All things related to Hryastan

[Haykakan]

REPORT: PALESTINIANS DENIED WATER

BBC NEWS

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/8327188.stm

2009/10/27 08:58:03 GMT

Israel is denying Palestinians access to even the basic minimum of
clean, safe water, Amnesty International says.

In a report, the human rights group says Israeli water restrictions
discriminate against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

It says that in Gaza, Israel's blockade has pushed the already ailing
water and sewage system to "crisis point".

Israel says the report is flawed and the Palestinians get more water
than was agreed under the 1990s peace deal.

'Basic need'

In the 112-page report, Amnesty says that on average Palestinian
daily water consumption reaches 70 litres a day, compared with 300
litres for the Israelis.

" Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift
all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians' access to water "
Donatella Rovera Amnesty International

It says that some Palestinians barely get 20 litres a day - the
minimum recommended even in humanitarian emergencies.

While Israeli settlers in the West Bank enjoy lush gardens and
swimming pools, Amnesty describes a series of Israeli measures it
says are discriminating against Palestinians:

Israel has "entirely appropriated the Palestinians' share of the Jordan
river" and uses 80% of a key shared aquifer West Bank Palestinians
are not allowed to drill wells without Israeli permits, which are
"often impossible" to obtain Rainwater harvesting cisterns are "often
destroyed by the Israeli army" Recommended for short-term survival:
20 litres For the medium term: 70 litres Recommended for the long term:
100 litres (Source: WHO)

Israeli soldiers confiscated a water tanker from villagers who were
trying to remain in land Israel had declared a "closed military area"
An unnamed Israeli soldier says rooftop Palestinian household water
tanks are "good for target practice" Much of the land cut off by the
West Bank barrier is land with good access to a major aquifer Israeli
military operations have damaged Palestinian water infrastructure,
including $6m worth during the Cast Lead operation in Gaza last winter
The Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza has "exacerbated what was already
a dire situation" by denying many building materials needed for water
and sewage projects.

The report also noted that the Palestinian water authorities have
been criticised for bad management, quoting one audit that described
the sector as in "total chaos".

"Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining
even poor-quality, subsistence-level quantities of water has become
a luxury that they can barely afford," Amnesty's Donatella Rovera said.

"Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all
the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians' access to water."

'Fair share'

Ms Rovera also urged Israel to "take responsibility for addressing
the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the
shared water resources".

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said "the idea that we're
taking water away from someone else is simply preposterous".

He argued that Israeli fresh water use per capita had gone down since
1967 due to efficiency and new technologies, while the Palestinians'
use had increased and more than a third of their water was wasted.

If there were allegations of military wrongdoing, those would be
investigated, he said.

He also rejected the claim that Israel was preventing Palestinians
from drilling for water, saying Israel had approved 82 such projects
but the Palestinians had only implemented 26 of them.

"They have received billions of dollars in international aid over the
last decade and a half, why have they not invested that in their own
water infrastructure>?" he asked.

The report also criticised the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinians
agreed to in 1993.

It said that under them, the Palestinians gained the responsibility
for managing an "insufficient" water supply and maintaining "long
neglected" water infrastructure.

Also, the deal left the Palestinians paying Israel for half of the
domestic water used in the West Bank, despite the fact it is extracted
from the shared aquifer.

Mr Regev said Israel provides the Palestinians with more water than
it was required to under the accord.

[KanadaHye]

Re: All things related to Hryastan

Israeli Apartheid Wall

Is it a wall or a fence? Proponents of the wall like to call it a fence. If it is a fence, it is no fence that your local farmer would recognize. Wall or fence, one fact is clear: it is being built on Palestinian land and separates Palestinians from their land, water, work, hospitals, and each other.



VIDEO DOCUMENTARY OF THE APARTHEID WALL


The Israeli Wall of Separation Explained in Pictures


Whatever you want to call it, the fence is a system of barbed wire, ditches, electronics, and patrol roads. It takes a wide swath of land and appropriates Palestinian land without compensation or legal recourse. Many Palestinians find themselves, their homes, towns, farms, orchards, or their water on the wrong side of the fence.



Sometimes, though, the fence is actually a wall . . . Here the entire Palestinian city of Qalqiliya is surrounded by a concrete wall.



Israeli's patrol the wall regularly.



The wall also consists of guard towers that look down upon the Palestinians.



Construction is ongoing, 24 hours a day . . .


On the Israeli side of their various walls, they are often painted to look like a pleasant and nice thing (while the Palestinians just on the other side live in occupation and poverty).



On the other side, graffiti marks the Palestinian's pain.



The Wall: Human Rights violations in carefully planned stages

The wall serves purposes that go way beyond any Israeli security needs. The wall consolidates Israel's illegal settlements through the (again) illegal confiscation of land. The wall severs the ties of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, schools, families, towns, farms, and water. Future stages of the wall, carefully held secret by the Israeli government but discerned by the careful examination of military land confiscation orders (and reported upon by B'tselem, the Israeli human rights organization), indicate that the final stages of the wall are planned to completely surround the Palestinians and divide them into cantons and ghettos, permanent prisoners and refugees in their own land. The final stages of the wall don't even get close to Israel's own border on the Green line.

