A blood soaked flag

Protesters gather in Ramallah's Manara square to remember Mustafa Tamimi, who died today after being shot at close range by an Israeli tear gas canister.

It is cold in Ramallah tonight, and the sun sets quickly. The traffic is heavy in Manara square as night begins to fall. Emerging from one of Ramallah’s busy streets, a sombre procession circles the square’s proud lion statues, stopping the traffic as they go. Around a hundred people walk behind a man holding high a Palestine flag, stained red with blood: the blood of Mustafa Tamimi.

Mustafa Tamimi, 28, died this morning after being shot in the head from close range with a tear gas canister at the weekly protest in the village of Nabi Saleh.

Every Friday, throughout the West Bank, nonviolent demonstrations are held in protest of Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land for the building of settlements and the wall. And every Friday, Israel’s military forces respond with tear gas and rubber bullets. Protestors are frequently hospitalised for the effects of tear gas, and occasionally some are severely injured.

This Friday, however, was different. According to eyewitnesses, Tamimi was throwing stones at an armoured Israeli jeep when the back door of the jeep opened and a tear gas canister was fired directly into his face, from a range of less than 10 metres. Tamimi died from his wounds this morning in hospital.

Israel’s disproportionate use of force against nonviolent demonstrators is nothing new: I experienced something of it myself at a protest in Bil’in this summer. But to fire a tear gas canister at short range, aimed intentionally at the head of an unarmed protestor, is nothing short of criminal, and is something for which Israel must be held accountable.

At tonight’s small vigil in Ramallah, the mourners chant for an end to occupation. “Hero, martyr,” their banners read. They sing the Palestinian national anthem. "My homeland, my homeland, the youth will not tire till your independence, or they die, or they die," the crowd sings. 

The sun sets on a young man’s life, and another day under Israeli occupation.

Read Linah Alsaafin’s eyewitness account of the shooting here

Settlements and unsettlement: The forced displacement of Palestine's Bedouin

Flowers grow in Jerusalem's municipal rubbish dump, the proposed relocation site for the Bedouin. Bedouin compounds and the settlement of Kfar Adummim can be seen on the hills in the distance.

There is something menacing in the air today above Khan al-Ahmar, one of many Bedouin communities in the hills east of Jerusalem, and it isn’t just the low flying Israeli warplane which is slowly circling. It’s also the lingering threat of the forced displacement of hundreds of Bedouin people, scheduled in January, to clear the ground for the expansion of the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adummim.

The small village of Khan al-Ahmar, a tumbledown town of patchwork, corrugated iron shacks, can be seen from the road on the dusty drive from Jerusalem to Jericho. The Bedouin have traditionally relied on their livestock to provide income and food, and families used to sell their cheese and yoghurt in the souqs of Jerusalem.

The city is now largely inaccessible for the Bedouin due to Israel's pervasive movement restrictions, and the extreme poverty means much of the livestock has been sold in order to buy basic necessities. Today only a handful of goats and a solitary camel remain, lying latent in the shade of their makeshift wooden shelters.

Now the Bedouin community has been informed by the Israeli authorities that it has no option but to leave this land or face forcible eviction. 

According to Eid Hamis Swelem Jahalin, a resident of Khan al-Ahmar who was interviewed today for the Guardian, Israel's plan to evict Bedouin tribes and extend settlements in the area is a deliberate attempt to cut off the West Bank from East Jerusalem, thereby making a future Palestinian state impossible.

In the outdoor classroom of the village school, a group of children are energetically engaged in a parachute game, kicking up clouds of dust as they play. The school, which provides education for the children of around 20 Bedouin communities in the area, is also under a demolition order.

The Bedouin have been refugees in these hills since their displacement from the Negev desert after the war of 1948, and are scheduled to be relocated in the coming weeks to a site adjacent to the mizbaleh, Jerusalem’s main municipal landfill site. One day soon, the entire community will be uprooted, despite vocal opposition to the plans.

After spending the morning with the Bedouin reclining on cushions, drinking sweet tea, and listening to tales of their past and fears for the future, I decide to visit the proposed relocation area.

