Sam notes that “These mega-employment projects present a serious challenge to those who are striving to build an independent and viable economic foundation for a future Palestinian state. Because the zones will be dependent on Israeli cooperation to function, and because they will exist within an Israeli-designed economic system that ensures Palestinian dependence on Israel, they cannot form the basis of a sovereign economy. Relying on them will perpetuate the status quo of dependency and risks further entrenching Israel’s occupation, albeit possibly under another name, like statehood … Although the sectorial theme of each zone, assuming it has already been decided, has not been made public, if existing zones (such as the maquiladoras in Mexico, or those in Jamaica ) are any indication, the zones in Palestine will host “dirty” businesses – those that are pollution-prone and sweatshop-oriented. Jordan’s Qualified Industrial Zones provide a regional example. Like many others around the world, they are notorious for their exploitative labor practices. According to two consultants to the Israeli government, the West Bank zones, several of which are already under construction, are planned to employ 150,000-200,000 Palestinians, nearly the same number that used to travel daily to Israel for work before the second intifada”.

His analysis in Haaretz can be read in full here.

The JPOSt report continues: “Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who on Wednesday termed the [Goldstone Commission] report a ‘prize for terrorists’ that makes it more difficult for democratic countries to combat them, will be speaking in the coming days to a list of prime ministers of countries represented on the Human Rights Council, lobbying them to oppose any resolution adopting the findings of the report … Another senior government official said that while until now the Foreign Ministry’s focus regarding the Goldstone Report was to argue about Israel’s right to defend itself, and to deflect accusations of war crimes, since the document was issued the message has been recalibrated and is now portraying the report itself as part of a greater problem facing the West: defending itself against terrorists … ‘We are trying to create awareness in the public that this report threatens every democratic country’, the official said. ‘Those who are happy with the report are those trying to blow us up’. In an effort to get this message across, the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday launched a “Gaza Facts” Web site (here ), which links to an in-depth, 160-page document on all aspects of Operation Cast Lead, from an Israeli perspective … Israel, meanwhile, is also mounting an aggressive diplomatic campaign at the United Nations, with Israeli officials planning to meet on Wednesday with US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, as well as with other US administration officials and members of Congress … American and European officials have so far declined to offer specifics on how they will handle the report. ‘Justice Goldstone’s report regarding alleged violations of international humanitarian law and abuses during the Gaza conflict was just released yesterday. The issues it addresses are complex and the findings will take time to digest’, one US official said Wednesday. ‘We will review it carefully.” This JPost report can be read in full here.

Haaretz reported today that “Israel on Wednesday asked a number of senior members of the Obama administration to assist in curbing the international fallout from the Goldstone Commission report released this week, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. The Foreign Ministry decided Wednesday to focus their efforts to combat the report’s accusations on the United States, Russia and a few other members of the United Nations Security Council and the Human Rights Council that are involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israeli message is that the Goldstone report threatens those countries because it makes the war on terror very difficult, and therefore efforts must be made to prevent it from being brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue Wednesday with U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, while Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon discussed it with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and other senior officials … Ayalon, who is on a working visit to the United States, began Tuesday to transmit messages to senior members of the U.S. administration and Congress on the need to object to the report. He noted that the same approach that was taken to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism needs to be taken regarding the Goldstone report. President Shimon Peres Wednesday released a statement saying that the Goldstone report ‘made a mockery of history’. The Prime Minister’s Office decided Wednesday that Peres would take the front lines in Israel’s campaign against the report. Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would not express themselves publicly on the matter, but would engage in quiet diplomacy. Senior Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday that Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Goldstone Commission was the right one. They insisted this was the case, despite the fact that every Israeli who testified before the Goldstone Commission independently, like Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, had an impact on the report and Goldstone himself related to each of the Israeli testimonies. ‘We knew the report was going to be harsh, but Goldstone surprised us with how harsh’, a senior Foreign Ministry official said. ‘It just goes to show we were right not to cooperate. If we would have, we would have legitimized this scandal’.” The Haaretz report added that “The 575-page report describes 36 specific cases in which the IDF ostensibly broke international laws. A great many of the cases were already investigated by the IDF following the operation, within the units that took part in the fighting and by five committees established by order of Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. In most cases, the investigations determined that the soldiers acted according to orders as well as international law. However, it has not yet been decided whether to make public use of the material gathered by the IDF to refute the findings of the Goldstone panel, or to leave it as evidence in the event that suits are brought against specific Israel Defense Forces officers abroad. The IDF and the Justice Ministry are concerned that the report will make it difficult for Israeli officers to travel abroad … Following Operation Cast Lead, Haaretz revealed a directive by the IDF not to publish the names and photos of battalion commanders who took part in the operation due to fear of legal reprisals against them. A few months later, the IDF reversed itself on the matter … A joint panel of the Justice Ministry, IDF and Foreign Ministry already has a team of legal experts that advise officers not to leave the country and in some cases has prevented them from visiting specific countries … Israel is concerned that officers, and even senior government officials and ministers who were involved in approving the operation, would be at risk of being arrested in any country that is a signatory to the treaty recognizing the ICC in The Hague and is therefore obligated to respect its arrest warrants. The authorities are particularly concerned about officers visiting countries that allow their legal systems “universal jurisdiction” – following complaints filed by private citizens or the initiatives of investigative judges – to try an individual suspected of war crimes in another country. Such countries include Britain, Belgium, Spain and Norway … Every soldier and officer is required to undergo a security briefing before traveling abroad; over the past year, some officers who have participated in the fighting in Gaza, particularly if their names have appeared in the media, are required to undergo a special briefing. Legal sources said that civilian experts are mainly involved in dealing with the issue, rather than the Military Advocate General’s office. Other than its participation in the joint panel, the IDF has officially declined to respond to the allegations in the Goldstone report. The army has decided to leave responses to criticism abroad of its actions to the Foreign Ministry”. This report is posted here .

