Palestinian reaction to events in Iran

I was recently approached by Foreign Policy magazine and asked to write an article about the reaction on the Palestinian street to the turmoil in Iran. While I initially expected to find some people who saw a link between the Iranian’s calls for freedom and the Palestinian fight for independence, the reality of this perspective was much less than one would think. I talked to many people from a broad slice of society and found some indifference, much support for Iran and Ahmadinejad because of the support of the Palestinian cause, and some intellectual analysis among the general population.

Ignoring the Green Revolution by Lubna Takruri

Ignoring the Green Revolution
With so much at stake, why don’t Palestinians care about Iran?

BY LUBNA TAKRURI | JUNE 29, 2009

Foreign Policy Magazine

Last Friday in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where old men sat at sidewalk coffee shops with cards and hookahs, and the city’s upper crust sipped cappuccinos to trance music in upscale eateries, Palestinians spoke of the dollar’s fluctuations, Israel’s latest military activities, and even Michael Jackson’s passing. They touched on nearly everything – with one notable exception: the volcanic protests in Iran. Whereas the drama on the streets of Tehran has captivated the world, here, the news was hardly noticed. “We have bigger problems of our own,” was the collective reply from one cafe.

Palestinians are accustomed to their double curses of occupation and corruption, and they’re used to watching an unending routine of election protests elsewhere in the Middle East. This time, however, their indifference is harder to explain. Although Israelis see Iran as their greatest threat, Palestinians tend to view it as their best international protector. Power shifts in Tehran, whether through war or internal unrest, could have reverberations in Palestine. A weakened Iran, for example, might offer less support for Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, thereby tipping the balance of power in favor of its Western-backed rival faction, Fatah.

Memory of First Intifada – Hebron

I recently asked my uncle to dig up this old VHS tape from 1991 during the first Palestinian intifada. The uprising, from the late 1980s until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, was a time of national unity against the Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. Many believe it led to the beginnings of progress towards peace (which never did end up materializing, at least not on a permenant basis).

In contrast, the second intifada, or the Al Aqsa intifada, from September 2000 until about 2005, brought the beginnings of the current day inter-factional fighting between Fatah and Hamas, more Israeli checkpoints, more illegal settlements in the West Bank, and a new level of despair that the world will ever see a Palestinian state.

Here, then, is the clip from 1991. A young man is caught and beaten by Israeli soldiers in Hebron. Watch as he looks left, looks right, and……

Settler group makes ironic statement…

As one of the more complicated world issues regularly in the news for the past several decades, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict offers countless varied topics to make headlines (ie, Gaza? Hamas? Palestinian Authority? Right-wing Israeli government? water issues, land confiscations, building permits, shootouts, on and on).

AFP photo of illegal West Bank settlers and burning Palestinian lands

The spotlight in the past few weeks has been on the issue of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in light of US President Obama’s pressure on the Netanyahu government to stop all forms of settlement building. Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have made clear and forceful statements in the last week that include the demand to halt “natural growth,” this vague idea of expansion, which the Israeli government won’t give in on.

The international community widely considers these West Bank settlements to be illegal under international law, because they are within the 1967 borders of the West Bank, within which Israel is an occupying military power.

A detailed illustration of all this can be found in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’s West Bank Closure Map, which shows the separation wall, the illegal settlements (colonies is the right word), the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, checkpoints, etc, here:

UNOCHA West Bank Closure Map

And for some thoughtful analysis, here’s one of the better pieces that came out of the last week’s events:

From The Nation, Ali Abunima: Mr. Abbas Goes to Washington

But the more current news from the West Bank today comes from the Nablus area in the northern WB, home of such ultra-radical settlements as Yizhar. On Sunday night, according to this AFP story, mobs of settlers rampaged through Palestinian agricultural fields and roads, placing road blocks, attacking busloads of Palestinians, setting fire to olive groves, and opening fire on Palestinians and journalists. Apparently they’re “venting fury” at the idea that the Israeli government might give in to US demands to dismantle settlements/outposts.

To me, the craziest thing from this whole outrageous story was the following quote:

“It’s natural that people who face expulsion from their house do what they can to avoid being expelled.”

