Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

Guest post: Donor Interventions in Palestinian Agriculture: Helping Hand? Or Slap on the Face? by Aisha Mansour

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Aisha Mansour is co-founder of Sharaka-Community Supported Agriculture. Sharaka is a volunteer run initiative working towards food sovereignty in Palestine. Sharaka activities include a seasonal farmers market, school garden program, education and awareness, and an underground seasonal restaurant called, Majhoul. In her free time, Aisha experiments with seasonal food production in an effort to achieve self-sufficiency, and she blogs at Seasonal Palestinian.

One of the main principles that guides international development is “Do No Harm.” A bright-eyed, enthusiastic development specialist in Palestine may think agricultural interventions are doing no harm. But does a longer-term, broader view of the situation, from a local’s perspective, see donor intervention as benign?

cabdallah kofr malik

Although the Palestinian agricultural sector receives less than 1% of the “aid” funding that comes into Palestine, the total amount is still significant.  Between 2006-2011, over $658 million USD was injected into the Palestinian agricultural sector through over 22,000 interventions, according to the Agricultural Project Information System.  Most of the funds are allocated towards capacity building, plant production, livestock production, and water resources.  Sounds great, right?  When I asked the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) for a summary of the projects, I received a long list organized by project title, donor, and total dollar amount. The MoA does not conduct regular assessments of the interventions and their impact. But a few interviews with locally-based donors and recipients showed me that the general purpose of donor interventions was to transform Palestinian agriculture into a cog in the overall global economy.

Capacity building efforts focus on teaching farmers to follow international standards such as Global Gap that regulate the types of plants that may be grown, and methods for use of chemical pesticide and fertilizer. Plant and animal production efforts concentrate on the use of foreign inputs that meet international standards and industrialize Palestinian agriculture, ensuring a ready supply of food for the global market.  Farmers are taught to produce cash crops that will provide them a higher income.  Cash crops are items that are in demand by the Western and global market and include products such as cherry tomatoes and majdool dates.  The traditional Palestinian farmer who once produced seasonal varieties of vegetables, fruits, and grains using environmentally friendly techniques for the local market is being transformed into a modernized agribusiness using foreign seeds and chemical pesticides and fertilizers to produce one or two items that are in high demand in foreign markets.

eherb agribiz

Donors have decided to address Palestinian food insecurity by improving the income of farmers so that they can purchase food for their families from the local market.  Meanwhile, most of the foods on the local market, as a result of the imposed free trade policies, are cheap imports from the West.  In other words, this new system of modernized food production is usurping the traditional mode of seasonal and varietal food production using local heirloom seeds and zero chemicals to feed the local population. Isn’t that doing harm? Yes! The negative impacts of the donor interventions are numerous and include the following:

  • Reducing the human capabilities of the Palestinian farmer/peasant:  The traditional Palestinian farmer was highly independent with regard to food production and methods for selling the end product on the local market.  Today’s modernized farmer has been transformed into a wage worker punching his card at the agribusiness. The modernized farmer does not choose what to grow, nor possess any leverage on the marketing of the product.  Items produced are based on Western demand and sales prices are fixed by the global economy.
  • Increasing food insecurity among Palestinians: Linking the Palestinian economy to the global economy has not reduced food insecurity among Palestinian farmers. Traditionally, Palestinian farmers never experienced food insecurity. A variety of food staples were produced for the household and other items were obtained through barter and exchange.  However, the free trade policies imposed on the Palestinians by the donor community have tied local food prices to the global market, making ‘good’ food too expensive and inaccessible to the poor.
  • Institutionalizing market linkages and dependence on Israel:  Donor interventions in Palestinian agriculture have also forced a stronger attachment to the Israeli economy, despite the fact that Palestinians are trying to achieve independence in their homeland.  Donor interventions support Palestinian farmers to produce for export.  But in Occupied Palestine, the only way to export is through Israel, or through an “intermediary” that, of course, must go through Israel.  Further, the required inputs as outlined by international standards systems such as Global Gap are all acquired through Israel.
  • Environmental destruction: The attention to the production of a few select cash crops, many of them being genetically modified, means that we have lost the bounty within Palestine.  Prior to the Oslo-period donor interventions, Palestinian agricultural production consisted of varieties of heirloom vegetables and fruits.  This rich biodiversity has been lost as the donor interventions have introduced a few genetically modified seeds.  These manufactured seeds require the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers that weaken the soil, and render it less productive.   Further, our diet has become bland and boring as we consume the same four or five vegetables all year long, which negatively impacts our health, and so the downward spiral persists.
  • Food assistance instead of food sovereignty:  The donor community does not seem able to grasp the connection.  And so agricultural interventions remain isolated from food assistance.  International agricultural experts work within the Palestinian agricultural sector to support farmers to increase their incomes and decrease their vulnerability to food insecurity, while the international humanitarian relief folks are busy collecting leftovers from the West to feed the hungry and needy in the South, including Palestine.  Nowhere in this multi-million dollar industry do the two meet to bridge agriculture and food assistance to develop a sustainable food sovereign system within the recipient country.  Or perhaps that is not the aim of the game?
  • Northern Occupation of Palestinian land:  It’s not enough that Israel keeps grabbing Palestinian land and natural resources.  Now the West would like the small bit of land remaining under Palestinian cultivation to feed the rest of the Northern world.  This land grab has meant that less and less food produced in Palestine feeds Palestinians, while more and more of the second-rate processed products are dumped in the Palestinian market.
  • Accept Israel as status quo:  And finally, all of these projects that are meant to support the Palestinian farmers work around and within the Israeli Occupation. Aid interventions ignore the impact of the Occupation, and Israel’s illegal practices of land grabbing and stealing natural resources.  Instead, donor projects focus on increasing the income of farmers within the existing Occupation, without challenging the essence of the Israeli Occupation.   It is important to note that Palestinian agriculture flourished prior to the Israeli Occupation of 1948 and 1967.  Prior to the Occupation, Palestinians produced abundantly and fed the local market, and exported the excess to the Arab world.

Fortunately, the traditional small-scale Palestinian farmer still exists, however, in diminishing numbers.  These farmers continue to produce healthy, baladi (local) food for their communities.  But they struggle to survive in this aggressive environment.  Palestinians are becoming aware and rising against this hijacking of their food system.  Local foodies, activists, peasants and farmers are organizing to develop alternatives to the imposed global and modernized food system that has been forced on them.  Palestinian interventions include local women serving a healthy lunch at a school, door-to-door local produce delivery, a traditional culinary school, and a farmers market.  It is time to be honest with ourselves and take responsibility for what is happening in our country.  Donor interventions and imposed policies that are harmful must be stopped.  Alternatives to development must be sought from within.

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Click on the image to watch the February 16, 2013 edition of Aljazeera’s “Counting the Cost.” The show is 25 minutes and focuses on aid to Palestine and Kenya. Let me know what you think!

In Jerusalem, Even the Dentist Lets You Know Who’s in Charge

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This article was written for PeaceXPeace.

A lot of people hate going to the dentist because it hurts. I hate going to the dentist in Jerusalem because it hurts, but not in my mouth. It hurts my sense of belonging.

We go to an Israeli dental clinic.

IMG_8163Many Palestinians in Jerusalem go to Israeli dental clinics. Why shouldn’t they? Palestinians who have residency in Jerusalem are entitled to Israeli health insurance. It’s one of the few benefits they got when Israel illegally annexed Jerusalem.

Nearly all the approximately 300,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem are “residents.” They were born in Jerusalem (like their parents, and their parents’ parents) but despite Israel’s annexation, they are not citizens of Israel. They have no voice in the Israeli elections that determine their fate. Not that they necessarily want to vote in the Israeli elections. But I digress.

Last time I took my children to the Israeli dental clinic, the receptionist waved us to the x-ray room and a technician hurried my middle daughter into the big faux-leather chair.

“Wait! Why does she need an x-ray?” I intervened.

The woman had straight blond hair and a pink hair extension that matched her pinkish lipstick. She looked at me with a totally unreadable look on her face.

“She’s having her teeth cleaned. She doesn’t need an x-ray,” I repeated in English. My middle daughter was looking uncomfortable in the chair, embarrassed. The other two had backed into the waiting area and were pretending not to know me.

