Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 05:42:39 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?eldorra=20mitchell?= <manynotone-AT-yahoo.co.in> Subject: Strata and Nomadic versus State War machines -guilt trip began with them [In this most recent communique from the invaluable Middle East <BR> Research and Information Project (MERIP), freelance journalist Chris <BR> Smith details the incredible contortions into which Palestinian <BR> civilians are knotted every day by the Israeli Occupation. Normal, <BR> hardworking civilians become, due to closures and roadblocks, <BR> renegades evading the Israeli military just to earn their daily <BR> bread. If the Israeli tourist industry has been hurt badly by the <BR> recent upsurge in the conflict, the entire Palestinian economy has <BR> been devastated -- and the hope of a normal existence for most <BR> Palestinians shattered. All this reminds one of the darkest moments <BR> in Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman's "Chronicle of a <BR> Disappearance," whose title refers metaphorically to the insidious <BR> threat against a whole people. The moral ulceration of this <BR> situation perfectly matches the geographical ulceration of illegal <BR> Israeli settlements built on confiscated land -- and maintained at <BR> such inconceivable human expense. --LS]<BR> <BR> MERIP Press Information Note 66<BR> <BR> Closure: The Daily Reality of Israel's Occupation<BR> <BR> Chris Smith<BR> <BR> August 27, 2001<BR> <BR> (Chris Smith is a freelance journalist recently returned from the West<BR> Bank.)<BR> <BR> As soon as the Israeli army jeep disappears around the bend, a dusty minivan<BR> emerges from the grape fields outside Beit Ummar, a farming town in the<BR> southern West Bank. Revving the engine as he accelerates into the turn, the<BR> driver leans out the window and yells, "Go! Go!" On cue, eight Palestinian<BR> workers bolt from their hiding places in the bushes and run alongside the<BR> van, jumping in as it tears down the empty highway. After just a few hundred<BR> yards, the van turns back into the fields to evade an Israeli armored<BR> personnel carrier at a checkpoint down the road. To get here, the van had<BR> followed a tortuous dirt path over the hills from Bethlehem -- in which a<BR> five-minute drive became an hour-long journey. The return trip would be just<BR> as grueling.<BR> <BR> Up the highway at another checkpoint, two taxi drivers stand under the<BR> midday sun, their minivans impounded for trying to pass the roadblock.<BR> "Since 7 am we've been here," says one of the men, pointing to his watch.<BR> "They took our identification cards." Upon hearing this, an Israeli soldier<BR> lounging in the shade tells him to shut up.<BR> <BR> Like much of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Beit Ummar is effectively blocked<BR> off -- in this case, by four Israeli army checkpoints in little more than a<BR> mile. Palestinian traffic is barred from most major roads and, to avoid the<BR> roadblocks, Palestinians spend hours bumping over rutted donkey tracks or<BR> traversing olive groves. The penalties for getting caught can be severe:<BR> residents and human rights groups report that soldiers often confiscate car<BR> keys and shoot tires out, and have detained and beaten travelers.<BR> <BR> DAILY REALITY OF OCCUPATION<BR> <BR> Such cat-and-mouse games have become common all over the Occupied<BR> Territories since the second intifada began last fall, when the Israelis<BR> clamped down on Palestinian movement with a policy called "internal<BR> closure." Closure is less dramatic than Israel's headline-grabbing<BR> assassinations of Palestinian leaders, such as the August 27 killing of Abu<BR> Ali Mustafa, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine<BR> (PFLP). But the closures are the daily reality of occupation for most<BR> Palestinians, who often find it impossible to move from one town to<BR> another -- whether to go to work, to visit relatives or to get to school.<BR> Beit Ummar has been under closure for most of the summer. "We're like birds<BR> in a cage," says the manager of the local power grid.