In this report we have Ken Davis, International Programs Officer at Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA who has been working in Palestine on an agricultural project. We also have Ramzy Baroud from the Palestine Chronicle, one of the largest media outlets from Palestine providing background and analysis of the current situation in Palestine in March 2023.
Firstly, we begin with an interview that Ken Davis from Amman in Jordan.
SPEAKERS
Ken Davis, Lindsay McDougall (ABC Journo), 4PR – Voice of the People, Ramzy Baroud (The Palestine Chronicle).
ABC Journo
Now (you were) telling me … , you’re there to support the Palestinians as part of your work with Union Aid Abroad and Australian People for Health, Education Development abroad. What’s the mood like there at the moment amongst the Palestinian people?
Ken Davis
The mood is terrible. I think people are very frustrated people just try to manage their lives, but with increased settlements, increased military attacks, increased closures, increased house demolitions. There’s a real squeeze, not only on the Palestinian communities, but on the economy. The economy is completely, it’s an ‘enclave economy’ within Israel. So Palestinians have got no control over any economic determinants or any borders. People don’t have much faith in any of the political leadership. Because the tax revenues from, Israel taxes Palestinians, like sales tax, and then transfers the revenue to the Palestinian Authority. But that’s interrupted. So public sector workers not getting wages, teachers are on strike (for) already three weeks, lawyers, doctors, all sorts of parts of the public sector are on strike. So also, the situation in Israel is extremely volatile. Just recently, half a million people demonstrated against the government. The government won a majority of seats, but not a majority of votes. So the situation inside Israel is extremely uncertain.
ABC Journo
When you talk about things like house demolitions, what is the what are the reasons or what is the policy around house demolitions where you are?
Ken Davis
Israel believes it’s got total control over East Jerusalem and Area C, which is the majority of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. According to the Oslo Accords, that in international law, Israel, the occupation of all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal. So Israel can demolish houses of families of suspected terrorists. They can demolish houses of say, Bedouin settlements, that they want to confiscate the national parks or for military use. But strategically, what’s happening is the settlements are expanding, to make sure that Palestinian cities are not in direct contact with each other. So by expanding the settlements, to the east of Jerusalem, that cuts off Ramallah from Bethlehem or cuts off Palestinian cities from Jericho on the border with Jordan. So a lot of the house demolitions are strategic for the expansion of settlements.
4PR – Voice of the People
On the 9th of March 2023 4PR recorded this explanation given by Ramzy Baroud from the Palestine Chronicle about how and why the West Bank is divided up by Israel. We put this question to one of Palestine’s best known journalists at the Black/Palestine Solidarity Forum organised by by Institute for Collaborative Race Research and Justice for Palestine Meanjin.
The status of Palestinians in Jerusalem in that Palestinians do not have citizenship there, but they have a residency status. Do you think this current Israeli Government will impose annexation, either in the whole of Palestine and create a situation similar to Jerusalem in not allowing Palestinian citizenship and imposing a residency scenario? Is it a similar situation?
The Palestine Chronicle (Ramzy Baroud)
So Palestinians, are kind of all living under various types of rules and divisions and lines, you have the besieged Gaza Strip, the Israeli says that we have disengaged from here, the international community says, Nope, it’s still an occupied territories, then you have the West Bank divided to three areas A, B, and C, and I don’t, if you are getting confused, and you will get confused. That’s the whole point is to create this confusion. That, the west bank is a separate discussion, area C is a separate discussion from Gaza, Jerusalem is something different, and so forth. It’s just the same military occupation, the same apartheid, the same racism, the same, mechanisms of controlling and dominance, but there’s really sort of break it down in such a way, because they want to divide the Palestinians, because some Palestinians for a while, so that they are a little bit luckier than other Palestinians. So if you are a Palestinian, who is a native still living in Palestine, today’s Israel, you have a citizenship, you don’t have equal rights, you don’t have equal rights, you are still a second, third or fourth status citizen, but you still have a passport. That gives you a little bit more freedom than a Palestinian living in the West span. But Palestinians in the West Bank also have Jordanian passports, that makes them feel a little bit luckier than those like the unfortunate some like us in Gaza. We have nothing. I remember when I used Gaza, for the first time, I had what they called the Law, say per se, like an Israeli travel document just made for people in Gaza. And it says nationality and defined.
