Tag Archives: palestinian refugees

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Steve Rosen: “Someday all life on Earth will be a Palestinian refugee.”

Maidhc Ó Cathail
Maidhc Ó Cathail

Maidhc Ó Cathail

The Passionate Attachment

In his May 25 blog post for Foreign Policy’s The Cable, Josh Rogin provocatively asks, “Did the State Department just create 5 million Palestinian refugees?”

Rogin is referring to a letter Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides recently wrote to Senator Patrick Leahy expressing State’s strong opposition to an amendment introduced by AIPAC darling Senator Mark Kirk that, in the words of Rogin, “would have required more in-depth reporting on how many UNRWA aid recipients are now living in the West Bank, Gaza, and other countries such as Jordan.” In the letter, Nides notes matter of factly that “UNRWA provides essential services for approximately five million refugees.” However, according to Rogin, “To experts and congressional officials following the issue, that declaration was remarkable because it was the first time the State Department had placed a number — 5 million — on the number of Palestinian refugees.” As Rogin explains: Continue reading →

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Israel’s immigration plan for ‘ethnically pure’ bunker state

Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook

The wheel is turning full circle. Last week the Israeli parliament updated a 59-year-old law originally intended to prevent hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from returning to the land from which they had been expelled as Israel was established.

The purpose of the draconian 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law was to lock up any Palestinian who managed to slip past the snipers guarding the new state’s borders. Israel believed only savage punishment and deterrence could ensure it maintained the overwhelming Jewish majority it had recently created through a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Fast-forward six decades and Israel is relying on the infiltration law again, this time to prevent a supposedly new threat to its existence: the arrival each year of several thousand desperate African asylum seekers.
Continue reading →

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Gaza tunnel smuggling OK, says confused Britain

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Fuel oil for power generation becomes a black market item

The British government gets hot under the collar at the very thought of Gaza smuggling anything in. So much so, that as Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza was coming to an end in January 2009 our then prime minister Gordon Brown promised to send naval units to stop the Hamas government “smuggling” arms which the Gazans desperately needed to defend themselves and their tiny coastal strip from their state-of-the-art weapons-freakin’ oppressors. Continue reading →

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Palestine’s ‘last village’ faces the bulldozers

Jonathan Cook
Lifta to make way for Jewish vacation homes
By Jonathan Cook in Lifta
On a rocky slope dropping steeply away from the busy main road at the entrance to West Jerusalem is to be found a scattering of ancient stone houses, empty and clinging precariously to terraces hewn from the hillside centuries ago.
Although most Israeli drivers barely notice the buildings, this small ghost town — neglected for the past six decades — is at the centre of a legal battle fuelling nationalist sentiments on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.
Picking his way through the cluster of 55 surviving houses, their stone walls invaded by weeds and shrubs, Yacoub Odeh, 71, slipped easily into reminiscences about the halcyon days in Lifta.
He was only eight years old in January 1948 when the advancing Jewish forces put his family and the 3,000 other Palestinian villagers to flight.
Over the coming months, as the Jewish state was born, they would be joined by 750,000 others forced into exile in an event that is known by Palestinians as the “nakba”, or catastrophe.
Despite the passage of time, Lifta’s chief landmarks are still clear to Mr Odeh: the remains of his own family’s home, an olive press, the village oven, a spring, the mosque, the cemetery and the courtyard where the villagers once congregated.
“Life was wonderful for a small child here,” he said, closing his eyes. “We were like one large family. We played in the spring’s waters, we picked the delicious strawberries growing next to the pool.
“I can still remember the taste of the bread freshly baked by my mother and coated with olive oil and thyme.”
The village not only occupies a unique place in Mr Odeh’s affections. It has also come to symbolise a hope of eventual return for many of the nearly five million Palestinian refugees around the world.
In the words of Ghada Karmi, a British academic whose own family was forced from their home close by, in the Jerusalem suburb of Katamon, Lifta “remains a physical memorial of injustice and survival”.
The reason is that Lifta is the last deserted village from 1948 still standing in modern-day Israel.
More than 400 other villages seized by Israel war were razed during and after the war of 1948 in what historians have described as a systematic plan to make sure the refugees had no homes to return to.
Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian who examined the 1948 war in his book the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, has termed the villages’ destruction an act of “memoricide” — erasing for Israelis all troubling reminders of an earlier Palestinian presence.
The destroyed villages’ lands were used by the new state either to build communities for Jewish immigrants or to plant national forests, said Eitan Bronstein, spokesman for Zochrot, an Israeli group dedicated to teaching Israelis about the nakba.
A handful of other Palestinian communities, such as the old city of Jaffa and Ein Hod near Haifa, survived the wave of demolitions but were quickly passed on to new Jewish owners to be reinvented as artists’ colonies.
Only Lifta was neither destroyed nor reinhabited, its homes standing as a solitary, silent testament to a vanished way of life, said Mr Bronstein.
But even that small legacy is under imminent threat from the bulldozers.
In January the Israel Lands Authority, a government body responsible for Lifta’s lands, announced a plan to build a luxury housing project over the village, including more than 200 apartments, a hotel and shops.
The project, said Meir Margalit, a Jerusalem city councillor, would be targeted at wealthy foreign Jews, mainly from the United States and France, looking for summer vacation homes in Israel.
The developers have promised to incorporate some of the old buildings into the complex, although most observers — including leading architects — say that little of the orginal Palestinian village will be recognisable after the project is completed.
Instead, according to Mr Bronstein, Lifta will belatedly suffer the same fate as the hundreds of villages destroyed by Israel decades ago. “The message is that we are finishing what we started in 1948,” he said.
Esther Zandberg, a commentator on architecture for the Israeli Haaretz daily, agreed: “Although it is termed a preservation effort, it is in effect, paradoxically, an erasure of all memory of the original village.”
Critics have been joined by Shmuel Groag, one of the project’s original architects, who has accused the developers of failing to respect the basic rules of conservation in their treatment of Lifta.
Lifta’s families, backed by several Israeli groups, including Rabbis for Human Rights, petitioned the courts to stop the project, saying the site should be preserved in its existing state.
The Jerusalem district court temporarily froze the development in March, and is expected to issue a ruling in the coming days.
The families have also appealed to Unesco, the United Nations organisation in charge of educational, scientific and cultural matters, to declare Lifta a world heritage site.
The development, however, is backed by the leading conservation bodies in Israel, including the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Council for the Preservation of Historic Sites. The council’s director, Isaac Shewky, said the costs of a proper restoration would be “astronomical”.
Unlike most of the other 20,000 refugees and their descendants from Lifta, many of whom live in the West Bank and Jordan, Mr Odeh is able to visit his former village because he lives a few kilometres away in East Jerusalem.
He said he would ultimately like to see the families offered a chance to reclaim their former homes. “We will never forget Lifta. Our dream is to come back.”
Few observers expect such a scenario in the current political climate. The Palestinian right of return is widely seen by Israeli Jews as spelling doom for Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state.
That fear was only accentuated by the images of refugees in Syria storming border fences in the Golan Heights in May and June, in what was widely seen in Israel as an attempted return to their former homes.
Mr Bronstein said: “Lifta poses such a threat to Israelis because it offers a starting point for imagining how the right of return might be implemented. It offers a model for the refugees.”
Mr Odeh, who offers guided tours of Lifta, has to share the site with many Israeli visitors. Young religious boys have turned the still-functioning village pool into a mikveh, or ritual immersion bath. Other Israelis use the site as a favourite hiking spot. And in the evenings, drug-users take shelter in the homes.
Lifta is also facing rapid encroachment from West Jerusalem. It is ringed by major roads linking Jerusalem to the West Bank settlements; on the ridge above, a high-speed rail link to Tel Aviv is being built; and in the valley below a military complex is believed to house the government’s underground nuclear bunker.
Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook won this year’s Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

