Madison Rafah Journal

AFP, Aug 30, 2007

The economy of the Palestinian territories is increasingly tied to Israel as poverty, violence and occupation restrict the prospects for independent growth, a United Nations report said on Thursday.

"The case of occupation and the increasingly tight Israeli measures and closure policies which … restrict the movement of people and goods from, and to and even within the West Bank and Gaza in the past seven years have effectively isolated the Palestinian economy from the rest of the world," said Mahmoud Elkhafif, an official with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The Palestinian economy has lost one third of its production capacity since 1998 and UNCTAD estimates the cumulative economic costs in terms of potential lost income between 2000 and 2005 stand at 8.4 billion dollars (6.2 billion euros).

Per capita gross national income dropped by 15 percent in 2006, with unemployment around 30 percent, UNCTAD said citing preliminary Palestinian data.

Imports as a percentage of Palestinian GDP rose to 86 percent in 2006, and imports from Israel account for more than 55 percent of the Palestinian trade deficit, according to UNCTAD's annual report on its assistance to the Palestinian people.

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This week's briefing is the latest "News Roundup" from Jewish Voice for Peace, which contains some news and analysis about the latest maneuverings involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the U.S.

If you are interested in receiving the News Roundup service, sign up for the JVP e-newsletter.

If you are interested in working with JVP in Madison, please contact Judith, jlaitman (at) tds.net, or Tsela, thirdfloorcloset (at) sbcglobal.net.

Barb Olson
MRSCP

JVP News Roundup, August 28, 2007

The much-ballyhooed Middle East Peace Conference, which is not yet firmly scheduled, is taking shape, at least in terms of the negotiations currently underway between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In order for the conference to have any weight at all, the Bush Administration is hoping the Israeli and Palestinian leaders can agree to a set of principles that would outline the settlement they hope to achieve.

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This is a very serious and ominous development for the future of Palestinian civil society, as Abbas tightens his control in the fight with Hamas. It is similar to the dismantling of popular institutions by the newly created Palestinian Authority following Oslo and the end of the first Intifada. It is happening at the same time Abbas prepares for the PA/Israeli/U.S. meeting next month, with many conflicting reports about concessions that Abbas will be pressured to make in order to appease the U.S. and Israel. It would be interesting to see a list of the 103 NGO's; all other groups were required to reregister and be monitored by Abbas' people.

Barb Olson

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 29 August 2007

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is extremely concerned by the decision taken by the Interior Minister in the Palestinian Government in Ramallah to dissolve 103 benevolent associations and non-governmental organizations alleging administrative, financial, or legal violations. The Centre fears that this step is taken within the context of recent restrictions placed on civil society to undermine its role and restrict its work under the “State of Emergency” declared on 14 June 2007 in the OPT.

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AFP Photo:The bodies of two Palestinian boys Yahya Ramadan Ghazal, 12, and his cousin Mahmud Mussa, 10.

Adel Zaanoun, AFP, 29 Aug 2007

Israeli fire killed three Palestinian children and wounded one of their cousins on Wednesday as they played in a field in the northern Gaza Strip at the tail end of their summer holidays.

Yahya Ramadan Ghazal, 12, and his cousin Mahmud Mussa Ghazal, 10, were killed when Israeli artillery fire from across the border slammed into a field east of Jabaliya refugee camp, witnesses and a medical official said.

A nine-year-old cousin, Sara Suleiman Ghazal was critically wounded in the incident and rushed to the Kamal Radwan hospital in nearby Beit Lahiya where she died later, a medical official said.

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Promenade Hall in the Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State Street, from noon to 1:45 pm on Saturday, October 13, 2007. Books will be sold at the event by Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative. For more information, see the Wisconsin Book Festival site.

Review

Adel Zaanoun, AFP, 21 August 2007

The European Union said it will resume financing fuel deliveries to the Gaza Strip's sole power plant on Wednesday, after five days of blackouts in the impoverished Palestinian territory.

The EU suspended its funding for the plant — which provides about 25 percent of electricity in the coastal territory — over fears that the radical Islamist Hamas movement would benefit from the aid.

The European Commission said it will "resume Wednesday, on a provisional basis, deliveries of fuel to the Gaza power plant" but warned that it will take further action if an EU-Palestinian audit team monitoring the aid is concerned about where the money is going.

"The important thing is to get this fuel delivered again as quickly as possible, but in the proper conditions," Commission spokeswoman Antonia Mochan told AFP in Brussels.

The EU blacklists Hamas as a terror group and refuses to have any direct dealings with the Islamists who seized control in Gaza in a bloody takeover in mid-June from the moderate Palestinian Authority.

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Risk of collapse threatens new humanitarian crisis

Al Mezan Center fot Human Rights, 20 Aug 2007

Gaza's only power plant has completely cut power supplies after Israel's four-day closure of the border crossing through which fuel supplies enter the Strip and the European Union's freezing of funds. Gazans' already hard living conditions are expected to rapidly aggravate without proper power supplies.

Israel, which has full control of Gaza's border crossings, has continued its policy of closure; a serious measure of collective punishment against Gaza. Since 2000, it tightened the closures, but has completely sealed off the Strip in June and imposed unprecedented restrictions on the movement of people and goods. Gaza has seen substantial shortage in food and other basic goods, and its economy is at the verge of full collapse. On 16 August 2007, Israel closed the fuel crossing for alleged security reasons.

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