Soon after that Haaretz published that article, it published another one which in part contradicts the previous one. In the newer story, Haaretz reported that “Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit Wednesday denounced the United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza as ‘biased’ and said it blatantly overstepped the commission’s mandate. The report, by South African war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, is ‘biased, extremely radical, and has no basis in reality’, Mendelblit said. The full interview with Mendelblit, who is to be promoted to major general Thursday, will appear in Fridays’s Haaretz. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in closed meetings Wednesday that … ‘The report raises the groundless argument that the operation was planned and executed with the intention of harming the civilian population in the [Gaza] strip, and that during the operation, [the Israel Defense Forces] carried out acts intended to punish, hurt and intimidate the population’ … Defense establishment officials said the Goldstone report had other serious deficiencies. One of these was its recognition of Hamas’ ‘right’ to attack Israel [n.b. - it would be hard to find this in the Goldstone report, and is in fact not true] ; another was its statement that Israel continues to act as an occupying force in Gaza. The report also used the evidence presented to the commission selectively and in a biased way, they said: Evidence corroborating Israel’s position or showing illegal Hamas activity was dismissed by the commission as unreliable … At this stage, the IDF is not advising officers who fought in Gaza to avoid visiting certain countries, despite the fear that arrest warrants could be issued against them, an IDF source said. The army will draw conclusions after studying the report and examining international reactions to it, he added. Mendelblit said that since Operation Cast Lead, the IDF has received some 100 complaints from Palestinians, and the Military Police has opened investigations into 23 cases, most of them still ongoing. So far, charges have been pressed against one soldier, who was convicted of looting and sentenced to seven and a half months in prison. ‘Many of the complaints about the IDF’s conduct in the fighting were false alarms, it transpired’, Mendelblit said. ‘There were isolated, irregular incidents during the fighting, but the rule was clear at all ranks and levels: We act according to the principles of international law all the way … When complaints started coming in, people spoke about crimes allegedly directed from above. I reject that out of hand’, he said. We conducted five major inquiries and dozens of smaller ones. We found mistakes, malfunctions, but the instructions and rules were clear to all. A campaign is being waged, partly for ulterior, political motives, in an attempt to make Israel look bad in the world’. Asked about the ‘zero-risk principle’, often cited during and after the fighting, Mendelblit said orders are always to follow the rules of engagement. ‘The criteria are proportionality and distinguishing between combatants and civilians’, he said. ‘The military worth of an offensive must be greater than any collateral damage that could result. Those were the orders to field commanders. I don’t know if a zero-risk principle was talked about in the field, but in meetings where objectives were discussed and approved, no one talked of zero risk. In many cases, our forces did take risks’.” This Haaretz preview of its interview with the Military Advocate General can be viewed here.

Another Haaretz report suggested that “When the smoke of Goldstone’s report clears, the IDF and the government can emerge from the bunker to find that little damage has been done. Israel’s cooperation is needed in the diplomatic arena. After Operation Defensive Shield, Israel succumbed to external pressure and agreed to establish a committee of inquiry headed by U.S. General William Nash on the massacre-that-never-was in Jenin. Only after Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland and UN envoy Terje Roed Larsen intervened was the committee called off. Then, U.S. president George W. Bush preferred to push his diplomatic initiative to establish a Palestinian state. And that is what President Barack Obama will probably do: He will curb the propagandistic trend of slamming Israel for war crimes in order to extract tangible concessions from it as a peace partner”. This article is posted here.