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“Perpetual hell” of the Palestinian refugee camps

Stuart Littlewood

Stuwart Littlewood, 1 April 2011

A delegation of parliamentarians has returned from a tour of the refugee camps in Lebanon and made its report.

It was led by former British government minister Sir Gerald Kaufman MP and included four members of the European Parliament and three of the British Parliament. The delegation’s purpose was to assess the humanitarian situation faced by Palestinians living in Lebanon’s refugee camps, and it was able to raise issues at the highest level with the Lebanese in a series of meetings.

The UN Refugee Agency describes the plight of Palestinian refugees as “by far the most protracted and largest of all refugee problems in the world today”.

Three-quarters of the 11 million Palestinians are refugees. Their plight is at the core of the 63-year struggle against Israel. All other issues, political and humanitarian, arose as a consequence of Israel’s denial of the right of refugees to return to their land.

The report reminds us that a whole host of international treaties and conventions recognise the right to return including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. The Right of Return for refugees is guaranteed under Humanitarian and Human Rights Law and countless UN resolutions.

And the UN has affirmed the right of return through its Resolution 194 on no less than 122 occasions.

But to the international community none of this is worth the screeds of paper it is written on. Law and principle are utterly meaningless to the great, civilised powers, who just fidget and whisper sweet nothings in Israel’s ear.

Meanwhile, over 400,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon’s 12 ‘official’ (UNRWA-run) refugee camps and its many ‘unofficial’ camps, amounting to approximately 10 percent  of the country’s population. They are politically marginalised, without basic social and economic rights, trapped in often squalid surroundings, and without hopes for the future.

Palestinian refugees, says the report, suffer more in Lebanon than in any other country that hosts them.

Europe should “balance out” America’s role

President Suleiman told the delegation: “Lebanon does not have the capacity to absorb 400,000 people; we simply cannot offer them a good life. The truth is that we will not see peace in the Middle East without the implementation of the refugees’ right of return.”

Foreign minister, Dr Ali Chami, said: “It is not acceptable that Palestinians have been living outside their own state since 1948. The half a million in Lebanon are in complete misery and a very dire situation. The clear solution is the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital”. He also spoke of the Israelis’ intransigence: “Since 1978, according to UN resolutions, Israel has violated Lebanese sovereignty every day, while the international community has failed to deter them.”

Referring to Israel’s invasions and occupation of Lebanon, Deputy Speaker Al Zain said: “Lebanon has endured a lot for the Palestinian cause… It is high time the West liberated itself from double standards and stopped supporting satellite regimes that do not respect Palestinian rights.”

A Hezbollah MP remarked: “More than two million people have been killed because of this cause. There are millions of Palestinian victims around the world and the international community has paid out billions of dollars, but there is still no solution”.

Another MP added: “There needs to be seriousness in dealing with Israel and an end to backing dictatorships. Palestine had free elections in 2006, but the West conspired to undermine the results. If this corruption isn’t corrected the West will face the biggest upheaval in the region since 1948-49.”

On Europe the Deputy Speaker said: “The world needs another power to balance out America’s role, Europe should fulfill this role.”

Recalling the Sabra and Shatila camp massacre of at least 800 in 1982 while Beirut was under Israeli occupation, British MP Jeremy Corbyn reflected: “The pain of the Sabra and Shatila massacres… never goes away. It was a poignant moment for the delegates to be able to lay a wreath at the memorial. It was sad to see the continued poverty in those camps nearly 30 years on, but we were inspired by the people. The description by Mohammed Omar Deeb, an elderly survivor of the massacres and his determination that
one day he would see his village in Palestine and that all his family would see a free Palestine is typical of the enduring spirit of the Palestinian people.”

Two inquiries held Israel indirectly responsible and Ariel Sharon was especially implicated.

Refugees must remain at the centre of all peace talks

After their visit the delegation concluded…

  • The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are victims many times over.
  • They are denied access to their homeland.
  • They are the victims of Lebanon’s civil wars and the numerous Israeli

invasions and occupation.

