This poem was published on PeaceXPeace. I would love your comments.
On Fridays,
I feel rested
you feel anxious
I make pancakes
you cut onions
I fold laundry
You tie kafiyehs
I read email
You read danger
I buy fish
You buy time
I contemplate you
you contemplate them
Then,
tear gas stings
shots ring
I cringe
you bleed
I write
My headline for the article I wrote that appeared in The Guardian was “Jilani Family Cautiously Hopeful as Israel Impunity Stands Trial.” Having spoken recently to Ziad Jilani’s widow, I confirm this is true: something feels different about this case, which is currently under consideration by the Israeli Supreme Court.
Please read the article and voice your comments on this blog. Will Israel again protect their police despite violations of human rights? Or will they, in this case, admit that wrong is wrong and hold those responsible to account?
This article first appeared on PeaceXPeace.
Palestinians know what “Ramallah Bubble” refers to, even if they’ve not heard the term. The city of Ramallah is palpably different from the rest of Palestine. It’s the lifestyle, the mindset, the money, and, above all else, the irking feeling that it might suddenly burst.
Inside Ramallah, Israeli incursions are relatively infrequent and movement is unencumbered. Palestinian police stand on nearly every corner in the bustling downtown shopping district; and construction is booming. To outsiders, Ramallah’s appearance of “normalcy” may seem proof that the “peace process” is benefiting Palestinians. But some locals, including some mothers, believe that Ramallah’s fake “good life” dilutes children’s national consciousness.
“It’s really difficult to teach our children what military occupation means while living in Ramallah. Unless an Israeli jeep drives by, we can’t convince them there’s a problem. There are too many distractions,” Iman Assaf said.
Iman sipped espresso at Zamn Café, itself a product of Ramallah’s aid-fueled economic growth, as she chatted with friends about the challenges of mothering in Ramallah today.
Joyce lamented, “Once we invited friends for dinner. We found their four kids and our four kids sitting together in the playroom staring at their iPads – eight iPads in one room!”
Ramallah has been host to a pseudo-government since the Palestinian Authority was established as a result of the Oslo Accords. The five-year interim period, which has now dragged into nearly twenty years, was meant to build trust and resolve final status issues. But hope seems to have dissolved into Walls, fences, ditches and checkpoints and relentless violence. This defines life in most of the occupied Palestinian territory—except in Ramallah.
In fact, Movenpick, a visible symbol of the Ramallah Bubble, runs a five-star hotel in Ramallah. General Director, Michael Goetz, said they became profitable in their second year, even sooner than their financial forecasts predicted. Movenpick’s success, and that of the hotels, restaurants, landlords, and other service providers, is primarily a result of international aid. Palestine receives billions of dollars in international aid, most of it flowing through Ramallah before trickling to more remote areas.
“I was in Gaza recently,” May Kishawy shared. “People in Gaza don’t live like we do. They know what poverty is. They understand from their experience that our political problems are not solved.”
People who enter any one of Ramallah’s refugee camps know that that poverty is real in Palestine, even in Ramallah, and a stroll near the checkpoint, especially on a Friday, will surely find angry boys throwing rocks at the symbols of occupation and being tear-gassed in response. The point is that while Ramallah isn’t free, people in Ramallah may choose not to see. For mothers, the choice is poignant: “Should I protect my children from the horrors of occupation if I can? Or should I show them the truth even if it hurts?”
“When I was growing up in Nablus during the first Intifada,” Iman said, “we couldn’t avoid the occupation and we didn’t want to. We were young, but we cared about social issues like violence against women and attacks on villages. Today, kids are more concerned about the model of mobile phone they carry. We’re still occupied and we have no rights, but the new generation doesn’t understand that.”
The mothers acknowledged that consumerism is global, that peer pressure is universal, and that mother-child conflicts over television time are unexceptional. Still, there is something strange and disturbing about entering Jasmine Café in the late afternoon and finding it crammed with local school children—while their peers in villages and refugee camps are being tear gassed or assaulted, arrested, and sometimes killed.
Naela Rabah, Principal of the Greek Catholic School of Our Lady Annunciation, said that while not all Ramallah families have money, all are subjected to the influence of the Ramallah Bubble. “Many famililes in Ramallah are living beyond their means. They take loans to buy houses and cars. The kids who have access to money put pressure on other kids to wear fancy clothes, too. Parents give in because they don’t want their children to feel self-conscious, but they’re taking a risk. None of us has security. If I lose my job, I have no income. I don’t have health care like they do in other places or old-age pension.”
Some critics assign blame for Palestine’s illusory economy on international donors, who inject money without challenging the fundamental problem of Israeli occupation. Other critics point specifically to World Bank policies that tout private sector-led economic growth as a solution for Palestine’s problems—without admitting that real development under occupation is impossible.
The group of Ramallah mothers stopped short of saying that international actors created the Ramallah Bubble to intentionally lead Palestinians away from their national aspirations, but they did say that systemic forces are pushing Palestinian society in that direction.
