In April 2002, the troops and tanks of the Israeli army attacked Ramallah and other towns in occupied Palestine. This was reported as an 'incursion' to stop terrorism. In fact it was also an attack on civilian life: on schools, offices, clinics, theatres, radio stations. This systematic vandalism is typical of one of the longest military occupations in modern times.
Even the Culture Ministry was destroyed. The director, Liana Badr - Director of the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and a distinguished novelist and filmmaker - showed the devastation to John Pilger shortly after it had happened.
[img=left]http://www.johnpilger.com/uploads/images/1146738595781_0.8885992419199378.jpg[/img]In the administration room files were strewn over the floor and all office equipment had been deliberately vandalised.
This was a place which promoted Palestinian cultural projects - film making, book exhibitions and exhibitions of childrens' work, which had been effectively destroyed by Israeli troops. Liana Badr explains:
"Now we don't have anything to begin with, we don't have computers, equipment, furniture. And we have this feeling of humiliation".
[img=right]http://www.johnpilger.com/uploads/images/1146738645468_0.34831062358612086.jpg[/img]Elsewhere in the Ministry, Israeli soldiers had smeared their own excrement on the walls and on office equipment and vandalised an exhibition of paintings made by Palestinian children.
"They have destroyed everything", says Liana, "They don't respect anything, they just want to come and destroy and this is the systematic terrorism of the Israeli state."
Fatima's Story
The effects of the occupation are not only felt during attacks such as those in Ramallah. Palestinians must also contend with the day-to-day control over freedom of movement. During curfews people live under a form of house arrest. Without notice they can be locked inside their homes. Their ordinary lives are a maze of controls, road blocks, checkpoints. This is how John Pilger remembered apartheid South Africa. "The hidden effect is the same", he says, "Humiliation and anger and death".
[img=left]http://www.johnpilger.com/uploads/images/1146738810593_0.14649314132053404.jpg[/img]Fatima Abed-Rabo is one Palestinian woman who knows all about the effects of the checkpoints. Last October, she was about to give birth to her second child and she and her husband set out for the nearby hospital. They were stopped at an Israeli roadblock where they pleaded to be let through. Fatima explains what happened next:
"There were six or seven soldiers. We argued. One of them pushed my husband, hitting him with a rifle and throwing his ID card back at him. We had to go home.
"We tried again later on hoping they'd have calmed down. We offered to walk to the hospital but they still wouldn't let us through.
"Then I had my baby.
"My mother-in-law used a razor to cut the umbilical cord. The boy started crying. My husband wrapped him in his jacket.
"One of his relatives found a back route and drove us to the hospital. But the baby had died by the time we arrived."
"We don't know why they did this to us. It wasn't personal. This is the way they treat all Palestinians. I'm sorry to say this but they'd rather help an animal than an Arab."
Palestinians try to lead a normal life. But life is never normal. During Israeli military operations, curfews stop everything. Ambulances are denied access to the sick and wounded. Children are stopped from going to school. The Israelis claim this is necessary for their security. If that's true, it's clearly not working. And the security of Palestinians is almost never mentioned.
Lama Hourani, a Gaza resident, describes the effects of the conditions in which she lives:
[img=right]http://www.johnpilger.com/uploads/images/1146738901328_0.7456274879845356.jpg[/img]"You feel all your life that you are humiliated. You don't control yourself, you don't control the air you are breathing? I don't want? to talk about planning for anything, this is something that we don't even dream about. Plan to next hour or next day what we will do. This is something we don't even dream about because our destiny is not in our hands.
"It's in the hands of the others who decide how we would live. How we even get married? to come and live with my husband in this country, I had to take the permission of the Israelis."
The Soldier's Story
Some Israelis have spoken out. More than 500 soldiers have refused to serve in the occupied territories. 'We are', they've said, 'like the Chinese student who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. We are the conscience of our country'. Ishay Rosen-Zvi is one of them.