  • They are victims of the unwillingness of the international community to

secure justice and the unwillingness of the Lebanese authorities to grant
them their basic human rights.

Their recommendations are…

  • The international community, including Israel, is responsible for guaranteeing the rights of Palestinian refugees and providing them with protection.
  • While Lebanon and many members of the United Nations offer appropriate

rhetoric, this must be matched with concrete steps to tangibly improve the lives of the refugees in Lebanon and put an end to the catastrophic conditions in which they live.

  • An appropriate solution is needed that restores and protects the human rights of the refugees, including their right to return to their land.
  • In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees have a status that falls far short of even second class citizenship. This should be corrected without delay.
  • All parties should respect and enforce United Nations General Assembly

Resolution 194 which calls for the return of the refugees.

  • As Israel has shown no inclination to respect the rights of Palestinian refugees under international law, it is incumbent on the international community to enforce a resolution.
  • The European Union and its member states, including the United Kingdom, should significantly increase their funding to UNRWA to allow the agency to fulfill its remit.
  • Negotiators, politicians and activists should ensure that Palestinian refugees remain at the centre of all peace talks.
  • Lebanon’s position on the refugees is woefully inadequate. The 17th August 2010 law should be implemented immediately as a first step to normalising the lives of Palestinian refugees by improving human, civil and property rights and lifting restrictions on the professions available to Palestinians.

On housing, all restrictions that limit the right to adequate housing for Palestinians should be removed, including any legislation that discriminates against Palestinians who are not officially citizens of a recognised state. A degree of security of tenure should be guaranteed and restrictions on bringing building materials into refugee camps should be removed, including the fines or penalties imposed on Palestinians for attempting to make their homes habitable.

As regards the environment, minimum levels of sanitation and access to clean water for all Palestinian refugees should be ensured.

As regards employment, restrictions on Palestinian access to all professions should be
lifted and the process of obtaining work permits eased.

As regards education, Lebanon should ensure that all children under its jurisdiction have access to education equal to that enjoyed by Lebanese nationals.

As regards non-ID refugees, their status in Lebanon should be regularised and refugees provided with identification documents.

It’s altogether a shocking situation. Congratulations to the delegation for seeing it from the refugees’ angle and making their findings public.

“Conditions are unspeakable… the real culprit is Israel”

Sir Gerald Kaufman, who led the delegation, summed up. “When I went to Gaza in 2010 I thought I had seen the worst that could be seen of the appalling predicament of Palestinians living in conditions which no human being should be expected to endure. But what I saw in the camps in Lebanon is far worse and far more hopeless.

“The conditions are unspeakable, but for over 400,000 of our fellow human beings this is their life: today, tomorrow and for a future that cannot even be foreseen. At least in Gaza, frightful though the situation is, the people are free within the confines of their blockaded prison. In the camps of Lebanon they are not free and this is, to a very considerable degree, the responsibility of the Lebanese government which could allow
conditions to improve and could allow the victim freedom of movement, but specifically refuses to do it.

“Yet, culpable though the Lebanese government undoubtedly is, the real culprit is the Israeli government, which by refusing to come to a settlement with the Palestinians, is directly and horrendously responsible for the plight of those immured in the camps.

“It makes me more determined than ever to fight for the rights of the Palestinian people and to campaign against the deliberate decision of the Israeli government to perpetuate the hell in which so many Palestinians are living”.

There speaks one of the few honourable, decent men in the cesspit of Westminster politics… and a Jew.

At the time of Israel’s appalling blitzkrieg on Gaza’s civilians, Sir Gerald famously told the House of Commons: “My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow.  A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers
murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.

“It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis’ real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.”

Kaufman tells it the way it is, as do many brave Jewish peace groups – Jews for Justice and the like – and all credit to them for standing against the cruel Israeli regime.

So why cannot other Jews around the world, who reckon themselves to be well-informed and able to tell right from wrong, also speak up? What say all those making their fortunes here in the UK and living in luxury in Hendon, Golders Green and Manchester?

Are they not for justice?

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

  • The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com. Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.

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ACTION ALERT: DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL of UNRWA OFFICIAL ANDREW WHITLEY

November 1, 2010
For Immediate Release

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition is shocked and dismayed that a senior UNRWA official, Andrew Whitley, made a statement to the National Council of US-Arab Relations on October 21, 2010, that the Palestinian refugees should not entertain the “cruel illusion” that they will ever exercise their inalienable Right of Return and that they should start considering “their own role in the societies where they are”, or elsewhere.

This statement is a grave breach of duty and betrayal by Whitley of the trust vested in UNWRA by the world community and, particularly, by the refugees themselves.  As a UN official, Mr Wiltley undermined the integrity and the credibility of UNRWA and exposed himself as the enemy of the people he is supposed to serve.

In 1948, The UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 which calls for the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes, and affirmed this resolution 110 times so far. This same resolution created UNCCP to repatriate the refugees.  UNRWA was established in accordance with Resolution 302 which, in paragraph 20, requires UNRWA to uphold Resolution 194.

Thus, while the UN affirms every year the call for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin, in order to reverse the ethnic cleansing of 1948, this UN official has called for the perpetuation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian refugees; such ethnic cleansing is a war crime according to the Rome Statute of 1998.

ACTION

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition calls on all its members, supporters and people of conscience to write to His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon, The Secretary General of the United Nations to demand the immediate dismissal of Mr. Andrew Whitley.


SAMPLE LETTER

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
The Secretary General of the United Nations

Your Excellency,

I was shocked and dismayed that a senior UNRWA official, Andrew Whitley, made a statement to the National Council of US-Arab Relations on October 21, 2010, that the Palestinian refugees should not entertain the “cruel illusion” that they will ever exercise their inalienable Right of Return and that they should start considering “their own role in the societies where they are”, or elsewhere.

