albanians, p. 157? Remember, the latter had the backing of the ‘legitimate’ government of Serbia? Perhaps that is why the media described them as ‘paramilitaries’ instead of ‘terrorists’.

The ambivalence on definition is best exemplified by considering the Kosovo Liberation Army. America at first designated it as a terrorist group, p. 152, and it would have definitely been so-defined after 9/11, p. 154, but America aboutfaced and effectively supported it. Is the US definition of terrorism therefore based on a group’s opposition to US policy?

After all, the US allied itself with Kurdish guerrillas against the recognised government of Iraq, but designates Kurdish guerrillas across the border in Turkey as terrorists – ah, but Ankara is a US ally. Yet when I interviewed British-based Kurds some years ago about the Turkish situation, their spokesman – an Iraqi Kurd – stated that the Turkish situation was worse than its Iraqi equivalent.

One of the most useful parts of the book is the postscript dealing with 7/7 and its legacy. An interview with a moderate Muslimah who heads Slough Race Equality produces the startlingly frank statement that whatever is said publicly, privately many British Muslims regard Bin Laden as a hero, p. 371. Why? Because of US/UK policy. Salma Yaqoob is quoted as pointing to the hypocrisy of the public response to Ken Bigley’s murder whilst the deaths of Iraqi civilians remain uncounted, p. 374.

Defining ‘terrorism’ remains a Herculean task.

London

Dr.Anthony McRoy

The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestine

BY RAY DOLPHIN, London: Pluto Press, 2006, ISBN 0745324339, pp 256, £15

I

read this book in Beirut in mid-July 2006 as the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon began and intensified. At the time, it seemed to many that Israel’s brutal assault was part of a very longstanding pattern and that Hizbullah’s actions, in capturing two Israeli soldiers and then firing rockets into northern Israel, were a legitimate way of striking back against all the indignities and humiliations suffered by Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs since the state of Israel was created in 1948.

There is a link between the occupation of Arab land, the terrorization of powerless civilians and the building of what many refer to as an “apartheid wall” in the occupied West Bank.

I have seen the wall at several points along its route and, as Ray Dolphin comments, it is “disingenuous to describe such a formidable construction as a ‘fence’”. It is a monstrous and shocking structure, cutting off communities and defacing the landscape. Dolphin’s book charts in painstaking detail the history, politics and reality of the wall. He makes extensive use of Israeli, Palestinian and international sources in an effort to illustrate the destructive nature of what Graham Usher, in his excellent introduction, terms the “most lethal and potentially irreversible” component of Israel’s system of rule in the occupied territories.

For the Israelis, the wall is seen as a protective device, a contribution to the global war against terrorism. But, as Dolphin says, the main purpose of the wall is “to obliterate the internationally-recognised Green Line and to create a new border deeper within West Bank territory, in the process annexing major settlements, territory and water resources to Israel”. As the wall has taken shape, it has swallowed up Palestinian farmland, cut off Palestinian villages from medical and educational facilities, made travel difficult and, for some, encouraged emigration. The Israeli settler movement has had a significant impact on the route of the wall. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, states that the Israeli cabinet’s decision on the route of the wall was “to establish facts on the ground that would perpetuate the existence of settlements and facilitate their future annexation to Israel”.

The settlers’ greed and intransigence is supported by the US government, and few in the international community seem willing or able to speak out against it. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice delivered a strongly worded Al-Aqsa 37

advisory opinion on the wall. The Court ruled that “the wall – where it deviated into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was for the majority of its route – was contrary to international law. Israel must cease construction, dismantle the sections already build, compensate those affected and ‘repeal or render ineffective’ the gate and permit system”. Palestinians, as an Israeli commentator observed, “have appealed to the world’s sense of justice, while we seek the world’s pity”. However, the Israeli government does not seem inclined to comply with this ruling and no one has seen fit to pressure them. Dolphin also describes the non-violent campaign waged by farmers in the village of Jayous to prevent the wall from stealing their land. According to one villager, “economic strangulation and ‘voluntary’ emigration is the real purpose of the wall: ‘they want the land without the people’”. Legal channels and peaceful resistance have achieved little; apparently, as Pat O’Connor of the International Solidarity Movement remarked, “it is forbidden for Palestinians to use the tactics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr to try to save their land and their communities from destruction. The Israeli government continues to do as it pleases and, as a result of the wall and the 2005 unilateral Israeli disengagement from Gaza, the Middle East Road Map is now moribund.

Dolphin reports on the physical and psychological impacts on Palestinian residents affected by the wall. Women, he suggests, “bear the brunt of these new movement restrictions. Families are increasingly reluctant to allow female members, including girl pupils, to endure the humiliating delays and searches at the gates, further diminishing women’s mobility, social participation and educational opportunities”. Children, too, are suffering. A survey carried out in 2003 reveals that almost half the children in Qalqilya “had personally experienced conflict-related violence or witnessed violence affecting a member of their immediate family”. In the words of one child: “they stole the smile from our faces”.

In East Jerusalem, a policy of “military conquest by architectural means” was introduced by the Israeli government after 1967. As Dolphin notes: “To provide housing, and to forestall pressure for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundary, a large-scale settlement programme was undertaken in East Jerusalem and the surrounding area, primarily on private land expropriated from Palestinian owners… By the end of 2001, nearly 47,000 housing units had been built exclusively for Jews on this expropriated land”. The wall, he adds, “marks the summation of Israel’s policies in Jerusalem since 1967, literally setting in concrete the fruits of decades of annexation and settlement building”.

