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- 23 febr 2010
Israeli construction ban forces Yatta children to learn in tents
Hebron – Ma'an– A collection of Bedouin settlements in Area C southeast of Yatta has tried for years to obtain the necessary permissions for the construction of small school building for some 40 students who until now have been schooled in a tent.
The south Hebron hills were settled by several Bedouin communities in 1948 when they were expelled from their traditional grazing lands. They largely maintain a Bedouin lifestyle, but are confined to small areas in the hills.
As the population of the Bedouin communities grew, families became increasingly adamant that their children receive schooling under the Palestinian system.
To help residents, in 2009 the joint service council in Yatta provided them with three tents and school desks to be used as temporary classrooms.
The tents, which resemble many of the homes for Bedouin families, differ only because of the Palestinian Authority sign demarcating the building as the Elementary School of Al-Masafir.
School Principal Khadr Al-Umour said the school has four split-grade elementary classrooms housing forty students, both boys and girls. There are only three teachers for the 40 students, including Al-Umour.
A school van used to pick up students along the dirt road that runs through the area, but was confiscated by Israeli officials, Al-Umour said, for unknown reasons. The school has since rented a new van, but in the interim month, students had to walk up to eight kilometers to reach the tent-school.
Al-Umour said he was concerned that the new van would also be confiscated.
"The tents are inadequate ... they do not protect students from the elements in the summer or the winter. The rain leaks in and the summer heat is unbearable."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=263648 8 nov 2010, 23:31 , Respect -
Palestinians rebuild Jordan Valley village
TUBAS (Ma'an) -- Dozens of Palestinians as well as foreign activists on Sunday began rebuilding areas in a Jordan Valley village that were recently bulldozed by Israel's Civil Administration.
Over the past 10 days, several shacks, homes and agricultural structures were torn down in the Al-Farisiya village by the administration, which has complete planning and building control over Area C.
Head of Bedouin residential areas and Al-Maleh village council A'ref Daraghmeh said the rebuilding has helped in "easing the suffering of the families who lost the bare necessities of life," and that it would strengthen Palestinian resolve.
Save the Jordan Valley campaign coordinator Fathi Ikhdeirat said they were working to "empowering the steadfastness of the Palestinians in an area that is under the most grotesque form of expulsion ... and bringing all efforts to support Palestinians in the area, particularly after this systematic attack."
The campaign is working on rebuilding what was demolished by the Civil Administration "in peaceful resistance because these areas are Palestinian regardless of Israel's divisions and categories, which limit Palestinian existence, turning it into ghettos and open prisons."
Last Thursday, the Civil Administration returned to the valley to demolish 23 structures rebuilt by residents and farmers in Al-Farisiya. The town, in the Tubas district located across the highway from the Nahal Rotem settlement, is part of the nearby Sdemot Mehola.
On 19 July, Civil Administration forces entered the area and demolished 20 animal shelters and agricultural buildings, saying they were constructed without authorization in an area designated Area C by the 1993 Oslo Agreements. Under the plan, areas outside of major cities were to have remained under Israeli civil and military control and gradually handed over to the Palestinians.
The buildings were reconstructed by the town's residents, who called the demolitions illegal.
A recent UN report said 86 structures in the Jordan Valley were demolished two weeks ago, and 17 others were demolished in other areas of the West Bank the week after.
"The spate of demolitions raises concerns over whether Israeli authorities could further escalate demolitions throughout Area C," a UN report said, noting more than 3,000 demolition orders handed down by Israeli officials to locals were still outstanding.
"Currently, it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits to maintain, repair or construct homes, animal shelters or necessary infrastructure in Area C," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest report on Area C.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=306405 9 nov 2010, 00:19 , Respect -
First phase of Sheikh Zayed District project completed
Occupied Jerusalem - The first phase of the Sheikh Zayed District in central occupied Jerusalem, one of the key construction projects being financed and undertaken by the UAE Red Crescent Authority in the Palestinian Territories, has been completed, according to Dr Sheikh Yousuf Juma Salama, Imam of the Aqsa Mosque and former Palestinian Minister of Islamic Affairs.