While the UN affirms every year the call for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin, in order to reverse the ethnic cleansing of 1948, this UN official has called for the perpetuation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian refugees; such ethnic cleansing is a war crime according to the Rome Statute of 1998.

Therefore I call on your Excellency

1. To dismiss Andrew Whitley from his UN position immediately
2.  To censor him for his breach of his duties as UNRWA official and disavow his statements.


Such measures are necessary to maintain the integrity of the UN’s main agency, UNRWA, and the confidence of all people, especially the Palestinian refugees, in this unique agency.

Sincerely

Your name
Address
Telephone number

Please address messages to: inquiries@un.org and cc f.grandi@unrwa.org; c.gunness@unrwa.org; s.mshasha@unrwa.org; j.ging@unrwa.org; r.cook@unrwa.org; s.lombardi@unrwa.org; r.hearn@unrwa.org; b.shenstone@unrwa.org; a.whitley@unrwa.org; l.takkenberg@unrwa.org; maher.nasser@unvienna.org

Please cc us at alerts@al-awda.org on all your correspondence

Until Return,
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org/

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to education and advocacy for the restoration of Palestinian human, national, legal, political and historical rights in full with particular emphasis on the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and lands of origin from which they have been dispossessed since 1948. PRRC is a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible. To donate, go to http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the instructions. To become a member, go to http://www.al-awda.org/membership.html

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Lebanon’s Palestinian Civil Rights Campaign moves into the Christian Heartland

Franklin Lamb

Dr. Franklin Lamb,Shatila Camp, Beirut, Lebanon, 24 Oct 2010

Even though not even one work permit has been issued to one Palestinian in Lebanon since the August 17, 2010 “right to work” law passed in Parliament and even though Palestinians are still forbidden from owning a home, the cause of Palestine Civil Rights in Lebanon endures.

Ms. Leila El-Ali, executive director of Najdeh, a Palestinian advocacy group that has long campaigned for civil rights for refugees in Lebanon is pleased that the new law has at least provoked real debate among Lebanese about the plight of Palestinian refugees but agrees that it will have no impact on the ground.

”All of the professions – doctors, lawyers, engineers, pharmacists, academia – will remain closed to Palestinians,” she says. ”There is no syndicate here that will admit Palestinian members. And to actually be allowed to work legally in other jobs, the new law says you need specific guarantees from your employer – things that in the end make it very difficult for Lebanese to employ Palestinians.”

The August 17, 2010 ‘cave in’ by progressive forces in Parliament that allowed Parliament to do essentially nothing towards granting internationally mandated basic civil rights for Palestinian refugees, was obviously a bitter disappointment but it was not entirely unexpected.

The reason is that current political pressures here in Lebanon, internal and external, eroded the requisite political will in Round One.

As wounds are cleaned from last summer’s Parliamentary debacle, NGO’s and human rights activists regroup, tactics and projects are being discussed and readied to forge ahead. Neither the Palestinian refugees here nor the growing international coalition to secure these rights has been daunted. This, despite the fact the more than two months after the meek and fairly meaningless Ministry of Labor gesture of cancelling work permit fees for Palestinian refugees, nothing has changed in the camps employment wise and all the other barriers to Palestinians working remain in place. By law and prejudice.

The currently being launched Round Two of the struggle for Palestinian Civil Rights in Lebanon is concentrating on developing much more international involvement in the campaign to secure the right to work and to own a home. Prominent endorsers of Palestinian Civil Rights for Palestinians in Lebanon who have signed an Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Lebanon’s Maronite Patriach Nasrallah Sfeir include:

* Dr Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury,
* Archbishop Tomasz Peta, of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan
* President Jimmy Carter
* Joseph Zen, Roman Catholic Cardinal of Hong Kong,
* Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu
* The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson
* Nelson Mandela
* Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cardinal Archbishop of Havana, Cuba
* The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd, Dean of the National Cathedral, Washington, DC
* Mary Robinson, former President of the Irish Republic
* Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, Moscow
* Cardinal Simon I. Pimenta, Archbishop Emeritus of Bombay, India

A major effort is being undertaken to take this civil rights struggle to the rightist Christian community in Lebanon who constitute the only real barrier to enacting meaningful rights in Parliament. Christian support, at least one quarter of the Lebanese Forces, Phalange party or Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement is vital in convincing their members in Parliament to help Lebanon by allowing its economy to benefit from Palestinian involvement and by lifting the growing international outcry over Lebanon’s violations of basic rights that all refugees are guaranteed by international law and local regulations. Certainly the endorsement of the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, is very important.

The following Open Letter has been delivered to Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and is now released to the public.

________________________

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE PALESTINE CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGN-LEBANON

Embargoed until October 22, 2010 9 a.m. Beirut time EET (GMT + 2)

The Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon and the Washington DC-Beirut based Sabra Shatila Foundation have released a copy of the Open Letter that was delivered this morning in Rome to representatives of Pope Benedict XVI and Lebanon’s Marionite Patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir on the occasion of the VATICANS 2010 SPECIAL SYNOD ON THE MIDDLE EAST

Supporters of civil rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, from 105 countries have signed hard copy and online Petitions, totaling more than 430,000 signatures urging Lebanon’s Parliament to support the immediate enactment of elementary civil rights, including the full right to work and to own at home, in Lebanon’s Parliament.

The personal appear to the Pope and Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch is part of the recently launched campaign to achieve civil rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees, the largest and oldest refugee population and the one depraved of the most basic civil rights in Lebanon.

According to PCRC spokeswoman, Ms. Ghada Jiliani, “As the Palestinian civil rights struggle continues in Lebanon, following the disappointing results of the August 17, 2010 Parliamentary vote, the focus will shift to two fronts.

One is seeking to involve in a major way the Lebanese Christian community in this critically important human rights cause. Secondly, and this is crucial, we must achieve the participation of the international pro-Palestinian, pro-peace activist community through education and awareness to dramatically broaden the global campaign to encourage Parliament to act for the good of Lebanon and her refugees pending their return to their country, Palestine.