The Associated Press reported that “In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday that Goldstone’s mandate from the U.N. Human Rights Council was ‘one-sided’, adding that ‘at an initial reading we have concerns about some of the report’s recommendations’.” This AP report can be read in full here

Tony Karon wrote in Time Magazine that “The [Goldstone] report’s release coincides with a deadlock in the Obama Administration’s efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell is currently in Israel, struggling to bridge the gap between the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ insistence that he won’t talk to the Israelis unless they halt all construction on territory captured in 1967 (a demand echoed by the U.S.), and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer of only a partial freeze that exempts projects already approved and does not apply to East Jerusalem. The Administration had hoped to cajole Abbas and Netanyahu to join Obama for a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month where they would relaunch direct talks, but right now the differences between the two sides make such an event unlikely. And at least one Israeli commentator, Haaretz’s Aluf Benn, wondered whether Obama might use the help Israel will need in getting Goldstone’s report shelved as leverage on the settlement question. That, too, is highly unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the fact the the Administration may have concluded from Netanyahu’s surge in popularity for resisting Obama’s settlement-freeze demand that publicly holding the conservative Israeli leader’s feet to the fire doesn’t get the desired results”.

In the same article, Time’s Tony Karon also wrote that “despite Israel’s disquiet over losing the battle for international public opinion and growing criticism over its actions in Palestinian territories, the Israeli military is unlikely to do much differently the next time it goes into Gaza … the U.N. report is potentially more damaging, and the fact that its key author is the widely respected Jewish South African Judge Richard Goldstone makes it more difficult to dismiss his work as an anti-Israel smear. Goldstone has ties to Israel and a reputation for honest exploration of politically sensitive subjects built in the course of his work at the head of the his country’s Truth Commission and, later, of the Hague tribunal for war crimes committed in former Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, his report is being read as a smear in the Israeli mainstream … [But] the U.N. report could potentially carry legal consequences. It is scheduled to be discussed on Sept. 28 at the U.N. Human Rights Council, where member countries might seek to have the matter taken up by the Security Council – which can, if it chooses, refer the matter to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Although political factors make such a course of action highly unlikely at the moment, Israel’s foreign ministry is taking no chances … Although Israel is aware of having lost the Gaza battle in the court of international public opinion – and has warned officers involved in the operation of the danger of arrest in third countries while traveling in their private capacities – the operation enjoyed overwhelming domestic political support. And Israel’s heavy-handed approach in what it called Operation Cast Lead, which inflicted heavy casualties and widespread damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, has been embraced as a model of effectiveness by the Israeli military, because it is seen as having ensured that Israeli forces suffered hardly any casualties while operating against a dangerous guerrilla force in a hostile urban environment. Should Israel deem it necessary to launch a new offensive in Gaza, it’s tactics are likely to be unchanged despite the international criticism”. The Time Magazine article is posted on its website here.

Nevertheless, a Haaretz editorial said that “The report by the commission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza is one of the most serious indictments ever made against the government and the military in Israel. The report states that during the operation Israel committed war crimes and significant violations of international law. The commission went so far as to accuse Israel of crimes against humanity. According to the report, the operation was intended to punish the civilian Palestinian population with the intentional use of disproportional force. As a result, they wrote, 1,400 people were killed in Gaza and thousands were left without a roof over their heads or a livelihood. As could be expected following the government’s decision to boycott the commission of inquiry, official Israel chose to defend itself with an all-out attack on the document and its authors. Although the report states that the operation had been preceded by the intentional firing of rockets at civilian targets in Israel – which it also describes as a war crime, and perhaps even a crime against humanity – and also notes the improper conduct on the part of Gilad Shalit’s kidnappers, the government spokesmen accused the commission of ignoring the circumstances which led to the offensive in the Gaza Strip and said they encouraged terror. The government hopes friendly countries, led by the United States, will stand by Israel in the battle to undermine the credibility of the report and will thwart the threat that it will become a legal indictment in the International Criminal Court in the Hague. But even if the legal threat is lifted via diplomatic means, the best of those offering explanations will find it difficult to invalidate the findings of the Goldstone Commission – which analyzed dozens of incidents, interviewed 188 people and reviewed thousands of documents. Moreover, a good deal of the findings are consistent with a number of reports filed by voluntary groups, which pointed out violations of the rules of warfare and of human rights during the fighting and the prolonged siege of the Strip. The cloud of Cast Lead will not dissipate on its own. Israel benefited from the decision to appoint a commission of inquiry following the Sabra and Chatila massacre that occurred during the first Lebanon war. Instead of a futile attempt to reject the report and undermine the legitimacy of the Goldstone Commission, the government would do better to establish a state commission of inquiry to thoroughly investigate the serious accusations that were placed this week on Israel’s doorstep. Such a step could prevent a more severe entanglement”. This editorial is published
here .

And Haaretz’s Amira Hass wrote in Haaretz on Thursday that “There is only thing worse than denial [of the accusations made in the Goldstone report] – the admission that the IDF indeed acted as has been described, but that these actions are both normal and appropriate”.