The smell of rotting garbage fills the air before it comes into sight. Soon huge mounds of rubble and waste blight the horizon, and we pull up to investigate further. Picking my way through the broken glass and discarded plastic, I take care not to tread on the small white flowers which are pushing their way up through the dirt.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the proximity of the proposed relocation site to this mountain of waste poses significant health hazards for the impoverished Bedouin community, and families that have already been moved to the area have reported deteriorating health and living conditions, as well as loss of livelihood and the erosion of traditional lifestyles.

A once flourishing community of animal herders, first made refugees, then reduced to poverty, are now to be uprooted once more and dumped in hazardous conditions as part of Israel's relentless policy of settlement expansion at any cost. Today a school full of laughter and a place to call home, tomorrow, a levelled foundation.

Yes, there is something sinister in the air today; the stench of garbage, the hum of a low flying plane, and the imminent forceful upheaval of a small, powerless and impoverished Bedouin community. Nobody knows which day the soldiers will come, until then, all they can do is wait.

Playing in the shade: Life under occupation

"I like play": A child's drawing displayed on the separation wall in Bethlehem, West Bank.

I've never been to such a place which both warms and breaks my heart at every turn. There seems to be a continual discord between trauma and hope, despair and optimism. Even the landscape speaks of this surreal duality: the bus ride from Beit Jala to Jerusalem takes a scenic journey along diving valleys of olive orchards and centuries-old terraced hillsides, then, just as the spirit begins to soar, the view is obscured by the monstrous, double-height separation wall, an enormous concrete barricade along the old Hebron-Jerusalem road.

It's not just the landscape which has been interrupted by Israel; the Palestinian passengers on the 21 bus are well acquainted with interruption too. One moment the bus is full of chatting and giggling, the next it falls silent as the bus pulls into the checkpoint and is emptied of passengers who file into line and wait to be checked. Israeli soldiers inspect each person's identification before allowing them to re-board, and the bus swells again with the sound of talking and laughter as it pulls away, continuing its journey towards Jerusalem.

The wall, the checkpoints, the 45 minute journey which should be only ten, the routine humiliation and overwhelmingly unfair system, all have been absorbed into the landscape of Palestinian life. A daily commute in which an armed solider demands to see identification is not something I thought I would get used to, but for Palestinians it has all become part of the daily grind. I can't help but wonder, though, at what point an effort to live life under occupation as normally as possible becomes normalization of an occupation which must be continually challenged.

A friend recently visited Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, and was filled with sadness and resentment at the sight of the eight-metre-high separation wall. He asked a nearby Palestinian resident how he felt about the wall which cuts through the heart of this town.

"The wall is high, but our summers are hot, and it gives the children somewhere to play in the shade," the man replied.

A life of frustration, lived in the dark shadow of occupation, yet still he was able to find the bright side of the wall. Such is the bittersweetness of life here in Palestine.

Has a Hollywood actress made Palestine solidarity chic?

This article was first published by The Electronic Intifada, 28 October 2011.

Tilda Swinton in British Vogue wearing symbols of Palestinian struggle and liberation.

A flick through the November issue of the British edition of Vogue revealed one accessory I did not expect to see. After pages of faux fur, sequinned clutches and designer feathered capes, I happened upon something rather more surprising: a full-page shot of actress Tilda Swinton sporting a knitted scarf emblazoned not with a designer logo but with the word “Palestine.”

What does it mean when an Oscar-winning actress appears in British Vogue wearing a Palestine scarf, particularly amidst a media and film industry which generally demonizes the people of the Middle East? Either it was an intentional message of solidarity, or simply a deliberately-controversial fashion statement on the part of a celebrity known for her unusual style choices.

The image has caused quite a buzz in social media, with many agreeing that this was the brave stance of a free-thinking and intelligent woman. Does this mean that supporting Palestine has become a status symbol, or is it a positive sign of acceptance of the Palestine issue into mainstream media?

The image is certainly compelling. Swinton stands defiantly, hands on hips, staring coolly into the camera as if daring the viewer to challenge her views. The red, green, black and white scarf, made by eccentric British fashion designer Bella Freud, features a Palestinian flag and the word “Palestine” along with an image depicting a key, the symbol of Palestinian refugees.

