So, what is it about refugees in regards to this issue/crisis?
well, let's remember a few facts;
Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe (1948)
photo by ICRC
Every year Palestinians commemorate the Nakba ("the catastrophe"): the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. In 1948 more than 60 percent of the total Palestinian population was expelled [700,000 to 1 million estimated]. More than 530 Palestinian villages were depopulated and completely destroyed. To date, Israel has prevented the return of approximately six million Palestinian refugees, who have either been expelled or displaced. Approximately 250,000 internally displaced Palestinian second-class citizens of Israel are prevented from returning to their homes and villages.
And what about those refugees now, what's happening to them? How many are there? well,
MIDDLE EAST: Plight of Palestinian refugees worsening in most parts of Middle East
JERUSALEM, 20 June 2007 (IRIN) - Some 4.4 million Palestinians remain refugees nearly 60 years after the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. As the world marks World Refugee Day on 20 June, about one third of these refugees still live inside camps, while an even larger proportion continue to receive aid and relief services, primarily from UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
Observers say the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories has worsened over the past year due to the violence, intense infighting in the Gaza Strip and the international economic boycott on the Palestinian Authority, which lasted over one year and was only lifted earlier this week. Darrin Waller, chief executive officer of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP-UK), a London-based humanitarian organization, said that while all Palestinians had been affected by the turmoil in Gaza, including Israeli military incursions, refugees suffered most. "There is a particular impact on the refugees, as they are the most vulnerable within the community," Waller said.
"The West Bank restrictions should be lifted. There is a trend towards increasing restrictions on Palestinian movement," said Filippo Grandi, deputy commissioner general of UNRWA in Jerusalem, who said his staff were negatively affected by the developments. "Humanitarian access is an immediate problem in Gaza. The acute humanitarian problems need to be addressed immediately in Gaza," he said.
ok, they're not doing well, and on top of that, they have been denied, for 59 years, their Right of Return, guaranteed by International law, UN resolution 194, the UN Charter, hell, even Magna Carta allows people to return to their homes!
I recomend heading to Al-Awada, the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, and taking their quiz, you may learn some interesting things about refugees, the Right of return, and international law.
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is a broad-based, non-partisan, democratic, and charitable organization of grassroots activists and students committed to comprehensive public education on the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin, and to full restitution of all their confiscated and destroyed property in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International law and the numerous United Nations Resolutions upholding such rights (see Fact Sheet).
And what is the number of refugees in Gaza? I'd say over 70% of the population, crammed into an area 28 mile slong and in some areas 4 miles wide;
The Gaza Strip is unique amongst UNRWA's five fields of operations as the majority of its population is refugees and over half of the refugees live in eight camps. Most of the people who fled to the Gaza Strip as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war were from Jaffa, towns and villages south of Jaffa, and from the Beersheva area in the Negev. In all, some 200,000 refugees came to Gaza, whose original inhabitants numbered only 80,000. Such an influx severely burdened this narrow strip of land; an area of only 360 square kilometers. Over three-quarters of the current estimated population of some 1.4 million are registered refugees; representing 22.42 per cent of all UNRWA registered Palestine refugees.
The refugee camps in the Gaza Strip have one of the highest population densities in the world. For example, over 78,700 refugees live in Beach camp whose area is less than one square kilometer. This high population density is reflected in the overcrowded UNRWA schools and classrooms. More than 2,066 new pupils registered in the Agency's schools for the year 2004/2005. In average, 81% of the camps houses are connected to sewers while total area of paved roads and alleys is 385,000m2 .
UNRWA Headquarters (Gaza) and the UNRWA Gaza Field Office are located in Gaza City. The Agency co-operates its humanitarian work with the Palestinian Authority, which was established in 1994.
