Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos

Facts, Sources, and Ways You Can Help

FACTS:                                                   

Killed in the conflict in 2006: 25 Jewish Israelis (soldiers & civilians), 599 Palestinians (civilians only);

Since Sept 2000: 1022 Jewish Israelis, 4404 Palestinians [MEPC Nov 2006: www.mepc.org/resources/mrates.asp].

Checkpoints: Barriers manned by Israeli soldiers &/or border police used to monitor &/or prevent Palestinian movement. Most checkpoints are not on the Green Line (between Israel & the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territories [OPT]), but mainly between Palestinian towns & villages, hindering commuters, schoolchildren, etc. Most checkpoints are closed overnight, blocking sick or pregnant villagers from getting to the hospital in emergencies.

Roadblocks: Concrete barriers or earth mounds to prevent Palestinians from using their vehicles on their roads— habitation & transport in the OPT are segregated—disabling the Palestinian economy & civilian movement.

Settlements: Jewish-only colonies on internationally-recognized Palestinian land.

The Wall:

• It will separate 34.4% of Palestinians from each other or their land, and Israel will annex approximately 15% of the West Bank, including 60-80% of the region’s most fertile land and water resources [UN OCHA].

• 80% of the Wall doesn’t touch the Green Line, rather it cuts into the West Bank, trapping 274,000 Palestinians between the Wall & the 1967 border, & completely surrounding 50+ communities [UN OCHA].

• More than 240,000 Palestinian olive trees have been uprooted to make way for the Wall (so far) [MIFTAH].

Imprisonment:

• More than 9,500 Palestinian political prisoners are being held in Israeli prisons, roughly 10% administrative detainees, meaning they can be held without charge or trial, indefinitely. Roughly 40% of the adult Palestinian male population has spent time in Israeli detention [Mandela].

• Torture, brutalization, & humiliation of Palestinian prisoners are widespread & systematic [Amnesty Int’l].

Recommended: Read the 1973 UN International Convention on Apartheid. In short, “apartheid” is defined as systematic oppression, segregation, & discrimination to maintain domination by one racial group—‘demographic group,’ in Israeli parlance—over another, as through denial of basic human rights & freedoms, including the right to work, education, movement, & nationality; torture or inhuman treatment; arbitrary arrest & illegal imprisonment; & “any measures designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves & ghettos,... the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group... or to members thereof”

Israel is the highest recipient of US foreign aid—$5 billion/year = $15 million/day! (IfAmericansKnew.org)—& the only country not held accountable for how its aid is spent, even though it has violated more UN Resolutions than Iraq or any other country in the world. As Americans, it is our right & responsibility to speak out against violations of human rights & international law carried out with our own tax dollars. (See ideas for taking action on back.)

LITTLE KNOWN HISTORY about the origins of the Occupation & conflict:

1870 - 7,000 Jews in Palestine (2% of population). Large-scale Zionist immigration begins in early 20^th century.

1946 - Population: 1,240,000 Palestinians & 600,000 Jews. Land ownership: 8% Jewish, 92% Palestinian.

1947 - UN Partition Plan proposes 56% of land for Jews, 44% for Palestinians, who reject proposal. War breaks out.

1948/49 - More than 750,000 Palestinians are expelled & 400 villages destroyed. Israel, victorious, declares state for Jewish people, remembered as “Independence Day” for Israel & “Al Nakba,” the Catastrophe, for Palestinians. Israel controls 78% of historic Palestine & refuses return of Palestinian refugees, who total about 6 million today.

1967 - Israel occupies all remaining Palestinian lands in Six-Day War. Occupation continues for the past 39 years.

1993 - First Palestinian suicide bomber. Palestinian resistance, both violent & nonviolent, continue to this day.

What YOU Can DO:

1. Do Your Own Research. Go beyond mainstream media sources. This DVD provides a list ofresources that bave helped many gather alternative information on thè issue. Intemet sources are listed on this back ofthis insert. Recommended books include anything by Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, or Tanya Reinhart on this issue.

2. Go to Palestine. It will change your life. This DVD provides a list of intemational, Palestinian, & Israeli organizations with which you can go as a volunteer or just to see for yourself.

3. Join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign against Israel. BDS is a nonviolent way for thè intemational com-munity to mobilize & put pressure on Israel in a style similar to that used against South Africa to help end apartheid there. Find compa-nies profìting in different ways from thè Occupation at InterfaithPeaceInitìative.com/ProfìtingFromOccupation.html To leam what organizations bave aiready divested and how your community can do it too, visit www.bds-palestine.net

4. Get Involved Locally. Solidarity groups are organizing around thè US. To fìnd a group near you, visit endtheoccupation.org and uniledforpeace.org (or start your own!).

5. Contact Local Media. Write a letter to thè editor or an op-ed for your locai newspaper, or cali you locai TV or talk radio stations to protest any biased coverage you observe. For US media contact information, visit Congress.org/CongressOrg/dbq/media or pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media. asp

6. US Citizens: Cali, Write, and Meet with Your Representatives. Demand that the US govemment hold Israel accountable for its violations of human rights, intemational law, and US law. Contact your representatives via www.Congress.org

Highiy recommended: Thè Global Exchange Activists Toolkits give excellent instruetions and tips for ali of thè above actions & many others.

Call (800) 497-1994 ext. 251 or download a free copy at

www.GlobalExchange.org/Countries/Mideast/Palestine/Toolkits.html  

Sources of Information/Maps:

Alternative Information Center: www.alternativenews.org

Anmesty International: www.amnesty.org

Israeli Center for Human Rights: www.btselem.org

Resource Center for Refùgee Rights: www.badil.org

Breaking thè Silence: www.breakingthesilence.org.il

Electronic Intifada: www.electronicintifada.net

Gush Shalom: www.gush-shalom.org/english

Ha'aretz, Israeli Daily Newspaper: www.haaretz.com

If Americans Knew: www.ifamericansknew.org

Mandela Human Rights Institute: www.mandela-palestine.org

Palestine Remembered: www.palestineremembered.com

Palestinian Academic Society: www.passia.org

UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs: www.reliejweb.int/hic-opt

 Produced by Chun Pan: www.ChunPan.com

Anna Baltzer is a Jewish American Columbia graduate, Fulbright scholar, and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. She is a frequent volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service, where she documents human rights abuses in the West Bank and supports the non-violent movement against the Occupation. She has spent most of the past few years in Palestine or on tour with her book, “Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories”. For more information, copies of Anna's book or DVD, to join her list to get eyewitness reports from Palestine, or to invite her to speak to your community, visit: www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com

© 2007, Anna Baltzer

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