Salama affirmed the importance of the projects carried out by the UAE currently in occupied Jerusalem and its outskirts in maintaining the Arab national identity of the city and its status in the Islamic world.
He also said that the UAE under the leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is establishing residential projects to ascertain the Arab existence in the Holy City.
First phase
He added that the first phase of the project was completed in Beit Henina, in occupied central Jerusalem at a cost of US$4 million (Dh14.68 million). The first completed phase includes 58 residential units built in Islamic architectural style over an area of 7,000 square metres. The units will be distributed among teachers' association members in occupied Jerusalem.
Salama, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Islamic Authority, said the project is the biggest to be carried out by the Red Crescent Authority in occupied Jerusalem. He added that the project has a great positive effect on the Palestinian people whose houses were destroyed by the Israeli occupation.
Emirates News Agency, WAM
http://fwd4.me/0jSx...Read more 9 nov 2010, 00:19 , Respect -
Civil Administration hands down stop work orders
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israel's Civil Administration handed down several stop-work orders on Monday to residents in villages in the northern West Bank districts of Qalqiliya and Salfit.
Several home-owners in the Kafr Thulth village in Qalqiliya received the notices, including the director general of Ministry of Local Governance in Tulkarem Raed Muqbil.
In Deir Ballut, in the Saflit district, eight residents building homes to the west and south of the village, were also issued stop-work orders by Israel's Civil Administration, contending the works were undertaken without a permit.
Ahmad Yousif Mustafa, the mayor of the village, said the construction was necessary for natural expansion and that "forbidding people from building aims to deprive them of property."
A spokesman from Israel's Civil Administration did not respond to requests for comment.
Those issued with stop-work orders were identified as Edrees Jabara Abdulla, Najeh Daoud Hussein Abdulla, Khaled Ahmad Abu Kheir, Abdulla Mahmud Abu Kheir, Jaber Ahmad Mahmud Abdulla, Abdul Ghafer Jabara Husni Mustafa, Abdul Wahhab Husni Issa Mussa, and Abdul Wahhab Muhammad Abdullah.
The villages are in Area C, under full Israeli control over security, planning and construction, which encompasses 60 percent of the West Bank. The orders, known locally as "demolition orders," demand that homeowners appear before a magistrates court to defend allegations. Because legal action at the court rarely succeeds, the stop-work orders essentially constitute a demolition order.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=316281
9 nov 2010, 00:19 , Respect -
West Bank to get 10 new police stations
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority Ministry of the Interior approved on Thursday the construction of ten police stations for West Bank towns and cities, out of 55 new structures approved for financing at the 2008 donors conference.
Representing Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), German donors backing the latest project, official Alexander Fritsch said the approved designs were selected based on priorities in West Bank services and security to residents.
Four of the ten stations were slated for areas in the northern Jenin district, one in Jericho as an expansion of the police training academy, and five others to be set at a later date, representative for PA Chief of Police office Rashid Hamdan said.
The ten stations will be constructed on the same design, Hamdan added, and will operate on a sustainable development model.
The meeting was hosted by security assistant of the minister of interior Mohammad Al-Jibrini, and also attended by project coordinator Samir Mleitat, and projects overseer Maria Dal.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=319796
Islamist party demands PA adhere to court ruling
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian High Court verdict mandating the release of a Hizb Ut-Tahrir member remains unobserved by PA police, party leaders announced on Thursday.
One month has passed since the decision to release Mohammad Khateeb was handed down on 30 August 2010, a party statement said, recalling that the verdict mandated his immigrate release based on what the court found was an arbitrary arrest.
According to supporters, Khateeb remains held under the authority of the PA Security Enforcement Agency, an arm of the intelligence forces. Inquiries with the body allegedly resulted in Hizb Ut-Tahrir officials being told that the forces were not under teh jurisdiction of the courts.
Despite efforts by the party to ensure the implementation of the decision, from contacting rights organizations to distributing a copy of the High Court verdict to the PA Minister of Justice, and to the Minister of Interior, the party said.
"Khateeb's defense attorney also delivered a copy to Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad's office," one official explained, adding that Fayyad had promised to look into the issue when asked about it in a news conference during September.