Many may be familiar with Tilda Swinton in her role as ice queen Jadis in the Chronicles of Narnia series. A highly-acclaimed actress, she has starred in numerous arthouse pictures as well as more mainstream films, such as The Beach, alongside Leonardo di Caprio, and Michael Clayton, for which she won an Academy Award. Swinton’s latest outing is as tortured mother Eva in the screen adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s prize-winning book We Need to Talk About Kevin.

But Swinton has become well-known in the fashion circuit as much for her unconventional style statements and striking appearance as she is for any on-screen success. She embraces the looks which most celebrities fear to touch. Whether the shaved undercut in her current Pringle of Scotland ad campaign, her strikingly androgynous looks and masculine tailoring, or her continually avant-garde red carpet ensembles, Swinton is renowned for being unafraid to take style risks. While Swinton is no doubt paid handsomely to endorse certain designers and campaigns, there seems to be a consistency in her willingness to push the boundaries of fashion.

For some this usually lands her on post-Oscar “worst-dressed” lists, while for others it only enhances her status as a modern style icon, all of which begs the question: was this appearance in British Vogue wearing a Palestinian symbol another stylist’s attempt to split the opinion of the fashion world? Perhaps, alternatively, it sent a message of solidarity to an audience which may otherwise never have considered the Israel-Palestine conflict at all.

Marketing controversy, or an act of solidarity?

Added to this is the fact that the accompanying article on Swinton very consciously presents her as something of a wildcard, a mystery, a “complicated, intelligent, multifaceted woman,” who is “simply hard to define. It could be said that the image of Swinton in Freud’s scarf merely adds to her portrayal as a complex and unconventional character.

“There is kind of an understanding that it’s ok, it’s Tilda Swinton,” Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury, a Palestinian fashion designer who showcased a collection of Palestine-inspired clothing earlier this year, told The Electronic Intifada. “As mainstream as Swinton might get, she will always be the curious-looking woman with the curious lifestyle and curious film career, so she’s bound to be supporting a controversial cause. It’s how she is marketed.”

However, despite Swinton’s opinion-dividing appearance and style, there seems to be general agreement that this was more than an attempt at controversy.

“We think this is clearly a sign of solidarity with the Palestinian people,” said Martial Kurtz of the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign. “More and more individuals and organizations are now showing their support for Palestine, as it becomes clear that Israel’s policies of apartheid and occupation are the real problem in the Middle East today.”

Chris Turner of the Palestine Fair Trade Alliance, a US-based retailer of Palestinian-made accessories and crafts, agreed.

“I certainly don’t believe that she was making a deliberate choice to simply engender controversy that somehow might improve her career,” he said. “Quite the contrary, I am sure she will get hell about it, both quietly and quite out loud.”

“It’s my favorite scarf”

In a brief interview with Tilda Swinton for The Electronic Intifada, I asked her about her unconventional choice of accessory. “The scarf I wore in Vogue is mine,” she said.

When asked if the scarf was a message of solidarity for the Palestinian cause, she added that it was “designed by my pal Bella Freud for the Hoping Foundation, set up in the name of hope and optimism for Palestinians of the next generation, of which I am a friend.”

So, not a deliberate attempt to be controversial, then?

“[It’s] just my favorite scarf,” she replied.

The Hoping Foundation funds grassroots projects for Palestinian children throughout the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and works closely with UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees, to support those living in refugee camps.

“We want to show young Palestinians that their struggle to transform their lives is encouraged and supported by the people in Britain and throughout the rest of the world … The projects we are asked to support give these children the opportunity to play, to learn, and to express themselves through art, photography, film, music, theatre, dance and sport,” says the Hoping mission statement (“The Hoping Foundation website).

Over the years, Freud has hosted several high-profile events to raise money and awareness for Palestinian refugee children, attended by the likes of supermodel Kate Moss, actor Hugh Grant and Pakistani politician Imran Khan. And, of course, Tilda Swinton, who once auctioned off the reading of a story to a child in order to raise money for Hoping.

So the choice to wear the scarf seems to be the genuine choice by a friend of the Hoping Foundation and the Palestinian cause. But despite this apparent act of solidarity, it remains to be seen whether British Vogue readers will even take notice, or care.

