IN TORONTO, SORRY FOR THE CONVENIENCE - Yesterday, two of the three elevators in my Yonge/Sheppard apartment building broke down. This basically meant that I could not take the elevator momentarily as usual; I had to wait for an extra 5 minutes. In shock, I have eventually realized how greatly annoyed I was.

My feeling of shock gradually turned into embarrassment, then genuine surprise. This trivial elevator incident revealed to me how much I’m becoming used to the comforts of life in Canada; the absolute freedoms of movement and expression that I now take for granted. The elevator came. I took it and on my way down I started thinking of my life back in Nablus. Such a sharp contrast! My life there was a non-ending series of small incidents that I had to “overcome” on a daily basis, with no “sorry for the inconvenience” messages following any of them. Living in Palestine means overcoming daily obstacles, from checkpoints to curfews to arbitrary arrests to many other little “inconveniences” here and there. And I started wondering, how would people living here react if they were put in an apartheid situation? Trying to grapple with this question was like trying to link my two worlds, my two states of being if you will. It is mind-blowing really how my mind adjusts to the new very different reality once I cross the Jordan River Bridge to the West Bank- a trip that dwarfs the elevator incident in a way that renders it invisible! Sadly, the extremely “inconvenient” living conditions in Palestine have been radically normalized. Perhaps it’s a form of godly mercy that the human mind can normalize the surrounding environment no matter how harsh it is; otherwise the underprivileged people in our world would eventually lose their minds and the will to live.

In Nablus, many “Al-Najah” university students –especially those who commute from outside the city- wake up awfully early to make sure that the university is open, and if it is, to allow enough time for the soldiers on “Howwara” checkpoint to hold them up for no apparent reason. Of course that remains a mere attempt: more often than not, students experience inexplicable delays at the checkpoints and end up missing their first lectures. The same story repeats itself on the trip back to their houses in the evening. Since 2000, this situation has been the status quo of their university life.

I get out of the elevator. On my way to the subway, I try to think of a typical summer evening in Nablus. A café in Rafidia, the “hip” street in the city. Guys playing a game of cards on one of the café shabby tables. Distant noise that is getting louder and louder until it becomes deafening. An army tank on the street. Guys leave the cards and jump out to defend their close-by houses and families in case the army wants to inspect the area. Bullets in the air. Guys running. 20 minutes later, the tank turns around and goes back to the end of the street and out of the city. Guys go back to their card game in that stuffy café, laughing off the incident and offering each other cigarettes.

No one in Nablus would pause and reflect on that scenario. It is a typical “side” of life if you will. Within that incident, loss of life was a very possible outcome; and indeed, it does happen sometimes that the army claims that they declared curfew a few hours ago and so soldiers start shooting or arresting innocent, usually male, bystanders. This kind of severe disruption of daily life has become so normalized, in fact, that people recount them to neighbours and friends as jokes, stories for the purpose of entertaining guests and family members on the dinner table.

I’m now standing on the platform staring plainly at the fast passing train in front of my eyes. I enter the passenger car, find a seat and let my mind wander back to Nablus again. The situation in Palestine is distressing not only in terms of violence but it extends to all parts of life: it is the “unpredictability” of living under military occupation that is simply dreadful. It is very difficult to control and thus plan your life. Do you have a business meeting in Ramallah next week? Maybe yes and maybe no. No one knows. It all depends on the “situation” that day. I am quite sure that “Minshoof shu biseer” (We’ll see what happens) is one of the most commonly used phrases in Nablus.

Oh how many days have I woken up not knowing whether there would be school on that day or not; not knowing whether I should study for a final exam or not; whether the food my mom is making for my little sister’s birthday will be eaten by her friends or will stay in the fridge for days because they couldn’t make it to our house. Oh how many times have we travelled (or attempted to travel) to Amman in order to catch our flight but would be turned back after 7 hours on the road- and that is why we usually leave Nablus to Amman at least 3 days ahead of our scheduled flight to make sure we get there. Almost everyone I know, including my father and uncles, lost jobs and money because of the volatile political situation. Absolutely everyone I know is terrified from the water scarcity issue which loomed particularly strongly after the building of the separation wall and the isolation of hundreds of Palestinian wells. Many people in Nablus are subject to frequent house arrests because their houses are in ideal locations for the soldiers to occupy and watch over the city. Hundreds of stores and shops have been looted by the soldiers in times of curfew. The list goes on and on and on.