A statement from the party called the refusal to release Khateeb evidence that the "law of the jungle prevailed" in the West Bank, saying it was concerned that no authority could intervene on the prisoner's behalf.
Hizb Ut-Tahrir members, who support the call for the establishment for a regional Caliphate and the creation of pan-Islamist rule under Sharia law, were prohibited from holding a conference in Ramallah marking the fall of the last caliphate. Police, who said several events had not secured permits, set up roadblocks and detained hundreds of party members on their way to gatherings.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=319763
12 nov 2010, 00:47 , Respect -
Report: Israeli minister threatens PA development
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan threatened on Tuesday to do his utmost to prevent construction of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi if his demands weren't met, an Israeli newspaper reported.
The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli daily, reported Wednesday that Erdan, during a visit to the planned site near Ramallah, said he had demanded that the developer offer solutions for potential environmental problems.
The government of Israel views aiding the Palestinian economy as a matter of great importance, and therefore we are cooperating in the construction of Rawabi. However, at the same time, constructing a new city comes fraught with potential problems air pollution, ground contamination, insufficient water treatment and waste disposal, Erdan was quoted as saying.
Amir Dajani, deputy managing-director of Bayti Real Estate Investment Co., which is building Rawabi, met Erdan and said the site would meet environmental standards, the Bloomberg newswire reported.
We are exploring every possible avenue to assure that Rawabi is environmentally friendly, he said.
We are building a modern, sustainable city.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=321347
26 nov 2010, 02:03 , Respect -
Report: PA submits request for new airport
TEL AVIV (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority has submitted a request to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office for the construction of a new Palestinian airport in the central West Bank district of Jericho, Hebrew-language media reported Tuesday
The four square kilometer airport 10km southeast of Jerusalem includes plans for a single terminal, six gates for boarding, a large parking lot and international airport facilities and was submitted by the PA transport minister, Israeli daily Maariv reported.
The land on which the PA hopes to build the airport is categorized as Area C, under full Israeli security and planning control, and requires approval from Israel. According to Maariv no response has been received but the newspaper suggested Israel would grant the required necessary permits.
"The airport we're planning is going to be very modern," said Dr Ali Sha'ath, a top engineer with the company who has been contracted with the project's planning, in an interview with the Hebrew-language newspaper. "It will serve residents of the West Bank and many tourists who want to come to the region," he added.
The PA was initially going to name the airport after late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but have decided to call it the Palestine Airport.
Talks over the airport's construction have been underway for the past few weeks, hoping to raise financial support.
"Everything is ready, and we are waiting for the Israeli prime minister%u2019s approval," said Sha'ath.
The Israeli army destroyed the Yasser Arafat International Airport in Rafah, southern Gaza in 2001, four years after its opening, rendering it out of use.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=323321
1 dec 2010, 01:56 , Respect -
PA ready to start construction of West Bank international airport
$340 million project would be built on 8-square-kilometer plot of land east of Jerusalem in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority said Thursday that it is ready to begin construction on an international airport in the West Bank, east of Jerusalem.
The airport, which is planned for an 8-square-kilometer plot of land, would be part of the Palestinian government's two-year state institution building plan.
"We are ready to start work on the plot in the first half of next year," Palestinian Minister of Transportation Sadi al-Kurunz told reporters in Ramallah.
It would have freight and passenger capacity and be built according to international standards, the minister said.
Kurunz expressed hope that once work starts, international donors will come forward with the 340 million dollars needed for the project.
"An airport means sovereignty, freedom, progress and economic development," he said, giving the example of the tourism industry, which would require transportation infrastructure.
The plot of land designated for the project falls in what is known as Area C, a region of the West Bank under full Israeli control.
But the PA "did not and will not ask permission from Israel" to build the airport, Kurunz said. He argued that the Oslo Accords, the first direct agreement signed by Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, provides the latter the right to build two airports.
Training for staff, including pilots, has already begun, the minister added.