Expanding public consciousness toward the Palestinian struggle

“Care is too broad a word,” said the Palestine Fair Trade Alliance’s Chris Turner. “British Vogue readers will not be flooding the phones tomorrow with demands to end apartheid. But watch what happens when steps like these become easier, built on hard ones like this one, and more frequent.”

While to some readers of British Vogue, this image may only add to the actress’s unconventional style status, Swinton’s scarf undoubtedly shows a desire to build public consciousness toward the Palestinian struggle.

“Seeing Swinton wearing Freud’s scarf in British Vogue was not really a life-changing moment, [but] it is a reflection that Palestine is now acceptable in the mainstream,” said Nasser-Khoury. “Whether it is controversial or not, I think that is immaterial. The fact is that this has created tremendous discourse.”

This is certainly true. The image of Swinton has been discussed throughout the social networking world, on Twitter, Facebook and numerous blogs.

“The pervading temperament is ‘Well-done, Tilda,’” Nasser-Khoury added. “For Palestinians and activists alike, who have been on the margins for such a long time, anything mainstream is a blessing, regardless of mediocrity or controversy.”

The cynic in me, though, can’t help but wonder whether this means Palestine is becoming the latest cause célèbre to be adopted by the A-list. Recycling is so last season: are Bella Freud’s Palestine scarves the new Anya Hindmarch “I’m not a plastic bag?”

Hindmarch’s shopping tote, an alternative to environment-harming plastic bags, was an instant success after it was pictured on the arms of celebrities such as Erin O’Connor and Keira Knightley, and in the same way, the Bella Freud label can surely only benefit from being endorsed by a major celebrity.

Whether or not a celebrity endorses a campaign, it should go without saying that a cause does not need to be fashionable in order to be right, and it is usually far from stylish to stand up for the oppressed.

“Vogue is not really a beacon of humanity or political correctness,” said Nasser-Khoury. “Vogue is the establishment, the mainstream, the hegemony … Why should we celebrate so warmly our presence in the establishment?”

However, Turner said that by publishing this image, Vogue — with its commitment to continually push the boundaries of acceptability and break new ground — has shown that Palestine is no longer simply the concern of politicians or academics but can and should be addressed by popular culture.

“Everything progresses by slow turns of awareness, especially in terms of removing the stigma of the ‘other,’” he said. “It is bold moves such as this one that slowly, but most assuredly, raise the status of an issue in the collective conscious.”

Of course the glossy world of Vogue, the world of fashionable high-profile auctions and chic celebrity soirées, is far removed from the daily reality for Palestinians living under occupation. There is nothing glamorous about checkpoints, or house demolitions, or continual dispossession, or the inside of an Israeli prison. Perhaps this is why it is so significant, then, to see Palestine acknowledged in British Vogue: a star choosing to be wrapped in a symbol of solidarity in a magazine normally so focused on material wealth surely sends a powerful message.

“History teaches us that truth will be brought to light,” added Turner, “and who knows light better than Vogue?”

And how better to convey a political message to a fashion-conscious audience than through the medium of clothing? Swinton is voicing her support for the Palestinian cause without ever having to speak. Such is the power of fashion.

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Vogue Found There

Anyone who knows me will know of my all-consuming love affair with Vogue magazine. A long-term subscriber, at the beginning of each month I can be found crouching by the letter box awaiting my next fix of fashion, the magazine which satisfies my cravings for glossy images of the perfection and luxury which is so absent in my everyday life. In a room covered in wall-to-wall mess, clothes strewn haphazardly on the floor, my extensive collection of Vogue magazines can be found in pristine condition, lovingly arranged, chronologically, on their own special shelf: a pocket of order in a world full of chaos.

It is the preoccupation with wealth and beauty which draws me month after month to Vogue’s shining pages. Here there is no sadness, no ugliness, no poverty or disease, only page after page of thin, shiny, beautiful people, people who can afford to spend thousands of pounds on a snakeskin clutch and still feel guilt-free enough to giggle photogenically into their glasses of Moët. These are the upper classes, the unobtainable ones, the ones we are all supposed to want to be.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the cover of October Vogue proudly declared a feature not on yet another society-skipping princess, but someone rather less high-class: Amy Childs, “the ultimate Essex girl”, star of the wonderfully tacky ITV show The Only Way is Essex. At last, I thought. Finally an acknowledgement that there are people in existence outside of London’s super-rich, rather than sweeping the working classes under the proverbial (100% new wool, daaahling) rug. I wondered what she might have to say for herself, away from the harsh glare of reality TV limelight.

