to fish and farm in Gaza means risking one’s life

Below is an update from the Friends of Gaza –

This report on fishing & farming in the Gaza Strip is from Donna Wallach, an ISM and Free Gaza Movement volunteer in Gaza:

(GAZA) On Monday, 15 September 2008, international human rights volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement & Free Gaza Movement joined the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) in symbolically planting trees in the buffer zone in Fukharee, north of Rafah.

The buffer zone was established by Israeli Occupation Forces in one of Gaza’s prime agricultural areas. The zone is a “no-go” area roughly 300 meters wide along the entire eastern border of the Gaza Strip. In this “buffer” zone, farmers are violently prohibited from farming their land, and these areas have become very dangerous for the Palestinians to live and farm in.

The Israeli buffer zone is another form of siege that denies the Palestinians right to livelihood, feeding their families, freedom of movement and to live in Peace. This is all happening during the so-called cease fire.

ISM volunteers met at UAWC office in Khan Younis before joining with a few hundred UAWC activists. Two buses and four cars transported all the volunteers, the trees and the shovels to Fukharee, close to the border with Israel. Upon arriving some people noticed the tell-tale dust of an Israeli tank as it appeared from behind some trees off in the distance.

All the volunteers got off the buses and started walking toward the fields holding 3 banners and chanting “Free, Free Palestine” in Arabic. Various news agencies and independent video cameras recorded the event.

We dug holes and managed to plant about 100 plant olive, guava and citrus trees. Although the ISM volunteers were there to both join Palestinians as they reclaimed their land and demand that Israel stop destroying the crops in the area, the action was a primarily symbolic. The UAWC plans to
continue doing various similar actions throughout the Gaza Strip in and near the buffer zones.
—–
(GAZA) On Wednesday 17 September 2008, I (along with two other international volunteers) went out with three different fishing boats from the Gaza City port to trawl for fish. We left the port at about 8:30am.

I was on a boat with fishermen I already knew. We went out about seven and a half miles, put out the net and began to trawl. It wasn’t long before an Israeli Naval gunboat approached, and circled around. The fishermen requested from me to speak with the Israeli Navy. I did make contact with
them, telling them that “we were Palestinian fishermen fishing in Gazan waters. Palestinians have the right to fish in Gazan waters, they have the right to a livelihood and to feed their families.”

Someone on the Israeli Naval gunboat said in Hebrew that it was forbidden for the Palestinian fishermen to be out past six miles. I replied that according to International Law, the Palestinian fishermen had the right to fish beyond twelve miles in their territorial waters. His response was to
call me “bitch”. Soon after that the gunboat opened fire on the fishing boat, aiming, what appeared to me to be toward the center of the boat. The fishermen quickly pulled in their net, not wanting their boat or any of the equipment to be damaged by the gunfire.

We drove back towards the Gaza coast until we reached about six miles out and began trawling again. The gunboat came by again and circled around menacingly. Off in the distance we saw the large Israeli Naval gunboat that has the water cannon stationed at the fore of the boat. We were
expecting to get drenched, but were pleasantly surprised when it continued past us without stopping or even aiming the water cannon at us. Other boats were not so lucky, and Vittorio Arrigoni (an international human rights monitor from Italy) was injured by flying glass when an Israeli water cannon was aimed at the boat he was on.

The Israeli Navy contacted our boat via VHF again reiterating that it was forbidden for them to fish out beyond six miles. This is an abomination! The large quantities of fish are out beyond the six mile limit, as are the larger fish. The fishermen need to be able to fish in their territorial waters, when and where they want.

It is an outrage that Israeli Naval gunboats patrol the Territorial Gazan Waters at will. They harass, threaten, shoot, damage and terrorize the Palestinian fishermen, their boats and fishing equipment. The Israeli Navy often limits the Palestinian fishermen from fishing beyond three or four miles, and sometimes they aren’t permitted to fish at all.

This would not be tolerated any place else in the world.

Fishing is one of the few sources of Palestinian food left in Gaza. The Israeli Occupation Forces have destroyed much of the farm land and have established an illegal buffer zone on much of the agricultural farm land within Gaza, denying Palestinian farmers their livelihood and the right to feed their families. This has made 80% of the Palestinians living in Gaza Strip totally dependent on food aid from the UN.