So when I went to the first like border crossing paths Palestine, the officer is looking at that and he says, Who are you? I am a Palestinian. He says, I don’t care what your passport doesn’t say anything. It has no nationality. It’s meaningless, right? So all of these kinds of, Israeli mechanisms have been aimed at dividing Palestinians, administering them in different ways, but ultimately, the ultimate objective, take more land, build more settlements into the land from its people as much as possible. But then something happened and it culminated to the May 2021 revolt in Palestine, a revolt that in my opinion, is still ongoing and manifesting itself every day in various Palestinian policies. And I think that’s the moment that is what is have realized that their plan has failed. The Palestinians, the quote, so called Israeli RFCs are the Palestinians who are living in the so called Israel proper. This is Palestinian land that was pronounced in 1947/48. Having forgotten or abandoned their identity.
Palestinians in Gaza who were supposed to be isolated from the West Bank, still stood in the same card. If you remember, you guys, the whole thing started with a shift around the house demolitions. That is Jerusalem. The resistance in Gaza ??? ?? Israelis. In retaliation, Palestinians in Haifa and Jaffa and rose in rebellion against the Israelis and suddenly Israel was in a state of civil war. The army is in the streets and there was a complete panic that is what your immediate described this as.
This is 1948 all over again, like everything that we have done to break them If we think we have done to divide them, at least at least we were able to attack what area that time without the others retaliating now and as citizens are developing this new political discourse, that is a lot resection organ, it’s ever been new groups that are not affiliated with any other pre existing political groups, young people who are very smart, very connected, and developing this whole, slogans that ideas that the Caesars all as one and the same.
And that’s where the the risk of Israel is beginning to take actions against to kind of use that passport as a leverage to use that presidency as a leverage. Now we are passing a large have passed its first reading and the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, that basically says there’s any Palestinian that that carries out a terrorist attack. But it’s written in the weirdest possible way, not any Palestinian, who carries out the terrorist attack, but someone who has who tries to harm the interests of the Jewish people, whatever that means, is to be executed. So they are bringing back the executions that they have stopped 6070 years ago, Israel is in a state of panic.
Israel is in a state of panic.
And the real panic here is that Palestinians in terms of numbers, they are now equaling the Israeli Jews, in terms of political identity, they are becoming again unified in terms of political discourse, they have completely abandoned the entire Oslo framework, nobody is talking about that. And even in terms of one state versus two states, majority of Palestinians in the West Bank, for the first time in history, are now demanding equal rights in one state.
And that’s where the panic of Israel is happening. And this is why the rush to change the nature of the Supreme Court and alter the judicial system. They are trying to do everything in their power to stop that collapse. And I think there’s a lot of hope. In all of this. I know sometimes when you were talking about hope you go to the US and you realize another number of Palestinians were killed. It’s like, Where’s this coming from? But if you actually look at it from from a kind of a wider perspective, you would see that Israeli political establishment is collapsing at the seams. And it’s the Palestinians, on the other hand, that are rebuilding their national unity and their political discourse once more.
4PR – Voice of the People
So let’s go back to the interview with Ken Davis from Union Aid Abroad about the social conditions in Palestine prevailing at the moment. Ken talks about social conditions including the effects on the gay movement in both Palestine and Israel and also discusses the social and economic crisis that exists in the entire region.
ABC Journo
And you’ve been working in this part of the world for a number of years, as you mentioned, … Israel politically is very as become very different. Benjamin Netanyahu, lost power, but then once again, took the helm. I think it was about 18 months between … what are the issues facing the Palestinian people changing? Or has the tension between the two countries become a part of everyday life?