However, my surprise soon turned to disbelief after skimming through the page-long feature on the most famous of Essex girls. Instead of the candid interview with Amy I was expecting, the feature was in fact a 1000-word treatise on why the writer, the notorious Giles Coren, would love the opportunity to have sex with Amy Childs. Or someone like her. The distinction was not important. “The girl wouldn’t necessarily have to be Amy,” he says. “Chloe Sims would do… or, in fact, any old beautician under 60 born within a white stretch-limo ride of Basildon.”

There are several reasons why I was mystified and disgusted by this article. Firstly, and most obviously, was the way in which working class women, usually ignored completely by Vogue, were represented merely in terms of their sexuality. The working class woman was essentially rendered as a physical commodity, a sexual object for consumption by the upper middle classes. “For every man who dreamed of Pippa Middleton,” Coren writes, “there was another who dreamed of waking up hot and sweaty in the orange glow of Amy Childs’s copper-coloured nakedness, in a bed crunchy with rhinestones and false eyelashes.” 

This graphic physical description continues throughout the article. Constant references are made to breast enlargement (or“artificial jubblies”) and loose sexual morals. All the while Amy stares out sadly and silently from the opposite page, denied a voice of her own. The magazine is full of page after page of interviews with the high-class elites, the superstars, the designers, the social butterflies, but the working class girl is not allowed to speak. Her words have no value; only her body is important. The ultimate message of his article is that Coren, as a middle class male, longs for a sexual encounter with a working class woman. Or, as he most delicately phrases it, some “proletarian bump and grind”.

As a girl from the part of the south east of England which isn’t London (yes Vogue, there is such a place), I found this depiction of working class girls offensive. Yes, we do exist, but we are not in existence merely to satisfy the sexual cravings of the capital’s wealthy and private-schooled. Just because we cannot afford to buy your diamond-encrusted jewellery and hand-stitched leather handbags, it does not mean that we ourselves are up for sale. Vogue is packed from cover to cover with advertisements for beautiful things. It just offends me that the body of a working class girl has become yet another product being sold as part of the glossy and glamorous lifestyle which magazines such as Vogue encourage their readers to buy into.

It is true that fashion has loved and lauded many a girl from a less-than-privileged background. The humble Croydon origins of Kate Moss provide one such example. However, it seems that fashion only embraces these women after they escape from their non-glamorous birthplaces and ascend the social ladder to the heady heights of London, Milan, New York and Paris. Wealth makes people far more interesting. Perhaps, if you make enough money, you might even be allowed to – gasp - tell people what you think about things, rather than being judged purely on your appearance or sexual prowess.
 

So perhaps this article has changed the way I look at my beloved Vogue. Perhaps now I will be more aware of its snobbery and elitism, and its obsession with the young, the rich and the beautiful. Perhaps I will boycott it in protest of its unfair portrayal of the ‘lower’ classes. Perhaps you will not find me, in the next few days, hovering by the letterbox awaiting its arrival. But, I am ashamed to admit, even with an article as crass and offensive as Coren’s, there still seems to be no remedy for my insatiable addiction to Vogue. It is more than likely that in the next few days you will find me once again peering through the looking glass, searching for my self.

Preserving Palestinian heritage one stitch at a time

This article was originally published by The Electronic Intifada, 15 August 2011



Nawal Salameh, founder of the Women in Hebron cooperative. Photo: Fil Kaler


A walk through the markets of the Old City in Hebron is a sobering reminder of the effects of the Israeli occupation on the everyday lives of Palestinians. Though the city is deep in the occupied West Bank, more than 600 Jewish settlers have established themselves in several settlements inside Hebron’s town center. The streets of the Old City have been caged in mesh and are full of bricks, bottles and garbage hurled down by settlers in the houses above — an act silently authorized under the watchful yet passive gaze of the ever-present Israeli military.

