Daily life under occupation

Israels occupation of Palestine is the longest-lasting occupation in modern history. Vestiges of the occupation are everywhere. It seriously impedes the Palestinian from attaining an adequate quality of life, as is guaranteed under international law. From the Apartheid Wall; checkpoints; random arrests and detentions; and lack of freedom of movement are just some of the topics covered in this presentation to give you a brief glimpse of what daily life is like for Palestinians. The presentation also will show how this occupation, which deprives Palestinians of their basic human rights, is supported by billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money.

This graphic depicts the loss of historic Palestine from the Partition of Palestine in 1947 until today. The West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967, is now carved up into small Bantustans because of settlements, by-pass roads and the Apartheid Wall.

Who are the Palestinians?

Israels occupation of Palestine has fragmented the population. Refugees and Diaspora Palestinians ~ 7 million

Gaza Strip Palestinians ~ 1.7 million

West Bank Palestinians ~ 2.3 million Palestinians in historic Palestine (Israel) ~ 1.5 million

AMP Nakba parade, May 2011, Bridgeview, IL

Daily life under occupation

The occupation has fragmented Palestinian society in such a way there is limited and, sometimes, no contact between residents of the West Bank, Gaza or historic Palestine (Israel). The people of the West Bank are fighting for their lives, while we in Israel are fighting for our civil rights.
~ Habib Karam, Palestinian resident of Israel

Refugees and the Diaspora Palestinians

Palestinians make up the largest and longest-lasting refugee population in the world.
750,000 Palestinians refugees during Nakba of 1947-1949. 350,000 Palestinian refugees during Six Day War in 1967 7 million Total number of Palestinian refugees worldwide 5 million - Refugees registered with UNRWA

1.4 million UNRWA refugees living in 58 camps in the West Bank, E. Jerusalem, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan
2 million Refugees in Diaspora not registered with UNRWA 70% Total Palestinian population who are refugees
(Source: UNRWA.org and Al-Awda.org)

Omar Daoud of suburban Chicago shows a map from his village of Ein Karem, marked to show the land his family used to own before Zionists forced them from their land in 1948.

The siege was tightened in 2007 after Hamas won parliamentary elections (2006) and took over Gaza. But the siege actually started in 1991, with restricted travel to the West Bank and historic Palestine, known today as Israel.
(Source: Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement)

Gaza

Israels prohibition of imports means people in Gaza must rely upon a tunnel economy to survive

90% of the water supply is contaminated and not fit for human consumption 80% of Gazas residents rely on the United Nations for food aid.

Gaza

Gazas students need at least 105 new schools because Operation Cast Lead and the siege have destroyed and/or damaged at least 280 buildings. (Operation Cast Lead was the 3week Israeli offensive that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza including at least 355 children.)

UNRWA turned away 40,000 students at the start of the 2010-11 school year due to lack of space.
More than 1,000 college students apply for study abroad programs annually; fewer than 100 are permitted to leave Gaza.
(Source: UNRWA; Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education)

International law gives Palestinians the right to fish up to 20 nautical miles off their shore, but Israeli Occupation Forces force them to fish shallow waters within 3 miles of shore. The Israeli Navy fires upon the fishermen with live ammunition and water cannons.
(Source: The Guardian, July 24)

Income losses, because of the siege and Operation Cast Lead, amount to about $24 million per day, 80% of Gazas gross domestic product, according to the UN Economic and Social Council.
(Source: Operation Cast Lead: A Statistical Analysis, Al Haq)

Easing the blockade

Despite Israels promises to ease the blockade in June 2010, conditions have stayed the same or have become worse. Consumer goods increased, but only to 35%, up from 20%, of pre-blockade levels.

Rafah Crossing
With the Egyptian Revolution came hope that the Rafah border crossing with Gaza would be opened permanently.
That is not the case. Currently, only 300 Palestinians are allowed to cross through Rafah each day.

Most raw materials are still banned.