During “Round one” of our campaign we found that most of the international community had no idea about the squalor and lack of civil rights Palestinian refugees are subjected to nor the big gap between what international law requires and what Lebanon prohibits by law, in terms of elementary civil rights.

Round Two of our struggle will include building support here among Christians and involving the international Christian and human rights community.”

________________________

On the Occasion of the Vaticans 2010 Special Synod on the Middle East

An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir from students and families in Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp,

Beirut, Lebanon

In the early days of his Pontificate, in April of 2004 in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his strong desire for a “pilgrimage to the heart of the Christian East” and “to examine and to resolve together, in a Plenary Congregation for the Eastern Churches and in the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, human rights problems of significant importance with solutions anchored in the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Accordingly, Pope Benedict XVI has summoned a Special Synod of Archbishops and Patriarchs for the Middle East to convene in Rome during October, 2010 on the theme: “The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness,” and he asked for communications from Lebanon regarding issues of concern including, “the importance of Muslim-Christian dialogue and brotherhood.”

We are mindful that the Pope’s faithful Lebanese brother, the Patriarch of Antioch, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, has repeatedly and nobly expressed his devotion to the teachings of Jesus from Palestine and to the missionary work and human rights teachings of the 5th century Syrian Christian monk, St. Maron from “Kefar-Nabo,” who devoted his life to his quest for nurturing and healing the “lost souls” of both non-Christians and Christians of his time.

The Patriarch of Antioch has also issued periodic urgent petitions for Christians to return to and remain in Lebanon and to live in peace and charity with their neighbors. Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir has also earnestly counseled Maronite clergymen and all faithful congregations of all religions, on the urgency of healing Lebanon and bringing all citizens and temporary refugees closer together and rejecting racist ethnic and confessional speeches that encourage strife.

We have studied that in 1997, Pope John Paul II visited Lebanon to give hope to Lebanese who are downtrodden and discriminated against and who said, “Lebanon is more than a country, it is a message from Calvary to love thy neighbor as thyself.” John Paul II reminded us of the divine Sheppard’s plea, “Care for my lambs… Care for my sheep” (John 21:16-17).

We stand with our Maronite sisters and brothers, and all Christians in Lebanon in their growing and certain belief that by turning the page from the past, we can protect Lebanon and achieve a national, sisterly and brotherly, and comprehensive reconciliation that would allow Lebanon to solve all issues, achieve justice, solidify stability, and provide a new hope for the new generation and the return of many from the Diaspora.

Christian-Muslim relations in Lebanon today can benefit from the letter and the spirit of the civil rights enactment guaranteed to Christians in 628 C.E. when Prophet Muhammad granted the Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai. The Charter consists of several clauses enacting civil rights for Christian refugees including freedom of movement, freedom from arbitrary arrest and confinement, freedom to work and to own a home.” There is magic when the power of the people comes together. We can overcome whatever the obstacle is, whether it’s a tyranny or discrimination or lack of basic civil rights for some. When we come together we can overcome.

We respectfully petition the Vatican and the Patriarchy to urge and advocate that all Christians in Lebanon to the Lebanese and international movement to enact meaningful civil rights legislation for Palestinian refugees in compliance with international law and Christian morality. We respectfully and humbly urge the Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to condemn the racist and anti-Palestinian language and graffiti that has polluted public discourse for the past half century in Lebanon and has undermined dialogue. Examples such as “ the duty of every Lebanese is to kill a Palestinian,” “Palestinians are a bacillus,” “Lebanon must not be a dumping ground for human waste,” and similar hate speech. Cardinal Sfeir has stressed the importance of the role of clergymen in bringing Lebanese closer and rejecting ethnic and confessional speeches that encourage strife.

We beseech the Apostolic See and the Patriarchy of Antioch to address those in Parliament who to date have prevented the enactment of the most elementary civil rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees forced from the homeland of Jesus Christ. We urge you to take the required and sincere stances and preach and use your moral and political authority to implement here in Lebanon the Gospel’s words, as Christ has taught us “to defend the wronged, the poor, the hungry, the sick.” We ask you, on the occasion of the 2010 Special Synod to demand civil rights for all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who are forbidden employment and who are not allowed home ownership. Jesus identified all his love for them. Matthew the Apostle’s gospel urged equality for “These who are viewed as lesser individuals.”

Some in Lebanon report to Palestine Civil Rights Campaign volunteers that many in Christian areas do not care and will not heed pleas for elementary justice and civil rights mandated by international law and Christian morality. Some will say, “We do truly care but is there anybody willing to hear?”

We remember what St. Maroun taught us all as he preached the Gospel, “Christ came to his special people, but at first they didn’t understand him or accept him. But in spite of rejection, Jesus spoke, and he advocated for justice for refugees, the downtrodden and those facing discrimination, and he spoke Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. And what Jesus said, nobody had ever said, and nobody must ever ignore and nobody must rest or be silent from trying to achieve.”

Civil rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees have been denied for too long. These days are pregnant with potential new tragedies that nobody wishes upon anybody else. We petition Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to command their faithful to support the earliest possible enactment of Civil Rights legislation for Palestinian refugees currently pending in Parliament. *

We urge words and acts from Rome and Antioch which are sympathetic, strong and courageous towards the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and those under occupation that Zionism had been subjugating for more than sixty years to a terrible and continuous uninterrupted Holocaust, with unlimited Western support.

We respectfully urge Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to heal the wounds and prevent civil strife, international sanctions, obviate the need for massive peaceful civil rights movements and protests, international boycotts, sanctions, and divestments, and prevent the currently pending termination of all foreign aid from the USA as required by the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act which forbids American aid to countries that engage in serial violations of civil rights.