Why is that crazy? Because the person who said it, Gershon Messika, is the president of an Israeli settler umbrella group in the West Bank. (for the unfamiliar, it’s Palestinians who were expelled from their lands en masse when the State of Israel was created in 1948, and continue to be expelled from East Jerusalem, from areas seized for settlements, and from areas needed to build the behemoth separation wall).

Good luck figuring this one out, everybody.

Jewish settlers rampage in West Bank

By Imad Saada – 4 hours ago

NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) — Jewish settlers rampaged in the West Bank on Monday, wounding four Palestinians, as they vented fury that Israel may answer US calls and dismantle outposts in the territory, officials said.

Jewish extremists blocked roads, hurled rocks at drivers, burned fields, cut down olive trees and opened fire towards Palestinians who tried to chase the trespassers from their fields in the northern West Bank, witnesses said.

AFP article about rampage continues below….

NPR Story on Ramallah: West Bank Boom Town

Palestinian and international young people dance at a party in Ramallah

National Public Radio has a feature on the West Bank city of Ramallah, where I live, work and play. It’s an interesting and informative piece about how Ramallah is the economic, political and social center of the Palestinian territories. Indeed, Ramallah is an increasingly wealthy, wealthy city and both locals and expats/visitors alike are accustomed to seeing internationals all over town. You name it: Italians, Spaniards, Scandinavians, Americans, Canadians, Indians, journalists, NGO workers, legal workers, human rights activists. In fact, I often hear from my international friends and our larger circle of Jewish American or Jewish-international friends in Jerusalem that Ramallah has become a preferred option for enjoying nightlife because of the diversity and friendliness.

But the piece rightly offers context for all the positives of Ramallah, by putting it in the larger scene of the economic depression of the rest of the West Bank. Everywhere else, unemployment is at 30 percent, wages are low, and independent industry is nearly impossible under the Israeli military occupation. Those difficulties plus the choked state of Arab East Jerusalem create the conditions that led to Ramallah’s boom: jobs, real estate development and equally sky high prices, etc.

The reporter astutely notes that what’s happening in Ramallah is not an accurate reflection of the rest of the West Bank. And even in Ramallah, the boom is misleading. Most of the money comes either from Palestinians living abroad, or, international donor aid, which props up the economy here.

Listen here:

NPR Story on Ramallah: West Bank Boom Town

Photos of life in Ramallah lately

Sheep graze outside my bedroom window in the middle of Ramallah

The late afternoon view from my house in Ramallah

The wood-burning oven at Angelo's in Ramallah, which opened in 1988 and has the best lasagna and pizza in town

My new little family of desert plants for my home, which I and my aunt and uncle made from cuttings of their plants

The sunset over the West Bank hills from my grandparents' house in Ramallah

A lemon tree hangs over the stone wall inside the Old City of Jerusalem

A Westward Gaze Toward Gaza

On these clear winter days, I can look West out the window of the shared van ride through the West Bank hills from my home in Ramallah to work at Birzeit University and see a distant city on the horizon. Only a 45 minute drive from Ramallah, those barely discernible little buildings might be Ashdod; or it might be Tel Aviv itself. And just beyond… blue. Somewhere in the blue expanse at the horizon, an invisible line divides the sky from the Mediterranean Sea. Sometimes there in the openings between two hills, if I try really hard, I can see it: the former Palestinian coast, now part of the state of Israel.

Westward from the Ramallah hills

With no Blackberry or Washington Post to bury my head in anymore, my travels to work are a calm, contemplative break in the day. Each day my gaze is drawn in the same direction: over the hills with white specks of Palestinian villages, over the boundary between the Palestinian West Bank and the State of Israel where a monstrous wall keeps us trapped on our “side,” over fertile farmlands, to these modern new Israeli cities which I, like many West Bank Palestinians, cannot access without permission documents from Israel. My relaxed mind often allows thoughts to wander to the imaginary lives of the people in these cities. There, they have skyscrapers, neat streets, warm beaches. Now, they might be grabbing a latte on their own commute to work, and over the weekend, the children will go to playgrounds and swimming pools. There, they have power and freedom. On clear nights, too, I can see the sparkling urban lights from my doorstep in Ramallah and then, too, I paint a quick image of their nice restaurants, nightclubs, neat modern homes, before I walk down the street to my very different life on what feels like a whole separate planet. It’s often strange to me that I can see right over to their world from my doorstep, and not just on TV.