A woman’s gentle voice brings me back to reality. “Attention all passengers on the Yonge-University subway line. We are currently experiencing a delay between Eglinton and St. Clair subway stations. The train will move again shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused you”. I smile to myself while some other guys and girls on the train roll their eyes and check their watches in impatience.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

WATER SECURITY IN PALESTINE - For Palestinians living in the occupied territories, water scarcity is one of the most urgent problems. On many accounts, water scarcity in the Middle East is an escalating problem that could very possibly intensify the already existing conflicts in this highly volatile area. Palestinians suffer from a massively inequitable distribution of water that threatens their livelihoods and, in many cases, lives. This discrimination posits the necessity to prioritize water security as an issue on the negotiation agenda.

Since 1967, when the Palestinian territories came under military occupation, Israel has controlled all their major water resources. Shortly after the end of the war, the Israeli army issued a series of military orders that declared all water resources in the occupied territories to be Israeli state property that is to be controlled militarily, established a permit system for the drilling and rehabilitating of wells and fixed pumping quotas on existing wells, and required that every new water-related project obtains Israel's consent.

In effect, the only time when the existing water system was discussed to be modified is during the Oslo Interim Agreements in 1995. Article 40 of the Agreement stated that Israel “recognizes the Palestinian water rights in the West Bank and Gaza” but that “these will be negotiated in the Permanent Status Agreement relating to the various water resources”. In the meantime, “existing quantities of utilization” were to be maintained. In effect, Palestinian population growth has been ignored, with the amount of water allocated to Palestinians capped at 1967 levels.

The water resources available for the two populations, the Palestinians and the Israelis, are: The Jordan River, which is being depleted intensely by Israel; the Mountain Aquifer, sitting almost entirely on the West Bank; the Coastal Aquifer, sitting alongside the Mediterranean coast, including the Gaza strip [both aquifers are under full Israeli control]; the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias), onto which the Golan watershed flows.

The World Health Organization recommends a minimum quantity of water of 100 litres per person per day. In our geographical area of interest, Israelis get 350 litres of water per person per day while Palestinians get 70. As things stand now, more than 80% of the West Bank and Gaza’s water resources is exploited by Israel, although these resources –the aquifers- are largely replenished by water falling on the Palestinian Territories. In the West Bank, residents are either connected to the water network, pay for water trucks to come refill their water tanks at around 50 USD a tank, or rely on rainwater collection. Only 46% of communities have 100% coverage by the water network, and 13% are not connected to it at all.

As for the Gaza strip, it is the second most water-poor region in the world, with a total of 52 m3 apportioned per person per year for all uses. The water quality in Gaza is very low; containing high levels of toxins that can potentially pose serious health threats to human life. On January 7th, 2009 the World Bank issued a statement in which it states that Gaza is showing growing signs of a “severe public health crisis because of water shortages” and calls on the Israeli government to “allow enough fuel into Gaza to operate some 170 water and sewage pumps”.

In Israel, which is also suffering from a severe water crisis, measures are being vigorously taken to deal with the water situation. It is noteworthy that almost 75% of Israel’s water demands are being met outside its internationally recognized borders.

When supplies are short, for example in the dry summertime, the Israeli water company, Mekorot, shuts off supply to Palestinian villages and towns so that the Israeli supplies are not affected. In essence, this means that the settlers’ swimming pools are topped off while the West Bank Palestinians are left suffering from severe drinking water shortages. In terms of pricing, B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights body, reports that Mekorot drains off Palestinian water then sells it back to the Palestinians at 10 times the rates they sell it to the Israelis. Furthermore, Palestinians are banned from developing water infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1967, Palestinians have had to acquire permits for the drilling of wells. In the same time period, only 23 permits have been issued. The number of operating wells has dropped from 413 to around 300 due to the prohibition on rehabilitating wells and the drilling of deeper wells by Mekorot, which caused many of the Palestinian wells to dry up. In contrast, the drilling of wells inside Israeli settlements is free-flowing.

In 2004, B’Tselem reported that the Israeli security wall conclusively affects the water distribution in the region. The wall winds through Palestinian villages and towns, separating them from their wells, which are thereafter used by Israeli settlers.

Instead of viewing access to water as a fundamental and basic human right that cannot be denied Israel regards water scarcity as a national security problem. Israel holds large parts of the West Bank as “security zones” around all the major water resources.

Practically speaking, certain steps must be taken immediately and the goals of water negotiations should be set and depicted as irretrievable human rights that must be secured before negotiations on any other issues ensue. For starters, the Israeli government should abandon its monolithic national security paradigm and perceive the issue in terms of “rights”. From an international law perspective, Palestinians should be granted absolute sovereignty over all the Eastern Aquifer water resources, as this aquifer is entirely located beneath the West Bank and is not a shared water resource. Palestinians should also be given equitable water rights in the western and northeastern aquifers, as these aquifers are recharged almost entirely from the West Bank. With regards to the Jordan River, as a downstream riparian nation to the Jordan River System, Palestine is legally entitled an equitable share of the system's water resources. Furthermore, Palestinians can claim water and fishing rights in the Lake Tiberias: this natural reservoir is an integral part of the Jordan River system, in which Palestine is legally a riparian nation with the privilege to utilize all of its available resources. Further, Palestine is one of the coastal countries to the Mediterranean Sea and thus should enjoy full rights to its resources, including fishing and sailing, and should have the right to protect it from trans-boundary pollution. Finally, there should be full compensation for damages to Palestine's water resources caused by Israel and reimbursement for water that has been utilized by Israel during the occupation.

