| February 16, 2007 American Money, Israeli Apartheid An Interview with Jessica Marcy Part One of a Two-Part Series by Brian Yanity, insurgent49 
Jessica Marcy, born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, has
spent over a year and half living and working in the Middle East. She
traveled to Israel and Occupied Palestine initially in late 2004 for
several months where she volunteered with organizations including a
youth group, a grassroots health committee, and several peace
organizations. Her decision to see first-hand the lives of refugees living under conflict came as a means of preparing for her future work as a humanitarian aid nurse. The experiences she’s had there have changed forever her outlook on the world, and especially on the American government and its media. There is a pressing need for free, independent media sources who don't simply act as mouthpieces for the American government, but instead who educate Americans about the reality of the continuing illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestinian land, and its dire implications for both the region and the world at large. Currently Jessica lives in Amman, Jordan where she has been since December 2005, continuing to work on Palestinian related issues, and attempting to learn the ever elusive Arabic language. She welcomes comments and questions at jessieacre@yahoo.com. It has been over a year since we had our last interview with you in insurgent49, how you seen the Palestine-Middle East situation change over the past year? The situation throughout the Middle East has deteriorated this past year with the continued American mess in Iraq that apparently has no end in sight; the widespread devastation in Lebanon from the Israeli invasion over the summer; the increasing uncertainty regarding the American and Israeli response to Iran, and the continued worsening conflict between Israel and Palestine have all contributed to a region that faces an uncertain future. Every person I know living in Palestine now, or who has been there to visit this last year, tell me that Israeli policies toward Palestinians are increasingly restrictive and discriminatory, and that conditions today are worse than ever. The major events for Palestine, specifically this last year, were the parliamentary elections in January 2006 in which Hamas was elected to power; the subsequent American and Israeli-led economic sanctions against Palestine that are an on-going attempt to forcibly remove Hamas from leadership; and the inevitable devastation that these economic sanctions have had on all Palestinian lives. More recently an indirect result of these sanctions has been the creation of a Palestinian unity government. The creation of a national identity and establishment of national goals that can then be voiced clearly on behalf of the Palestinian society is a critical step toward the success of any future Palestinian state. It’s a difficult task, to be sure, given the continuing illegal Occupation by Israel, and the vast ideological differences that exist between Fatah and Hamas. Haven’t Israeli incursions into Palestine increased over the past year? Absolutely. Unfortunately, the examples here are unlimited. One event, in particular, that made international news was the Beit Hanoun tragedy in Gaza, on November 9th, in which 55 civilians were injured and 18 people killed while they slept, among them women and children. Seventeen of the dead were members of the same family. The UN documentation of the event says that the shelling of the neighborhood began at 5:30 a.m. and continued for approximately 30 minutes. Israel fired 12 to 15 shells on five homes during that time. The Israeli Army attempted to explain away the event as a regrettable mistake, a “technical error”. Israeli officials claimed that “their fire was meant for open ground that Palestinian militants have used to launch rockets into a nearby Israeli town. But (that) a technical error caused the shells to fall short, and plunge into the homes where families were sleeping.” (source: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6135912.stm) Now I’m not sure what, tactically, would be the reason behind targeting an "open field" in the first place, but given the number of shells fired, the length of time in which they were fired, and the number of homes that were hit, the probability of this event being the result of a ‘technical error’ is very low. The use of 'regrettable mistakes' and 'technical errors' is the standard response from the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) when they kill innocent people and it makes international news. In further actions that make the circumstances of this event suspect, the Israeli government denied entry into Gaza to a UN fact-finding mission that wanted to investigate. It was to be led by Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop of South Africa and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that Israel was concerned that Tutu's mission was only going to investigate the "alleged human rights violations committed by Israel and not also by Palestinian militants." Regev went on to say "(that) the human rights mechanism of the UN was being cynically exploited to advance an anti-Israeli agenda." (Canadian Press article, available at: www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/12/11/tutu-israel.html). In other words, before a fact-finding mission could even begin, the Israeli government concluded that the results would not be sympathetic to them. The very purpose of