The Palestinians had an airport in the Gaza Strip that was destroyed following the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking to create an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but negotiations with Israel are currently in a stalemate following the expiration on Sept. 26 of Israel's 10-month freeze of settlement construction.
http://bit.ly/bz9eFh
1 dec 2010, 01:57 , Respect -
Abu Libdeh: Rawabi can absorb settlement workers
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- PA National Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said Saturday that the first planned Palestinian city in Ramallah could be "a real opportunity to absorb Palestinian workers employed in settlements," a statement read.
The Rawabi City project, he said, could provide between 8,000 to 10,000 jobs during the construction period and up to 3,000 jobs in the city itself once construction is complete.
"This will contribute to the flourisihing of the Palestinian economy, creating alternatives for Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements, especially as the city is established on supporting national industry," the minister added.
The PA announced a s boycott of settlement goods at the beginning of 2010, later saying it would criminalize working in settlements. Officials said they hoped to find alternative jobs for settlement workers by the end 2011, but have been criticized for the short time-frame and lack of alternative work opportunities for those affected.
In October, Israel's environment minister said he would attempt to block Rawabi's construction over concerns for the environment. Abu Libdeh denounced the comments, and said Israel was "trying, through weak excuses, to weaken our national economy.
"Any obstruction to such a project is an obstruction to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," he added.
He described the project as "very important," providing housing for thousands of Palestinians and said it was carefully planned out with international partners "in contradiction to the illegal and random settlements that do not take into consideration the simplest environmental concerns, when the harmed ones are the Palestinian villages they surround."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=326843
8 dec 2010, 01:43 , Respect -
First luxury hotel to open in Ramallah
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories The opening of Ramallah's first five-star hotel on Monday will mark another small step in the West Bank town's steady march towards something resembling normal life.
But its sixth-floor executive lounge looks out on a panorama of unresolved issues that cloud the economic outlook -- a built-up Israeli settlement on a nearby hilltop, a Palestinian refugee camp down below and the hazy skyline of distant Jerusalem beyond a grim separation wall.
The Movenpick Hotel Ramallah, a locally owned franchise of the Swiss-based chain, is aimed primarily at corporate clients and has been billed as yet another indication that the occupied West Bank is open for business.
"The past is the past. We believe in the future of the country and the future of this hotel. It's a beautiful investment and an opportunity for Ramallah," says general manager Daniel Roche.
The 40-million-dollar hotel includes 171 rooms and suites, an outdoor pool, fitness centre and seven conference rooms. The main restaurant has an Italian chef and a downstairs cigar bar that will serve up 20-year aged whiskeys.
It will cater to the entrepreneurs, aid workers and diplomats who have flocked to Ramallah in recent years as security has improved following the 2000-2005 Palestinian uprising.
A string of chic new bars and restaurants have already turned the town into an easy-going Palestinian approximation of Tel Aviv, the transformation underpinned by technocratic reforms and a massive influx of foreign aid.
It has all happened at a time of pervasive pessimism over the peace process, which sputtered back to life in early September only to stall three weeks later with the expiry of a partial Israeli settlement moratorium.
That has Palestinian officials and investors -- many of whom have vivid memories of past periods of calm collapsing into renewed chaos -- casting a wary eye on the latest signs of prosperity.
Many point out the Movenpick was first conceived during the halcyon early years of the peace process in the 1990s but frozen by the unrest that followed.
"Without political progress, security and economic progress is not sustainable," Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib says.
"This is what we have learned from the 43-year history of the occupation."
The International Monetary Fund has also urged caution, warning recent double-digit economic growth has been mainly driven by the four billion dollars in foreign aid the Palestinian Authority has received since 2007.
In September it warned the West Bank's growth was shaped more by Israeli restrictions than comparative economic advantage and was "bound to decline" if Israel did not take further steps to improve movement and access.
"Let's keep it in perspective," says Maher Hamdan, CEO of the Palestine Trade Centre, or Paltrade, which represents more than 320 local businesses.
"The potential for economic growth and attracting investment would be an order of magnitude of what it is today if you really had a peace process."
Sam Bahour, a Palestinian-American businessman who launched a shopping mall and supermarket chain in 2004 and now runs a consulting firm specialising in start-ups, says the appearance of normal economic life can be deceiving.
"These are investors who have taken a leap of faith with the conviction the occupation will end," he says.
