Bethlehem, 17 September 2002
Dear friends,
We would like to address you for some matters of urgence. The Palestinians denounce, and pray for the prevention of, an American-led attack on Iraq not just because it could put the Iraqi region in flame but also for its potentially devastating consequences for the situation on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. When one follows Israel’s internal debates, it is alarming to hear all the pundits’ talk about the various local military options that could take place in the wake of such an attack. Many of the publicly debated scenarios take into account a possible ‘transfer’ of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank. It looks as if Palestinians are considered non-beings to be dispensed with at will. For some time now, polls in Israel indicate that some 50% of its (Jewish) population look favourable at what boils down to a policy of ethnic cleansing. There are even posters circulating on a wide scale in Israel promoting the idea.The Israeli political leadership and civil society should be made very clear that in the 21th century, in a century supposedly devoted to “a culture of peace,” mass expulsion is not an option suitable for public sloganizing or pondering.
That Palestinians are treated as non-beings also applies to two other issues which we would like to raise. First, the educational situation. The major problem Palestinian families now face are the continuous difficulties of access to schools due to the Israeli occupation, including roadblocks, curfews and closures. For many, the poverty as a result of the closures takes its toll. In several regions is a shortage of food and medical care and many families cannot provide for their children’s school needs, such as school materials and uniforms. It is a Herculian task for schools and the Palestinian Ministry of Education to provide elementary road protection to students, and to reinstall a healthy and appropriate school environment. This requires among other things taking measures to repair the recent damage inflicted on school buildings and properties and to build new school classes so as to allow all children to attend school and reduce the double shifts.
Policy making in the educational field is not just a challenge, it is often simply impossible. There is at present no physical contact possible between educational authorities because Ramallah, the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, is still closed and inaccessible. Many Palestinian cities are these days under strict curfew. In the Bethlehem area, the Ministry informs us that due to the difficulties of traveling between Bethlehem town and the villages still 30 teaching posts have yet to be filled. As AEI we again would like to urge you to raise attention and publicity to this issue in your home country. Extensive psychological and educational damage is inflicted upon a future Palestinian generation.
On top of that, the Israeli government (its inner security cabinet) has announced plans to annex the airport area between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and the Rachel’s Tomb area in Bethlehem. It seems that they want to make serious work of building “metropolitan Jerusalem,” the heart-felt wish of the present right-wing major of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert. Jerusalem’s borders would be extended to cover a large area deep inside Bethlehem’s urban center. Not just Rachel’s Tomb would be annexed (a site, incidentally, holy to Jews as well as Christians and Moslems), but also the surrounding area of the Bilal bin Rabah mosque and cemetery to the west of the site, and a large area to the east, up to Caritas Hospital. This all would be confiscated for so-called security reasons and in order to construct a new road to the Tomb only accessible for Israelis. A population of possibly not less than 3000 Palestinians, who live in the urban heart of Bethlehem, are thus brought under Jerusalem jurisdiction by a stroke of the pen. (We have to wait to see what will be those people’s real fate; that is, whether they can stay to live there, since we know that the Jerusalem municipality is not eager to bring Palestinians under its civil authority).
If Jerusalem will be open at all, Palestinians from the southern West Bank will only be able to travel to that city by making a large detour inside Bethlehem. The Bethlehem-Jerusalem checkpoint would be located several hundred meters south to the present one, again inside the urban center of Bethlehem. It is obvious that the new bypass-road and checkpoint grid will serve to make it more difficult for tourists to visit Bethlehem. The plan thus seems part of a policy to further marginalize Bethlehem as a tourist and economic center; to prevent the city’s natural growth, and ro make life conditions for young and old so difficult that they will leave the country. It is no exaggeration to say that this Jerusalem metropolitan policy, if pursued and realized, will be the death blow for any future viable Bethlehem community.
Again, we urge you to take this matter seriously. As an editorial of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz commented, this is nothing else than land grabbing and a slap in the face of any peace initiative that might now take place in the wake of the recent lull in suicide bombings and the determination of the Palestinian Legislative Council to institute reforms within the PNA structures. We in particular appreciate any initiative from abroad to protest this plan within circles of Jewish religious leaders. They are to no small extent responsible for the persistent pressure over the years on Israel’s political leadership to keep the Rachel’s Tomb area in Israeli hands.
In sum, we do an appeal to all our peace-loving friends in the world to raise their voice against these serious developments, so as to help preserving regional peace, preventing a further deterioration on the ground, and ending the Israeli occupation.
AEI is a community education institute operative in the Bethlehem-Hebron area of Palestine. It is affiliated to Pax Christi International and to the Euro-Arab Dialogue from Below (IKV, The Netherlands)
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