a third party investigation, as this clearly was despite Regev’s claims, is to evaluate the facts independent of the politics of the situation and to determine who bears the brunt of the responsibility in the outcome. One of the most pressing issues of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine is the fact that Israel maintains absolute control over the entire region. Therefore they can, and do, routinely prevent entry into Palestinian land, or Israel itself, to those who they fear are sympathetic to the Palestinian situation. It’s evident to me that the reason they prevented this UN mission is their awareness that their poorly constructed excuse of a “technical error” would fall apart under investigation. Indeed, in a situation in which 73 civilians, asleep in their bed are injured and killed by the Israeli Army, Israel bears not just a moral responsibility to allow an investigation into what occurred, but a legal one, as well. Instead of expediting an investigation, however, they directly impeded one from happening at all. The IDF uses the continued firing of Qassam rockets from the Gaza into Israel as justification for their military response. But if we examine the threat these home-made rockets actually pose to Israeli citizens, we see that the excessive military response from Israel is not justified at all as self-defense, but instead is a systemic and largely successful effort aimed at destroying the basic infrastructure of Gaza. Since September 2005, when Israel made their dramatic and well-publicized ‘withdrawal’ from Gaza, until November 2006, there have been at least 1700 Qassam rockets fired into Israel. These rockets have resulted in the physical injury of 41 Israelis, and the direct deaths of none. (Two Israeli-Bedouins were killed, indirectly, when they handled an unexploded rocket that had landed in the Negev desert). In contrast, during this same time frame, the Israeli Army fired 15,000 artillery shells and completed 550 air strikes in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 525 Palestinians, the injury of 1,527, and the massive destruction of roads, bridges, schools, businesses, homes, and the only electrical power-plant in Gaza. Of these 2,052 deaths and injuries, at least half were not involved in any hostilities at the time of the attacks. Many were children, as in the Beit Hanoun tragedy in which the youngest death was an infant barely a year old. So, just a glance at readily available statistics shows clearly that the risk Qassams pose to Israeli citizens is minimal at best, and that there is absolutely no legitimate justification for the excessive military response from the Israeli Army. Their incursions are not a legitimate military response to “Palestinian militants”, but instead are a slaughter of innocent people who have nowhere to hide, particularly while asleep in their own homes. All of these incursions are illegal under human rights and international law. And all taken under the guise of a threat posed by home-made, unguided rockets that 98% of the time hit nothing more than Israeli dirt. Has Israel completed its apartheid wall yet? Not yet, but what has been finished has already done plenty of damage to the environment, to Palestinian lives and economy, and to the hopes for any two-state solution of the conflict. The Barrier has been under construction since 2002, and it's about half finished. The original intended route was to follow the internationally recognized border between Israel and the West Bank, a demarcation called the Green Line. Yet, according to the Human Rights Watch 2006 Report, currently 85% of the projected route will extend, many times over, inside the Green Line in a circuitous and erratic manner. Its route, once complete, will effectively annex 10% of the most productive Palestinian farmlands and key water resources to the Israeli side, as well as create borders around the largest of the illegal Jewish-only settlements built inside the West Bank. Israel has continually presented the Barrier to the international community as a "temporary structure"; a laughable, and completely implausible statement when compared to its physical reality. Since its construction began in 2002, Israel has also claimed the Barrier’s only purpose is as a security measure taken in response to Palestinian terrorist attacks. If security were indeed its primary purpose then common sense would dictate that it follows the shortest path possible, resulting in the least amount of mileage required for military patrols. In fact, the currently drafted route of the Barrier will be twice the length of the Green Line. B’tselem, an Israeli human rights group that monitors human rights violations in Palestine, has the route of the wall current through September 2006 at this link: www.btselem.org/Download/Separation_Barrier_Map_Eng.pdf The Barrier has been successful in reducing terrorist attacks, and increasing security, but this fact would hold true were it built on the Green Line, as well. It’s clear then that the path that it takes, extending a multitude of times into the West Bank around the largest of the settlements, is to create facts on the ground for a permanent Israeli border that encompasses the illegally built settlements. In 2006, for the first time, Israel finally admitted this when they publicly stated that the Barrier will have political implications in the establishment of their border; a border that will protect the majority of the settlements and annex the most valuable of land and water resources to Israel. In