Hass reported that in response to an account she wrote for Haaretz last week, “On Friday an Israel Defense Forces soldier called to protest the publication of another story in Haaretz which in his words, tainted not only the troops’ image but also his Sabbath day. The soldier was referring to Gaza resident Zinat Samouni’s account of how soldiers killed her 46-year-old husband and their 4-year-old son Ahmed – just two of the 29 people of the same family the army killed between January 4 and 5.
The soldier, who said he participated in the fighting, said he didn’t believe the women’s statements were true, though he did believe soldiers ‘scrawled stupid things on the walls, and that’s really not right’. This is a common Israeli solution – in this case, to admit to the graffiti’s existence, but downplay its seriousness or view it as everyday Israeli high jinks. Everything else can be denied. It can always be said that photographs of civilians killed were fabricated. The Palestinians’ accounts can be dismissed as lies, intrigues of Hamas, embellishment or, at best, facts taken out of context since Gazans are, after all, afraid of what Hamas would do to them if they told the truth.
Jurists will argue over the meaning of international law and will suggest contradicting analyses. Politicians will justifiably note that the United States does not have commissions of inquiry thrust upon it by the United Nations. Others will say that if Judge Richard Goldstone was reliable enough to be a prosecutor in the International Criminal Court cases on Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and his Pakistani colleague Hina Jilani was fit to participate in the international investigation into Darfur, there is no reason to suddenly cast doubt on their credentials now that they are examining Israel’s deeds in Gaza. [But] The Goldstone Commission’s findings are in line with what anyone who didn’t shut his or her eyes and ears to witness testimony already knows. B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Haaretz and the international media – to Israelis, these have all fallen into the trash bin of the mendacious Palestinians. In the best case, they have become trapped in their own pure-hearted naivete, and in the worst, into collaborating with efforts to besmirch Israel and bolster prejudices against it … Israel struck a civilian population that remains under its control, it didn’t fulfill its obligation to distinguish between civilians and militants and used military force disproportionate with the tangible threat to its own civilians. Air Force drones and helicopters fired deadly missiles at civilians, many of them children; the Tank Corps and Navy shelled civilian neighborhoods with weapons not designed for precision strikes; soldiers received orders to fire on rescue crews; others fired on civilians carrying white flags; and others killed people in or near their homes. Troops used Gazans as human shields, soldiers detained civilians in abusive conditions, the army used white phosphorus shells in dense civilian areas and, on the eve of withdrawing, destroyed wide residential, industrial and agricultural areas. There is only thing worse than denial – the admission that the IDF indeed acted as has been described, but that these actions are both normal and appropriate”. Today’s Amira Hass article is published here .

Goldstone himself is urging that Israel simply launch its own investigation. Ma’an News Agency in Bethlehem reported that in a telephone interview with Goldstone on Tuesday, the day the report was released, Goldstone indicated that “despite its outrage, Israel has not disputed any single allegation” in the report: ” ‘There hasn’t been any attempt thus far to deal with the contents of the report at all’, insisted the former South African justice … Goldstone, an expert on international law and the laws of war, was chief UN prosecutor for the Yugoslavia and Rwanda post-conflict international criminal tribunals in the early 1990s, and later chaired the international independent panel on Kosovo … Goldstone explained over the phone on Tuesday [that] Israeli spokespersons and ministers attacked the report as a concept and criticized its authors just minutes after receiving the document, and despite that it totaled nearly 600 pages … However Goldstone dismissed those and other denunciations from Israeli officials, particularly remarks alleging bias by the prime minister’s spokesman, Mark Regev, which he ‘found disappointing because it sounds to me like he hadn’t read the report … I certainly have every confidence that any reasonable person would regard the report as being even-handed, and looking into all relevant allegations on all sides’, Goldstone said, countering continuous allegations that he set out to blame Israel from the beginning. ‘I think that’s for objective people to judge’, he added, before moving on to one of the more bizarre allegations distributed by the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, that Hamas officials joined his team throughout its investigation in Gaza. ‘You know, this allegation keeps being made’, Goldstone said, even though his report accused Hamas in unmistakably clear language of war crimes and crimes against humanity for its targeting of Israeli civilian population centers. ‘It is absolutely without any truth at all’. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had claimed that ‘at every stage of their visit to Gaza the Mission members were accompanied by Hamas representatives’, citing unspecified Palestinian media reports. However Goldstone insisted that ‘Hamas didn’t follow us at all’, much less ‘at every stage’ of the visit. ‘They were nowhere near any of the interviews we held, and there was just no question; there was no issue’. He added, ‘Had they attempted in any way to do that, I would have found that objectionable and I would not have accepted it – but it just didn’t happen’. Although he said Hamas never tried to harm the investigation, Israel refused to cooperate with the UN mission, forcing Goldstone and his team to enter the besieged coastal strip via Egypt’s crossing, and forcing Israeli victims to testify in Geneva”.

