"The Disengagement from Gaza". An eyewitness account by the 'Paz Ahora- Peace Now' activists in Palestine. (Spanish version, 'clic' here).

News Piece from the NGO "Peace Now".
For more information please contact us at :++ 34 - 629053731
Madrid. 18th August 2005.

      The Paz Ahora (Peace Now) delegation arrived from Palestine on 16th
August 2005, into Barajas airport. It had accompanied the young participants
of the programme 'Holidays for Peace', who spent a month in Extremadura and
the Comunidad de Madrid, in their return to Palestine. The presence of Peace
Now in the Occupied Territories took place at the same time than the start
of the disengagement of all the colonies from Gaza and four colonies from
the North of the West Bank.

       The witness account about the situation by the Peace Now volunteers
is that beyond what is being portrayed by the international press (which is
more focused in the situation within Gaza), the settlers have taken over the
city of Jerusalem and the roads all over the State of Israel (not only
Gaza,) for the last number of days with weapons often including assault
riffles. The presence of the settler movement and the extreme right
demonstrators that support them is clearly and openly aggressive against
Palestinians. With the excuse that they are demonstrating against the
disengagement of the settlements, they carry out a policy of harassment and
provocations against all of the Palestinian population.  According to the
Israeli press, there is an 'orange tide', in reference to the colours of the
ribbons that protestors against the Gaza disengagement (whether settlers or
not) put on their vehicles. The 'orange tide' is actually a violent and
armed movement of a racist character against Palestinians and against any
possibility of achieving peace in the Middle East. 

           Jerusalem is, for the last number of days, a city literally taken
by the police with the excuse that they are ensuring public order and the
protection of the Arab population and the 'holy places'. However, what is
being achieved is a state of siege of the city. Every three or four
buildings, a checkpoint stops vehicles from passing and often pedestrians as
well. To move about in a city which is already ordinarily chaotic, is now an
impossible task.

             Settlers have tried to demonstrate in the 'Temple Mount'.
Obviously, to demonstrate in the Christian or Muslim 'holy places' has
little or no relationship with protesting against the evictions from the
settlements. Settlers on the one hand and the State of Israel on the other
are staging a confrontation attempt that will never be more than that.  "A
Jew doesn't expel another Jew" and "a Jew never kills another Jew" are the
mottos of an ultra conservative movement that intends to convince soldiers
and police to practice some kind of civil disobedience. They are also the
excuse used for the settlers not to use in their protests the abundant
weaponry they have and that they are only exhibiting so far. However,
settlers know perfectly they will never suffer the repression that any
protest by unarmed Palestinian civilians suffer. There won't be any of the
dead nor wounded that Palestinians get in their demonstrations, not even the
violent repression that we, the international peace activists, or the
Israeli activists themselves (who do suffer the military riot charges every
time they demonstrate together with Palestinians, despite the motto that a
Jew mustn't mistreat another Jew,) have suffered in so many occasions.  We
must also remember how during these years of the 2nd Intifada, two
international volunteers (a US citizen and a British citizen) of the ISM
(International Solidarity Movement) have been murdered by the Israeli army
while they were protesting NON violently against the policies of the State
of Israel in the Occupied Territories.

            The intensity with which we are harassed at the borders or at
the Tel-Aviv airport shows that the State of Israel regards us,
international activists, as enemies.  Peace Now wants to express its thanks
once more for the support we have received in the form of hundreds of
e-mails and phone calls to the Israeli Embassy by union leaders,
politicians, associations and NGOs, demanding that the young Palestinians of
the programme "Holidays for Peace," and the Peace Now volunteers that went
with them, were allowed entry without humiliations back into Palestine. All
these demonstrations of solidarity together with what has been published in
the media in regards to the protest held by Peace Now in front of the
Israeli Embassy, have contributed to the engagement with that protest by the
Junta de Extremadura, the Comunidad de Madrid, the Spanish Embassy in
Tel-Aviv, and the Spanish Consulate in East Jerusalem and Leyre Pajín, the
State Secretary of Cooperation, herself, all of whom spent all the morning,
when Palestinians and volunteers were crossing the border of the Allenby
bridge from Jordan to Palestine, making phone calls to the Israeli
authorities.  (Please see previous articles reporting on the problems
between Peace Now and the Israeli authorities: Activista de Paz Ahora
agredido por responsable de la Embajada de Israel (translation: Peace Now
activist attacked by an Israeli Embassy employee) ,    TU puedes ayudarnos a
pasar la frontera de Palestina  (translation: You can help us cross the
border with Palestine)       and        Paz Ahora recibe el apoyo de varias
instituciones para que Israel no obstaculice el regreso a Palestina.
(translation: Peace Now receives support from several institutions for
Israel not to obstruct the return to Palestine).