"So they are willing to wait out their investment hoping that they will be well-positioned, once the occupation ends, to be the first movers on the market... They are investing in the future, and that's a high risk."
Although Israel has lifted several of the hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks it maintains across the territory, trade remains difficult, and economic activity is heavily restricted in the more than 60 percent of the West Bank that is fully governed by the Israeli military.
"Another few cafes, another few hotels, is not going to build an economic foundation for statehood," Bahour says.
"What will is borders, water, land, and the ability of Palestinians to trade directly with the outside world."
Even high-profile projects like the Movenpick routinely encounter difficulties and delays in importing goods into the territory.
"Every single piece that had to be imported for the hotel was subject to Israeli procedures at the crossings, and these delayed work," says Talal Nasreddin, one of the owners of the Movenpick Hotel Ramallah.
That has meant, among other things, that the Movenpick will not immediately be able to offer the chain's trademark ice cream.
"We are working on that, and we will definitely one day have ice cream," Roche, the general manager, says. "It's a long process."
http://bit.ly/bzRmC3
29 dec 2010, 23:46 , Respect -
New Objects Gathered for Arafat Museum
Model of Arafat Museum
Following the sixth anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, on November 11, people donated thousand of his objects – photographs, pistols, trademark sunglasses and military-style suits– for display in a new museum under construction in Ramallah. These objects are meant to be symbols to remember the emblem of the Palestinian leader and the Palestinian history.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press gave exclusive access to part of the collection, including the last kaffiyeh Arafat wore two weeks before his death, in 2004, a transistor radio and a Koran, that were donated by Fayez Mohammed, who hosted Mr. Arafat and her sister into his home, in the village of al-Auja, during the 1967 Middle East war.
According to what the museum officials told AP, collecting and cataloguing Mr. Arafat’s belongings has been a slow process, mostly because they are scattered in different Arab countries, such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia, that were bases of the PLO leader between 1970 and 1980. "Most have yet to be delivered to Ramallah," Nasser al-Qidwa, a nephew of Arafat overseeing the work told AP.
One of the most important pieces for the museum is still in Gaza; the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize that Arafat shared with Israeli politicians Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. However, Hamas officials did not allow to give this and other pieces.
The construction of the museum, which is going to cost $3.4 million, started two months ago and is expected to be opened within a year. The museum will have two sections: a new building and the headquarters where Mr. Arafat was detained in his final years, both of them connected by a wing.
The foundation officials said that the museum isn’t just about remembering Mr. Arafat, but also opening a window to see the historic evolution of Palestine and the Palestinians. "It's about Yasser Arafat representing people, Yasser Arafat representing the nation, representing the struggle," they added..
Yasser Arafat died on 11 November 2004, at the age of 75, in a military hospital in France, due to an illness that was not clearly established and was surrounded by many rumors, none of which was confirmed.
In the Palestinian territories, rallies and speeches are expected to be organized on Thursday’s anniversary of his death.
http://www.imemc.org/article/59876
PA begins Arafat commemoration; millions to new museum
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- One and a half million dollars was approved by the PA Cabinet on Wednesday, for the completion of construction on the Yasser Arafat Museum in Ramallah.
The move comes as the PA prepares celebrations marking the 6th anniversary of the death of the former president, with provisions made in Wednesday's cabinet meeting for free public transportation for West Bankers heading to the Ramallah festivities.
According to a statement released by the cabinet, officials called upon "all the Palestinian people at home and abroad to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the death of the late President Yasser Arafat," and noting the importance of continued support for the celebration from the PLO, which was founded by Arafat in 1964.
The cabinet also approved grants for new kindergartens and the planting of trees in 50 school gardens, all to be named after the late leader, who also founded the Fatah movement.
Arafat commemorations launched in Ramallah
Hours after the cabinet decisions were announced, memorial activities commenced at the Cultural Palace in Ramallah, overseen by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and President Mahmoud Abbas' top aid At-Tayeb Abdel Rahim.
The opening session saw children light hundreds of candles and march in the Ramallah streets toward the tomb of Arafat.
Chairman of the Aarafat Foundation Nasser Al-Kidwa said during the events that the memorial was an important annual tradition to maintain, and that the legacy of the leader was part of the legacy of Palestine.