Ken Davis
Well, that’s obviously part of everyday life since Oslo since 93. And particularly since the separation wall was erected … from mid 2000s. There’s probably about 150,000 or 200,000 Palestinians, mainly men, that cross the border, or cross into the settlements for work each day. But, the former government wasn’t very pro-Palestinian, but the current government has an extreme right party, descending from groups that are still on the consolidated terrorism list for Australia, that is empowered over the police and over the occupation. So that’s making things a lot worse. And basically, the current government’s told the settlers, and the settlers are about 16% of the total Jewish population in Israel, that, they’ve got free rein in terms of having guns or being able to shoot Palestinians. So there was what the Israeli press refers to as a pogrom in the village of Huwwara near Nablus, where dozens of houses were burned and an even larger number of cars and many Palestinians were injured. So it’s a green light to what you want to say vigilante violence by the settlers.
ABC Journo
Right now. You’ve been You’re with Union aid abroad. Tell us about this. Where does it get its funding? How does it decide where to direct its efforts?
Ken Davis
Okay, so we get some funding from the Australian Government. We’ve been working on projects with Palestinians since our foundation in 1984, both in refugee camps in Lebanon, and afternoon in idea in Palestine. In this case, we’ve got a project, helping build the capacity of women’s coops, either in agriculture, organic agriculture, or in organic food production, in southeastern in a village near Ramallah. And this is sponsored by the Australian education union.
ABC Journo
Right? And you’re now in in Jordan over the eastern border. What’s happening there?
Ken Davis
Jordan is very quiet, but everything’s very cold and wet this part of the world?
ABC Journo
How’s organic farming in those conditions? Right. How’s organic farming in those conditions?
Ken Davis
Look, they’re in Palestine and Jordan, they’ve got all different environments … they’re on the Jordan Valley. It’s virtually tropical. And then they were, from Australia, we were interested in dry land agriculture, permaculture, and then in mountain areas. in Palestine, it’s fairly rocky. So it’s suitable for almonds and herbs and olives, obviously. But in home gardens or small gardens, people are using permaculture techniques.
… I think didn’t have a sense of urgency about the level of crisis, human rights crisis in a lot of countries, like China, Myanmar, Russia, Uganda, Egypt, Saudi, and so on. But it’s interesting here, because, there’s an Israeli gay movement and Palestinian gay movement. The Palestinian group, Al …. is, a Palestinian national group. And also in Jordan, a situation might have deteriorated, there’s, gay areas here, and gay bars and gay groups and gay publications. And the Queen, I think, is patron of some of that. But in general, the situation is becoming a bit more conservative, because there’s so much pressure in the region, geopolitics is changing rapidly. Saudi, which is a key Australian ally, now is doing deals with Russia and China, maybe with Iran. So this geopolitical stuff, puts pressure on each of the autocratic regimes and, that has a social impact on women on a fight on Muslims, on ethnic minorities and on queer people.
ABC Journo
Right. So the flow on effects of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have direct effects on LGBTQIA plus people.
Ken Davis
Oh, absolutely. Because, in Jordan, the monarchy is very important, but historically has been counterpose to, the kings in Saudi Arabia, there’s tension. Jordan is a key Western ally. But, when the economy is not good people go to the church or to the mosque you know what I mean, if you don’t trust the temporal powers, the secular powers, you try and put your faith in God and so people become a bit more observant, either as Christians or Muslims and that has a conservativ-ising effect. And, here wages are low. There’s not a lot of, Jordans is not rich in petrol or gas. The water is so far underground, it’s hard to access. There’s a crisis in the region, the whole region, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, in terms of fresh water, and when there’s not enough water, particularly in Iraq, for example, that makes the farmers really poor and that’s a big situation for Palestinians because the separation wall puts the aquifers in the mountains on the Israeli side of the wall. So the big issue is for food security … but for farmers is in the whole region is water.
4PR – Voice of the People
So that’s all from me, Ian Curr from 4PR – voice of the people … so let’s go out with a song by Phil Monsour and Rafeef Ziadah, the Ghosts of Deir Yassin.