<BR> <BR> Internal closures are nothing new -- the IDF first introduced them in 1996,<BR> following suicide bombings inside Israel -- but Palestinians say they have<BR> gotten tighter and more widespread in recent months. ("External closures,"<BR> by which Israel prohibits Palestinian workers and goods from entering or<BR> passing through Israel, were first employed in March 1993.) By the<BR> Palestinian Authority's latest count, there are 97 manned checkpoints in the<BR> West Bank and 32 in the Gaza Strip, allowing the IDF to shut down<BR> Palestinian movement at will.<BR> <BR> An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman avers that internal closures are<BR> necessary security measures. "Internal closures around cities are based on<BR> intelligence assessments of specific threats," he says. "When [Israeli]<BR> intelligence knows that terrorists are planning to leave a city, we'll<BR> institute a closure. It prevents a large number of terrorist attacks. It's<BR> not 100 percent effective, but it does help." But to the Israeli human<BR> rights group B'Tselem, the closures are simply collective punishment. "The<BR> sweeping nature of the restrictions imposed by Israel, which are not<BR> directed at specific individuals who constitute a security danger, but<BR> indiscriminately against millions of people," turns the closure policy into<BR> a "clear form" of collective punishment, according to a January 2001 report<BR> published by the organization.<BR> <BR> ONCE THRIVING TOWN<BR> <BR> In the West Bank, the closure is perhaps most consistent in Jericho, the<BR> once thriving tourist town in the Jordan Valley. Flanked by bare brown hills<BR> to the west and the Jordanian border to the east, the city is almost totally<BR> cut off from the outside world. There are only three roads in or out: one to<BR> Jordan across the Allenby Bridge, one to the north and one to the south.<BR> Nowadays, all three are often shut tight by army barricades. Non-Jericho<BR> residents and foreigners are denied entry, and locals are only<BR> intermittently allowed in or out. On a recent visit, all three roads had<BR> been closed for four days. The southern checkpoint was deserted -- no taxis,<BR> no people, just Israeli soldiers in wraparound sunglasses drinking orange<BR> soda.<BR> <BR> No has counted the days of total closure in Jericho, but its effects are<BR> obvious. Tell al-Sultan, an archaeological site holding the remains of the<BR> oldest city in the world, sits forlornly at the edge of an empty parking<BR> lot. Nearby hotels and restaurants are shuttered, and the newly built<BR> gondola -- designed to whisk tourists up from town to a monastery on the<BR> mountainside -- hasn't moved since October. Its cherry-red cable cars hang<BR> in the air, swaying slightly in the breeze. Arabic pop music, startlingly<BR> loud in the silence, drifts from a radio in the distance.<BR> <BR> At Tell al-Sultan, the ticket-taker sits in the shade chewing his lip.<BR> "Every month there were 10,000 people, 14,000," he says. "Now there's no<BR> one. The parking lot was so full of buses we couldn't hold them all. They<BR> spilled out into the street." He sold six tickets last month -- about<BR> average these days, he says. According to the city's department of tourism,<BR> from October 1999 to February 2000, approximately 35,000 tourists visited<BR> Jericho each month. From October 2000 to February 2001, the number of<BR> monthly visitors was no more than 10.<BR> <BR> The ticket-taker is lucky. He still has a job, and the Palestinian Authority<BR> (PA) still pays him, if not always on time. By local estimates, some 80<BR> percent of Jericho's workforce is now unemployed. This figure -- double the<BR> United Nations Special Coordinator's estimate for the Occupied Territories<BR> as a whole -- is in line with the numbers in the destitute Gaza Strip. More<BR> than 500 jobs were lost as hotels and restaurants shut their doors. The<BR> town's biggest moneymaker, the Austrian-run Oasis Casino, laid off all 1,500<BR> of its employees in November. In addition, the closure prevents farmers from<BR> taking their produce to market and rural Palestinians and Bedouin from<BR> reaching the Jericho hospital, which is the only one in the area. Iman<BR> Amleh, who directs three Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committee<BR> (UPMRC) clinics in outlying villages, says that even she has problems<BR> passing the checkpoints sometimes, despite official permission from the<BR> Israeli authorities. "It's really miserable," she says with a shrug.