Al-Kidwa said with the grant from the PA Cabinet, the Arafat Museum would open before the seventh anniversary of his death.
Gaza government bans Arafat memorial
In Gaza City, Hamas leader Zakarya Al-Agha said Hamas police refused to approve a request for the event, while police Major Ayman Al-Batneejy said permission was denied on "security" grounds.
Hamas "cherishes the memory of the late president as a great national figure," he said, but the movement is afraid that "collaborators will take advantage of the event causing problems for both governments."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=332743
PA begins Arafat commemoration; millions to new museum
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- One and a half million dollars was approved by the PA Cabinet on Wednesday, for the completion of construction on the Yasser Arafat Museum in Ramallah.
The move comes as the PA prepares celebrations marking the 6th anniversary of the death of the former president, with provisions made in Wednesday's cabinet meeting for free public transportation for West Bankers heading to the Ramallah festivities.
According to a statement released by the cabinet, officials called upon "all the Palestinian people at home and abroad to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the death of the late President Yasser Arafat," and noting the importance of continued support for the celebration from the PLO, which was founded by Arafat in 1964.
The cabinet also approved grants for new kindergartens and the planting of trees in 50 school gardens, all to be named after the late leader, who also founded the Fatah movement.
Arafat commemorations launched in Ramallah
Hours after the cabinet decisions were announced, memorial activities commenced at the Cultural Palace in Ramallah, overseen by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and President Mahmoud Abbas' top aid At-Tayeb Abdel Rahim.
The opening session saw children light hundreds of candles and march in the Ramallah streets toward the tomb of Arafat.
Chairman of the Aarafat Foundation Nasser Al-Kidwa said during the events that the memorial was an important annual tradition to maintain, and that the legacy of the leader was part of the legacy of Palestine.
Al-Kidwa said with the grant from the PA Cabinet, the Arafat Museum would open before the seventh anniversary of his death.
Gaza government bans Arafat memorial
In Gaza City, Hamas leader Zakarya Al-Agha said Hamas police refused to approve a request for the event, while police Major Ayman Al-Batneejy said permission was denied on "security" grounds.
Hamas "cherishes the memory of the late president as a great national figure," he said, but the movement is afraid that "collaborators will take advantage of the event causing problems for both governments."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=332743
29 dec 2010, 23:47 , Respect -
Role of Israeli firms raises boycott concerns about Rawabi
Bashar Masri shows US Consul General in Jerusalem Daniel Rubinstein (left) and USTDA Director Leocadia Zak (second from left) around the site of the planned Rawabi real estate development near Ramallah, March 2010.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in Palestine, has expressed its concern following reports that Israeli companies have been contracted to take part in the construction of Rawabi, an already controversial Qatari-financed Palestinian real estate development in the occupied West Bank.
Rawabi (www.rawabi.ps) is touted by developers as the “first planned Palestinian city.” It has the political backing of the Western-supported Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), and international sponsors of the “peace process” including the United States government and former UK prime minister and current envoy of the “Quartet,” Tony Blair. The Quartet is comprised of the US, the European Union, Russia, and the UN Secretary General.
The BNC, the coordinating body for the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign said in a statement sent to The Electronic Intifada that, “Given that the Rawabi project has taken several deeply problematic decisions that undermine the boycott campaign and principles of national consensus among Palestinians, as well as promotes a ‘business-as-usual’ approach to Israel, this latest report requires close scrutiny by Palestinian political parties, unions, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], and civil society at large.”
The BNC conceded that the use of Israeli firms by Palestinians can be permitted, when there is no other option, but boycott compliance would have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
However, the BNC added that the “involvement of a Qatari business in a Palestinian project where Israeli companies are also involved is certainly a form of normalization” which “uses the Palestinian side as a bridge to normalize, or a fig leaf to cover up, collusion with Israeli companies almost all of which are complicit in Israel’s occupation, apartheid and denial of fundamental Palestinian rights.” Qatari Diar (www.qataridiar.com), a major real estate development company in the Middle East and Europe, is the only international investor in Rawabi. The BNC strictly opposes normalization between Israel and Arab countries.