FACTS AND FIGURES
Total registered refugees – 993,818
Registered camp population – 474,130
Number of camps - 8
Elementary and preparatory schools - 187
Enrolled pupils for 2005/2006 – 192,105
Primary health care facilities - 18
Number of refugees registered as special hardship cases – 83,613
Number of UNRWA Field Office Area staff posts – 9,715
Ok, so enough of the background info for now, so why is this important in regards to the current crisis in Gaza & increasingly in the West Bank? Well, yesterday I linked to a comment by As'ad Abu-Khalil, the Angry Arab, so let's look at it again;
"At the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, Palestinians fleeing the Hamas takeover waited to be allowed to cross through Israel to the West Bank." These are not "Palestinians fleeing"...These are Dahlan gangsters fleeing. They remind me of Israel's humiliating withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000 when the torturers of South Lebanon Army fled to Israel as soon as Israeli tanks left the area. (NYT)
Now, in my opinion, the point is not who is and who is not a Palestinian as much as it is an issue of those that collaborated with the Dahlan/Fatah militias that Israel and the US were using against Hamas being suddenly left out to dry. With Fatah defeated in Gaza, they have nowhere to turn but their big brother Israel, and of course the sad irony is that they flee through the very checkpoints that have been used to strangle the flow of people, food, materials and other life-giving services in and out of the strip.
Instead of pointing this out, the media is refering to them as "Palestinians fleeing" and, even can you believe, as "refugees!" Here's a taste of some of the coverage;
The BBC
Israel to let in stranded Gazans
Conditions inside the concrete tunnel are said to be filthy
They are among dozens of people stranded at the Erez border crossing since Hamas seized control of Gaza.
Israel's foreign minister has called the new Palestinian PM, Salam Fayyad, in a resumption of official contacts.
Meanwhile, the UN says food in Gaza will run out in seven to 10 days unless Israel lets normal shipments through
CNN
Palestinians stranded at crossing
Several dozen pro-Fatah Palestinians with little food and no toilets remained stranded Wednesday inside the Erez Crossing walkway connecting Hamas-led Gaza to Israel. "The situation is dreadful," Saeb Erakat said. "The situation is very, very dire."
The refugees are inside the 300-yard long covered walkway bordered by two 10-yard high concrete walls, which is now filled with waste and feces. They are mostly young men, but a few women are also there with several children. They represent what is left of several hundred people who rushed to the border crossing last week when fighting between Hamas and Fatah militants raged for control of Gaza. Some of them tell stories of narrow escapes from Hamas militants and many say they fear for their lives if forced return to Gaza.
The Israeli government allowed several dozen senior Fatah leaders and their families to pass through on their way to the Fatah-controlled West Bank. People with foreign citizenship were also allowed to pass, according to Israeli daily Haaretz.
NPR
Israel Fears Influx of Gaza Refugees
Listen to this story... by Linda Gradstein
Morning Edition, June 15, 2007 • Israeli officials worry that Palestinians will try to flee Gaza for Israel to escape Hamas-Fatah fighting. Border crossings with Gaza are now closed, but cannot stay that way indefinitely
The Irish Times
600 Gazans trapped at Israeli crossing
Up to six hundred Palestinian refugees trying to flee Gaza have spent another night trapped in a tunnel at the Israeli border.
The Palestinians, including many women and children, are short of food and water in the tunnel, which is part of the Erez crossing and has no sanitary facilities.
Israel's Supreme Court is today scheduled to hear a petition by local rights group Physicians for Human Rights demanding that Israeli authorities offer immediate medical treatment to any of the Gazans stranded at Erez who are in need of it, the group said.
Ynet (Israel)
'Israel not responsible for Gaza refugees'
Following Palestinian police's collapse, it is almost impossible to coordinate passage of Palestinians to West Bank through Israel, security sources tell Ynet. Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians continue to wait at Erez crossing in northern Strip. Israeli company Dor Alon stops supplying fuel to Strip
Hundreds of Palestinians were still waiting at the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, in a bid to cross to the Israeli side. According to the IDF, some 300 people were waiting at the crossing, while Palestinian sources presented a higher number – between 500 to 700 people.
Since the early morning hours, only a very small number of people carrying permits, all members of one family, was allowed to cross into Israel.
"Gaza is not our problem," security sources told Ynet on Sunday. "Since we left, they are trying to impose on us responsibility which is not ours."
And Haaretz (Israel)
Israel opens Erez Crossing for foreigners, sick Palestinians
By Lily Galili, Yuval Yoaz, Yuval Azoulay and Mijal Greenberg, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies
Israel seeking to transfer Gaza refugees to Egypt
Israel wants to transfer Palestinian refugees who are waiting to leave Gaza at the Erez crossing to Egyptian territory, but Egyptian sources say Cairo is reluctant to accept them.
Israel estimates 190 refugees are waiting near the Erez crossing, demanding they be allowed to cross through Israeli territory to the West Bank. Palestinian sources maintain there are at least 600 refugees there, including more than 100 Fatah members.