It is time that these collective punishments upon the entire population of Gaza Strip end. The Palestinian people have the human right to live in freedom. Parents have the human right to provide for their children. Children have the human right to go to school and students have the human right to attend University. Farmers have the right to farm their land and fishermen have the right to fish in their own territorial waters. This siege must end.

Please, be creative – put pressure on the Apartheid State of Israel to end the siege now – tell your families, your friends, your co-workers that this situation can no longer be tolerated. Ban the Israeli Navy from Gazan Territorial Waters!

–Donna Wallach, international human rights monitor, writing from Occupied Gaza.

Israelis fire on unarmed Palestinian fishermen

Free Gaza is a nonviolent organization of “human rights observers, aid workers, and journalist,” as they say in Our Mission on their website. They have recently sailed from Cyprus to Gaza in two vessels, the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, in order to deliver humanitarian aid and to test Israel’s blockade and occupation in Gaza. Here’s an excerpt from a press release:

As reported by the world press, news has travelled worldwide of the Free Gaza Movement. Supportive messages have come in, including from UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the OPT, Richard Falk, who wrote:

“The landing of two wooden boats carrying 46 human rights activists in Gaza is an important symbolic victory. This non-violent initiative of the Free Gaza Movement focused attention around the world on the stark reality that the 1.5 million residents of Gaza have endured a punitive siege for more than a year. This siege is a form of collective punishment that constitutes a massive violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The siege, the coastal blockade, and overflights by Israeli aircraft all bear witness to the fact that despite Israel’s claimed ‘disengagement’ in 2005, these realities on the ground establish that Gaza remains under Israeli occupation, and as a result Israel remains legally responsible for protecting the human rights of its civilian population. By severely restricting the entry of food, fuel, and medicine the economic and social rights of the people of Gaza have been systematically violated. There is widespread deafness among the people of Gaza that is blamed on the frequent sonic booms produced by over-flying Israeli military aircraft. For this reason the peace boats brought 200 hearing aids to Gaza.”

The SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty have returned to Cyprus, but some humanitarian observers remained in Gaza to accompany Palestinian fishermen on their fishing boats. This morning, Israeli naval vessels fired on those fishing boats. Here is the news release:

(OFF THE COAST OF GAZA) 1 September 2008 – Israeli Naval vessels are currently firing on unamrmed Palestinian fishing boats and international human rights workers off the coast of the Gaza Strip. The fishing boats are several miles off the coast of Gaza City, in Palestinian territorial waters. As of 11am (4am EST) no one had been injured, but live ammunition is still being fired in the direction of the civilian boats.
The unarmed boats went to sea at dawn this morning, in an attempt to fish in their own water. Six international human rights workers from five different countries accompanied the fishermen in the hopes that their presence would deter the Israeli military from firing on the fishermen. In the past the Israeli military has shot and killed unarmed Palestinian fishermen for trying to fish in their own waters.
Accompanying the fishermen are:
Vittorio Arrigoni, Italy
Georgios Karatzas, Greece
Adam Qvist, Denmark
Andrew Muncie, Scotland
Donna Wallach, USA
Darlene Wallach, USA

PLEASE INFORM THE MEDIA IMMEDIATELY, CALL YOUR EMBASSIES IN TEL AVIV, AND CALL THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT. TELL THEM TO STOP FIRING UPON UNARMED FISHERMEN AND UNARMED HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORS.
CALL:
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Tel. +972 2 530 3111
The British Embassy in Tel Aviv
+972 3 725 1222
The US Embassy in Tel Aviv
+972 2 625 5755
###

For more information, please contact:
(at sea, off Gaza coast) Vittorio Arrigoni, +972 598 826 516
(at sea, off Gaza coast) Donna Wallach, +972598 836 420
(Cyprus) Greta Berlin, +357 99 081 767 / iristulip@gmail.com
(Cyprus) Osama Qashoo, +357 97 793 595

kibbe!

I caught the tail-end of an NPR piece this morning about kibbe. When I got home, I found the piece, which is called Kibbe at the Crossroads and is a report by the Kitchen Sisters. Their piece makes it sound like kibbe is solely a Lebanese dish, but that’s not so. As a Palestinian American, I grew up with my grandma’s kibbe, both baked and raw. Still remember the old silver-pocked meat grinder Grandma clamped to the kitchen table so she could pour in the beef or lamb and then the burroh — don’t know how to transcribe the Arabic sound of that word, but it’s “cracked wheat” in English. She ground it all together, and chopped onions, spices like nutmeg and cinammon. Baked kibbe usually had a layer of pine nuts through the middle.

palestinian rap

SlingShot Hip Hop is a film featuring Palestinian rappers. It’s still in production but the trailer’s on the website and on YouTube.

