West Bank!

I'm flying out Sunday (12th) to the West Bank in Palestine for 2 weeks and thought I would do a blog and a bit of amateur journalism while I'm there as it's such an unusual place to go for a Summer holiday!

A brief history lesson to explain why I'm going to the West Bank (this is far from comprehensive):

The Zionist movement started as a political movement in Europe before 1900. The basic Zionist theory is that the land of Palestine was granted to the Jews by God in the Bible and it is therefore their birth right to live in Palestine. They believed that Palestine should be an ethnically pure Jewish state.

In 1917, Britain was in control of Palestine. Lord Balfour (a British MP) promised a 'national home' to the European Zionist movement in Palestine. He believed that this would please the Jewish lobby in the US which would ultimately benefit the UK. At this time, the population of Palestine was 5% Jewish and 95% Palestinian Arab. Up to this point, Jews, Muslims and Christians had lived in Palestine side by side peacefully. It is Lord Balfour's declaration that began the modern conflict, not some ancient religious war as the popular media would have us believe.

Jewish immigration to Palestine ensued. A Zionist government was set up in Palestine and soon began a campaign of terrorism against the British who still ruled the region. The Zionist forces blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 90 British. Zionist terrorism of the population and the British forces eventually persuaded the British to leave Palestine. The United Nations then took control and, in 1948, granted the Zionist forces 55% of the land (the best land) in Palestine. At this time (after mass immigration) the Jewish population was still only 1 third of the total population and owned just 6% of the land. The UN however decided to ignore the basic right of the Palestinians to their land.

To achieve a Jewish majority, the Zionist forces had to get rid of the inhabitants of Palestine, the Arab Palestinians. 1948 saw the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. 13,000 Palestinians were killed by the Zionists many of them massacred in their villages and 750,000 chased from their homes. 400 Palestinian villages were raised to the ground (90% of the Arab villages within the1948 borders). How this ethnic cleansing process has been all but wiped from popular history is typical of the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act to this day (with the backing of various super-powers) The ethnic cleansing process continues today through forced evictions, compulsory purchase orders, house demolitions and refusal of building permits to Arab Israelis.

Israel has never been content with what the UN had granted them in 1948. They wanted the whole of historic Palestine and in 1967 they launched a war against their neighbours. They occupied the West Bank and it has been under military occupation ever since (40 years of military occupation). The UN immediately declared the military occupation illegal and has condemned the occupation periodically since then. Israel's foreign policy in the West Bank (and indirectly in Gaza) is still today dominated by the desire to assimilate the whole of the West Bank into Israel.

In order to annex more land in the West Bank, Israel encourages Jewish settlers to set up home on Palestinian land. All the settlements in the West Bank have been declared illegal by the UN. During the so called 'peace process' that Israel's closest ally, the US brokered in 1993-1995, Israel doubled the number of settlers in the West Bank. See the attached map for the history of the annexation of land in the West Bank. With this settlement policy, Israel seeks to ensure that a 'two state solution' (granting the Palestinians an independent state alongside Israel) is totally unworkable by setting up strategically placed settlements on Palestinian land. The settlers are heavily armed and regularly attack Palestinians tending their land and going about their daily life.

Palestine is now split into 2 refugee concentration camps, Gaza and the West Bank with Israel in the middle. It is virtually impossible for Palestinians to enter or leave their own country and moving within it is nearly as hard. The Israelis control all border crossings. They control land, sea and air space. Water resources are redirected away from Palestinian villages into Israel and into the illegal Israeli settlements. Many Palestinians must now buy their water back from the illegal settlements in order to survive. The threat of violence and death is constant. The Gaza massacre grabbed the headlines but we heard little or nothing of the 5,000+ Palestinian men women and children killed by Israelis between September 2000 and February 2007 before the Gaza massacre (in which 1,400 were killed). The Palestinians still, over 60 years on from the original ethnic cleansing operation, do not have their own independent state.

For more info see this film 'Occupation 101':

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5315818265146715477&hl=en

So why am I going? What has it got to do with me?

1. I want to see for myself how the illegal occupation of the West Bank affect Palestinians today. I have read many books on the subject but first hand experience gives the best insight.
2. The Palestinians themselves ask activists to come and see what their life is like under military occupation. The view we get from the BBC and Western media is consistently pro-Israel and fails to show a) the historical context of legitimate resistance in Palestine and b)the true impact of the illegal occupation on peoples' lives.
3. The British are ultimately to blame for the suffering of the Palestinians. Zionism would never have got off the ground without the backing of the British empire first (the state of Israel as is would not be economically or militarily viable without the support of the US). The British effectively handed over the Palestinian's country to a third party (the Zionist political movement). I therefore feel some sense of responsibility to do what little I can to highlight the injustice.
4. The Palestinian issue is part of a wider, global issue that is US imperialism. Israel
is only able to operate the way it does because of US military aid and diplomatic support (Israel benefits from the most US aid of all countries in the world). To understand the motives of the US / Israel alliance in Palestine is to understand the evils of imperialism the world over.

Why do I think activism makes a difference? The typical attitude of today is that ordinary people cannot change the world. Politics is the domain of the politicians alone and we should let them get on with it. On the contrary, I believe that the only way things change is when ordinary people organise and take action. Granted, this must be en-masse to be effective but there are precedents to this kind of ethical activism. It is grassroots activism that highlighted the injustice of Apartheid South Africa and eventually led to justice for the Black majority. There is a similar movement growing against the US-Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. Justice for the Palestinians is the moral cause of our generation. Viva Palestina.