The real thorny question in all this is how to persuade Israel, the possessor of power in this equation, to make compromises and give up these water resources. If access to water is understood as a human right, and the inequitable distribution of resources is recognized to be a violation of international humanitarian law, then international agencies and state entities could potentially freeze all loans and funding to the water sector in Israel until it grants the Palestinians their water rights. Simultaneously, the Palestinians could declare that negotiations will not proceed and that no issues will be put on the table before the water crisis is addressed. Sooner or later, when the Israelis finally decide to resume the negotiations for a viable and long-lasting peace settlement, they will have no choice but to resolve the water issue if they wish to move on to other issues on their agenda.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.

THE BRAVE NATION OF PALESTINE - My brain has somewhat settled down. In the aftermath of this horror, I am trying to collect myself and I try to look forward. However, this morning, my calmer soul became outraged again; swearing loyalty to its angry side it has become too familiar with lately.

Firstly, I watched Ehud Olmert's speech after I decided that I wouldn't. In his speech, Olmert basically declared a unilateral ceasefire. Fine. His speech sounded like a mass of contradictions to me though. To start off, he offered words of courage and admiration to the families of the 14 dead and wounded soldiers, praising their "bravery in times of war". This was not a "war"! He makes it sound like a WWI battlefield where two armies fought on equal terms. This was an episode of savage bombardment of an unarmed civilian population; horrific 3 weeks of blind killing. I have no doubt in my mind that what happened in Gaza will go down in history as a war crime. How much more propaganda do you need to cover up all of this horror? History books will condemn the blind US support to Israel as the main reason why Olmert's government could not be stopped. Olmert. Right. Back to his speech. Let's handle this in point-form. These are some quotations from the speech.

- “our targets, as defined when we launched the operation, have been fully achieved, and more so.
Hamas was badly stricken, both in terms of its military capabilities and in the infrastructure of its regime”.

WRONG! If I may ask, how on earth do you know that your target; namely, weakening Hamas, has been met? This is a counterinsurgency war. If there’s one thing I learned in the UNI360 course I took last year, it is that it is almost impossible to claim victory in a counterinsurgency war. You still don’t know if Hamas is weakened or not. Missiles have been fired towards Israel this past week, and I bet you they will continue to be fired for a long, long time. I would even argue that Hamas became stronger after these 3 weeks, drawing the support of millions of Arabs and even the more moderate-minded Palestinians. Bravo! Great job!

- “The government decided to launch the operation in Gaza only after long thought and great consideration, and only after all attempts through other means to stop the firing and other acts of terror by Hamas failed. Israel, which withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the last millimetre at the end of 2005 - with no intention of returning - found itself under a barrage of missiles. Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip and began attacking the communities in the South more intensely”.

Ok before I dwell on this, I just have to invite you to giggle with me at the first sentence. How ridiculous!
Also, WRONG and WRONG! Israel withdrew from Gaza. Yes. It still placed Gaza under military occupation, blockade, no control over air or water, quick army invasions, and secret night assassinations and arrests, but it “withdrew” guys, to the “last miilmetre”!

Hamas, Mr. PM, did not “violently take control of Gaza”. It was democratically elected just 2 years ago. Are we supposed to giggle again?!

Also, allow me Mr. Olmert to ask you, how exactly did “all attempts through other means to stop the firing” failed? What other attempts have you taken? You have dismissed the Hamas-Fateh coalition government in 2006 when it has expressed the will to negotiate. Could you please, PLEASE, tell my why this happened? Because Gaza-style bombardment is a better solution? Very wise, Mr. Olmert. Kiss peace goodbye for at least another 15 years. Great job.

- “During the operation, the State of Israel demonstrated great sensitivity in exercising its force in order to avoid, as much as possible, harming the civilian population not involved in terror. In cases where there was any doubt that striking at terrorists would lead to harming an innocent civilian population - we abstained from acting”.

Thank you for your great sensitivity, Mr. Olmert. We appreciate it. Don’t worry about the 1200 victims. It could have been worse. We understand.

- “I wish to express my great appreciation to the international organizations which acted and continue to act tirelessly to assist us in providing the Palestinian population with appropriate living conditions”.