The Ma’an account of its telephone interview with Goldstone added that he also denied a claim made in a statement sent out from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) by email [that was also received by this correspondentl], which said that because of its “one-sided” mandate, “many distinguished individuals who were asked to head the Mission refused … One of them was [former Irish president] Mary Robinson” As Ma’an noted, “the former high commissioner for human rights [has often been] the target of Israel’s ire,” But, Ma’an reported, Goldstone said that “The mandate Mary Robinson refused was not the mandate I accepted”. Ma’an added that Goldstone told them “the fact-finding mission’s mandate was changed, before the team began” This Ma’an report can be found here

Meanwhile, in a development announced today by a group of Israeli human rights organizations, led by GISHA, ” [Col. Moshe Levi] head of the [Gaza] DCO [the Israeli military's District Coordination Office] informed the Israeli organizations that from now on, IDF officials will no longer provide replies and updates regarding their clients, and the organizations must contact a foreign, non-Israeli body – the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee – with the request that it forward their application to the IDF. The organizations expressed concern that this refusal will seriously impede the work of Israeli human rights organizations – and that Gaza residents with urgent humanitarian needs will pay the price. Human rights organizations, which assist thousands of Palestinians seeking to exit or enter the Gaza Strip for various reasons, serve in many cases as the only option of representation available to residents. Since a Palestinian resident of the Gaza Strip cannot approach the Israeli authorities directly, and since the Gaza DCO is the only body authorized to grant applications, the sole avenue open to such residents hoping to receive a response or to expedite the handling of their applications is via human rights organizations … In the case of Mu’tasem Billah Abu-Mastfa, a nine-month-old baby suffering from severe congenital heart defects: He has four holes in his heart, which is located on the right side of his chest … his doctors referred him for treatment at Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer, Israel , where he was expected on September 13, 2009. On August 28, 2009, his family submitted an application to the Israeli-run Gaza DCO, via the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee, to coordinate his exit from Gaza, but they have yet to receive a reply from the Gaza DCO, and therefore the baby has been prevented from traveling to receive medical treatment. Due to the IDF’s new policy of refusing to respond to applications made by human rights organizations, there is no way of finding out the reason for the delay or to expedite the handling of this urgent application. This is only one example of many. The Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee has no power to issue permits or to allow passage, since the IDF controls Erez Crossing. The organizations expressed surprise at the notice of refusal in light of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories’ declarations that part of the DCO’s function is to respond to applications from Israeli human rights organizations. Recently the head of the DCO, Col. Moshe Levi, made contact with one of the organizations to propose a meeting in order to improve its work with the DCO and stated that the DCO exists “for the humanitarian niche,” i.e. for the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip who have been subject to the closure for more than two years. Now, just two months later, Col. Levi sent this letter to notify the human rights organizations of the immediate severance of contacts”. Though the Col. Moshe Levi’s letter was dated 13 September, two days before the Goldstone report was formally issued, the severance of ties and contacts that it reports went into effect on 15 September, the date the report was released. The Israeli human rights groups who signed the letter are: Gisha, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel , Association for Civil Rights in Israel , Adalah, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel , Rabbis for Human Rights, Yesh Din.

And, in another development, there is a new UN Environmental Program report that was released Tuesday, stating that “The water supply in the Gaza Strip is on the very of collapse due to pollution that has been worsened by damage to infrastructure during Operation Cast Lead … Sewage contamination of the water table far exceeds allowable levels set by the World Health Organization, the report states. The UN report notes that it will take more than 20 years and a billion dollars to rehabilitate the water system in Gaza. The report, based on a visit by representatives of the United Nations Environmental Program to Gaza in May, says that nearly one-fifth of the
greenhouses in Gaza were destroyed in the war in Gaza. The movement of tanks caused long-term damage to the ground that will impede cultivation. Damage to sewage facilities apparently led to waste water penetrating the aquifer … The report recommends seeking alternative water sources as soon as possible for Gaza, including desalinated sea water. Gaza’s population faces severe health problems due to the decline in drinking-water quality”… This is reported today in Haaretz here.

The BBC reported, on September, that “The UN and international aid agencies say Israel must relax its blockade of the Gaza Strip to allow urgent repairs to the water and sewage systems. In a joint appeal, the bodies say the hazards to health and the environment threaten not only Gaza but Israel too. More than 13m gallons (50m litres) of raw or partially treated sewage flows into the sea every day from Gaza because of a lack of treatment plants. The cross-border aquifer is low and raw sewage floats back to Gaza and Israel. The UN says about 10,000 Gazans [still] have no access to a water network – while about 60% of the 1.4m population receive water only intermittently. Water consumption in the Strip is less than a third of that of Israelis living just a few kilometres away. Israel, and Egypt on its south-western side, have kept Gaza largely sealed since a violent takeover of the territory by the Islamic militant Hamas group in 2007 … ‘The deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip’, said UN humanitarian co-ordinator in the Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard. Mr Gaylard and other humanitarian workers and officials launched the appeal with a news conference near one of northern Gaza’s sewage lagoons to highlight the problem. In 2007, one of the lagoons overflowed and five people were killed by a flash flood of sewage. Aid agencies said Israel’s bombardment in December and January worsened an already bad situation. Israeli officials had no immediate comment to the appeal on Thursday”. The BBC report is posted here.

I wonder where they got this information?