We respectfully invite Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to visit Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, to conduct a meeting of the Lebanese Bishops in our youth center, to teach the children, to listen to the adults, to sleep a night in our home and share our life as Jesus of Nazareth did and will ask upon his return. As faithful Christians and Muslims we humbly and respectfully offer with all our love and importunity, our supplications.

_______

In addition to the 432,000 combined hard copy and on-line Petition signers from 195 countries who, as of mid-October 2010, have chosen to ‘twin’ in solidarity with a Palestinian Refugee in Lebanon the following high-profile personages are among the endorsers of the Palestinian Civil Rights Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir are the following:

* Dr Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury,
* Archbishop Tomasz Peta, of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan
* President Jimmy Carter
* Joseph Zen, Roman Catholic Cardinal of Hong Kong,
* Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu
* The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson
* Nelson Mandela
* Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cardinal Archbishop of Havana, Cuba
* The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd, Dean of the National Cathedral, Washington, DC
* Mary Robinson, former President of the Irish Republic
* Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, Moscow
* Cardinal Simon I. Pimenta, Archbishop Emeritus of Bombay, India

* The draft bill introduced in Lebanon’s Parliament in July 2010 by the Syrian Socialist National Parry most closely mirrors the requirements of International law.

Media inquiries:
PCRC office, Ms. Ghada Jiliani,
01-352-127/71-899-164/70-497-804

Email: fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

PLEASE SIGN HERE!

http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html

“Failure is not an option for the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, our only choice is success”

15 year old Hiba Hajj, PCRC volunteer, Ein el Helwe Palestinian Camp, Saida, Lebanon

Please check our website for UPDATES:
www.palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

Franklin Lamb

Franklin Lamb

Dr. Franklin Lamb, is a researcher at the American University of Beirut, and the author of  “The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon” and “Hezbollah: A Brief Guide for Beginners.”

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Ahmadinejad Galvanizes Lebanon’s Palestinians

Franklin Lamb

Dr. Franklin Lamb, SHATILA CAMP, BEIRUT, 22 Oct 2010

In the days since Iran’s president Ahmadinejad completed his visit to Lebanon, and given the continuing lively discussion across the local and international political spectrum evaluating the impact of his historic appearance, one thing appears fairly clear. US State Department official Jeffrey Feltman who came to Beirut quick from Saudi Arabia on orders from the White House to “do something!” to offset the Iranians unprecedented  reception, may have been a bit wide of  the mark in his evaluation. Feltman repeated this past weekend the March 14 pro-US and Saudi prediction that: “ I don’t think Ahmadinejad’s” visit will have a lasting effect.  It’s not something extraordinary. Its impact will remain for a couple days and that’s it.”

One  largely unnoticed achievement of the Iranian President’s visit remains among the Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon.  Close to a quarter million of whom are “ living in cages” to  borrow  President Carter’s description during his meeting this week with Hamas leader Khaled Mashall in Damascus,  to describe how their sisters and brothers are forced to exist in Gaza.

Apart from the Shia community, the largest number of the approximately 750,000 who, waited at various events to greet and hear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were Palestinian refugees. It is the Lebanese Shia, living in south Lebanon, the Bekaa  and in Dahiyeh, who are the primary beneficiaries  of the more than one billion dollars in recent  reconstruction aid from Iran.

This  infusion of funding contributed to Hezbollah’s  increase in political power and its ability to achieve public services in its neighborhoods which were previously ignored by the state.  The massive rebuilding projects created  pockets of thieving construction economies, mainly in the Hezbollah areas of Ghouberi Municipality, Bir Abed and Haret Hreik, near the  Palestinian refugee camps of Burj al Barajeneh, Mar Elias and Shatila. This area saw, since the 2006 war, the rebuilding of 235 multi unit apartment buildings (80% completed as of 10/19/10 in probably the most efficient building project of its kind in history according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The Iranian largess has quietly benefited thousands  of Palestinians in these areas even though they are forbidden by law to travel to south Lebanon to visit or work and must remain north of the Litani river on penalty of arrest and imprisonment.

During a 10/18/10 morning tour of nearly completed Waad (promise) residential buildings, bombed into smoldering mountains of rubble during the 2006 war,  this observer interviewed several Palestinian laborers and craftsmen working side by side with equally skilled and hard working Syrian workers.  What was learned is what Hezbollah officials have revealed, regarding Waad (Promise) and Jihad al Bina (struggle construction company) both now firmly on US Terrorism lists solely for political reasons.  Both organizations have discretely hired, in addition to laborers, hundreds of Palestinian engineers, craftsmen,  architects, and “syndicate professionals.”  These job offerings go to Palestinian refugees despite being forbidden to them by Lebanese laws enacted by a government that does not even pretend to comply with internationally mandated civil rights for refugees.

Nearly a week now since Ahmadinejad’s departure, the 12 Palestinian camps and two ‘gatherings’, especially among the young people, are still abuzz with often excited discussions of his visit.

This reaction, despite much that is being erroneously reported these days about the current “lost” generation of Palestinians in Lebanon resulting, so it is said, from the devastation that beset this community following the August 1982 departure of the Palestine Liberation Organization. These are legitimate concerns with sociological studies on the subject often presenting shocking indices of social decline, ennui, passivity, and hopelessness.  It is well known that Lebanon’s  camps have deteriorated  and  that the quality of life continues to disintegrate. But the young people still appear resolved to follow the spirit of their elders who founded the Palestinian Liberation Organization.  Discussions among many in the camps here inevitably turn to questions of “what went wrong?” and “how can we fulfill our parents dreams and take up the mantle of Liberation and Return that we heard from our elders”, “how  can we unite Hamas and Fatah”,  and “how to confront the expanding apartheid regime in Palestine”?

What President Ahmadinejad brought to the under 30 generation in the Palestinian camps is more hope, energy and self confidence.

