Month: August 2010

In East Jerusalem, 5,300 Palestinian children do not go to school

Two Israeli human rights organizations — the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Ir Amim — have issued a new study reporting that, “due to bias”, there is a “severe deficicit” of classrooms for Palestinian children in East Jerusalem — a state of affairs for which, the two groups said, Israeli authorities [the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education] are directly responsible.

In a statement accompanying the report’s publication, they said that “The Israeli Education law requires the State to provide education services to all Palestinian children in East Jerusalem – but despite the law, these schoolchildren are suffering from a severe shortfall in classrooms. The results: thousands of Palestinian pupils study in crowded classrooms, often in ill-fitting buildings. Many have to turn to private education, and thousands who cannot afford the pay stay at home. Despite the promises of Israeli authorities to the High Court of Justice, not much has changed in the past decade … The Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are entitled to receive public education, by virtue of the residency bestowed upon them after Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. However, during the past school year, less than half of pupils in East Jerusalem went to public schools run by the Jerusalem Education Administration (a joint body of the Ministry of Education and the Municipality of Jerusalem); out of a total of 82,250 pupils – only 39,523 (which are 48.05%) attended public schools. The parents of more than 40,000 pupils who could not find a place for their children in municipal schools were forced to pay large sums of money to put them in private schools – run by various bodies such as churches, Islamic groups, UNRWA and commercial organizations. The vast majority of schools in East Jerusalem, in all educational streams, suffer from poor conditions and defects: dilapidated and unsafe buildings, crowded classrooms, a low academic level, dropout rates of 50% of the students and low achievements in matriculation exams. Meanwhile, thousands of children growing up in East Jerusalem do not go to school at all: about 5,300 children are not registered in any school, public or private. The Israeli government is neither taking an interest in them nor is making efforts to return them to the education system”.

Ir Amim executive director Yehudith Oppenheimer said that “The authorities claim that Jerusalem is unified, but at the same time they continue to ignore their legal commitments to the children of East Jerusalem”.

ACRI attorney Tali Nir noted that “The severe neglect of the education system in East Jerusalem is brewing a catastrophe”.

The full report is published here.

The summit of cynicism

Have we reached the summit of cynicism?

[Can we get any more cynical?]

Haaretz correspondent Avi Issacharov wrote on his Haaretz blog Sunday that “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to resume direct negotiations with Israel on September 2 in Washington without any of his preconditions being met. Israel has not promised to end construction in the settlements, and the Quartet’s statement does not even mention this issue. Contrary to the demand that the Quartet’s announcement would constitute the framework for the talks, U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell was quick to make it clear this is not the way things will be. One of the leading analysts in the Palestinian media described how Abbas was forced to climb down from uncompromising stance with a term normally reserved to describe the defeat of the Arab armies during the Six-Day War. Abbas succumbed to Arab-American dictate, the analyst said, despite never having missed a chance to reiterate during the year that ‘there will be no direct negotiations without complete freeze of settlements’ … The Palestinian Authority depends on foreign economic aid and the willingness of the U.S. to pressure countries to keep the money flowing. Abbas was concerned that the Americans would, at some point, stop economic aid. In spite of opposition at home, Abbas knows that the bottom line is he could survive different opinions but not an end to economic aid. The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said on Saturday that if Israel resumes settlement construction, the direct talks will stop. This will probably be the case, but at this stage, it would probably be wiser for senior PLO officials to cease climbing tall trees from which they are not sure how to climb down”.  This can be read in full here.

Does this reporter believe that the U.S. will cut off aid to the Palestinians, but not to Israel? That could, of course, hypothetically happen — but it is unlikely.

UPDATE: U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday that continuation of what is essentially a non-existent settlement freeze beyond its 26 September expiry date will be high on the list of topics to be addressed in the Israeli-Palestinian summit talks in Washington on 1-2 September.

YNet reporters have written today that “The PA does not believe the talks will have any concrete results, but hopes the process may bring it closer to the international community and perhaps lead the UN Security Council to recognize it as an independent state. ‘We will try to avoid any confrontations so that by August of next year we will be able to put a Palestinian state, with its established institutions, on the UN Security Council and the world powers’ agenda, so that for the first time in history they will accept their responsibility for the Palestinians’, one official said”.   This is posted here

Do PA officials believe that the entire Palestinian population is ready to be fooled by this approach, yet again?

