For all my Nerds out there: "When Settlers Attack" Israeli Authorities do Nothing

This is an amazing statistical analysis of the patterns of settler attacks. If you ever wanted to understand when and where these attacks are taking place, this is the article to read. Those of my readers who aren't statistically minded may find this boring as all get out, but I was fascinated. But if you can't get through the article, here's what I think you should take away from it: "Fifty percent of these attacks are perpetuated by settlers in only seven settlements. So again, we know where a majority of this is coming from and if you could crack down on those seven areas then you’d immediate illuminated 50 percent of these attacks or at least a significant portion. So despite the fact that it’s a simple fix, it is nonetheless not happening."

Yousef Munayyer of the Palestine Center explains more:

What this means is that it is really a failure of Israeli policing and Israeli security that these settler attacks are taking place. We can’t do much about the ideology of these settlers, in fact they shouldn’t be in the West Bank to begin with and if we had a way to change that we probably would do that but that doesn’t seem to be changing right away. The reality is that it is the Israelis, both police and IDF [Israel Defense Force], that have a responsibility for policing these territories and that is clearly not happening. And you would think that with a majority of these cases really being in only seven places, from a policing point of view, this is not a difficult thing to crack down on. You know where it is located, you know where it is concentrated, and you know the vulnerable areas there is no shortage of information about this why aren’t more security resources being dedicated to protecting Palestinians in this area? If you not allowing the Palestinians security forces to do it, as they are not in areas B and C, then you can’t simply leave them vulnerable to Israeli settler violence. And often what we are seeing is as – and this has been caught on video and in pictures in the past – as settlers are attacking Palestinians there is a visible IDF presence not doing anything and in a number of these cases where we see injuries inflicted are injuries inflicted by IDF personnel who arrive on the scene to break up clashes between settlers and Palestinians that have been initiated by settlers on Palestinian territory. So not only is the IDF and Israeli police playing a role to protect settlers which are attacking Palestinians, they are, in a way, actively encouraging it by providing a security for these settlers as they continue to perpetuate attacks against Palestinian civilians.

Poverty in the Tuwani area is worse than in Gaza

For the better part of a week, I've wanted to stand on my roof and scream. I'm not sure when I'm going to feel like stopping.

This article is why I feel so desperately angry: West Bank poverty 'worse than Gaza.'

Worse than Gaza. Did that get your attention? It certainly got mine.

"Children living in the poorest parts of the West Bank face significantly worse conditions than their counterparts in Gaza" Al Jazeera reported. According to Salam Kanaan, Save the Children's director in the occupied Palestinian Territories, "The international community has rightly focused its attention on the suffering of families in Gaza but the plight of children in Area C must not be overlooked. Palestinians in the West Bank are widely thought to enjoy a higher standard of living but tragically many families, particularly in Bedouin and herder communities, actually suffer significantly higher levels of malnutrition and poverty."

Bedouin and herder communities? That's Tuwani. It's Tuba. It's Magher Al Abeed. It's Mufagra. It's Susiya. It's all of the places I've been talking about for the last three years.

Because of Israeli restrictions that prevent Palestinians from accessing their land and developing infrastructure, Palestinians who live in "Area C" - 60 percent of the West Bank - are in poverty worse than in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinian children don't have enough food and many are getting sick. In fact, when Save the Children surveyed communities in Area C, 44 per cent of the children surveyed were suffering from diarrhoea. Diarehoea is the world's biggest killer of children under the age of five. Many kids were showing signs of stunted growth - more than double the rate in Gaza. More than one in ten children surveyed were found to be underweight.

Let me make this a little more personal. Adam is one of favorite kids in the whole world and oft times the star of this blog. Adam's nearly five and I pick him up and play with him whenever he'll let me. I mean, take a look at this kid. He's a charmer.

Adam's little. Really little. Recently I came back to Chicago and tried to pick up a three year old - another total charmer - and nearly dropped the poor kid. This kid is a year younger than Adam and at least 50% heavier. I was shocked. Over three years of playing with kids in Tuwani, I'd forgotten how much a healthy kid weighs.

And here's the rub- Adam lives on a farm. He's parents know how to grow their own food. They don't need to "make the desert bloom" because they know how to live sustainably on the edge of the Negve. Adam shouldn't be hungry. There's no reason for that. The reason why kids in Tuwani aren't getting proper nutrion has nothing to do with the natural world. It's because the Israeli government wont stop settlers from attacking Adam's mom and dad when they try to access their land. It's because the Israeli government uses closed military zones to prevent farmers in Tuwani from farming. It's because the Israeli government wont let Tuwani have electricity.

This video was filmed in Susiya, a village near Tuwani. When I watched it, I sat there with my mouth hanging wide open.



"That's Abu Jihad. That's Ahmed. That's Heba."

I know everyone in that video.

These are the people who are suffering needlessly. Let's do something about it.

250,000 Palestinians are vulnerable to Israeli settler violence. Meet two of them.