Lacking unified  leadership of their own, many Palestinians  in Lebanon have been looking to Hezbollah and Iran as a model to revive the Palestinian liberation movement.  The veteran American journalist Jonathan Randel, in Lebanon this week finishing a book on Palestinians in Lebanon suggests that Hezbollah’s 1985 removal of Israeli occupation forces from one-third of Lebanon’s southern villages was likely one of the factors that  gave those under occupation in Palestine confidence  to achieve the first intifada,1987-93.

Iran’s President easily connects with young people and is unquestionably committed to the full right of refugees return to their country.  In a side meeting with representatives of the refugees camps community and some of their allies, Iran’s President could not have been more emphatic and clear about this.  Included in his counsel to young Palestinians during his visit were the following:

  • “Stay in school and help care for all members of your family.  It is you who will join the villagers of south Lebanon and liberate Palestine.  People like you make revolutions”;
  • Do not become discouraged by what might appear to be a bleak period in occupied Palestine and in Lebanon’s camps.  Ignore those who say the Palestinian revolution belongs to the past.
  • Palestine will be liberated.  It is a scientific certainly that this criminal occupation will end and  that all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be able to go back to their ancestral lands
  • The splintering of the  Palestinian body politic has been caused largely from external forces but increasingly with internal dimensions that must be resisted;
  • It is the duty of the international community to help you secure basic rights in Lebanon until your certain return to Palestine. Iran is prepared to fulfill its duty in this regard;
  • “Lebanon is the focus point of  the resistance and standing against occupiers and oppressors and is playing an excellent role”;
  • “Your return to Palestine may happen sooner than you think and is only a matter of time and perhaps the coming war will achieve this”;

Mohammad, a young Palestinian  dentist allowed only to practice inside Shatila Camp due to Lebanon’s discriminatory labor laws explained:  “President Ahmadinejad has been a hero to many of us here in the camps since he first became President of Iran.  Unlike most Arab leaders, he is committed to  the liberation of Palestine as if he were himself a Palestinian. He encourages us and speaks like our leaders used to speak before they seem to have given up our national struggle.  In fact, he is more Palestinian than many Palestinians I know. We trust him and feel we have someone to support and protect us. Like  Hassan Nassrallah  he has bolstered our confidence to struggle to return to Palestine. Both of these great men are like uncles to the  Palestinian generation now becoming adults.

Dr. Franklin Lamb, is a researcher at the American University of Beirut, and the author of  “The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon” and “Hezbollah: A Brief Guide for Beginners.”  The author contributed this article to RamallahOnline.com

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Israel’s reasoning against peace

Jonathan Cook

Deal comes at high cost to Jewish privilege

Jonathan Cook in Nazareth, 28 Sept 2010

With the resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank yesterday, Israel’s powerful settler movement hopes that it has scuttled peace talks with the Palestinians.

It would be misleading, however, to assume that the only major obstacle to the success of the negotiations is the right-wing political ideology the settler movement represents. Equally important are deeply entrenched economic interests shared across Israeli society.

These interests took root more than six decades ago with Israel’s establishment and have flourished at an ever-accelerating pace since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1967 war.

Even many Israeli Jews living within the recognised borders of Israel privately acknowledge that they are the beneficiaries of the seizure of another people’s lands, homes, businesses and bank accounts in 1948. Most Israelis profit directly from the continuing dispossession of millions of Palestinian refugees.

Israeli officials assume that the international community will bear the burden of restitution for the refugees. The problem for Israel’s Jewish population is that the refugees now living in exile were not the only ones dispossessed.

The fifth of Israel’s citizens who are Palestinian but survived the expulsions of 1948 found themselves either transformed into internally displaced people or the victims of a later land-nationalisation programme that stripped them of their ancestral property.

Even if Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, signed away the rights of the refugees, he would have no power to do the same for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, the so-called Israeli Arabs. Peace, as many Israelis understand, would open a Pandora’s box of historic land claims from Palestinian citizens at the expense of Israel’s Jewish citizens.

But the threat to the economic privileges of Israeli Jews would not end with a reckoning over the injustices caused by the state’s creation. The occupation of the Palestinian territories after 1967 spawned many other powerful economic interests opposed to peace.

The most visible constituency are the settlers, who have benefited hugely from government subsidies and tax breaks designed to encourage Israelis to relocate to the West Bank. Peace Now estimates that such benefits alone are worth more than $550 million a year.

Far from being a fringe element, the half a million settlers constitute nearly a tenth of Israel’s Jewish population and include such prominent figures as foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Hundreds of businesses serving the settlers are booming in the 60 per cent of the West Bank, the so-called Area C, that falls under Israel’s full control. The real estate and construction industries, in particular, benefit from cut-price land — and increased profits — made available by theft from Palestinian owners.

Other businesses, meanwhile, have moved into Israel’s West Bank industrial zones, benefiting from cheap Palestinian labour and from discounted land, tax perks and lax enforcement of environmental protections.

Much of the tourism industry also depends on Israel’s hold over the holy sites located in occupied East Jerusalem.

This web of interests depends on what Akiva Eldar, of the Haaretz newspaper, terms “land-laundering” overseen by government ministries, state institutions and Zionist organisations. These murky transactions create ample opportunities for corruption that have become a staple for Israel’s rich and powerful, including, it seems, its prime ministers.

But the benefits of occupation are not restricted to the civilian population. The most potent pressure group in Israel — the military — has much to lose from a peace agreement, too.

The ranks of Israel’s career soldiers, and associated security services such as the Shin Bet secret police, have ballooned during the occupation.

The demands of controlling another people around the clock justifies huge budgets, the latest weaponry (much of it paid for by the United States) and the creation of a powerful class of military bureaucrat.

While teenage conscripts do the dangerous jobs, the army’s senior ranks retire in their early forties on full pensions, with lengthy second careers ahead in business or politics. Many also go on to profit from the burgeoning “homeland security” industries in which Israel excels. Small specialist companies led by former generals offer a home to retired soldiers drawing on years of experience running the occupation.