Inflow of construction materials still at 11% of preblockade levels. Ban on exports remains in place except for a few loads of strawberries. Between June and November 2010, not one truckload of goods was allowed to leave Gaza. Fuel for power remains at 68% of capacity

Cooking fuel remains at 53% of needs

Almost no gasoline or diesel fuel allowed in.
(Source: Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza Blockade, Nov. 30, 2010.

West Bank
Palestinians living in the West Bank live under direct threat of violence and loss of liberty because of the occupation. Some of the most common ramifications of the occupation that violate their legally guaranteed rights to quality of life, to education, health care and movement include: Settlements The Apartheid Wall

Checkpoints and closures

Home demolitions Security apparatus Random arrests and detentions

West Bank fragmentation

Thanks to the Oslo Accords, the West Bank is carved up into three categories: Zone A is under total Palestinian civil control Zone B is under Israeli control and Palestinian Authority administration

Zone C is under total Israeli control

Palestinians are not free to travel from one zone to another without a travel permit. They are also prohibited in traveling in or utilizing land in many areas of Area C especially land abutting settlements.

Settlements

Israel established its first settlement just 5 weeks after the end of the Six Day War in 1967.

(Source: Fifty Years of Israel by Donald Neff)

Settlements
Settlements are being constructed in strategic areas to divide the West Bank from northsouth and east-west. Settlements and the buffer zones surrounding them now account for more than 40 percent of West Bank land Israel offers incentives in the way of mortgage subsidies and other aid to encourage Jews to move to the colonies. Other incentives offered include reduction in land prices; grants to buy apartments; reduction in income tax for companies and grants for investors and companies building to doing business in the colonies. The U.S. government has funded the immigration to Israel of Russian Jews, who usually end up living in the settlements. In 2007, 40 percent of the settlements' population growth was comprised of Jews emigrating from Israel and abroad.
(Source: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions)

How can you tell settlement housing from Palestinian housing?

(Hint: Look at the rooftops)

Israeli authorities control all the water resources in the West Bank. Water to Palestinians is regularly cut off to ensure ample supply for colonial settlers so they store water in rooftop tanks.

26 gallons per person per day = healthy water usage 18.5 gallons = Palestinians usage 79 gallons = Israelis and settlers usage
(Source: World Health Organization)

At least 20,000 Palestinians living in rural areas have no access to running water. Even cities and towns that are connected to a water-supply system experience frequent outages.
(Source: Amnesty International)

Israel controls more than 80% of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the only underground source of water in the West Bank as well as surface water from the Jordan River. Palestinians have no share in this water.
(Source: Amnesty International)

Apartheid and discrimination in services

Though Palestinians pay the same taxes as Israelis, they do not receive the same services. In the West Bank, Palestinians do not receive garbage pick-up. Most resort to burning their garbage. Most of their roads are not paved or they lack curbs, gutters and traffic signals. They do not have postal delivery.

Road in Palestinian village in West Bank

Jewishonly road in West Bank

They do not have regular bus service.

Apartheid Wall
When completed, the Apartheid Wall will be about 450 miles long, twice as long as the 1948 borders. 85 percent of the wall is being built on Palestinian land, annexing an additional 12 percent of land into Israel.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled it was illegal to build the wall on Palestinian land. Palestinians trapped on the wrong side of the wall must now obtain permits to remain in their own houses. In the northern West Bank, 10,000 Palestinians in this situation.

About 500,000 Palestinians live in areas severed by the wall.

77 percent of school children reported they missed school occasionally because the walls checkpoints are closed.
(Source: Grim Statistics: The reality of living under occupation, AMP. 2011)

Myth: The Wall has stopped suicide bombings in Israel Fact: The Wall still is not finished; suicide bombings stopped in 2006. Moral: The Wall is about annexing more land into Israel. It is not about security.
Source: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Checkpoints, roadblocks and closures

The West Bank has about 600 checkpoints, closures and other obstacles, such as trenches, earthen mounds and cement piles , which restricts Palestinians are forbidden from traveling sometimes even crossing about 120 miles or roads.
(Source: BTselem

Israeli Occupation Forces have destroyed 25,000 homes in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 and 2,000 in East Jerusalem. Currently, there are 20,000 demolitions orders outstanding in East Jerusalem. 90% of West Bank residents can no longer enter Jerusalem and 100% of Gaza residents are prohibited.
(Source: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Demolished