The military has become a formidable presence in Hebron. The often violent settlers are protected by up to 2,000 soldiers and a combination of military checkpoints, watchtowers, roadblocks, iron gates and shop closures have had a dire effect on Hebron’s economy. Movement restrictions have tightened since the second intifada, making trading almost impossible for the Palestinians and turning a once bustling and thriving marketplace into a ghost town. Streets of shops lie empty and padlocked, and soaring unemployment and a dwindling population make this West Bank city one of the bitterest casualties of the continuing occupation.

Yet in these deserted streets, there are flickers of enterprise and hope. A few businesses still survive in the old marketplace, among them Women in Hebron, a shop and cooperative in the heart of the city, selling traditional Palestinian crafts such as kuffiyehs (checkered scarves), embroidered dresses, cushions, bags and wall hangings, along with slightly less traditional items, including purses emblazoned with the slogan “Women Can Do Anything.” All of the products have been handmade by local women, many of whom rely solely on the cooperative for their income.

Emily Lawrence interviewed the cooperative’s founder, Nawal Salameh, about the challenges and opportunities facing Women in Hebron today.

Emily Lawrence: How did you come up with the idea of the Women in Hebron cooperative?

Nawal Salameh: Our project started eight years ago. I was at home without work, and it was the first thing I could think to do without leaving my home and my two small children. I did a lot of embroidery designs and I collected many traditional items, thinking one day I could sell them. In Hebron, even if I finished university it was hard to get a job that I wanted. I had done volunteer work for a long time so I had to do something to bring in money without having to leave my children.

EL: And how did it grow into the cooperative we see today?

NS: I started out by myself and then shared the idea with my friends. I brought together groups of women in the same situation as me to try to help them sell their work. Then I tried to source a place to market our work and found a shop in the Old City. Day by day people started to hear about the only women’s shop in the Old City in Hebron, and many women from the nearby villages came to ask for help. Soon I was selling for 120 women from eight villages around Hebron.

EL: What do you think are some of the most immediate concerns of women in the West Bank and specifically in Hebron?

NS: Women around here are concerned about the occupation continuing. How about our children? Will they suffer like us or will there be peace soon? Will women have more rights than they have now? Some of our women know prisoners. Is there any hope for those in prison? Can we work together to remove the wall? All we want is a free Palestine.

EL: It is obvious to any visitor to Hebron that the Israeli occupation and the presence of settlers have had severe consequences for businesses in the area. What are the main challenges you face in the day-to-day running of the business?

NS: Our shop in the Old City of Hebron has been affected by the occupation, like the whole of Palestine. There is a settler tour every Saturday passing through the old souq [market] to the [Kiryat Arba] settlement. Many times they have created problems, with more than thirty soldiers to protect them from the Palestinians. The other problem is that the shop is close to the settlement, so there are often problems. When the news says there are problems, they scare people from coming to the Old City. It’s a tourist place but there are no tourists, so there is not much business in the Old City. It’s always the same story: don’t go to Hebron because it’s a dangerous place. But I say, come and talk to the people, you will like it very much. We are not going anywhere. This is Hebron and this is the Old City and this is our way to resist all these challenges.

EL: Your website (www.womeninhebron.com) says that one of your main objectives is to preserve Palestinian cultural heritage. Why is it so important that this heritage is maintained? Do you see this cooperative as a form of resistance to Israel’s occupation?

NS: Embroidery is something we take from our mothers and grandmothers. My mother taught me how to do the embroidery when I was small, and she did the same with my other four sisters, to make sure each of us could keep the Palestinian heritage alive. We take the designs from the old dresses of our mothers and our grandmothers. My mother’s work is better than my work. It’s a little different because we do traditional work but we alter it for international taste. I use the same patterns but in a new way.
When we first started to sell we found Hebron’s Old City was closed. A lot of owners had left in the second intifada and had forgotten about it. I liked the idea of staying there, kind of showing our resistance in the Old City.

EL: What next for Women in Hebron? Are your products available internationally?