Those who spent their service in the West Bank and Gaza Strip quickly learn how to apply and refine new technologies for surveillance, crowd control and urban warfare that find ready markets overseas. In 2006 Israel’s defence exports reached $3.4bn, making the country the fourth largest arms dealer in the world.

These groups fear that a peace agreement and Palestinian statehood would turn Israel overnight into an insignificant Middle Eastern state, one that would soon be starved of its enormous US subsidies. In addition, Israel would be forced to right a historic wrong and redirect the region’s plundered resources, including its land and water, back to Palestinians, depriving Jews of their established entitlements.

A cost-benefit calculus suggests to most Israeli Jews — including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu — that a real solution to their conflict with the Palestinians might come at too heavy a price to their own pockets.

Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

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Bedouin land fight

Jonathan Cook

Claim for native title threatens Jewish state
Jonathan Cook in Hura, the Negev, 31 August 2010

Nuri al Uqbi’s small cinderblock home in a ramshackle neighbourhood of Hura, a Bedouin town in Israel’s Negev desert, hardly looks like the epicentre of a legal struggle that some observers say threatens Israel’s Jewish character.

Inside, the 68-year-old Bedouin activist has stacks of bulging folders of tattered and browning documents, many older than the state of Israel itself, that he hopes will overturn decades of harsh government policy towards the Negev’s 180,000 Bedouin.

For the past few months, Mr al Uqbi has been in court pursuing a case that has pitted his own expert witnesses against those of the state.

Mr al Uqbi claims the right to return to a patch of 82 hectares in the Negev, close to the regional capital, Beersheva, that he says has belonged to his family for generations. But as both the government and the judge in the case, Sarah Dovrat, seem to appreciate, much more is at stake.

Should Mr al Uqbi win his case, tens of thousands of Bedouin, who long ago had their properties confiscated, could be entitled to repossess their agricultural lands or seek enormous sums in compensation.

Theoretically, it might also open the door to claims by millions of Palestinian refugees scattered across the Middle East.

The Negev, constituting nearly two-thirds of Israel’s territory, has been almost entirely nationalised by the state, with the land held in trust for world Jewry. But the Bedouin have outstanding legal claims on nearly 80,000 hectares of ancestral property.

Tom Segev, an Israeli historian, observed that the historical documents presented by Mr al Uqbi “raise a fundamental question: Who does this country belong to?”

The lawyers and witnesses in the case, Mr Segev added, were not just “arguing over a plot of land. They are arguing over the justness of Zionism”.

Such high stakes may explain why over the past few weeks, as Ms Dovrat has been considering her verdict, the authorities have sped up plans to plant over Mr al Uqbi’s land a “peace forest”, paid for by an international Zionist charity called the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

Until now the main obstacle in their way has been a small village, Al Araqib, re-established a decade ago by several Bedouin families who, rather than pursue Mr al Uqbi’s legal route, have simply reoccupied the land.

Last week, about 300 Bedouin were again evicted when the police destroyed the village’s 40 homes for the fourth time in less than a month.

Mr al Uqbi, a father of eight, said that five years ago – after years of challenging the land confiscation with protests and appeals to the authorities – he launched the lengthy legal process that has finally reached the Beersheva court.

“I realised that the authorities were simply waiting for me to die. When all the old people are gone, who will be left to come and testify?”

Mr al Uqbi said his father, Sheikh Suleiman al Uqbi, and the other villagers were “tricked” by the authorities in 1951. They were told that they would have to relocate “temporarily” while military exercises were carried out in the area.

Mr al-Uqbi, who was nine at the time, remembers the tribe being forcibly moved to a new site, next to Hura, where they have lived ever since, although their neighbourhood has never been recognised by the state.

All these years later, Mr al Uqbi’s home, like his neighbours’, is still illegal, and they are all denied water, electricity and other services.

The only option they had been offered to make their lives legal again, Mr al Uqbi said, was to move to one of seven government “townships” set up in the 1970s. All are sunk at the very bottom of Israel’s social and economic tables.

The families have refused, protesting that they would also have to renounce both their claim to their ancestral lands and a pastoral and agricultural way of life known by the Bedouin for centuries. The Uqbi tribe’s fate is far from unique. Tens of thousands of other Bedouin were also moved by the army and have been faced with a similar, stark choice.

Today, 90,000 Bedouin, or half the Negev’s Bedouin population, live in unrecognised communities, according to a human rights group.

Mr al Uqbi’s court case has set two noted Israeli geography professors in sharp opposition.

The state’s position is represented by Ruth Kark, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who claims that the Negev Bedouin were nomads with no ties to the land. Instead, she argues, most of the Negev was considered “mawat”, or dead, and its ownership passed to Israel in 1948 as the new sovereign ruler.

On these grounds, the state has long classified the Bedouin as “trespassers” and “invaders”.

But Mr al Uqbi’s expert, Oren Yiftachel, of Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, has countered that there was a well-established system of Bedouin land ownership and crop cultivation in the Negev long before Israel’s creation.

He says Bedouin deeds – though never formally recorded – were recognised by the Ottomans, the British and even early Zionist organisations such as the JNF, which bought land from the Bedouin.

A 1921 document from the public records office in London unearthed by Mr Yiftachel shows that Winston Churchill, the colonies minister, signed an agreement with Bedouin in the Beersheva area that exempted them from registering their lands and set up a special tribal court to settle land disputes.

Mr al Uqbi has kept a large store of documents passed on to him, showing that his father cultivated crops on the land and paid regular tithes on the profits to the Ottoman and British authorities.

He also has a copy of the treaty signed in 1948 between 16 Bedouin tribes, including the Uqbi, and the new Israeli army, pledging loyalty in return for a guarantee that they could continue living on their lands.

Mr Yiftachel said the legal battles of the Bedouin should be compared to those waged by other indigenous peoples in countries such as Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and Brazil. “Like them, they are fighting for recognition of ‘native title’,” he said.

  • Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
  • A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.