Free the P! is a great compilation CD of Arab American hip hop, mostly Palestinian, dedicated to Palestinian youth. I love the interweaving of traditional music with contemporary in the work of groups like DAM.

richard horton’s “Palestinians: The Medical Crisis”

In a survey completed by the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, over 90 percent of children below the age of eleven experience severe anxiety, nightmares, and physical expressions of stress, such as bed-wetting. Half fear that their parents will not be able to provide essential family necessities, such as food and a home. Forty percent have relatives who died during the second intifada, which began in 2000.

Access to health care is perhaps one of the most egregious casualties of apartheid and Richard Horton demonstrates this by detailing conditions at Beit Hanoun Hospital in Gaza. After speaking with the president of the Israeli Medical Association, Horton writes this:

I came away from my meeting with IMA officials in Tel Aviv convinced that they believed in the sincerity of their opinions and actions. But I am equally convinced that a few days spent traveling in the West Bank and Gaza, talking to Palestinian doctors and health workers, and listening to the experiences of Palestinian citizens would show them that their public statements, official assurances, and strongly promulgated arguments sadly count for very little alongside the horrific realities of daily life for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

After referring to health care problems resulting from the occupation (“Studies of perinatal and infant mortality show that checkpoints and military barriers frequently obstruct women seeking care during critical periods of labor and delivery”), Horton goes on to discuss Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), a group of about 1,500 Israeli physicians who view sending a mobile clinic into occupied territory as a protest against Israeli policies.

“You are the new superpower”

After I signed the petition to Stop the Clash at avaaz.org, I received a confirmation email with the subject line, “You are the new superpower.” I like that. Global democracy.

Watch the video! Powerful use of images and music advocating our right to responsible and intelligent leaders willing to do the difficult work of building coalitions across east and west.

misaligned alliance

Yesterday evening on “Fresh Air,” Terry Gross interviewed some folks talking about Christian Zionists. Wow. What a weird coalition — or maybe not so much. U.S. evangelical Christians supporting neocons supporting ultra-right Israelis. Youch. And the weird thing is that the evangelical-apocalyptic Christian Zionists have a teleology that involves all Jews converting to Christianity or dying. Apparently, the Christian Zionists pride themselves on keeping a ceasefire off the table between Israel and Lebanon long enough for Israel to do some damage. I’ve forgotten the name of the evangelical Christian Zionist preacher who spearheads this whole movement. Let me go check. Right — Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel. Gross interviewed Gershom Gorenberg, who wrote The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. I love the point he made about mutual religious disrespect: the Israelis who accept a coalition with Hagee’s group ignore the eventual obliteration of Jews in order to gain from the political and financial support (Christians United for Israel have a Washington lobbyist; their agenda fits right in with the neocon plan). The Christian Zionists, meanwhile, are happy to have a coalition with Israel, because let’s face it, that’s the land they want so that there will be the second coming. Which Jews don’t believe in. It’s pretty warped and twisted. But any ultra-right Israeli agenda that wants neocon support will benefit. Neither side — ultra-right Israelis and Christian Zionists — wants peace. In fact, peace is antithetical to both groups’ goals.

hawgblawg’s resources & beirut dc video

Just wanted to urge folks to check out Ted Swedenburg’s blog at hawgblawg. Ted is professor of anthropology at U. of Arkansas, whose mascot is the razorback hog…yup, I love that play on words with hawgblawg. Don’t let the play lull you into expecting yucks and jokes cuz Ted offers fantastic information on pop culture in the middle east, focusing on palestine and lebanon. In Ted’s 11 August posting, I found an article on the artist group Beirut DC and links to their two short videos, which are powerful pieces of work. The article is “Bringing the siege of Lebanon into focus” by Jim Quilty at The Daily Star, an English language publication for the Middle East (click on the About Us link to read The Daily Star’s history). The videos, by Beirut DC, are From Beirut to…those who love us and dead time. Just found a link to YouTube for From Beirut to…those who love us. Please, please watch this.

webtifada button

This is the webtifada button my sister Martha Seikaly designed. The idea for a webtifada button in English and Arabic came from a comment on Mazen Kerbaj’s KERBLOG. Any thoughts on the Arabic?

webtifada

I just read Mazen Kerbaj’s post for 3 August and he talks of getting 11,000 hits a day. He says the number is closer to 15,000. Kerbaj says if each of those visitors brings 10 more visitors, we might be able to have a webtifada. I have never heard this term, so I don’t know if Mazen coined it. But this is a powerful term. Of course, I now have to go google the term. Be right back.

