Summary of Press Conference

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi

General Secretary of the

Palestinian National Initiative

29 March 2005

Ramallah:  Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi called on Palestinians to adopt a new strategy to solve the crises related to Israel’s plans to put Gaza in a prison and expand settlements in order to annex vast areas of the West Bank and place the Palestinians in isolated ghettos and Bantustans.

The new strategy should be based on calling for an international peace conference in light of the fact that Sharon refuses to negotiate and continues to impose his will on the ground unilaterally.  The Palestinian Authority must also go to the UN General Assembly and Security Council and urge them to pressure Israel to implement the ICJ resolution of 2004, which declared Israel’s Segregation Wall illegal.

It is also imperative that the Palestinian Authority reevaluate its budget and give more priority to supporting civil society, agriculture, health, education, and the poor.

The current route of Israel’s Segregation Wall has not changed significantly from earlier plans to annex up to 58% of the West Bank, and as currently planned it will isolate 870,000 Palestinians.  Israel’s new maps make it look like parts of the Wall have been pushed toward the Green Line, but in reality the Israeli government has many tricks, such as building tunnels to allow for Bush’s call for “contiguity”, building new settler roads with walls around them that have the same effect as Walls, or building “temporary walls” that are merely the Wall with a different name. 

Dr. Barghouthi presented detailed maps of the Wall routes in Jerusalem, west Ramallah region, Bethlehem, and Salfit, and explained how Israel will isolate and imprison these areas with “temporary walls”, a way to build Walls without observing the Israeli High Court decision to halt Wall-building in certain areas.  Israel also controls and confiscates large areas of Palestinian lands using settler roads and “buffer zones” around settlements.  Sharon is currently using the so-called peace process as a cover to complete his Walls and permanently annex large areas of the West Bank, most prominently East Jerusalem and its environs.

One example of Israel’s duplicity is the fact that on paper it changed the route of the Wall to prevent the outright ghettoization of the towns and villages northwest of Jerusalem like Beit Surik and Biddu.  But on the ground, the building of the walls around Road 433, a Jewish-only road that runs north of these villages, turns this road into a de facto Wall with only one small access tunnel to cross it.  It will collectively imprison 60,000 Palestinians living in these town and isolate them from the West Bank and the outside world.

With the expansion of Israel’s illegal colony of Ma’ale Adumim toward West Jerusalem, East Jerusalem and the West Bank itself will be cut in half, isolated, cantonized.  Israel will also capture large areas of Bethlehem to Sharon’s idea of a “greater Jerusalem,” further isolating many Palestinian communities.  In Ramallah, the Wall will confiscate vital land resources of villages like Bil’in, Saffa, and Budrous for the use of illegal settlers.

The Wall in Salfit is a disaster, winding its way up and back through the lands of the region, isolating Palestinian communities from the West Bank and from each other, creating unlivable ghettos.  It is no secret that the “temporary walls” around the Ariel settlement, located in the direct center of the northern West Bank, will soon be accounted by Israel as political borders, and the lands will be annexed. 

In Jerusalem, Sharon is making every effort to take East Jerusalem entirely off the negotiating table, against the will of the international community and the American government and in direct contravention of international law.  Strategies include illegal land purchase, illegal confiscation, bulldozing of Palestinian homes, and the recent scandal wherein the Greek Orthodox Patriarch was accused of selling church assets in the Old City to Jewish interests.

The Absentee Property Law of 1950, which allowed Israel to ‘legally’ annex the property of thousands of Palestinians, has been repeatedly used in the East Jerusalem municipality despite the fact that its use in East Jerusalem has been overturned by Israeli Attorney General Mazuz.  Israelis have confiscated outright about 35% of East Jerusalem, and another 50% has been declared “green areas” by the Israeli government, which means Palestinians are not allowed to build there.  This leaves only 15% of East Jerusalem for the Palestinians.

 

Israeli violations of the ceasefire Feb 8 – March 21 2005

·        Palestinians killed                                      11

(including four children)

·        Injured                                                       158

·        Israeli shooting incidents                              381

·        Palestinians arrested                                    333

·        Israeli invasions                                           602

·        Closures                                                     591

·        Settler attacks                                               67

·        “Flying” checkpoints                                   445

        Occupation is incitement

 

Israeli violations of the Road Map

·        The first tenet of the Road Map is that Israel’s building of illegal settlements must stop.  However, new illegal settlements are currently being built, and existing settlements are being expanded, all over the West Bank.  The settlements are designed to turn the “temporary security barrier” into a permanent border dictated by the Israeli government.

·        3,500 new housing units are slated to be built between Jerusalem and the largest Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.  This will isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, an attempt to take the Palestinian capital off the negotiating table.