NS: We are working on opening a new organization in my town, Idna, for women’s handmade products. We will open as soon as we get permission [from the Palestinian Authority]. And we want our organization to be one of the strongest in Palestine, with your help and support. Our work is available internationally and we are ready to come to the UK if someone invites us. We also invite volunteers to stay with us and participate in the work of the cooperative. I love embroidery and that’s why I feel I will succeed in this work. We are planning for a good future.

Bad Hair Days and Boycotts: Water Distribution and Settlement Goods in the West Bank

My hair was inexplicable, and I was late for work. Perhaps from the heat, instead of falling sleekly about my shoulders, my hair had formed a huge cloud of untameable frizz. I did what anyone would do in this situation: I decided to take a swift shower.

Turning on the tap, I was met with a trickle, a splutter, and the horrifying realisation that there was no water today, and I would have to face going to work with less-than-perfect hair.

I was in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, and my Bad Hair Day was part of a much bigger problem: the frequent water shortages in Palestinian territory, due to Israeli control of water resources. Whilst the taps frequently run dry for Palestinians, the residents of nearby Israeli settlements enjoy the luxury of lush green lawns, trees, flowerbeds, swimming pools, and long showers, as well as the ability to freely irrigate their land and grow bountiful crops.

According to Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene in the Palestinian Territory (EWASH), an international NGO dedicated to monitoring the water situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Israel has the final say over the distribution of all water resources in the West Bank, both above and below ground. Palestinians are given rights to only 20%, with the remaining 80% allocated to Israel.

EWASH also estimates that the average Palestinian consumption of water is 50 litres per person per day, well under the 100 litres a day recommended by the World Health Organisation. Israelis, on the other hand, consume almost four times as much water as Palestinians, highlighting yet another way in which society’s scales are tipped in Israel’s favour. Settlements are deliberately built on fertile land near vital water sources, over which Israel has total control.

As well as inconveniencing the local population, the lack of reliable water access has economic implications for the Palestinians. With a limited water supply comes a limited scope for growing crops. The majority of watermelons available in Palestinian markets, for example, come from Israeli settlements, despite the fact that it is illegal: Palestinian farmers simply don’t have access to the quantities of water necessary to grow them.

Settlement goods are one clear manifestation of the land and water grab in the West Bank. Produce such as dates, avocadoes and oranges are grown illegally using confiscated water and sold to the international market, funding the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands.

One obvious response to the illegal and unethical practice of growing goods using stolen land and stolen water is to boycott produce from Israeli settlements. In Britain, supermarkets are now required by law to label goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank to help ethical customers make better choices, and some supermarkets have stopped selling them altogether.

Many organisations call for the boycott of settlement goods, since such goods are universally recognised as being in breach of international and domestic law. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, for example, aims to better educate the consuming public and encourages petitions to supermarkets, calling on them to stop stocking illegal Israeli goods until the occupation is ended.

A labelling system for settlement goods, similar to the British one, is a wise idea. It would be hugely beneficial if a similar system could be introduced in other countries, including Israel, in order to encourage consumers to buy more responsibly. However, the recent anti-boycott law passed in Israel adds extra difficulty to this campaign. The law, passed by the Knesset last week, makes it a civil offence for any public body in Israel to advocate the boycotting of Israeli goods, whether culturally, politically, or economically.

This new law is a flagrant impingement on freedom of speech and expression, and makes it almost impossible for organisations in Israel to campaign on behalf of Palestinians whose land and water are being confiscated to supply settlements with the resources to grow their produce. The denial of access to water is a blatant injustice, and all should have the right to be able to boycott that which they deem to be unjust.

The anti-boycott bill seems to be born out of the fear that if the boycott movement continues to gather momentum, Israel may be forced to bow to pressure to make policy changes, particularly regarding the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Now back in Britain, I have the luxury of knowing that if I go to take a shower or turn on a tap there will be a ready flow of water. But access to water should not be a luxury, it is a basic right, and one which is being denied to Palestinians in order to nurture an illegal network of settlements and tighten Israeli control over stolen lands.

Despite the setback of the anti-boycott bill, it is vital that consumers are enabled to make educated decisions. If more can be added to the movement against settlement goods, and if more speak out against the daily injustices against the Palestinians, then Israel may soon find itself in hot water.

This article was first published by Palestine News Network, 17 July 2011.