We are usually never informed about anything here — when the water will be cut, when the electricity will be cut, when the checkpoint will be removed, when the Gate in The Wall might be reopened to ease the congestion for children who must go through the mess at Qalandia checkpoint (“border crossing”) to get to school and back every day.

There are only ever rumors — that is part of what it means to live under occupation.

And now, we have a rumor of an earthquake alert — which will affect both occupiers and occupied.

Of note: the vegetables have to be smuggled past checkpoints to get to Jerusalem.

Sometimes, they are confiscated.

Without further comment, here is an excerpt from the Haaretz story:
“Since the village was founded at the beginning of the 16th century, its farmlands have been shrinking. This was a natural process through the generations, as in the feudal estates of medieval times, when the laws of inheritance reduced the area received by each family head. In the 20th century the problem was compounded by complex geopolitical developments.

The villagers could make a living from the burgeoning market for organic produce in Israel, but a checkpoint blocks their way…

“The residents of Tzur Hadassah, the rapidly growing Israeli bedroom community that abuts the village to the west, were the first to buy from the villagers, paying a fixed weekly amount for fresh seasonal produce and a promise, based on trust, to refrain from spraying. In October 2007, a young Jerusalem woman, an activist from one of the city’s most famous intellectual families, came to the village. Until then, she had been engaged in projects involving organic vegetable gardens and clean farming. Before she started to market the village’s produce directly to homes in Jerusalem, she was aided by ground- and water-quality tests carried out by Friends of the Earth. “I fed all the leftists in Jerusalem, who are already a vanishing breed, so I had a definite interest in not poisoning them,” she says with a sly smile. She bought a rickety old pickup and started to smuggle baladi vegetables through the checkpoint to 12 Jerusalem families. Within a year she was supplying dozens of families in the center of the country, and they visited the village for tours and communal meals. The weekly order of vegetables was supplemented with goat cheese, olive oil and village-made soap.

Some of the clients – those who had become addicted to the taste of the fine produce and those who understood that the crates of vegetables were a key source of livelihood for families who had made a living for generations from tilling the soil – also refused to forgo the original system. In the end, they split into six small co-ops, each of which found a way to go on receiving the weekly shipment, most of them by picking it up from the village on a rotational basis” …

The Haaretz article on baladi vegatables and checkpoints, including some nice recipes, can be read in full here.

It reads well together with a commentary published in The Guardian by Ben White today, which says:
“It is quite likely that you have not heard of the most important developments this week in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the West Bank, while it has been ‘occupation as normal’, there have been some events that together should be overshadowing Gaza, Gilad Shalit and Avigdor Lieberman.

Which brings us to the third reason why news from the West Bank is more significant than the Gaza truce talks or the Netanyahu-Livni rivalry – it is a further reminder that the two-state solution has completed its progression from worthy (and often disingenuous) aim to meaningless slogan, concealing Israel’s absorption of all Palestine/Israel and confinement of the Palestinians into enclaves … For a real sense of where the conflict is heading, look to the West Bank, not just Gaza“.

Ben White’s commentary on the situation in the West Bank can be read in full on The Guardian website here.

“A full moon rises right around sunset, no matter where you are. That’s because of the celestial mechanics that produce a full moon: The moon and the sun are on opposite sides of the Earth, so that sunlight hits the full face of the moon and bounces back to our eyes. At moonrise, the moon will appear even larger than it will later in the night when it’s higher in the sky. This is an illusion that scientists can’t fully explain …

“Saturday night (Jan. 10) the moon will be at perigee, the closest point to us (Earth) on this orbit. It will appear about 14 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during 2009, according to NASA. (A similar setup occurred in December, making that month’s full moon the largest of 2008.) Tides will be higher, too …

“So, if skies are clear Saturday, go out at sunset and look for the giant moon rising in the east … If you have other plans for Saturday night, take heart: You can see all this on each night surrounding the full moon, too, because the moon will be nearly full, rising earlier Friday night and later Sunday night”.

For all the details, the full report can be viewed here.

Akiva Eldar reported in Haaretz that a UN report says that “Millions of liters of sewage have been released over the past three months into the Mediterranean Sea from the Gaza Strip, according to a new United Nations report. According to the report, an estimated 50-60 million liters of waste have been pumped into the sea. This was done in an effort to prevent an overflow of sewage in residential areas. Normally, the sewage is pumped to prearranged sites for treatment, but the shortage of fuel in the Gaza Strip has caused disruptions in the supply of electricity. These shortages, lack of sufficient quantities of chemicals necessary for treating sewage, and spare parts, has led the Gaza officials to pump the waste into the sea. The report prepared by Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) raises concerns that the untreated sewage is carrying Escherichia coli (e. coli) bacteria into the sea which may affect those swimming in its waters … The authors of the report also wrote that in areas where the sewage is pumped into the sea, the color of the water is dark brown and a strong odor emanates. Fishermen in Gaza bay claim the sewage has killed much of the fish in the area … The treatment plant requires constant electrical supply, and the OCHA report calls on Israel to lift its restrictions on fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip. OCHA says that unless electricity can run continuously it is impossible to make regular use of the sanitation equipment in the Strip. The UN is also calling on Israel to allow the transfer of materials and spare parts that are necessary to upgrade the sewage system, and which would allow the construction of three modern sewage treatment stations in the Strip”. This article can be read in full in Haaretz here .