Source: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Home demolitions
Israel announced plans in fall 2011 to expel nearly 60,000 Palestinians in 2012. 27,000 are Palestinians living in Area C of the West Bank. Area C about 60 percent of the West Bank is under full Israeli control, is closed to Palestinians. 30,000 Bedouins in the Naqab Desert in the southern portion of historic Palestine, known today as Israel, are slated to be relocated to urbanized reservations.
(Source: BTselem

Israeli Occupation Forces have destroyed Al Araqib village in the Naqab more than 20 times.

Security
The Israeli Occupation Forces, police and the Palestinian Authority security forces, which support Israeli policy, control every aspect of Palestinian life.

Random arrests and detentions

Each year, about 700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are arrested and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. Throwing a stone can net a prison term of 20 years. Israeli Occupation forces routinely take children from their beds in the middle of the night. Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners languish in Israeli jails, in violation of international law. Israeli citizens are prosecuted in civilian courts but Palestinians are tried in military courts.
(Source: Defence for Children International Palestine Section)

Palestinian citizens of Israel & unrecognized villages

Palestinians make up about 20 percent of the Israeli population Since 2003, Palestinians have not been allowed to apply for Israeli citizenship The Citizenship Law prohibits Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza from residing in Israel with their spouses or families. Israeli authorities approved just 33 reunification requests out of 600 between November 2008 and April 2010. Israel operates a segregated school system and spends more than $1,000 per Jewish pupil but only $190 per non-Jewish student. More than 10,000 classrooms are needed for Palestinians students to reach the same quality of education as their Jewish peers. Palestinians students are not allowed to learn about the Nakba or other important aspects of their history and heritage. Certain fields of study and careers are not available to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The need for children to live with their parents is not considered a humanitarian consideration for reunification

Palestinians citizens of Israel may soon need to take a loyalty oath to the Jewish state, thereby denying their true heritage.
(Source: Grim Statistics: The reality of living under occupation, AMP 2011)

Palestinian citizens of Israel & unrecognized villages

About 100 Palestinian villages in Israel are not recognized by the government Residents pay the same taxes as Israeli Jewish citizens, who receive full services.
(Source: Grim Statistics: The reality of living under occupation, AMP 2011

Palestinians in unrecognized villages receive no services: No roads, schools, utilities, health care. Israel plans to dispossess about 30,000 Bedouins in the Naqab Desert in 2012.
.

Palestinian citizens of Israel & unrecognized villages

I have nothing hopeful to say.

Samir Zbadet, 24, resident of the unrecognized village, el-Zbadet, when asked if he had a message for the American public. ~ October 2010

US aid to Israel
The US gives Israel nearly $3 billion in unconditional military aid annually. In per capita terms, that amounts to more than $500 per Israeli. It amounts to $8 million per day. Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid since 1976.
(Source: Congressional Research Service; The Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt.

20 percent of the US foreign aid budget is allotted to Israel. Unlike other foreign aid recipients, whose aid is distributed in installments throughout the year, Israel gets one payment up front, costing the US taxpayer in lost interest.

US aid to Israel

The total cumulative U.S. aid to Israel from 1949 through 2009 is more than $106 billion.
This figure is not adjusted for inflation.

Source: Congressional Research Service

Resources
Reading list
In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story By Ghada Karmi The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy By John Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt Fifty Years of Israel By Donald Neff The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine By Ilan Pappe The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After By Edward Said A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel By Hatim Kanaaneh Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts about the U.S.-Israeli Relationship By Paul Findley

Websites
www.ampalestine.org http://endtheoccupation.org/ http://www.assoc40.org/en/ http://www.adalah.org/eng/ www.pchrgaza.org www.btselem.org/ www.badil.org/ www.defenceforchildren.org/ www.bdsmovement.net www.whoprofits.org

Contact AMP
American Muslims for Palestine 10101 S. Roberts Road Palos Hills, IL 60465 708.598.4267 info@ampalestine.org www.ampalestine.org