Many Arabs point to the occupation of Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese land, the terrorization of civilian populations, the constant violation of human rights, and the ongoing construction of the wall as evidence that Israel is not interested in reaching a mutually acceptable peace. There is something pernicious about this behaviour which seems calculated to cause maximum misery, thereby forcing Palestinians to accept yet more compromises. I recommend this book as an unsentimental and factually precise examination of a situation which seems to many, both Arab and non-Arab, not simply immoral but also shortsighted.

London

38 Al-Aqsa

Dr. Maria Holt

Politicide – Ariel Sharon’s War against the Palestinians.

BY BARUCH KIMMERLING VERSO 2003, ISBN 1859845177, 234 pp., £15.

H

enry Kissinger once recalled that Ariel Sharon was the most dangerous man he met in Middle East, Baruch Kimmerling’s title of Politicide reflects that opinion by his detailed account of how Sharon as a soldier, general, politician and as Prime Minister created the dissolution in the hearts and minds of every Palestinian by his political and military onslaught for over fifty years.

Kimmerling wrote his book in 2003, which was well before his disengagement plan from Gaza, the internal political upheaval in Israeli which resulted in the creation of the Kadima Party and subsequent incapacitation of Sharon due to his stroke. Nevertheless this book deals with Ariel Sharon through the lens of academic critique which questions the creation of policies which Kimmerling refers to as Politicide.

The book portrays a detailed attack on Sharon who directly or indirectly has been associated with repression, war crimes and clear provocation against the Palestinian population by a series of measures such as the Sabra and Shatila massacres, the ongoing assault since 2000 and his usage of the war on terror to suppress Palestinian resistance.

From reading the arguments it is quite clear that Kimmerling is a soft Zionist with a conscience as much of his book constantly refers to how Sharon has led Israel to self destruction due to the process of politicide. The term Politicide is constantly used to describe a wide range of social, political and military activities as the means to destroy the existence of a community and any possibility of self determination. He refers to methods which have been incorporated by the military elite of Israel who under the banner of democracy have used their position to justify and control their means by the argument that there is a Palestinian menace which is an obstruction to Israeli society, which has to be suppressed. He refers to the Israeli interference in Lebanon as a military exercise by Sharon who as the Defence Secretary shielded all military action from his fellow cabinet members and acted reputedly against any checks and

balances. Throughout the book it is highlighted that Kimmerling is a patriot committed to the well being of his people, and that this book is a painful thesis to wake up the Israeli population against the barbaric measures of the Likud government and in particular Ariel Sharon. Kimmerling on some occasions does not hide his Zionist credentials, in particular his admires the assassinated leader Yitzhak Rabin; his chapter on the Oslo accords is very sympathetic towards Rabin and Peres. He ignores the weak leadership of Arafat and how Israel negated the Right of Return, no commitment to dismantling all illegal settlements, no clarified position towards the final status of Jerusalem and that how Oslo had created a fragmented Palestinian society by the constant Israeli infringement upon Palestinian life. Kimmerling rather naively believes that Israel gave more than it should and fails to realise that the PLO had at the expense of the Palestinian people sold out many of their principles.

Kimmerling also can be accused of not highlighting the duplicity of the USA in the whole conflict. Throughout the book there was no clear question raised about the role of the USA. One would have expected to at least read about the Bush administration through the neo-con agenda have tightened the screws upon the Palestinians and thus allowing Sharon a blank cheque in any systematic erosion of any Palestinian society.

Kimmerling however should be commended on his explanation on the policies of politicide by Sharon have instigated the heightening rise of suicide bombers. He also indulges in explaining that much of the motivation of suicide bombers is not based on religious doctrine but secular and political factors. He publicly berates Israeli society for not understanding Palestinian desperation as a precursor for suicide bombings due to the constant humiliation and politicide policies by the Israeli military especially during the reign of Sharon.

Politicide is a book in which the reader will understand that Kimmerling who as a left wing Zionist is attacking the Likudites under the stewardship of Sharon. He advocates that Sharon has created a partial ethnic cleansing programme through systematic policies which is slowly eroding the already fragmented Palestinian society.

Politicide draws the argument that Sharon and his allies

are more belligerent towards creating facts on the ground while at the same time generating a step towards an Eretz Israel as the only solution for the survival of the Jewish state. As Politicide was written before the Disengagement of Gaza, the book sadly cannot offer any logical explanation to where the Disengagement fits in to this wider plan of Sharon. No doubt due to the permanent incapacitation of Sharon nobody would ever find out what Sharon really wanted to achieve, but it is certain after reading this book, it can be concluded that the final aim was to create a demoralised and destroyed Palestinian society who would accept any imposed settlement to cease any more humiliation. Kimmerling offers a rationale that this policy will backfire as every repressive measure merely resurrects a Palestinian mindset to resist at all costs any imposed attack as for all Palestinians everything is to be played for. This is wholly evident by the election victory of Hamas and how the Palestinian population are now mentally equipped to engage in a war of attrition with their sticks, stones and mental defiance.

Politicide is a book in which it is argued that through the policies of Politicide the real victim in the long run is the Zionist society of Israel. Kimmerling offers an opinion of someone on the Israeli left who believes that iron and the rule by force can no longer be applied on any people, as sooner or later the oppressor himself will become the victim of their own misfortune. Sharon is blamed for being the architect of this foiled plan of Politicide, as no matter what can happen, there will always be a Palestinian people and that their defiance will be the downfall of the of the Jewish state. There could have been more emphasis on Israeli policy since 1948 which has created this vacuum of political uncertainty, nevertheless he eloquently argues that Politicide was the brainchild of Sharon through the auspices of Likud and that the mindset of the Israeli political and military elite itself is the precursor towards failure. With hindsight we do know that Sharon is no longer more active, but it seems sadly his policies and style are to have outlived his own political career through the constant Politicide of the Palestinian people.

Leicester

Hasan Loonat

Al-Aqsa 39

40 Al-Aqsa