A separate report in the Jerusalem Post says that “Gaza’s water authority has dumped 60 million liters of partially treated and untreated sewage into the Mediterranean Sea since January 24, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report released on Wednesday. ‘The sewage discharge is contaminating Gaza seawater and posing health risks for bathers and consumers of seafood. The sewage flows northward to Israeli coasts, including near the Ashkelon desalination plant. Urgent studies are needed to examine the extent of the impact’, the report reads. The report’s authors blamed Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip for the Gazans’ inability to treat the sewage … The UN said Gaza’s water authority, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, required 14 days of uninterrupted electricity to treat the sewage. The utility provides more than 130 million cubic meters of water per year, according to the report, 80 percent of which ends up as sewage. Moreover, because of the restrictions on imports and exports into and out of the Strip, spare parts needed to repair the sewage treatment plants had not been allowed in”…

Then, the JPost article contains defensive and misleading information such as: “a security source familiar with the situation told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that the vast majority of Gaza’s electrical needs were being met by Israel and Egypt. ‘Gaza is receiving 141 megawatts a day out of [its normal requirements of] 200 megawatts at this time from Israel and Egypt’, the source said”. This JPost article can be read in full here .

OK. Let’s take this apart a little bit:
(1) If Gaza is receiving 141 MW a day at this time from Israel and Egypt, that means Israel is providing 124 MW of directly supplied electricity daily from Ashdod or Ashkelon — I think Ashkelon, but both have been reported with great assurance and authority in the Israeli media. And that would mean that Israel has rescinded the electricity cuts that the Israeli military authorized to start on 7 February — and it would only have done so if it realized that any electricity cuts could cause a potentially catastrophic humanitarian crisis that the Israeli military promised it will avoid.

(2) Gaza’s requirements are more than 200 MW a day — they were 240 MW in the winter, and may be just slightly less now, but will rise again as the summer heat sets in. Gaza has been experiencing at least 20% electricity shortfalls, which cause constant brown-outs and black-outs. But, let’s just go along with what this Israeli security source says for a moment: If Gaza normally requires 200 MW per day, and Israel and Egpyt are together supplying 141 MW a day, that means that somewhere, somehow, Gaza must be generating at least 59 MW per day on its own. However, it has not been able to do so, because the Israeli military-ordered fuel cuts affecting Gaza’s only power plant, which operates on Israeli-supplied, European-financed industrial diesel fuel, have restricted production to an average of 45-50 MW per day. Lately, it has only been able to generate 40 MW per day, because fuel deliveries have been short, because the Israeli military says there have been attacks from Gaza on the fuel transfer terminal at Nahal Oz. But, as Sari Bashi, executive director of the Israeli human rights organization GISHA — who has led a fight against these fuel and electricity cuts — says, “if the military can supply some fuel, why can’t it supply enough?”

BUT, we’ve been writing about this for months …

Then, this JPost article also says that Hamas should find a solution.

And, it then goes on to argue, in a hallucinatory fantasy, that sewage has been dumped from Gaza into the sea for years, so this is nothing new, and that the Gazans (now living under tightening Israeli sanctions) should cheerfully recycle this sewage waste water for agriculture, as happy Israelis are doing.

Again, let’s take this apart:
(1) sewage flowed into the sea from Gaza for years, yes, before the Oslo Peace Process started in 1993. After that, donors paid for various sanitation installations to treat this sewage. SOme of these installations have been damaged during IDF attacks. Now, those that were in working order have now been put out of service by the Israeli military-ordered fuel cuts, and by the lack of spare parts — again, banned by the IDF under its sanctions program against Hamas in Gaza — to conduct normal mantanence operations.

The JPost article reports that the spokesman for Israel’s Water Authority, Uri Schor, told its reporter that “The State of Israel assists in various ways to the pumping and water distribution and to the continued operation of the sewage treatment plants. That assistance includes approval to transfer most of equipment the Palestinian Authority has requested – the rest is in the process of being verified – and all the diesel fuel necessary to run the plants“. The JPOst adds, faithfully, that “Schor added: ‘These plants had not been affected by any cutbacks to electricity’ [and] Schor suggested the PA follow Israel’s example and use treated sewage water for agriculture in place of potable water. ‘Right now, 70% of Israel’s sewage is treated and recycled, and the plan is to recycle all of it. In the PA, all of the agriculture uses freshwater, and using recycled sewage water would enable the Palestinians to redirect tens of millions of cubic meters of water for household use’, he said. Responsible management by the PA would add a respectable amount of expensive freshwater to their supply, he said”…

Yes, sure, but the PA includes the West Bank, which is not under these Israeli military-controlled sanctions that affect Gaza, and except that the supposed freshwater in Gaza is brackish because of seawater infusions due to overpumping of the water tables — some of the overpumping was/is being done by Israel …

The consensus resolution, which the U.S. eventually joined after being cajoled and booed by the assembled delegates, also calls for monitored technology transfers to assist developing countries voluntarily curb their pollution emissions that cause global warming.