Neither Israel nor Abbas is willing to allow refugees to enter the West Bank, Israel Defense Forces sources said Tuesday.
So, what are the key words? stranded, fleeing, trapped Palestinian, and most astounding of all, Refugees???????
Despite the racist talk of Gaza "not being our problem," Gaza, as well as the rest of Palestine, has been home to Palestinian refugees since 1948 (if not since 1882 when Zionists first came to Palestine and began to uproot the population to accommodate the influx of Jews, first by land purchase by the JNF and later by outright conquest). Israeli governments have been in denial of their basic human rights, mainly the right to return to their homes, without exception, to the point of savagely attacking their refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine.
But now, all of the sudden, the Palestinians who find themselves left out to dry due to intra-Palestinian political conflict, which the US and Israel have been actively creating, are described by both the Israeli and global media as "refugees" who are "trapped," "stranded," and need Israeli assistance(And I point all this out with no glee whatsoever at the suffering of those Palestinians caught in this situation, just as I am not happy about the fate of Palestinian refugees from Iraq that are stranded on the Syrian border with nowhere to go or the larger Palestinian refugee population, the oldest and largest in the world)
And just as As'ad made the very pertinent comparison with South Lebanon, so does Haaretz, however from a slightly different point of view;
Open the gates immediately
By Haaretz Editorial
Many Israelis are watching the television news these days with feelings of powerlessness and shame. They see hundreds of haunted and frightened women and children crowding into the corridor of the Erez crossing and asking to be allowed to flee Gaza through Israel to the West Bank in order to save their lives.
But the defense establishment sees something else: It sees wanted terrorists about to blow themselves up and Iranian agents. The defense establishment apparently has its own vision, which does not let emotional or humanitarian considerations confuse it or cause it to change its rigidly made-up mind.
The pictures at the Erez crossing remind any person who still tries not to forget harsh scenes of locked, sealed gates from the previous century.
It is also difficult not to recall the embarrassing scenes that accompanied the Israel Defense Forces' withdrawal from southern Lebanon: the South Lebanon Army refugees waiting by the fence, pushed, crushed and wailing, until finally, some were shoved inside, but many others were left behind, abandoned to work things out with the new lords of the south.
So, we open the gates for the 'refugees' from this recent crisis, but what about the other 900,000 refugees in Gaza? Should the gates remain closed to them, despite th efact that Israel put them there in the first place? And what about the other millions in Palestine, from Um Al-Fahm to Balata refugee camp, should the gates be closed to them and the millions more in Jordan, Lebanon, and elsewhere? For the Zionist dream to be realized, I guess so, but the hypocrisy is just mind-numbing
After more than half a century since its establishment, Israel is not satisfied with mere recognition as a sovereign state; it wants its definition of the ethnic/religious character of that state recognised too. This demand -- indeed, condition -- surfaced in the context of the Israeli government's discussion of the roadmap, which was officially presented to Israel on 30 April 2003 and only approved a month later, on 25 May. More precisely, the Israeli government did not approve the American-sponsored plan but "agreed to accept the steps set out in the roadmap" to which it appended 14 conditions, and even then the decision was only approved by a majority of 12 to 7. The sixth "comment", as these conditions were termed, required the Palestinians to relinquish the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, or as it was so eloquently worded: "In connection to both the introductory statements and the final settlement, declared references must be made to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and to the waiver of any right of return for Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel."
As this reservation makes explicit demands for the recognition of the Jewishness of Israel it must be seen against the background of demands that Palestinians relinquish the right to return before negotiations begin, not against the background of any discussion of the two-state solution, or within the debate between religious parties and secularists over the Jewishness of the state or the controversy sparked by democratic nationalists who propose a modern, liberal democratic state for all citizens. And this is the background that has given rise to the pseudo- liberal Zionist drive to engage the Arabs in Israel in a historic deal in accordance with which they add their blessing to the Jewishness the state has enshrined in a constitution. Only thus can the circle be made complete.
The Israeli Law of Return, as was the case with the declaration of independence before that, is founded upon the premise that Israel is the state of the Jewish people. The Supreme Court effectively gave this principle constitutional force when it upheld the decision of the Central Elections Committee (CEC) to disqualify the Land Movement from participating in parliamentary elections. In ruling on the case the court stated: "Israel is not just an independent sovereign state but also a Jewish state on the land of Israel, because its establishment occurred primarily and above all in fulfilment of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people to live, like other peoples, independently in their own sovereign state."