15,500 hits. The first page has ten hits all in French — at a glance, looks like there were some Moroccan hackers who hacked into some Israeli sites. I’m going to go read and post back here. Hang on.

OK, this is fascinating. I’m going to translate this article here. I may do it in bits and pieces, because I’ve got stuff I’m supposed to be doing. But the first hit on google was at afrik.com and the article is “Morocco-Israel: The Webtifada has begun.” Sub-title is “Moroccans hacked more than 750 Israeli sites and the Hebrew State has retaliated.” The article is by Habibou Bangré and is dated Thursday, 27 July, 2006. Here’s the translation:

On June 28, Moroccan hackers called “Team Evil” hacked into more than 750 Israeli sites in reponse to an attack by the Hebrew State [the article uses the phrase "l'Etat hébreu" to refer to Israel] into the Gaza Strip. The Israeli response didn’t take long: some 400 internet sites of the Moroccan Kingdom were recently attacked. The war on the Web seems to have been launched.

Experts who thought Moroccan hackers were minor players got a wake-up call. On 28 June, between 750 and 850 Israeli sites were targeted by Team Evil [Team Evil is written in English and the article translates the term here to "l'équipe diabolique"], a team of Moroccan pirates apparently all under the age of 20. This is the first cyber attack of such scope which has struck the Hebrew State in a few years. And the damage would have been much worse if the virus hadn’t been contolled in time. The pirates disabled governmental and institutional websites which were more or less secure, and those sites were unable to recover for a while. However, Israel has recently responded with its own cyber war.

“As long as you kill Palestinians, we will kill your servers.”

Team Evil attacked Israel to protest the daily deaths of Palestinians which resulted from the offensives in the occupied territories. The group, which regularly attacks small Israeli sites, began its work in 2004 by hacking American sites. Gradually, the group’s activities became more and more powerful. Last year, it attacked lesser known enterprises, until last April, when the team attacked the rapidly growing restaurant chain of MacDonalds.

Team Evil became radicalized by the operation called Summer Rains on 28 June, which took place in Gaza in response to the capture, a few days earlier, of the young French-Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. On the Israeli websites that were hacked, a message in English read: “This site has been hacked by the Arabic group Team Evil. As long as you kill Palestinians, we will kill your servers.”

“We are a group of Moroccan hackers who attack sites as a sign of solidarity with the war of resistance conducted against Israel. We attack Israeli sites every day: that’s our mission. Hacking is not a crime. Stop killing children, and we’ll stop hacking,” declared a hacker spokesperson at the Israeli information bureau, where the remarks were reported in the Moroccan magazine Tel Quel. According to Tel Quel, the Israeli web squad believed that the virus was prepared well before Operation Summer Rains, which served as a pretext for using the virus.

400 Moroccan sites locked

Far from doing nothing, Team Good [the article translates this as "l'équipe du bien"] attacked the Moroccan server Omihost, which hosts some 400 addresses and affects about 250 [? "qui héberge quelque 400 adresses en affectant environ 250"]. The damage was serious because the backup servers were also attacked. However, today, about 220 sites have been restored. A statement from the Hebrew State adds that there would certainly no longer be an “attempt on the national economy and security.”

The members of Team Evil are nicknamed the Musketeers of the Web by a section of the Moroccan population against Israeli attacks in Palestine. Recently, a march in support of the Palestinian people took place in Casablanca. Other very active Moroccan hackers lead a virtual war against Israel. As does LeRomman Tique, a team of pirates who call the Hebrew State and the U.S. “terrorists.”

Mossad agents, the Israeli secret service, were sent to Casablanca to find those responsible for the cyber assault. Because Morocco does not have laws specifically against cyber crime, hackers could get five to six years in prison through article 294 of the penal code which forbids information piracy. But there are rumors, according to Tel Quel, that the U.S. would love to be able to recruit these brilliant information technicians…