Bashar Masri, CEO of the Ramallah-based Bayti Real Estate Investment company, the developer of Rawabi and its other major investor, confirmed to The Electronic Intifada that so far a dozen Israeli companies are suppliers to the project.
Masri wrote that the reliance on Israeli firms was necessitated by crippling restrictions the occupation has imposed on Palestinian economic activity in the West Bank. The Palestinian construction industry, he said, relies on Israel for vital supplies including cement, sand, water supply and electricity. “It is true that we are already buying products from about 12 Israeli suppliers in addition to the more than 60 Palestinian suppliers,” Masri stated, “As for the actual construction it is all done exclusively by Palestinian contractors and Palestinian human resources.”
Masri also confirmed that he had discussed the use of Israeli firms with Qatari Diar and “they understand that there are no [other] options whatsoever.”Â
Usama Kahil, the deputy head of the Palestinian Contractors Federation, speaking to Ma’an news agency, contested the claim that Palestinian contractors could not meet the needs of large projects like Rawabi and insisted that all Palestinian and Arab options be exhausted before Israeli firms were invited to become suppliers.
A contract condition that Masri’s company imposes on all suppliers, including the Israeli ones, is that they refrain from sourcing any goods or services from Israeli settlements in territories occupied by Israel during the June 1967 war, including the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. This stipulation has prompted uproar from Israeli settler groups.
For its part, the BNC said it could only assess whether particular contracts violated the boycott by examining details of each Israeli firm, whose names Masri’s company has not released. “Dealing with some indispensable Israeli companies is something Palestinian businesses are compelled to do given the conditions of siege and the fact that the captive Palestinian economy has been so thoroughly made reliant on Israel through decades of occupation,” the BNC stated.
But, it added, “There is a twisted logic in some Palestinian business quarters that rationalizes working with Israeli companies, even when there are Palestinian or international alternatives, as a means to assure easier issuance of Israeli military permits, necessary for conducting any form of business.” While such quid pro quos could help remove obstacles in the short run, the BNC warned, “the ultimate result is perpetuating Israel’s occupation and economic subjugation of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian economy.”
A year ago many Palestinians were stunned to learn that Rawabi had accepted a donation of thousands of tree saplings from Israel’s quasi-official Jewish National Fund (JNF), the body charged with managing lands throughout historic Palestine seized from Palestinians, and which under decades-long JNF practice are reserved exclusively for the use of Jews. The JNF has long used “green” tree-planting initiatives as a strategy to cover up traces of Palestinian villages ethnically cleansed by Israel or as an active means to dispossess Palestinians, as it is doing today to Bedouins in the Negev.
Building Rawabi, building an “investor-friendly” PalestineÂ
Salam Fayyad
Masri is passionate about Rawabi and presents it as a necessary project in the development of Palestine, especially to address urgent housing needs. Nor does he see it as contradicting efforts to end the “miserable occupation.” But in addition to being a private, for-profit venture, there is an unmistakable political dimension, which the latest revelations of Israeli involvement only underscore.
Writing for The Electronic Intifada last February, Ziyaad Lunat placed Rawabi in the context of the “economic peace” promoted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and unelected PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Lunat described how, “A consensus has developed among the political elite, and even among Arab states, that improving Palestinians’ quality of life, even if under military occupation, is the long sought solution for Palestinian misfortunes” (“The Netanyahu-Fayyad ‘economic peace’ one year on,” 10 February 2010).
With a lot of fanfare and foreign support, Salam Fayyad launched a much-publicized “institution-building” initiative to lay the ground for a Palestinian state. With little tangible to show for it, Fayyad and his backers have enthusiastically adopted Rawabi as the symbol of the business-friendly state they want to create. The developers embrace that vision as well, as the Rawabi newsletter put it: “The city will also promote and support the transformation of Palestine into a more investor-friendly region by building on the assets of the first Palestinian planned city” (Rawabi Newsletter, winter 2010 [PDF]).