Most of the wall's route in Stage 1 is located within the Palestinian's West Bank. As a result, the wall along this part of the route will infringe the human rights of more than 210,000 Palestinians who live in 67 towns and villages: 13 communities, containing 11,700 residents, will become enclaves trapped between the wall and the Green Line; the wall's winding route and the additional wall (the depth barrier) east of the separation wall will turn 19 other villages, in which 128,500 Palestinians live, into enclaves; 36 villages situated east of the separation wall or depth barrier, containing 72,200 residents, will be separated from a substantial part of their farmland, which lies west of the walls.

A wall, barrier, or fence? There has been much debate between pro-"fence" and anti-"wall" people about the nature of this beast. William Safire in a particularly chilling editorial refered to it as the "defence fence," chosing to ignore its more sinister results and on whose land it is being built. In some places, it is a multilayered barbed wire and electronic fence system 30 to 100 meters wide with patrol roads and ditches and no-man's land. In other places, it is a 24 foot tall concrete wall complete with guard towers and patrol roads and no-man's land. This wall will be longer than the Berlin wall and confiscates wide swaths of Palestinian land. Whatever you call it, fence or wall or barrier, it's path through the West Bank shows utter disregard for the rights and humanity of Palestinians.

Pictures and Information taken from:
http://www.auphr.org/thewall/

[KanadaHye]

Re: All things related to Hryastan

That other wall
Israel's barrier

A dangerous game of guns and ladders


Israel's separation barrier. Begun in 2002, it is eight metres high
in most places and may eventually run to almost 700 kilometres
in length.

Working in TV news offers many rewards — chief among them, being a witness to history. Every so often there are stories and images that stay with you long after a report is filed and a deadline has passed.

Often they are the kinds of stories that don't make the top headlines but they still stick in your memory.

One such moment played over and over in my mind as our team in the Middle East bureau began to talk about how we could contribute to the CBC coverage of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It was April 2008. CBC cameraman Samer Shalabi and I set off to interview some of the graffiti artists who were spray-painting pictures and slogans on the West Bank side of Israel's separation barrier.

We were early for our meeting, or they were late, I don't remember.

What I do recall vividly is standing in the village of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, next to an eight-metre-high section of concrete barrier, when a lone Palestinian man came into sight carrying a crude wooden ladder.


Up and over

There wasn't much hesitation as the young man set about his mission on that day — to scale the height of the massive concrete slab and get to the other side.

It was clear he'd done this before. The ladder had been hidden, waiting. And he propped it up against the exact point of the barrier where he could hoist himself higher until eventually he could swing one leg over the top and pull himself to the other side.

I realized later that I had been holding my breath until this little drama played itself out, exhaling only after his eyes darted around for one last look to see if it was safe to drop and disappear from sight.

His gaze had met our camera for just an instant, curiously unperturbed by its presence.

But of course it wasn't being caught on tape that would have worried him. It would have been being caught by Israeli security that was the concern, the consequence being a fine or jail time, or possibly a bullet.
Walled in

Israel argues that the separation barrier — a fence with barbed wire and sophisticated surveillance equipment in some areas, a concrete wall and watchtowers in others — is vital to its security.

But Palestinians say the barrier cuts them off from their land and devastates their economy.

I don't know exactly why this young Palestinian man went over the barrier that day. But I suspect it was because he didn't have the special permit West Bank residents need to pass through an official crossing and he simply had to try to get to a job in Jerusalem.

In the past year and a half, that particular section of the barrier has changed somewhat. Barbed wire now runs the length of that section of concrete, making it impossible to straddle safely.

A little anecdotal research told us there are indeed very few spots left to pass over the barrier.

But earlier this week, we travelled to the village of Zayem in the West Bank, where one can see the landmarks of Jerusalem just on the other side of the barrier.

It's a spot where Palestinian men are still known to gather overnight and take their chances by making seemingly mad dashes up and over.


And so we watched

In the distance, Israeli soldiers in jeeps prowled the length of the barrier.

As the jeeps moved out of view, the Palestinians came out of hiding with their tools — large planks of wood and long pieces of rope — to make their attempts.

The Israeli jeeps inevitably circled back and the Palestinians scattered, a scene that repeated itself over and over.

It struck me as a bizarre and dangerous game of cat-and-mouse where there could be no winner.

As we sat on a curb, a couple of the Palestinian men told CBC Correspondent Margaret Evans they do it because they need the work and because there are job opportunities in Israel that simply don't exist in the West Bank.

A 21-year-old man talked about how he'd been caught a few times and beaten by Israeli soldiers for his efforts. But there he was, ready to take his chances again.

He would have been just a year old when the Berlin Wall crumbled, but he doesn't need a history book to tell him what that moment must have been like.

Glancing at the separation barrier that prevents him from moving freely to find a job on the other side, he told us, " I wish it would fall as well, because this wall is destroying our life."