Anytime I hear the often repeated Israeli complaint of how Israelis live in fear of violent Palestinian backlash against the military occupation oppressing them, these images stand out: they are afraid to go to their malls and swimming pools on the chance a Palestinian rocket will land there.

Maybe they don’t in fact know that most Palestinians don’t have malls, Palestinian children don’t have nice playgrounds and swimming pools. That here in the walled-in West Bank, not to mention the encircled prison of the Gaza Strip, there is not just fear but daily, constant reality of violence and oppression by military occupiers.

But for the past three weeks, I look toward those lights in the west with not just curiosity about the cities and nostalgia to see the coast. For also there, a little further south, is a 5 mile wide strip of land in which 1.5 million people are trapped in poverty and despair. Somewhere there in the distance I imagine I can see Gaza, less than 2 hours away by car yet inaccessible even to those standing at the border, with F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters overhead, with the rubble of former cities and refugee camps burying hundreds of bodies beneath it, with thousands of military soldiers encircling the strip from land and sea, not letting anyone in or out either to flee or to see the carnage they are inflicting.

I pause even more these days to look west, to focus even harder on the shapes and colors beyond. I want so badly to go to Gaza, to help or to report, but there’s absolutely nothing I could do that would get me there. So instead, I imagine I can see Gaza from my doorstep so I can feel closer, so I can feel that I can absorb a tiny slice of their suffering and experience, so I can feel that by standing there and exposing my eyes and my being to the west, to the same sky and wind over Gaza, I am a part of them too.

-Lubna Takruri

West Bank Palestinians Feel Gaza Almost Another Country

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-ml-palestinians-west-bank-view,0,2973804.story

West Bank Palestinians feel as if warring Gaza has become another country

By BEN HUBBARD
Associated Press Writer
January 8, 2009

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — While one part of the Palestinian territories faces the fiercest Israeli onslaught in years, there is little to remind people in the other part of the war except for news reports, requests for blood donations and flags flying at half-staff.

Even pro-Gaza demonstrations have been suppressed by Palestinian police in the West Bank, sometimes violently.

Just 25 miles of Israeli territory separates the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinians consider themselves one people and share the desire for a state. But decades of geographic separation and a political schism between the Islamic militant Hamas rulers of Gaza and the moderate Fatah faction that runs the West Bank are driving them toward different fates and leaving them increasingly isolated from each other.

“It’s as if Gaza has become another country,” said university student Mohammed Akram, 19, slightly embarrassed. Next to a sign bearing pictures of injured Gazans, he was listening to a pop song on his cell phone.

Around him, other students shuffled to class, toting books and sending text messages.

“Some people go out and protest, but most of us go to the university and live our normal lives,” said 19-year-old Aria Darwish, sitting under an olive tree and tapping on her laptop. “We don’t really feel it.”

Nearby, a flag flew at half-staff and a sign asked students to donate blood.

Israel launched airstrikes across Gaza on Dec. 27 and a ground invasion on Jan. 3, with a stated goal of undermining the ability of Hamas militants — who control Gaza but not the West Bank — to fire rockets at Israel.

Since then, more than 670 Palestinians have been killed, about half of them civilians, according to United Nations and Palestinian figures. In the same period, 10 Israelis have died, three of them civilians.

The fates of the two territories are largely tied to their respective rulers. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of rival Fatah. Israel quickly imposed a blockade on the territory.

Ramallah reaction to Israeli air strikes on Gaza

I have photos here of yesterday’s response in Ramallah to the Gaza airstrikes:
Flickr Feed

Within a few hours of unprecedented Israeli air strikes that killed more than 220 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, hundreds of Palestinians waving flags of the various factions gathered at Ramallah’s central Manara circle in the West Bank. Separated from their impoverished and overcrowded fellow Palestinians in Gaza, the Ramallah crowd chanted for unification and solidarity.