The international support for Rawabi is also part of the Quartet’s “West Bank First” policy. While Gaza is subjected to a punishing Israeli siege with international complicity, aid and attention have been lavished on the West Bank in an attempt to shore up support for the Palestinian Authority (Masri says his company also had plans for a housing project in Gaza, but it has been impossible to implement them).
Asked whether he saw Rawabi as part of Fayyad’s effort, Masri pointed out that planning for Rawabi began in 2007, while Fayyad announced his “state-building” initiative much later. “Rawabi seems to fit well, but that is a coincidence,” Masri observed.
Rawabi’s promotional materials make much of endorsements by Fayyad and the Ramallah Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas. The United States Trade and Development Agency (USDTA) has carried out several feasibility studies in support of Rawabi, through US contractors. In addition, Tony Blair has lobbied the Israelis (so far unsuccessfully) for the developers to be allowed to build an access road across occupied West Bank land in “Area C” (the 60 percent of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli occupation with no role for the PA) and has promoted the project in public comments.
Unaffordable “affordable” housing?
Rawabi will provide 5,000 “affordable” housing units for an initial 25,000 people, expanding in later phases to house 40,000, according to the company newsletter:
“Unlike any other in Palestine, Rawabi will be characterized as a modern, high-tech city with gleaming high-rise buildings, green parks and shopping areas.” Located 6 kms from Ramallah, “Rawabi is sure to become a future social hub for young professionals and families, offering a higher quality shopping experience, entertainment facilities and serving as an overall social and business networking destination in the West Bank.”
This vision differs little from that offered by new developments sponsored by Qatari Diar and other developers that are sprouting up all over the Arab world. Rawabi’s website and promotional materials are full of endorsements from international officials, but say little about whether the vision is one that any Palestinian communities have been invited to help shape.
Masri insists that Rawabi meets an urgent need: “The housing shortage is so bad for middle income and of course for low income” and he says that thousands of people have expressed an interest, through the company’s website, in buying units. While final prices have not been set, Masri estimates based on current projections that units would sell for $60,000 to $100,000 dollars which would translate into a mortgage payment of $450 to $750 per month.
Such costs would currently only be within reach of a small elite in the economically-depressed occupied West Bank where, according to a World Bank report in September, annual per capita gross domestic product hovers below $2,000, and virtually all recorded economic growth is a result of direct foreign subsidies to the bloated PA bureaucracy, or to the income of Palestinians working in illegal Israeli settlements.
Masri adds that his company will announce “plans in the future for limited income housing but this is for a later stage.”
If projects like Rawabi are to yield profits any time soon without relying solely on marketing to the well-to-do elite, they will depend on convincing Palestinians to go into massive amounts of mortgage debt, as happened before the real-estate bubble burst in 2008 in the United States and other hard-hit countries including Ireland.
As Lunat observed, Rawabi “is Fayyad’s flagship project. The Washington Post reported that Rawabi ‘is specifically designed for upwardly mobile families of a sort that in the United States might gravitate to places such as Reston, VA. The developments are also relying on another American import, the home mortgage, including creation of a Fannie Mae-style institution for the West Bank.’ USAID, a branch of the American government, is funneling funds through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the promotion of a mortgage culture in Palestine to support these initiatives from bottom-up.”
Masri conceded that the “more expensive” apartments in Rawabi would be attractive to Palestinians from the diaspora who (presuming they have foreign passports on which Israel might allow them to enter the occupied territories) they could use when visiting.
In addition to concerns about possible boycott violations and normalization with Israel, the Rawabi model raises deeper questions for all Palestinians. Even if Masri has the best of intentions, Rawabi represents an entirely top-down, profit-driven approach to the development of Palestine where the “vision” created by financiers, marketers, international investors and “peace process” officials is substituted for the aspirations of the broader community.Â
Palestinian nationalism is transformed into a zeal for real-estate deals and the establishment of gated communities rather than a focus on liberating human beings and giving them the chance to decide for themselves how they want to live and what they want their communities to look like.
It is a model of development that can be seen spreading across the region from Morocco to Beirut to Amman’s Abdali quarter where first-class housing and private facilities are created for those who can afford them. Meanwhile public infrastructure and the needs of the vast majority of disenfranchised people are an afterthought at best.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and is a contributor to The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (Nation Books).
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