·        The illegal Israeli settlements of Har Homa, Alfe Menashe, Betar Illit, and many others, are being rapidly expanded at the expense of Palestinian landholders

·        Nofei Zufim is being constructed on the private property of Palestinian farmers from Jayyous, Qalqiliya region

·        A new bypass road is being built by Israel so that Palestinians can only go from the north to the south of the West Bank without entering East Jerusalem – another attempt to entrench the illegal Israeli annexation of the city.

·        The Israeli government continues to be intransigent on the issue of obeying standing orders to evacuate and dismantle several unauthorized Israeli settler outposts in the West Bank, which were deemed illegal by the Israeli High Court.

 

“Soft” ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem

·        Expansion of Ma’ale Adumim will isolate the north from the south of the West Bank and isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank

·        Beginning this summer, when the Apartheid Wall around Jerusalem is completed, Israel has plans to force East Jerusalem residents to acquire a permit in order to visit the West Bank.

·        This will force thousands of East Jerusalemites either to break ties with their friends, family, culture, and career in the West Bank, or to abandon their homes in Jerusalem.

·        Palestinian homes are still being preferentially destroyed based on discriminatory zoning laws and for dubious “security reasons.”

·        Discriminatory practices like denial of access to health care and education, collective imprisonment, and land confiscations will compel thousands of Palestinians to consider leaving the area “voluntarily.”

·        Dr. Barghouthi criticized America’s acceptance of Israel’s illegal activities and assurances that Israel’s largest settlements will go to Israel.  Allowing American to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians will destroy the very basis of the peace process.

 

Other worrying trends

·        Israel's Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon has said that President George W. Bush unequivocally supports Israel's stance that major West Bank settlement blocs are to be part of the Jewish state under a future peace treaty.

·        The UN is employing double standards – Kofi Annan recently issued an ultimatum to Syria to observe UN resolution 1559 and withdraw from Lebanon or face punitive sanctions.  He issued no such ultimatum to Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza as stipulated by UN resolution 242.

·        Annan also refused to tour the Apartheid Wall which his own organization has declared illegal while on a recent visit to Palestine and Israel.

·        In many of the Palestinian cities supposedly “liberated”, there is little change evident.  Checkpoints remain in place (or are only moved a few hundred meters down the road) and Israeli soldiers maintain the “right” to invade at any time.

 

Two things the Palestinian Authority must do

·        International peace conference resulting in a fair and speedy resolution of the conflict according to international law

·        Bring the June 2004 International Court of Justice decision ruling the Apartheid Wall illegal to the UN Security Council and General Assembly and request that the international community take direct action until Israeli policy is in line with international law

 

Palestinian internal situation

·        According to the Palestinian Independent Comission for Citizens’ Rights, internal security situation has declined in Palestine

o       In 2003, 48 Palestinians were killed by Palestinians

o       In 2004, the number jumped to 93

o       23 have been killed since the start of 2005

o       Many attacks and injuries
 

·        Laws benefiting Palestinian civil servants, particularly teachers, are being rolled back or not implemented

·        Palestinian security forces must be able to protect Palestinian citizens both from crime and from the occupying force if they are not to be seen as a mere police state, or security subcontractor, for the benefit of the occupation.

·        In general, Palestinian security services are completely helpless to defend Palestinian civilians from Israeli military attacks.

·        Judicial system also requires overhaul to make sure justice is served equally to all Palestinian citizens, not just to a wealthy elite.

 

Palestinian Authority Budget and Spending

·        GDP per capita is down 1.5% from 2004

·        Overall GDP up 3%.

·        Budget $2.3 billion in 2005 vs. $1.65 billion in 2004

·        133,00 government employees, who consume $960 million of budget (42%)

·        58,763 of all government employees work in the security sector (44%)

 

PA spending:

·        Security                  $503 million                  27% of budget.

·        Health                    $158 million                  7.6%

·        Education               $293 million                  14.1%

·        Agriculture   $14 million                  0.6%

PA revenues:

·        Local taxes             $396 million

·        Customs                 $662 million

·        Oil & gas                $164 million

·        Cigarettes                $53 million

·        Health insurance       $31 million

·        Health services         $11 million

Dr. Barghouthi calls upon the Palestinian Authority to rethink this budget and give more support to the poor and civil servants like teachers, and also to support people in marginalized areas, especially those most devastated by the Wall.  He calls on the Palestinian Authority to give more support to education, agriculture, health care, and job creation for the unemployed.  

Finally, the Palestinian campaign against the Wall and settlements is just getting started.  Many activities and demonstrations are scheduled in the coming weeks and months.  Dr. Barghouthi calls on all Palestinians to participate actively in these demonstrations.