[img=left]http://www.johnpilger.com/uploads/images/1146739065781_0.23980654357778297.jpg[/img]"I really think the real story of the occupation is there in the checkpoint. I cannot forget this kind of picture, you know, five in the morning, quarter to five in the morning? hundreds of people waiting, you know, to pass? the checkpoint. And you're standing there. And you see their eyes? the humiliation, the frustration, the hatred. Then you are the occupation. You have all the power, they have no power".
Closure
The half-built buildings of Gaza are a testament to the hopes raised - then dashed - by the talk of an independent Palestine. Without Israeli permission, most people can't leave and they can't return. They can't get to jobs, their produce can't get to market. Most struggle to live on about a pound a day - a poverty compounded by an Israeli policy called closure.
Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, of the Union of Palestine Medical Relief Committee, explains the effects of Israel's policy:
"You see for Israel to sustain this unsustainable occupation, it is transforming every city and every Palestinian town and village into a prison, basically. Surrounded by tanks, surrounded by walls, surrounded by fences. And it's not like they're building a border between us and Israel. It's building border inside West Bank and Gaza. Between our cities and towns for the sake of their settlements. They are obliging us to be occupied people. And not citizens".
[img=left]http://www.johnpilger.com/uploads/images/1146738595781_0.8885992419199378.jpg[/img]In the administration room files were strewn over the floor and all office equipment had been deliberately vandalised.
"Now we don't have anything to begin with, we don't have computers, equipment, furniture. And we have this feeling of humiliation".
"They have destroyed everything", says Liana, "They don't respect anything, they just want to come and destroy and this is the systematic terrorism of the Israeli state."
The effects of the occupation are not only felt during attacks such as those in Ramallah. Palestinians must also contend with the day-to-day control over freedom of movement. During curfews people live under a form of house arrest. Without notice they can be locked inside their homes. Their ordinary lives are a maze of controls, road blocks, checkpoints. This is how John Pilger remembered apartheid South Africa. "The hidden effect is the same", he says, "Humiliation and anger and death".
"We tried again later on hoping they'd have calmed down. We offered to walk to the hospital but they still wouldn't let us through.
"Then I had my baby.
"My mother-in-law used a razor to cut the umbilical cord. The boy started crying. My husband wrapped him in his jacket.
"One of his relatives found a back route and drove us to the hospital. But the baby had died by the time we arrived."
"We don't know why they did this to us. It wasn't personal. This is the way they treat all Palestinians. I'm sorry to say this but they'd rather help an animal than an Arab."
Palestinians try to lead a normal life. But life is never normal. During Israeli military operations, curfews stop everything. Ambulances are denied access to the sick and wounded. Children are stopped from going to school. The Israelis claim this is necessary for their security. If that's true, it's clearly not working. And the security of Palestinians is almost never mentioned.
Lama Hourani, a Gaza resident, describes the effects of the conditions in which she lives:
The Soldier's Story
Some Israelis have spoken out. More than 500 soldiers have refused to serve in the occupied territories. 'We are', they've said, 'like the Chinese student who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. We are the conscience of our country'. Ishay Rosen-Zvi is one of them.
The half-built buildings of Gaza are a testament to the hopes raised - then dashed - by the talk of an independent Palestine. Without Israeli permission, most people can't leave and they can't return. They can't get to jobs, their produce can't get to market. Most struggle to live on about a pound a day - a poverty compounded by an Israeli policy called closure.
Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, of the Union of Palestine Medical Relief Committee, explains the effects of Israel's policy:
"You see for Israel to sustain this unsustainable occupation, it is transforming every city and every Palestinian town and village into a prison, basically. Surrounded by tanks, surrounded by walls, surrounded by fences. And it's not like they're building a border between us and Israel. It's building border inside West Bank and Gaza. Between our cities and towns for the sake of their settlements. They are obliging us to be occupied people. And not citizens".