I believe many people who live in this region, on both sides of the barrier, hope it will crumble one day. And when it does, I hope I am there to witness history.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/1...rael-wall.html

[KanadaHye]

Palestinians threaten to halt peace talks

Plan to build 1,600 new Israeli homes at centre of dispute

Palestinian officials are threatening to pull out of U.S.-mediated peace talks with Israel before the negotiations even start because of a new Israeli housing construction plan.

The two sides agreed on Monday to resume indirect talks through a U.S. mediator. But the Palestinians say Israel's new plan — announced Tuesday — to build 1,600 new homes in disputed east Jerusalem makes it difficult to return to the negotiating table.

In a bid to calm the diplomatic row between the two countries, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden opened a high-profile speech in Israel on Thursday with warm words of praise for the J3wish state.

The vice-president told the audience at Tel Aviv University on Thursday the U.S. has "no better friend" than Israel. He also spoke about his long connection to Israel.

Earlier this week, Biden condemned Israel's plan, saying it undermined trust in peace efforts.

Israel has apologized for embarrassing Biden but has not backed down from the construction plan.

Biden is in Israel to help restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Palestinians have asked Washington to press Israel to cancel the construction plan, said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Palestinians are waiting for an American answer before deciding on whether to resume negotiations, he said.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/0...ace-talks.html

[ashot24]

Re: All things related to Hryastan


A graffitti in the Palestinian side of the apartheid wall in the city of Bethlehem.

Listen to the Palestinians! These people know what is the real meaning of "peace efforts"

[KanadaHye]

Re: All things related to Hryastan

Parents demand answers from Israel in bulldozer death

Jerusalem (CNN) -- A 23-year-old American activist stands in front of an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. The bulldozer drives over her, crushing her to death. These are the facts.

Rachel Corrie, along with colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement, was trying to prevent Israel from bulldozing homes of Palestinian refugees in Rafah, close to the Egyptian border. Her activism cost her her life in March 2003.

A colleague said at the time, "Many times the bulldozer came up to us and buried us with dirt, but they always stopped."

Corrie's parents want to know the truth about their daughter's death, whether the killing was intentional and who is accountable.

Power of grief: Corrie's fight for justice

Craig and Cindy Corrie's civil suit against Israel's defense ministry starts in Haifa, Israel, on Wednesday -- a court date that took years to reach.

"The more we found out, the more likely that the killing was intentional, or at least incredibly reckless," Craig Corrie said. "And, as a former soldier, I was even in charge of bulldozers in Vietnam... You're responsible to know what's in front of that blade, and I believe that they did."

The Israeli military carried out a month-long investigation, which found no Israeli soldier was to blame.

"The armored bulldozer crew involved in the incident did not see Ms. Corrie, who was standing behind the mound of earth, and was unable to see her or hear her voice," the military said.

Corrie's parents are proud of what their daughter did, recalling how important it was to her to help Palestinian families in Gaza.

In an interview shortly before her death, Rachel Corrie, who grew up in Olympia, Washington, said, "There are just countless ways in which these children are suffering. I want to support them."

Her mother, Cindy Corrie, told CNN, "She deserves the attention that she's receiving in this case. Every human being who is assaulted and whose life is taken in this way deserves some accountability, some explanation for why this happened, particularly when it's done by a military and particularly when it's a military supported by me and my tax dollars."

The Corries say they cannot take the bulldozer driver to court, because the Israeli military has refused to identify him for the past seven years. But Craig Corrie doesn't necessarily want to see the driver sent to jail.

"We don't think about the soldiers being the victims, but they are, and we ask a lot of these people. So I'm not full of hatred for this person, but it was a horrendous act to kill my daughter, and I hope he understands that."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/03/10/israel.bulldozer.death/index.html?iref=allsearch

[Haykakan]

Re: All things related to Hryastan

You know there will not be justice here. RIP Rachel Corrie. Btw mr Kanada, i was wondering how well this woman fits into you limited understanding of a woman's role in our society. I solute women like Rachel i just hope they dont end up like this.

[KanadaHye]

Re: All things related to Hryastan

You know there will not be justice here. RIP Rachel Corrie. Btw mr Kanada, i was wondering how well this woman fits into you limited understanding of a woman's role in our society. I solute women like Rachel i just hope they dont end up like this.

I'm hoping she would have the brains to get out of the way of a bulldozer in a war zone.... but hey, that's what makes westernized women so special, their naivity and lack of survival skills.

[Haykakan]

Re: All things related to Hryastan

I'm hoping she would have the brains to get out of the way of a bulldozer in a war zone.... but hey, that's what makes westernized women so special, their naivity and lack of survival skills.

Thats pretty distastefully disrespectfull of you. I geuss class is not your style.

[KanadaHye]

Re: All things related to Hryastan

Thats pretty distastefully disrespectfull of you. I geuss class is not your style.

Yeah... all kidding aside, if this happened to an American in any other country than Israel, we wouldn't hear the end of it. This barely made it into the news.