UPDATE: Reuters reported earlier that this forthcoming summit “inspires little hope among Palestinians who say the prospect of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel seems no more than a dream. ‘There has been a lot of talk of peace, but we have seen no results. We no longer have hope’, said 30-year old Luay Kabbah, who was still at school when Palestinian and Israeli leaders first began talking peace nearly two decades ago”. The Reuters report added that “Today, the idea of that state emerging in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem — the leadership’s stated goal — seems almost far-fetched to many Palestinians. They say their hopes have been eroded by Israeli policies, the United States’ failure to force Israel into concessions and the failings of their own leaders, who have grown ever weaker and more divided since Yasser Arafat’s death in 2004. Rival Palestinian governments have emerged in Gaza and the West Bank, creating a divide that has complicated what was already one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. For now, avoiding a deterioration in the status quo is the best to be hoped for, said Ahmad Aweidah, head of the Palestinian stock exchange, set up when hopes of peace were high in the 1990s. [n.b. – Aweidah is also co-owner of the Zamn cafe in Ramallah, which is expanding despite its relatively high prices and uncomfortable seating. Zamn was originally based on the Aroma chain of cafes in Israel] ‘Peace process? What peace process? That’s so nineties. After 18 years, don’t they feel silly?’ he [Aweidah] said. ‘There are only two scenarios. The optimistic one is more of the same. The pessimistic one is it’s going to get worse’ … ‘We are the audience in a theatre’, said Samir Hulileh, chief executive officer of Palestine Development and Investment Ltd (PADICO), a holding company set up at the start of the peace process with the aim of building a Palestinian economy. ‘We have memorised the play so many times, it is repeated in different forms, and sometimes with different faces, but it’s the same’, he said. ‘We know the final outcome’, he said. ‘We don’t feel hope coming out of it’.” This Reuters report on reax to the forthcoming summit can be read in full here.

Huleileh makes it sound like The Rocky Horror show, actually — of interest to a cult group who know all the lines, and will shout them out with the actors…

Continue reading The summit of cynicism

Q + A of the day

Here’s George Mitchell in Washington on Thursday, answering a question about Hamas (“the green elephant in the room”), after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced invitations to Israel and the Palestinian leadership to come to dinner on 1 September, and hold direct talks on 2 September.

In his answer, Mitchell is pretending that it is still January 2009.

Or, does Mitchell know something we don’t?

Continue reading Q + A of the day

Happy smiling faces?

A new crop of billboards has gone up at strategic locations around Ramallah — that is, at the entrances to the city, where diplomats from donor countries is most likely to see them.

The second target seems to be the cadres of the Palestinian Authority’s various Ramallah-based ministries.

The billboards, sponsored by USAID, show headshots of various young people. Next to their faces are [in Arabic] the words:
“I’m very happy…about my new school…”etc.

This promotional campaign must have cost many, many tens if not hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars.

The new schools (seven of them, constructed by USAID and handed over to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank in 2009) are great.

These USAID ads are patronizing, stupid and embarassing.

A few hours after these billboards were visible, the U.S. announced that invitations were being sent to Israel and to the current Palestinian leadership in Ramallah to come to Washington D.C. on 2 September for a [re]-launch of direct talks.

Continue reading Happy smiling faces?

In other news today…

There is so much more to say, or to write, and so little time … These are just a few drops in the bucket:

On Monday, A Jerusalem court held the state responsible in a civil suit backed by Yesh Din for shooting, with a rubber bullet — and killing — a 10-year-old Palestinian girl walking home from school with her sister and two friends after buying sweets in Anata in January 2007.

Continue reading In other news today…

Al-Araqib village destroyed for 4th time today

Al-Araqib [or Al-Arakib] — an “unrecognized” village in Israel [meaning it has no regular electricity, water, sewage and other nice infrastructure] inhabited by Beduins with Israeli nationality — was destroyed by the IDF — for a fourth time — today.

Apparently, the demolition orders have been given because the land is slated to become a forest planted by the Jewish National Fund.

Activestills photos of today’s demolition can be viewed here.

Ma’an News Agency reported that “At least 200 children were left homeless as a result, as police removed residents property into prepared containers, and bulldozers razed buildings and sheepfolds, local activists said in a statement. Fruit orchards and olive grove trees were destroyed in the process. Israeli activists who were present at the demolition described the move as an ‘act of war, such as is undertaken against an enemy’.” This report is posted here.