The United Nations has warned if Israeli authorities dismantle settlement outposts, 250,000 Palestinians are vulnerable to settler violence, including Palestinians living in the South Hebron Hills. "The concern about the possible outbreak of waves of settler violence and their impact on the Palestinian population stems ... from the inadequate level of law enforcement by the Israeli authorities," says a recent UN OCHA report. "[T]he main concern is the frequent failure of the Israeli security forces to intervene and stop settler attacks in real time, including the failure to arrest suspected settlers on the spot."

Tarek and Miriam are two of these vulnerable people. They already face settler violence daily as they travel to and from school. Here is their description of what happened when settlers attacked them recently:



Tarek and Miriam can't go to school safely because the Israeli government premits Israeli settlers to continue living illegally in the West Bank even after there is overwheleming evidence of their criminal activity. According to the UN's recent report, "Among the main reasons behind this failure is the ambiguous message delivered by the Government of Israel and the IDF top officials to the security forces in the field regarding their authority and responsibility to enforce the law on Israeli settlers." But for Tarek and Miriam one thing is clear: they wont be able to go to school safely as long as Israeli settlers continue to live illegally in Havot Ma'on and Ma'on.

The Top Ten Reasons that Havot Ma'on and Ma'on have Got to Go:
Reason Number Four: Havot Ma'on and Ma'on are on Palestinian Land

"Our family used to live in those trees," our partners in Tuba tell us. For some reason, very few people are willing to say this loudly and clearly, but Ma'on and Havot Ma'on are on land that belongs to Palestinians.

According to Israeli organization Peace Now, 16% of Ma'on and Havot Ma'on land is privately owned by Palestinians. 26% of the land is survey land - land seized by the state of Israel for "military purposes", on which it is illegal for anyone to build. (Apparently, that law doesn't apply, in practice, to settlers.) However, 0% of the land is actually privately-owned by Israelis.

Now, to best understand these statistics, you need to understand land registration for Palestinians. Excuse me while this becomes dense and nerdy. I promise it will be over soon: Peace Now defines Privately owned Palestinian land as "A. Land that was registered and recognized as private property before 1968, at a time when the process of land registration was still open and available to Palestinians, or B. Cultivated land which is recognized by Israel as private land according to the Ottoman law." Israel has exploited the fact that under Ottoman rule, only very small parts of the West Bank were actually registered to specific owners. Under British mandate, a process of land registration began. Then in 1968, Israel halted all registration claims , leaving thousands of square kilometers of agricultural land unregistered. Then, Israel claimed this land as state land. So, do these statistics accurately show how much of Ma'on and Havot Ma'on land is actually owned by Palestinians? No. But they do boslter the case of Palestinian families who have farmed and lived on that land for generations.

According to Peace Now, in the West Bank 130 settlements are constructed either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land. Around 51 thousand dunams (quarter acres) of the land used by the settlements is actually private Palestinian land. Privately owned Palestinian land accounts for nearly 40% of land used for settlements. Much of the rest of that land, however, is Palestinian land that has been claimed by the Israeli state. As with Ma'on and Havot Ma'on, the more telling statistic is the percentage of settlement land privately held by Israelis: 1.26%.

Whether it's appropriated by the state or just plain stolen, it's still Palestinian land.

A Dangerous Journey: Settler Violence Against Palestinian Children Under Israeli Military Escort. This report also includes ideas for advocacy on behave of these children and is well worth reading. (Please, please, please, please, read it and post it.)

Israeli Army Carried Out only 3% of Settlement Demolition Order

According to the [Peace Now] report, from 1997-2007 the Civil Administration issued 3449 demolition orders for illegally built structures in the settlements and settlement outposts, but evacuated and demolished only 107 of them, the report stated...The Civil Administration no longer enforces construction laws inside the settlements' official municipal boundaries, due to a 1998 directive from the IDF Central Command. Peace Now said "the significance is that the number of construction violations inside the settlements is much higher then the number provided by [Civil Administration] statistics."

Perhaps this Haarezt article isn't the most interesting ever written, but it describes the heart of the problem - illegal settlement expansion with impunity- facing Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills. Well worth a read.

World Bank: 50% of West Bank Restricted

The World Bank has just come out with a report on movement restrictions in the West Bank. According to this report, access to more than 50% of the land in the West Bank is restricted for Palestinians. Check out the report, but take a look at some "highlights."

• Since Israel signed an agreement on improving movement and access for Palestinians in November 2005, restrictions have instead become tighter. Since the agreement, the number of physical obstacles in the West Bank increased by 44 percent, to 547.
• Israel's separation barrier slices off 8.5 percent of the West Bank. That area, declared "closed" by Israel and falling under a strict permit regime, is home to some 50,000 Palestinians in 38 villages and towns.
• Physical and administrative obstacles have divided the West Bank into 10 enclaves, and Palestinians have to move through checkpoints to get from one to the other.
• Israel's permit system can be used to control the movement of Palestinian residents outside their immediate municipal area and to restrict access to more than 50 percent of the West Bank. In compiling that figure, the bank considered the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a single unit, in line with the international community's refusal to accept Israel's annexation of the eastern sector of the city.

[Highlights taken from International Herald Tribune article]