The technician shouted to the receptionist and there was soon a small congregation of Israeli women around me, all speaking Russian. They were trying to figure out what my problem was.

The dentist herself came out from her room in the back carrying my daughter’s dental records. I could understand her Hebrew despite her heavy Russian accent, “If you want to see the dentist, you have to have an x-ray,” she proclaimed, as if it were a law of nature.

I tried to explain in my few words of Hebrew: “Teeth cleaning. Last time we came, the hygienist wrote in the file that we needed to come back.” I tapped the file in her hand. It would all be clear if she would just read the dental record.

But she didn’t. The dentist turned on her heel and walked through the reception area talking loudly. “This lady wants me to write in the file that her daughter got an x-ray but she doesn’t want her daughter to have the x-ray!”

I was livid, frustrated, powerless.

“She doesn’t need an x-ray!” I raised my voice, following her to her office.

“I decide!” she countered.

By then, all my children were ready to crawl into the medicine cabinet with shame.

And I made it worse.

I approached a Palestinian woman sitting with her children in the waiting room. I asked her in Arabic if she knew enough Hebrew to explain to “those crazy people” (yes, I was angry) that my daughter needed her teeth cleaned, not an x-ray. She didn’t look too happy to be associated with me in any way, but she stood up to help.

Then the door to the hygienist’s room opened and she stepped out, interested in all the commotion. I ran to her. Her long bouncy curls had changed colors since our last visit.

“Do you remember me?” I asked in English.

“Of course!” She smiled at my children and I felt a wave of relief. She is the reason why we go to that clinic. She makes flossing and mouthwash and fluoride fun.

“Can you please tell them I want you to clean my daughter’s teeth? I told them you wrote it on her dental record, but they don’t understand.”

A few minutes later, my middle daughter was reclining in the hygienist’s chair having her teeth cleaned.

“Apparently the person who scheduled your appointment at your last visit thought you wanted to see the dentist,” she said as she worked. “And everyone who sees the dentist for the first time needs an x-ray.”

“You provide services in Hebrew and in Russian,” I said. “Why not in Arabic? Isn’t Arabic also an official language of Israel?”

There was a pause and the hygienist looked at me, humanity shining in her eyes. She didn’t respond to me, but she spoke to my daughter. I think she said: “Spit.”

Guest post: “Northern Jerusalem or North of Jerusalem? Israel’s Land Grab in Process” by Muna Dajani

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Kufr Aqab is a unique neighborhood of Jerusalem because it lies on the West Bank side of the Annexation Wall. This means that Palestinians living in Kufr Aqab can keep their rights as residents of Jerusalem but have access to Ramallah without passing through a checkpoint. It also means that the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality is responsible for all municipal functions in Kufr Aqab, although it is separated from the rest of Jerusalem by the Qalandia checkpoint. Kufr Aqab is not the only anomaly—where the legal status and geographic realities conflict—but it’s among the most important. Palestinians are fighting to keep Kufr Aqab part of Jerusalem and to keep Jerusalem part of Palestine. Nura Alkalili (Lund University), Muna Dajani (Birzeit University) and Daniela De Leo (Sapienza University Rome) conducted research to voice the realities and concerns of the voiceless Palestinians in Jerusalem, including in Kufr Aqab. Their research findings have been presented in conferences in Turkey, Argentina and Italy. In this guest post,environmental researcher and activist, Muna Dajani explains some of the complexities of life in Kufr Aqab and how residents are responding.

Israeli Sanctioned Chaos

I set out with two friends, Nura AlKhalili, an urban planner, and Daniela De Leo, an Italian professor, to research the construction boom and chaos of Kufr Aqab. Agno” between Jerusalem and Ramallah, there are shocking urban transformations in the neighborhood.

 

Photo credit: Nura Alkhalili
Photo credit: Nura Alkhalili

Kufr Aqab is easily identified by endless rows of towering buildings averaging ten stories high. Most are apartment blocks with commercial shops on the street level. Adjacent to each other, they threaten to fall over like dominos. The streets of Kufr Aqab are full of signs announcing vacancies and apartments for sale despite visible deficiencies: air contamination from the daily burning of garbage (because it is hardly ever collected), lack of proper water and electrical infrastructure, and streets that are not even asphalted.