Israeli Arab/Palestinian leaders say they support efforts to rebuild the 40-home village — yet again.

How NOT to respond to attacks on one's leadership

There’s only one convincing way to respond to attacks on oneself and/or one’s leadership: to smile and give genuine assurances that you are going to give full consideration to the arguments of opponents, or the opposition, and in any case you will sure try to do better.

UNSG BAN Ki-Moon has just chosen a poor alternative.

The Washington Post’s Column Lynch has reported that BAN “mounted a highly emotional defense of his embattled tenure Monday, telling reporters at a news conference that allegations that he sought to undercut the independence of the United Nations’ main anti-corruption agency were ‘unfair’.”

BAN went even further, saying to journalists: “I’m a very reasonable, very practical man of common sense. I do not take extreme, unreasonable policies. I always do the right things, proper things … If anybody or if any member states with the U.N. system, or any colleague of mine within the UN Secretariat, accuses me on the issue of accountability or ethics, then that’s something I regard as unfair”. This report is posted here.

Matthew Lee has been all over this story, on his Inner City Press website, and has refers to these BAN comments as a “meltdown” moment.

Matthew’s post on the immediate issues is here.

Matthew’s post on the UN Staff Union’s open expression of discontent on 5 August resolution is here.

And, Matthew asks, “Is [just] being there enough?”

New IDF information offensive against Hizballah

An Associated Press report this morning indicates that the Israeli Defense Forces have launched a new information offensive against Hizballah.

The IDF has taken journalists to the the northern “border” [though there is no agreed border as yet] between Israel and Lebanon, and shown what the IDF claims is evidence that “Hezbollah is moving fighters and weapons into the villages of south Lebanon, building up a secret network of arms warehouses, bunkers and command posts in preparation for war. The Israeli military has begun releasing detailed information about what it calls Hezbollah’s new border deployment, four years after a cross-border raid by its guerrillas triggered a 34-day war … Neither side has signaled that another war is imminent, but the Israelis’ unusual openness about what they claim to know of Hezbollah’s preparations seems to have two goals: to show the reach of their intelligence, and to stake their claim that if another war breaks out and many civilians die, it will be because Hezbollah placed its armaments and fighters in their midst. Israel’s military says Hezbollah has changed strategy since the last war, moving most of its fighters and weapons from wooded rural areas into villages. It says the aim is to avoid detection and use to civilians for cover if war erupts”. This is reported here.

This, as we reported earlier on this blog, is exactly what the spoon-fed Israeli television + other media has been reporting for at least a year, if not more — obviously based on privileged background briefings from the IDF.

Continue reading New IDF information offensive against Hizballah

Qalandia on the first Friday of Ramadan (2010)

Since The Wall became a massive presence in the Palestinian West Bank a few years ago, and since Qalandia Checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah (and the rest of the central and northern West Bank) grew to large proportions, it has become a major center of human activity on Fridays during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast for more than half of each day (from two hours before dawn until after sunset, when it is no longer possible to distinguish between a white and a black thread).

Each year, the arrangements have been different. There has been some effort at “improvement” from the Israeli side — and the results illustrate how difficult it is to improve anything through military regulation of human behavior.

For, how can you “improve” measures designed to restrict Palestinians from going to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque on the esplanade known as Haram ash-Sharif in the Old City of East Jerusalem?

Continue reading Qalandia on the first Friday of Ramadan (2010)

Meir Javendanfar worries about war, now

After noting that he usually tries “not to get worked up about reports of imminent war in the Middle East”, Iranian-born Israeli analyst Meir Javendanvar has just written, on the Real Clear World website, that “this time I really can’t shake the feeling that something ominous is about to happen, involving Hezbollah.  It will either be a massive confrontation with Israel, or armed conflict inside Lebanon”.

Javendanfar says that “the recent [3 August] border skirmish” — when the IDF insisted on going ahead with a “routine maintenace” tree-trimming operation that left 3 Lebanese Army soldiers, one Lebanese journalist, and one IDF Captain dead, in a firefight that ensued — ” has actually made Hezbollah more popular inside Lebanon”.

It has made Hizballah more popular everywhere in the Arab world.  And Hassan Nasrallah’s speech this past week — which many Western commentators thought offered little new — was regarded as an act of genius by many analysts here in the Palestinian West Bank [including East Jerusalem].

Continue reading Meir Javendanfar worries about war, now