An eighth-grade student at a private school in Ramallah agreed that the top layer of Palestinian society does have money to burn, but she disagreed that Ramallah youth have lost touch with their national consciousness.
“Kids in Ramallah are more aware of the occupation than kids in Jerusalem,” she said. “Don’t forget that kids in Ramallah experience the occupation every time they are prevented by soldiers from crossing the checkpoint in order to get to the mall.”
This article first appeared on PeaceXPeace.
I don’t know why I went to watch the Palestinian documentary, “Five Broken Cameras” last night. I was already exhausted from a long, sad week. And I knew that the Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem would be packed and there would be no seat. And I’d see people I was too tired to be polite to. But I went. I don’t know why. My car seemed to drive itself down to Salahadin Street. Then I paid too much to park in a lot. I don’t know why I went. I could have just bought the DVD and watched it at home.
I knew the film would be excellent or it would not have been nominated for an Academy Award. I knew it would be so well done that it would keep me up at night, and here I am, as expected, writing about it at 4 am. I knew it would be too much for me, after writing about Ziad Jilani’s death. Each article I write seems to deplete my being in some way that can’t be replenished. Yet I write, hoping it will save me, but fearing it will kill me. Being in touch with so much pain.
That’s what co-director Emad Burnat meant, I think, when he said in a discussion with the audience by skype, “I wanted to tell my story,” and why he braved, and continues to brave, such violence so that he can continue to film. I sensed it hurt him to document the reality that he, like the rest of the world, would prefer to deny. Yet he was compelled. I think I understand that.
The scenes of the movie were all familiar to me. The children said what they always say. The protesters chanted what they always chant. I watched as children vomited from tear gas, as old people were hit with rubber bullets in the face, as people who we’d come to love through the story died almost on cue. There was no new information. Still, the film affected me. It was a compact presentation of the horror that lasted for years, and continues to this day, from the perspective of one man. A regular man.
The sickness and inhumanity of what is happening in Bil’in, in Palestine, is inescapable.
I did try to escape the film, more than once. I wanted to go home, to my children, and to rest. I was so tired. But I stayed, drawn both by deep sadness and utter awe for the steadfastness of the people of Bil’in, and of Emad Burnat.
I’m sure if you watch the film, you’ll feel it too. And I hope it compels you, and me, to act.
This article originally appeared in Electronic Intifada on March 15, 2013.
One week before he shot Palestinian motorist Ziad Jilani in the head at point blank range, Israeli border policeman Maxim Vinogradov expressed on Facebook his wish to kill Arabs and Turks. And on his profile on another social media site, Vinogradov identifies himself as belonging to the extreme right, expresses his love for violence, names “undocumented Arab workers” as his favorite sport, his hobbies as “hitting and destroying things,” and for the category of favorite food, he lists “Arabs.”
The Israeli border police claim that on 11 June 2010, Jilani attempted to run them over in a terrorist attack in the Wadi al-Joz neighborhood of Jerusalem, and, fearing for their lives, they shot to kill in accordance with police procedures. The Israeli state prosecutor agreed with police claims and refused to press charges against Vinogradov and Police Superintendent Shadi Har al-Din, both of whom admitted to shooting Jilani. Jilani’s family is now pursuing justice for Ziad in Israel’s highest court.
This article appeared on www.WhyDev.org, an excellent blog that is building a community of critical development practitioners.
In our previous post on WhyDev, “Is anything going right in NGO-INGO relations?” we acknowledged that relations between local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) are often strained by power dynamics. Given these tensions, it is useful to explore how things sometimes go right when the two come together to do development work.
In this post we reflect on the relationship between Dalia Association, a Palestinian community foundation, and PeaceGeeks, a Canadian NGO providing technical assistance in the developing world, and the finished project — an online competition to identify and celebrate innovative examples of Palestinian philanthropy.
Nora Lester Murad on behalf of Dalia Association:
Dalia Association’s collaboration with PeaceGeeks was among the most worthwhile that I can remember. There are at least three reasons.
1. We both focused on the goal.
Too often, international partners focus on activities or outputs. There is such emphasis on implementing the plan, there isn’t enough room for adjustment when realities on the ground change. Dalia and PeaceGeeks, however, stayed focused on the ultimate goal of promoting philanthropy, and this enabled the project design, activities and outputs to develop as we learned together.
2. Internationals pushed forward but did not take over.
PeaceGeeks moved faster and more fluidly than Dalia, which, like many small and struggling NGOs, gets distracted by political, social and economic problems in the society and the organization. PeaceGeeks’ enthusiasm did push the Palestinian volunteers to get more involved, but PeaceGeeks never moved faster than the locals would go, and when the locals turned down the internationals’ advice, no feathers were ruffled.
3. The result was better than it could have been with only one organisation.
Dalia Association could not have run a global online competition without help. We didn’t have the technological expertise or the breadth of knowledge about what was possible. PeaceGeeks could not have run the online competition without help either. They didn’t have the local knowledge to make it relevant.