<BR> <BR> Jericho's isolation makes it especially vulnerable to the closure. "It's<BR> impossible to close Ramallah [completely] -- there are houses all the way<BR> from Jerusalem," says Mohammad Attiyeh, a general practitioner who works at<BR> a local UPMRC clinic. "But Jericho is an oasis, all by itself."<BR> <BR> GAZA AND JERICHO FIRST<BR> <BR> The remote but strategically important Jordan Valley has seen less<BR> Palestinian guerrilla activity than the rest of the West Bank, but the IDF<BR> has tightened the closure here as the months have worn on. Shortly after the<BR> February election of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the army began<BR> digging a network of trenches -- six and a half feet deep and almost as<BR> wide -- along the town's eastern, southern and northern reaches, with the<BR> declared aim of preventing Palestinian attacks on Jewish settlers driving on<BR> a nearby bypass road. On many days, the only way in or out is through the<BR> desert to the west in cars rugged enough to stand the journey. Even then,<BR> residents and rights groups claim that the IDF sometimes bars the way with<BR> tank patrols. On one bad day in June, locals say, soldiers made a taxi<BR> driver strip to his underwear and dance for them. They also say that<BR> soldiers forced another driver to drop to his knees and bark like a dog.<BR> <BR> Jericho, ironically, was one of the first cities transferred to PA control<BR> following the 1993 Oslo accords. The first phase of Israel's "redeployment"<BR> under these accords was known as "Gaza and Jericho First." Amid great<BR> fanfare and international approval, Israeli troops pulled out of Jericho in<BR> 1994, but they never went very far. A sprawling military post overlooks the<BR> town from a mountainside to the west, and now the IDF is back, its chokehold<BR> on Jericho enforced not by soldiers patrolling the streets but by concrete<BR> barriers and trenches on the outskirts of town.<BR> <BR> Inside the boarded-up town, residents have little to do but wait for things<BR> to change. Abu Hani, a bus driver, shuttles travelers between town and the<BR> border crossing, and when the roads are closed there's no work. One closure,<BR> he remembers, lasted 17 days. "I have nothing to do when there's closure,"<BR> he says. "No job, no money. I just sit." His wife, Umm Hani, has watched the<BR> family's grocery store lose 60 percent of its business since the closure<BR> began last fall. Last month, the couple's oldest son, Youssef, left for New<BR> York to try and find work with a cousin. "He just called this morning," says<BR> his mother. "I wanted to tell him to come back because we miss him. But if<BR> he came back he would just sit. It's better that he's away."<BR> <BR> (When quoting from this PIN, please cite MERIP Press Information Note 66,<BR> "Closure: The Daily Reality of Israel's Occupation," by Chris Smith, August<BR> 27, 2001. The author can be contacted at smithca77-AT-aol.com.)<BR> <BR> -----<BR> <BR> For more on Israeli occupation policies, see MERIP Press Information Note<BR> 63: Under the Guise of Security: House Demolitions in Gaza:<BR> <a href="http://www.merip.org/pins/pin63/html">http://www.merip.org/pins/pin63/html</a><BR> <BR> For analysis of how closures affect the Palestinian economy, see Leila<BR> Farsakh, "Under Siege: Closure, Separation and the Palestinian Economy," in<BR> Middle East Report 217 (Winter 2000). The article is accessible online at:<BR> <a href="http://www.merip.org/mer/mer217/217_farsakh.html">http://www.merip.org/mer/mer217/217_farsakh.html</a><BR> <BR> To order individual copies of Middle East Report or to subscribe, please<BR> call Blackwell Publishers at 1-800-835-6770.<BR> <BR> -----<BR> <BR> Press Information Notes are a free service of the Middle East Research and<BR> Information Project (MERIP). 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