The extra last day followed an earlier accusation by former Vice-President Al Gore that the U.S. was principally responsible for obstructing progress at the conference, an all-night marathon negotiating session, recriminations from China, and a near-breakdown at the podium by conference chairman Yvo de Boer.

Now, diplomats should try these tactics in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, which has been blocked for more than a decade by disagreements about which disarmament negotiations should be next (the U.S. is still refusing China’s request to address the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space at the same time as a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty that the U.S. wants).

The difference is that at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva the U.S. still has a few European and Latin American allies, while in Bali the European Union made its differences with the U.S. public.

The three major news agencies have all covered the just-released “synthesis” report on climate change following the close of the IPCC meeting in Valencia, Spain today. The”synthesis” report will be discussed by some 10,0000 delegates who are expected to participate in the Bali meeting of the UN Conference on Climate Change starting in just over two weeks’ time.

While UNSG BAN has squeezed into the picture for reasons of image and legacy, it’s also certainly true that it would be worse if he ignored the issue. BAN has even embarked on his own eco-tourism to learn at first hand about the issue, which he seized upon just before taking office.

Reuters reported that BAN told delegates from more than 130 nations meeting in Valencia that ” ‘This report will be formally presented to the (U.N. Climate Change) Conference in Bali … Already, it has set the stage for a real breakthrough — an agreement to launch negotiations for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace’, he said. Ban singled out the United States and China, the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases, which have no binding goals for curbs, as key countries in the process. He welcomed initiatives by both and urged them to do more. ‘I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role starting from the Bali conference’, Ban told a news conference afterwards … Ban said he had just been to see ice shelves breaking up in Antarctica and the melting Torres del Paine glaciers in Chile. He also visited the Amazon rainforest, which he said was being ‘suffocated’ by global warming. ‘I come to you humbled after seeing some of the most precious treasures of our planet — treasures that are being threatened by humanity’s own hand’, he said. ‘These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie’, Ban said. ‘But they are even more terrifying, because they are real’ …

The Reuters report added that “Delegates said the U.S. delegation had been at the centre of some of the fiercest debate this week. Sources close to the discussions said the U.S. had tried to change or even remove a key section of the report which lists five main reasons for concern about the effects of warming … IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri told Reuters [that] ‘When you’re on strong scientific ground, you don’t yield any ground. We have to make sure that scientific truth is not suppressed’. The Kyoto treaty obliges 36 industrial nations to cut emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. A new deal would aim to involve outsiders led by the United States and China” [who are not part of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] … The Reuters report on the wrap-up of the Valencia meeting is here.

AFP reported that “UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon seized on the report by the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to demand that politicians next month smash the deadlock on tackling the greenhouse-gas peril. The historic report ‘has set the stage for a real breakthrough’, said Ban, referring to a key conference running on the Indonesian island of Bali from December 3-14. ‘We cannot afford to leave Bali without such a breakthrough’, he said, as he described climate change as the ‘defining challenge of our age’ … During five days of negotiations, the United States repeatedly challenged passages emphasizing the level of threat posed by climate change, objecting that the wording was imprecise. The ‘scientific definition’ of the dangers of climate change ‘is lacking, and so we are operating within the construct of, again, strong agreement among world leaders that urgent action is warranted’, said Jim Connaughton, chairman of White House’s Council on Environmental Quality. The Bali conference, taking place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is tasked with setting a ‘roadmap’ of negotiations for intensifying cuts in carbon emissions beyond 2012, when current pledges run out under the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon pollution, emitted especially by the burning of oil, gas and coal, traps heat from the Sun, thus warming the Earth’s surface and inflicting changes to weather systems. Emissions are now spiralling, driven especially by carbon dioxide (CO2) spewed from coal-fired plants in fast-growing China and India, and Kyoto’s present commitments will not even dent the problem. Reducing emissions implies a cost in converting to cleaner energy or more efficient energy use. The cost of such a switch is a mighty political hurdle, even though experts say the cost of inaction will be many times higher just a few decades from now. The AFP report on the outcome in Valencia is here.

AP reported that “differences remain stark on how to control carbon emissions. While the European Union has taken the lead in enforcing the carbon emission targets outlined in Kyoto, the United States opted out of the 1997 accord. President Bush described it as flawed because major developing countries such as India and China, which are large carbon emitters, were excluded from any obligations. He also favors a voluntary agreement. Sharon Hays, a White House science official and head of the U.S. delegation, said the certainty of climate change was clearer now than when Bush rejected Kyoto”. The AP report on the happenings in Valencia is here.