With PeaceGeeks, however, Dalia Association was able to reach Palestinians around the world for the Momentum for Philanthropy competition, which inspired youth to share their experiences giving, with the message “we are givers, not just receivers”. Three excellent initiatives were awarded cash prizes and visibility.
Nonetheless, there were aspects of the project that could have gone better. First, language and cultural differences made interaction clunky and sometimes downright frustrating. Even after PeaceGeeks recruited an Arabic-speaking volunteer, misunderstandings continued, and the two organizations’ approaches to dealing with the misunderstandings differed.
Second, missed opportunities left an echo of regret for some. Specifically, the project was meant to improve Dalia Association’s capacity to use social media. PeaceGeeks provided a strategy and mentor, but Dalia Association was unable to recruit someone locally to absorb the full benefit.
Still, without question, the project was a success. Dalia, with a small grant from the Global Fund for Community Foundations, leveraged thousands of dollars worth of technical assistance from PeaceGeeks, and developed a long-term ally in its quest to mobilize local resources through philanthropy as an alternative to dependence on international aid.
Renee Black, PeaceGeeks:
As a new organization, PeaceGeeks is still coming into its own. We are sorting out what we do, how we do it and what makes us different. Our work with Dalia on its philanthropy competition helped us to identify a few principles that will help us be successful going forward.
1. Choose good partners and stay focused on their needs.
To date, we have operated with no money, just the commitment of our volunteers. While not sustainable forever, having this experience has been a blessing in many ways. We have been able to more carefully choose the partners we want to work with and remain focused on their priorities, without getting distracted by the mandates of donors.
But in fact we do have donors – our volunteers. Without their time, talents and commitment, we cannot do our work. For us to be successful, we need to choose the right partners and volunteers. We need to build relationships based on respect and trust and we need to set realistic expectations.
Overall, Dalia was a great partner to work with, and while some of our volunteer’s work did not get used, causing some frustration, the project was largely a success that we can celebrate.
2. Develop a clear purpose and plan.
We treat our partners like clients. That means that we work closely with them to understand the goals, define the scope of the project, develop a plan and recruit a qualified team. Our role isn’t just to deliver a solution or tell partners what to do; it is to help partners understand the options available to them so they can make informed decisions, now and in the future. When challenges arise, we recognize that these problems are a small part of a bigger picture and move past them constructively.
3. Develop meaningful relationships and ensure partners have skin in the game.
We are committed to choosing good partners and working with them as equals, avoiding the hierarchical relationships that characterize so many development projects. Yet we know from experience that our model carries some inherent risks.
One risk is that because our work is often pro bono, our partners can walk away from a project with little to lose, despite a significant risk to our credibility if past donors and volunteers feel their time and money was not well used.
This means it is important for us to build meaningful relationships based on understanding, respect and trust, but this alone is not enough. We need to construct a way for our partners to have skin in the game so they are as committed to project success as we are, especially during challenging moments.
We don’t yet know how to do this. Dalia’s team remained committed to the project, and our mutual commitment helped us to navigate misunderstandings and challenges when they came up. But they also had something to lose – the project was based on a grant. If that had not been the case, the project might have been at higher risk of failure.
4. Ensure a mutual focus on building capacities.
We focus on building capacities, which means helping our partners learn from our experience, ask better questions and make better decisions. It is not just about delivering solutions.
Neither is it just about our partners’ learning. We also have an opportunity to learn about challenges facing groups like Dalia, how these groups work to address these challenges, and how we can support them. While we have expertise on certain matters, our partners’ knowledge is essential to understanding context, and that helps minimize the risk of failure, which is a significant risk for all technology even without barriers like language, time difference, cultural differences and war.
A final thought. PeaceGeeks treats partners the same way that we treat clients in the private sector. This approach allowed us to develop a shared vision of project success and accountability to one another. It allowed us to remain focused on the partner’s definition of success. And it has allowed us to make better decisions around who we work with and how.
From our work with Dalia, we learned how we can be successful with our projects and how we should respond to failure when it occurs. It also helped us reaffirm some of our core values, and helped us to define some useful principles to apply going forward.
While all relationships require work, the relationship between Dalia Association and PeaceGeeks shows that yes, NGOs and INGOs can work together well. We would not have been able to accomplish as much independently as we did together.
What are your experiences cultivating NGO-INGO relationships that work well?
Nora Lester Murad, PhD, writes fiction and commentary from Jerusalem, Palestine. Her blog, “The View from My Window in Palestine” addresses issues of international development and life under military occupation. She is a life-long social justice activist and a founder of Dalia Association, Palestine’s first community foundation, with whom she now volunteers. She tweets from @NoraInPalestine.
Renee Black is an IT project manager, policy analyst and founder of PeaceGeeks, a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to building the capacities of grassroots non-profits in conflict-affected areas working on peace, accountability and human rights. She tweets under @reneeontheroad and @peacegeeks.
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?
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.
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:
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.
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!
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.
Many 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.”
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.
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.”