Cowen shielded from land in chaos

When Brian Cowen travels either to Ramallah or Gaza to meet Palestinian officials, he will not see a Palestinian state-in-the…

When Brian Cowen travels either to Ramallah or Gaza to meet Palestinian officials, he will not see a Palestinian state-in-the-making but a land in chaos where people have little hope for the future.

Since his time is short and Israel has assumed responsibility for his security, he will not don a flakjacket and take the time-wasting and risky route to Ramallah through the Israeli army's Kalandia checkpoint.

Here Palestinian motorists with appropriate permits queue for one, two or three hours to move the 10 km from the West Bank's main Palestinian town into the suburbs of Greater Jerusalem. The majority of Palestinians now opt to park their cars on the roadside, cross the checkpoint on foot and take taxis to their destinations.

Here Palestinian boys armed with stones dare Israeli soldiers equipped with assault rifles to shoot, while resentful civilians walk from one side to the other.

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"Was there shooting when you crossed today?" Palestinians ask one another when they meet. "Was there gas?" Shooting and tear-gas are routine hazards at Israel's multiple checkpoints surrounding all 63 Palestinian islets of territory. Kalandia is considered a slow but soft checkpoint because Israeli troops do not carry out stringent security investigations as they do elsewhere.

Even if Mr Cowen goes to Ramallah along the non-Kalandia route, he could be delayed on his return journey at the Palestinian traffic lights on the main thoroughfare into Jerusalem.

At certain times of the day red lights stall and delay Palestinian drivers commuting into town on the south-bound lane, while Israeli settlers are sped along the northbound lane by settler-friendly green lights.

If the encounter with the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, and his Minister for International Co-operation, Dr Nabil Shaath, is in Gaza, Mr Cowen will see the most obvious aspects of the abject poverty of two-thirds of the million inhabitants of this narrow strip of land.

The roads are pot-holed and covered with drifting sand, uncollected garbage festers in skips, passing cars swirl discarded plastic bags and bits of paper into the road. The very air one breathes is stale, used up by tens of thousands of pairs of lungs.

Gaza was never prosperous because of the concentration of Palestinian refugees settled in 1948. It has struggled since Israel occupied the strip in 1967.

Until the second Intifada (or rising), the West Bank was not subjected to the push-and-pull of development and de-development. West Bankers, who were not sealed into their communities as Gazans were confined to the strip, had easier access to employment in Israel and opportunity to trade with Jordan.

However, since the Intifada erupted last September, the West Bank has been Gazafied. Twothirds of the Palestinian population lives below the poverty level set by the World Bank.

Michel Contet, a French Operations Support Officer with the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which looks after Palestinian refugees, said there was not widespread malnutrition because the agency provided each family on its register with emergency rations and small cash grants ($35) every two or three months. But, he admitted, the Palestinian diet was not nutritious because it lacked unaffordable vegetables, fruit and meat.

I accompanied Mr Contet and his Palestinian partner, Ibrahim Azem, on a day tour of the UNRWA area of operations south of Jerusalem. We sailed through the Israeli checkpoint on the road to Bethlehem and wound our way through the little town, which lies next to Beit Jala, recently reoccupied by Israel for 50 hours.

After parking outside the UNRWA office in Aida refugee camp, the site of fierce exchanges during the Beit Jala operation, we went on a walkabout.

"Aida was fairly prosperous before the Intifada," Mr Contet said. "Many people worked in Jerusalem. Now it is cut off from the city." A dapper grandfather with a RAF-style moustache invited us to visit his home up a steep slope slippery with running water.

"The Israelis shoot at the water tanks on the roofs of houses," Mr Contet remarked as we climbed. Our host, Abbas Daher, had been wealthy. His sitting room was large and well furnished. On the walls was a portrait of the late Faisal Husseini, the leading Palestinian in Jerusalem, and pictures of Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. "Saddam is our only hope," asserted Mr Daher.

At a house down the slope, Aisha Yacoub Yusif asked if I was from a relief organisation. "If so, can we put our names on your list?" she asked. Five families comprising 30 persons live in her multistorey breeze-block house. "Only one man has work, earning 1,500 shekels (about $350) a month. Five men are out of work," she said, laughing when I asked her if she served her family vegetable stew with their rice ration.

We put on our flak-jacket armour before driving through settler alley, the stretch of road which runs between the component colonies of the Etzion Bloc.

"The settlers hate the UN," Mr Contet explained. Indeed they do. Israeli settler cars sport stickers saying: UN: UNWANTED NOBODIES: GO HOME.

THE sprawling Palestinian-controlled suburbs of Hebron lolled peacefully in the sun. Half the shops were shut. There were few buyers in evidence. At the UNRWA office, an angry welfare officer shouted: "We have five desperate cases in the town centre but the Israelis won't let us in."

Here 20,000 Palestinians have been under total curfew for more than 170 days during the last 11 months because of the 400 Israeli settlers living in buildings in the old town.

"When the curfew is lifted, it is only for an hour or two," the welfare officer said. Three weeks ago teams of European and Turkish monitors, known as the Temporary Inter-nation Presence in Hebron (TIPH), were stoned by settlers.

TIPH abandoned permanent positions in the city centre but continued patrols through this highly volatile area until yesterday, when the Israelis barred entry. Two days earlier settler children attacked with sticks and stones two women belonging to a Christian peace team.

Husni Shawan, the Hebron area co-ordinator, said Palestinians survived by tightening their belts.

"People who used to eat two loaves of bread eat half now. They share what they have and help out each other in accordance with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, who decreed that one must help his seven closest neighbours."

Households cannot pay electricity and water bills, farmers cannot reach their fields with cars and lorries. "We went back to the 18th century. We use donkeys to get our produce to market. It arrives damaged and full of dust."

The current chaos can be expected to deepen.

Michael Jansen is a commentator on Middle East affairs for The Irish Times