No need to “express your great appreciation” to them again. I think you have expressed it enough. The UN headquarters, two hospitals and 3 UN-run schools were bombarded, more than once. Your gratitude is kindly received.

- “Beginning at 0200 [0000 GMT], Israel will cease its actions against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and will remain deployed in the Gaza Strip and its environs... If our enemies decide that the blows they have already suffered are not enough and they wish to continue fighting, Israel will be ready for that scenario and will feel free to continue responding with force”.

So basically, the occupation will continue. Great. You also think that this massacre broke the will of the Palestinian people. Oh how wrong you are! Do yourself (and the Palestinians and Israelis) a favor and read a history book.

- “I also wish to say something to the people of Gaza: … We feel the pain of every Palestinian child and family member who fell victim to the cruel reality created by Hamas which transformed you into victims”.

The “cruel reality created by Hamas”. Right. 100% agreed. Hamas are the murderous war criminals who should take full responsibility for the victims. And you then, Mr. Olmert, you take full responsibility for the 8 Israeli citizens who were killed in the last 7 years by Hamas missiles. Hamas is not to blame then. Fair enough?

- ‘Your suffering is terrible. Your cries of pain touch each of our hearts. On behalf of the Government of Israel, I wish to convey my regret for the harming of uninvolved civilians, for the pain we caused them”.

I beg of you, don’t express regrets. There’s nothing more despicable and insulting than claiming regret and sorrow after all that has happened! I think I can safely say that this is the thing that has enraged me the most since the bombing of Gaza started. You’re sorry? Ok. Give us back the 420 children we have lost, the houses you have destroyed, the hospitals and schools and ambulances you have bombed, people’s cut-off limbs, and Rami’s vision. Rami, Mr. Olmert, is the 10-year old boy who got blinded because of your army’s use of white phosphorus, an internationally-prohibited weapon when used against civilians. So you give us back all that, and we’re cool.



Alright moving on, I heard (or read on Facebook, rather) that there is a pro-Israel rally tomorrow at Toronto's Dundas square- exactly where Palestinian supporters rallied for 3 Saturdays in a row to protest the situation in Gaza. I have to say I was baffled. Let me make this clear: I have no problem with you if you are pro-Israeli. This is a matter of personal opinion. I might try to talk to you about the Palestinian perspective, but I won’t hold it against you if you stick to your beliefs. That said, I must ask, what the hell are you protesting/rallying about right now? What is your message? Support for Israel during this “crisis”? Supporting Israel against what? Israel is getting a free hand in Gaza, backed 100% by the US while International condemnations and UN resolutions mean nothing to it. So what exactly are you asking for? More dead Palestinians? Is that what you want?? I’m just genuinely curious. Ok and a little angry. Ok very angry. Have you no shame?! It’s a good time to stay quiet at least till the Gaza events come to an end. Don’t you think?!

I wonder sometimes what my view on the matter would be if I was Canadian born and raised. Maybe if I were a Peace and Conflict Studies student, I would have raised myself above the pervasive biased media and sought the facts. But what if I wasn’t interested in politics? Would I have been another passing parrot echoing negative sentiments about the “terrorist Hamas”? Probably. This is how a lot of people think. Sad and terribly unfair. I feel so powerless against all the unfortunate but understandable ignorance. A recurring fantasy I had lately is seizing some sort of a world stage where my voice can reach all the people on Earth, telling them about the Palestinian reality and the atrocities and injustice Palestinians suffer from daily in the 21st century; about the history of displacement and death that repeats itself over and over and over and over.



I think it's a known fact now that the conflict has always been over the land. Well, I am a Palestinian who, like almost all Palestinians, have accepted the state of Israel. What more do you want from us? All we’re asking for is an independent and sovereign Palestinian country on whatever land we have left, a country where we can live in peace and dignity. All I want to see is a prosperous Palestine where children can play safely on the street. Is that too much to ask for? Why do you keep denying it to us? We are people, just like you. We like ice cream and shriek when we see a snake. We’re human beings, not dogs. We deserve to be treated with humanity and respect. We deserve to be granted human rights and freedom from occupation and discrimination. You can never break the will to be free, so end your occupation and show good will. Negotiate so we can both achieve peace. It's as simple as that. I have said this once and I will say it again: Hamas fighters are not deranged murderers. They are fighting occupation. If you grant us our rights, the rockets will stop. I wonder if there's a way to drill this fact into your brains.

May all the innocent victims rest in peace. May the blood of all the children never be savagely spilled again. May we be spared the cruelty of the last 3 weeks. May peace and freedom prevail in our lifetimes. For what it’s worth, I am immensely proud that I belong to a brave nation.

Les points de vue exprimés dans ce blog sont ceux de leurs auteurs et ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de CJPMO.