Somewhere between 100-200 people then marched past the Muqata’a headquarters of the Fateh-run Palestinian Authority and then onward to the nearby Israeli checkpoint. Youth lit tires aflame in thick black smoke until three Israeli jeeps came down and fired off sound bombs. They only got so far as throwing rocks at the Jeeps before Palestinian riot police showed up and beat back the protesters in hopes of not provoking escalations.

Pictures here

Britain’s New Statesman Mag on the good life in Ramallah

British socialist current affairs mag the New Statesman has a beautiful, vivid description of how the normalcy of daily life in Ramallah defies the struggles, poverty, conflict and occupation that surround the city in the West Bank. It’s one of those things I see from time to time and think, “man, I wish I wrote that!”

(I have an issue with the headline though — Ramallah is no “secret” oasis, it’s well known to be an international destination full of life, culture and social opportunities).

Palestine’s secret oasis
Zoe Flood
Published 04 December 2008
Surrounded by conflict, the West Bank city of Ramallah is undergoing a quiet renaissance

As the sun rises between the hills and disperses low-hanging mist, Ramallah wakes up to a normal, urban life. Vegetable shops roll out their shining, fleshy wares. The exhausts of the city’s orange taxis shake off the chill of night. And although, unlike most other cities, Ramallah has been many decades under occupation, this, for its inhabitants, is just another day.

Despite its violent and difficult past and its uncertain present, Ramallah has an air of normality that is striking. So, too, does the stark, arid land that falls away from its hilltop perch, rising again to where its urban twin, al-Bireh, meets the university town of Birzeit. It is hard to imagine Israeli tanks growling along these vibrant streets, as they did during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Or pitched battles being fought near the lush municipal park, complete with faded playground equipment.

The comparative calm of recent years has allowed this city of some 30,000 people, at the heart of a much larger governorate of 280,000, to experience something of a quiet renaissance. While the World Bank this year put unemployment across the West Bank at 19 per cent, Ramallah, as the seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has become a centre of relative affluence.

“You can’t feel the conflict here so much,” said a friend who works for a local Palestinian NGO. “In Bethlehem, the wall cuts right through the town. In Hebron, there are the settlers [many with a reputation for attacking both the Israeli security forces and Palestinian civilians]. In Nablus, the tension is palpable.”

Biggest Muslim holiday, Eid al Adha, comes to Ramallah

For a look at Eid in Ramallah in photos and video, see my Flickr feed here.

With as much or more fanfare as Christmas in the US, Eid al Adha has been in the air in Ramallah for the past week. Islam’s biggest holiday, Eid al Adha, or feast of the sacrifice, commemorates the Biblical and Quranic story of Abraham taking his son to the mountain to sacrifice him as a test from God, before God replaces his son with a sheep at the last moment.

The week before the Eid is the time Muslim pilgrims make the Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia as the Prophet Mohammad did at the dawn of the religion — one of the five pillars of Islam. Today is Eid, marking the end of the Hajj pilgrimage and a holy day off for the whole Muslim world. The other Muslim holy day, (Eid al Fitr, or breaking fast) comes at the end of the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

It’s a festive time of wonderful traditions. All week, Ramallah has been bustling, packed with shoppers from the surrounding villages. The streets around the Manara circle (the town square, basically) have been blocked off to cars and instead filled with street vendors peddling everything from fruit to socks to incense (and lots and lots of colorful helium balloons for the kiddies) and families toting bags from the hundreds of boutiques that make up the West Bank’s commercial center.

At times like these, there is no doubt that Ramallah is indeed the financial and cultural capital of Palestine. It also presents a beautiful image of Palestinians, who are too often maligned in photos and videos only depicting them as masked gunmen or Muslim extremists. Here, in Ramallah on Eid, is a far truer picture of Palestinians: a spirited, social and hospitable nation who cherish the threads of shared traditions and cultures of their land.

Muslim, Christian, Palestinian or visitor — everyone feels and shares in the traditions of Eid here to some extent. Keep reading for a description of Eid day.