And these issues go right to the difficulty for Israelis in accepting and dealing with the Nakba, which is irrevocably tied to the creation of the state of Israel upon the ruins of Palestine;
One of the most puzzling aspects of Israeli policy over the last five years is that neither the Sharon nor the Olmert governments have given the Saudi peace initiative any serious consideration. For most of its existence, Israel could only dream of an offer that explicitly includes peace, recognition of Israel’s right to exist and normalization of its relationship with the Arab world. Why, then, has Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered nothing but lip service to the Saudi initiative, and why did former prime minister Ariel Sharon never even indicate that he took it seriously at all?
Here, I believe, resides the deepest reason for Israel’s reluctance to actively engage with the Saudi initiative. Israeli public discourse and national consciousness have never come to terms with the idea, accepted by historians of all venues today, that Israel actively drove 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1947/8 and hence has at least partial responsibility for the Palestinian Nakba.
This has not happened to this very day because this idea is seen as undermining the foundation of the Zionist enterprise and the legitimacy of Israel’s existence. It is as if we were locked into an insoluble dilemma: Either we deny responsibility for the Nakba, or we need to accept that we have no right to be here.
there is an Israeli group dedicated to dealing with and introducing the Nakba into Israeli discourse, that is Zochrot;
Out of sight maybe, but not out of mind
By Zafrir Rinat
Up until a year and a half ago, the vast majority of visitors to Canada Park, one of the most popular hiking and picnic sites on the way to Jerusalem, had no idea that the park was built on the ruins of three Palestinian villages whose inhabitants were forced to leave in the wake of the Six-Day War. It was only after the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund agreed to the demands of the Zochrot non-governmental organization and posted signs in the park about two villages, Yalu and Emmaus, that their existence first became known to hikers. But since their posting, someone has already made sure to tear down one of the signs and vandalize the other.
But the members of the NGO have not given up. The director of Zochrot, Eitan Bronstein, recently turned to the JNF and asked its director to examine the possibility of posting signs to mark abandoned Palestinian villages at all the sites it administers. The NGO offered its professional help in locating the remains of the villages and finding important details about life in them.
The JNF did not reject the request out of hand. Its administration held a discussion last month on the matter and issued the following response to Bronstein: "For the purpose of concentrated handling of the subject, the JNF administration would like to receive information from you about the additional sites where, in the opinion of the NGO, there is room to mark the Palestinian communities that existed until 1948. The JNF has research tools for examining the subject, and therefore we are asking at this stage only to receive the list of the relevant sites."
2006 Zochrot trip to Ain Al Mansi, attended by the writer
So, I'll wind this one down, but let's look at one more thing, check out this snippet from Pappe's article;
And a final small portion of food for thought. There are quite a few Jewish mothers and wives in the Gaza Strip -- some sources within Gaza say up to 2000 -- married to local Palestinians and parents to their children. There are many more Jewish women who married Palestinians in the Palestine countryside. An act of desegregation that both political elites find difficult to admit, digest or acknowledge. If despite the colonization, occupation, genocidal policies and dispossession such harmonies of love and affection were possible, imagine what could happen if these criminal policies and ideologies would disappear. When the Wall of Apartheid is removed and the electric fences of Zionism dismantled -- Gaza will become once more a symbol of Fernand Braudel's coastal society, able to fuse different cultural horizons and offer a space for new life instead of the war zone it has become in the last sixty years.
Now, I there is my dear friend Neta Golan, an Israeli Jew, married to a Palestinian man with two beautiful daughters, who all live in Ramallah, but hundreds of Jewish women living in Gaza? I had no idea, and was quite surprised, but check it out;
"We don't have any control over the Rafah, Karni or Erez crossings," Erekat told a news conference in Ramallah on Wednesday. "There is no presence of the Palestinian Authority at any of these crossings."
Among those who left Gaza on Wednesday were 140 stranded Russian citizens, whom Russia had been trying for several days to evacuate. Most of that number are women married to Palestinians and their children.
Russia's embassy in Tel Aviv received assurances that they would be allowed to leave Wednesday, and embassy officials reported to Erez crossing in the morning. Four buses were to take the Russian citizens through Israel to Amman, from where they will be flown home.
Now how many of us would have known that? The sooner the walls, both literal and figurative, that divide us and imprison peoples come down, the better.