July of 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that all construction of the Barrier is illegal under international humanitarian and human rights laws. They determined that all construction should end, and that any completed portions must be dismantled. Israel's response has been to dismiss their ruling publicly, and to continue construction unabated. While the Barrier's construction is not yet complete, the devastation it has wreaked on Palestinians is already far-reaching, impacting nearly every village and town in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians who have been affected the most so far are the residents of villages like Al Walaja where the Barrier’s construction has encircled them 360 degrees. They are now literally living in enclaves that are nothing less than open air prisons. This has effectively severed them from anything but the immediate vicinity of their village, including their neighboring agricultural fields. The Barrier’s construction has also meant they can no longer access universities, hospitals, markets, towns, and neighboring villages of friends and family without first obtaining permission from the IDF. The gates that have been built into the Barrier around them are manned entirely at the discretion of the Israeli Army. They are open only two times each day, during limited hours that are subject to change, and often do, without notice. Residents are required to file for and renew permits giving them permission to leave their village, the issuance of which is, again subject entirely to the approval of the IDF. Under circumstances like these, attempting to continue farming, to pursue university studies, or to take outside employment in a neighboring town would, and has for many, become nearly impossible. In the most outrageous example of how far into insanity the construction of this Barrier has been taken: in Mas'ha village, in the Salfit region, a single family's home has been completely surrounded on all four sides by the Barrier. The Aamer family, who has no history of any arrests, or any activity against the Israeli State, has had their home surrounded completely by the Barrier. I had the opportunity to visit them in the summer of 2005, and there aren't words to describe how utterly outrageous the situation for this family is. On three sides of their home are two sets of a metal fence, one topped with razor wire. Military patrol roads, manned by Israeli Army jeeps as routinely as any prison would be, run alongside each of the three sides. On the fourth side of their home, between them and their village, they see the 26 foot high, solid grey wall for a length of just 130 feet. It is this part of the construction that is interesting as it demonstrates that the IDF engaged in punitive action against this family, who had refused to sell their land to the Army for the Barrier’s construction. For miles and miles in either direction the Barrier is constructed of just the metal fence and patrol roads, until this small section next to the Aamer family's home. There is clearly no security justification for building such a small length of the concrete wall, especially when it’s built between previously contiguous Palestinian homes, and not between Palestinian homes and a neighboring Israeli settlement. Israel surely cannot claim that they are using the Barrier to protect Palestinian from Palestinian. The father of the family says that it's clear from the concrete wall’s construction next to his home that Israeli officials were inflicting punishment on them for not selling their home. They have taken away not just their own personal freedom, but even the view they had of their village. At the beginning of their imprisonment, anytime someone of the family needed to leave their home they were forced to call the IDF to come unlock the two gates of the Barrier. After a newscast by an Israeli TV station, and a subsequent public outcry from a portion of the Israeli public, the family was given a set of keys to their own prison gates. However, the gate continues to send an alarm to the IDF each time it’s opened, and if there are what the Army deem as "too many entries" into and out of the home, they will arrive in minutes. In the case of a visit from a multitude of concerned international citizens, as occurred with the group with whom I visited the home, the Army doesn't hesitate to park a military jeep directly in front of the home, training their guns on every person walking by. After the departure of our group of international visitors I learned that the Army entered the home and interrogated the family for an extended time, in an obvious attempt to intimidate them into not inviting any other international citizens to document their situation. So far the intimidation hasn't worked. Again, I think it's important to stress that this is a family who has no history of terrorism, or any other security related issues against Israel. It doesn't take much imagination, however to guess what feelings of hatred and anger may be brewing in the children of this family, or in the minds of others in the village who see this as a clear example of yet another way in which the Israeli policies hold utter domination over every aspect of Palestinian lives. Stay tuned to insurgent49.com for part two of this interview. Brian Yanity is a graduate student at UAA, activist and freelance writer. He resides in an undisclosed location in Southcentral Alaska, and can be reached at byanity@insurgent49.com. |
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