The streets are overrun with cars with yellow Israeli license plates, yet none of the strict Israeli traffic laws seem to apply in Kufr Aqab. Cars drive in the opposite direction on the high-speed road and cars and trucks are parked in every direction possible. Other Israeli laws aren’t enforced either. For example, construction is booming without building permits and sometimes without the landowners’ knowledge and consent!

Despite this dark and distorted “development,” Kufr Aqab has become the temporary living solution for more than 60,000 inhabitants. Apartments in Kufr Aqab are much cheaper than a few kilometers south, thus making the area attractive to Jerusalemites who must remain within the Jerusalem municipality borders and pay taxes to Israel in order to keep their legal status. Most importantly, Jerusalemites who live in Kufr Aqab can live under the same roof with their spouses who, because they carry a Palestinian identity card, are prohibited from living in Jerusalem and can only enter by obtaining an Israeli military permit.

Being a daily traveler on the road from Jerusalem to Ramallah, and after passing the Qalandia checkpoint, I have often entered this zone where people appear so idle and passive. How can they live in Kufr Aqab under such unacceptable conditions with no sign of either opposition or civic engagement? Do they not see Israel’s systematic push of Palestinian Jerusalemites to the periphery thus disconnecting them from their center, Al Quds, and emptying the city of its residents, weakening its Arab character?

Community Activism in No Man’s Land

In our quest for answers, we met with Abu Zakariya Al Sous, an elected representative to the Jerusalem North Committee (JNC). Looking out from the window of his home, not even two meters away, lies a construction site so big that it dwarfs the old two-story building we’re in. The Jerusalem North Committee replaced the Israeli-run community center, one of those that are inserted in every Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem and which slowly but steadily impose their own ‘Israelization’ agendas on Palestinian residents, adding to their identity crisis.

Abu Zakariya has been an active resident of Kufr Aqab since long before the construction boom that infected the area one decade ago. Abu Zakariya stressed that “Jerusalem North” is symbolically and strategically important because Israel has relentlessly tried to label Kufr Aqab as an area North of Jerusalem (that is, an area that does not belong to the municipal boundaries of the city of Jerusalem)thus disconnecting it from its historical significance as a suburb of Jerusalem. By doing so, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality tries to create new facts on the ground, implying that its responsibilities stop at the first cement section of the Annexation Wall, leaving Kufr Aqab and its 60,000 Jerusalemite residents to fend for themselves in terms of acquiring rights to proper infrastructure, education, health services, public facilities, and their own security.

The JNC is composed of 12 volunteer members and its main objectives are advocating for and reclaiming full rights for Palestinians in the North of Jerusalem from the Jerusalem Municipality to whom they pay taxes. Abu Zakariya explained the complexity of mobilizing Kufr Aqab residents to challenge the political, social, health and environmental problems that haunt them. JNC decided to use legal means to fight against the problems that most affect people’s daily lives and to build momentum for positive change. For example, in June 2011, the JNC filed a lawsuit against the waste collection department at the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Environmental Protection. They demanded a clean environment free from diseases that have emerged recently due to the continuous burning of uncollected garbage. In 2012, the court ruled that the Municipality must submit a plan to improve services in Kufr Aqab. Since then, seventy new large garbage bins have been delivered to the neighborhood with an additional 110 smaller bins distributed on the side roads and thirty additional collection trucks operate on a weekly basis.

This is a success on all levels for the Jerusalem North Committee and the Palestinian communities of Jerusalem, as it sets a precedent and encourages use of legal measures for Jerusalemites to reclaim their rights as residents of the city. The JNC is now demanding proper infrastructure from the Israeli phone company, Bezeq, and advocating for more schools and public spaces.

Abu Zakariya added: “We are not asking for charity. We have lived for generations in this city and we have rights. We will not stop demanding our rights—from the basic demand for garbage-free neighborhoods to our biggest demand: equality, stability and prosperity for Palestinian Jerusalemites in Al Quds.”

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