GUEST BLOG: Lois Griffiths – MASAFER YATTA: THE ETHNIC CLEANSING CONTINUES

Rallies have been held here in New Zealand and in other countries to try to raise awareness that Israel has begun a massive, forced displacement,  ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from an area in the south Hebron Hills occupied West Bank,  known as Masafer Yatta. This is in a part of the West Bank denoted as Area C, 60 % of the West Bank, under full Israeli military control, according to the Oslo agreement. 

Masafer Yatta is an area of Palestinian herding communities in small hamlets and villages. 

In the 1980s, Israel declared 3,000 hectares in Masafer Yatta to be an active firing zone for military training, dubbing it Firing Zone 918. Within the boundaries of the firing zone were 12 inhabited Palestinian villages.

 In other words, the occupation chose to come to an area where people were already living, and declare it a firing zone for military training. 

Israeli military training exercises have been held there ever since.

In May 2022 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Masafer Yatta Palestinians were illegally living in a firing zone and therefore they could be expelled and their land   be  handed over to the Israeli military. 

Settlers, Jews only  of course, would then be able to move in and have the whole area

to themselves.

In other words, declaring areas where Palestinians live to be firing zones, is one of   Israel’s ethnic cleansing tools.  

A war crime under international law!!

We’re talking about people, our fellow human beings.  This is happening now. In front of our eyes if we dare to look. Is this the kind of world that we accept? Is International Law  just a joke to the powerful?

We hear nothing about this from our media, from our academic, or political élite.

There is a fear of criticising Israel..it’s  taboo. 

I am  reminded of something  the playwrite Harold Pinter said about the media’s covering of the VietnamWar:  

“It didn’t happen. Even while it was happening, it didn’t happen.” 

Silence is complicity. 

But really, what’s going on now is just a continuation of a program begun decades ago. 

As the late Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said  explained:

“ The agenda, the Zionist agenda, the settler colonial agenda was thought out before there was an Israel. This is a unique colonialism that we’ve been subjected to, where they have no use for us. The best Palestinian for them is either dead or gone. It’s not that they want to exploit us, or that they need to keep us there, in the way of  Algeria or South Africa , as a subclass.”

Personally I do feel involved because I’ve been there..to the West Bank..we’ve met 

people, we’ve seen things.

As the Indian writer Arundhati Roy has said about witnessing injustice,  “The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way you are accountable.”

We’ve met small farmers who are spied upon by drones if they dare to dig a cistern even though they can see Israeli farmers across the valley openly irrigating. Prohibiting Palestinians access to water is another means of oppression…to encourage them to just go away!

We NZers must ask ourselves: What are our core values?  Our sense of humanity is being put to the test. 

We need to reflect on the words of George Bernard Shaw.

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity” 

So, where do we stand? 

…………………………………….

ADDENDUM: FROM THE UN

GENEVA (16 May 2022) – UN human rights experts urgently called on Israel and the international community to stop the forced evictions, arbitrary displacement and forcible transfer of Palestinian communities from Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank.

“Following the judgement of the Israeli High Court of Justice earlier this month, around 1,200 Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta, including 500 children, face imminent risks of forced evictions, arbitrary displacement and forcible transfer, in serious breach of international humanitarian and human rights laws,” said the experts.

“A Court that does not provide justice based on international norms and that perpetuates the violations of fundamental human rights of people who have been under military occupation for 55 years, becomes itself part of the structural system of oppression.”

The experts further called on the international community to take steps to prevent the forcible transfer of the Masafer Yatta residents.
“The international community must not become complicit to this serious violation of international humanitarian and humanitarian laws by remaining silent: it must exert available diplomatic, political and economic measures prescribed by the UN Charter to bring Israeli violations to a halt,” said the experts.

Lois Griffiths is a Human Rights Activist.