              Participants at the meeting of the "international network of
Women in Black," which ended this week in Jerusalem (meetings at which Peace
Now was also participating) have suffered incredible humiliations in order
to access the Territories.  The Palestinian delegates couldn't even get to
Jerusalem, which meant that attendants to the meetings (several hundreds of
women and some men) had to cancel for a full day on Monday their discussions
to go together to Ramallah and hold interviews with the organizations of
Palestinian women.  The Meeting has also suffered provocations by the
settlers. As an example of this, some settlers hung a handwritten poster at
the hotel where the meeting was being celebrated asking the attendants if
they didn't have solidarity with the women in the settlements who were
forced to collect their belongings and "abandon their kitchens". The
Non-violent attitude of the organizers made them decide to leave the poster
there (rather than remove it) so that anyone could add on it whatever
comments they felt necessary.

             Four settlements in the area of Jenin, at the North of the West
Bank, are going to be removed. Peace Now can give a witness account that the
military occupation forces are also limiting the freedom of movement in the
area with the excuse of settler evictions. There have been at least to
military incursions in Nablus.

           Peace Now can also offer a witness account on the entry by the
Israeli army into one of the refugee camps of Bethlehem the night from last
Thursday to Friday, despite being several Kms away from any of the
settlements where the evictions will take place.

            The Jenin public representatives that the members of Peace Now
interviewed expressed their concerns at the increase of tension at the
military checkpoints that surround the city. These concerns were also shared
by the doctor Abu Ghali, Director of the Hospital of Jenin, and the people
responsible of the Refugee Camp of Al-Faraa (located between Jenin and
Nablus.) Our activists met the former to deliver hospital materials and
machinery donated by Peace Now, and they met the latter because they were
from the place of origin of most of the young Palestinian participants of
the programme "Holidays for Peace". 

            Peace Now activists have also given a witness account of how
they weren't allowed go through the military checkpoints that are the usual
access to the area (Jelamy and Salem). This situation forces people to go to
a third and fourth checkpoint which are quite far from Jenin or Nablus. The
last checkpoint through which they were finally allowed pass was now close
to the Palestinian city of Tulkarem.
 
           Peace Now activists have evaluated the situation as the failure
to comply with international law. In fact, though the Tel-Aviv Government
presents it as part of the 'Road Map', these evictions are not by any means
a return of the controls of the Gaza borders to the Palestinians, nor of
their air space, their seashore or their cost line. Gaza may become an
immense prison for its inhabitants. No negotiations are taking place to give
the control back to the Palestinian National Authority. There will not be
any official ceremony where the occupying force symbolically removes their
flag and Palestinians raise theirs. There is no will to create a Palestinian
State in Gaza, but to present the foreseeable chaos that will be caused by
an emptiness of power, in order to portray that Palestinians cannot govern
themselves.

           Sharon has to fight against the extreme right of his party and
against that other one, extreme right also, of the settlers and the other
political parties that support them. This is why he pretends he doesn't
consider any negotiation with the Palestinian National Authority in front of
the Israeli population. He also put it very clear that the eviction of the
settlers and Israeli army wouldn't take place under fire from the enemy,
referring to the homemade rockets that Palestinian armed groups shot in the
past weeks. The Israeli army replied with rage to every attack from Gaza. 

            These are not our words, but Dov Weisglass', one of the main
advisors of Sharon, who stated last year at an interview with Haaretz: "The
importance of the disengagement plan (that is, the evictions) lies in the
freezing of the Peace Process. All the package known as 'Palestinian State',
and all what it implies, has been eliminated from our agenda." Weisglass
stated that "freezing the process means that the discussion about the
refugees, the borders and Jerusalem will be avoided," the main Palestinian
claims. "The disengagement provides us with the formaldehyde (chemical
substance used to preserve bodies) necessary to avoid a political process
with Palestinians," Weisglass added in that interview.

                 On the other hand, the 'disengagement' from Gaza (the term
officially used by the Israeli Government) intends to reinforce the presence
of military and settlers in the West Bank "sine die". Peace Now volunteers
give an eyewitness account that the building of the 'Apartheid Wall'
continues without stop in the West Bank. The building works have advanced
considerably during the month of July in all the perimeter of East
Jerusalem, around the 'Mount of Olives', as well as in Qalandia (checkpoint
that is necessary to cross to go from Jerusalem to Ramallah.) Also in
Bethlehem the Wall is already entering into the urban area. The 'Apartheid
wall' is not only taking Palestinian land, but it 'protects' the colonizers'
settlements. It is obvious that such an engineering work is not built unless
it is done with a pretension of durability.  The International Court of
Justice in The Hague declared the wall illegal in July 2004. Besides, the
Court demanded that Israel return lands and other properties to "all those
Palestinians who have suffered any form of material damage as a consequence
of the building of the wall."  Of course nor the United States, nor the
European Union, are putting the slightest pressure on the State of Israel
for this sentence to be fulfilled, or for the State of Israel to comply with
all the UN resolutions it has ignored during decades or for it to comply
with the regulation of the "4th Geneva Convention" about the protection of
civilians in times of war. (Please see 4th Geneva Convention in relation to
the protection owed to civilians in time of war in the webpage of the Office
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights :
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm .

              Paz Ahora / Peace Now continues to support the compliance with
International Law and PEACE, always in capitals, among all nations. A peace
that cannot be the peace of cemeteries nor the absence of war, but that the
Palestinian people can exercise their just national rights of which they
have been deprived for decades.