David Rolstone's Letters from Palestine

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Sunday, 28 December 2003 - Human Rights

Today I attended seminars here in Ramallah. The first was given by the director of the human rights organisation Al Haq. Her main concern was the continual undermining of international law by the European and American governments by their vetoing of UN resolutions and also their avoidance of their responsibilities under the Hague Convention. Israel as an occupying country is obliged under the convention not to change laws unless they are for security reasons or for the benefit of the local population. So far the Israelis have imposed more than 3,000 military orders on Gaza and the West Bank. They continue to use emergency military regulations and laws that the British introduced in 1945. Jordan has said that they did not continue with these laws during their rule of the West Bank, and Britain maintains that they were rescinded when they left. Our Governments are responsible as signatory of the Hague Convention to see that it is maintained by all signatories. Israel is a signatory. This continued avoidance of responsibility under the Hague convention and the 4th Geneva Convention. Article 1 undermines the legitimacy of the Palestinian right under international law. We were urged to pressurise our governments into taking seriously their responsibility to uphold international law. There was a lot more to the presentation than I have time to elaborate on here, we should all become more aware of international law and how it can help solve this problem. The second presentation was given by Doctor Mustafa Barghouthi who showed us with the use of maps how since 1948 Palestine has become smaller and smaller.

The latest thing of the annexation wall is nothing new and that very similar maps were drawn under the Camp David Treaty, with the same consequences of splitting Palestine in to three small unworkable cantons.

Some of this excellent presentation can be found in articles at

http://www.palestinemonitor.org

Later in the day we went to talk to refugees living in Jelazone refugee camp to hear what they thought about the right of return etc. Again we were given a good account of why it was still possible for them to return, and how most of their villages are not inhabited but just abandoned. Finally we drove to the latest manifestation of the Annexation Wall between Ramallah and Jerusalem. This consisted of three fences; first on the Palestinian side rolls of razor wire then a chain link fence toped with razor wire followed by a wide swath of empty leveled ground, then the second fence which looked to be wired with sensors and cameras.

Beyond that was a two lane military road and then another fence with razor wire. This will eventually cut the Southern West Bank from the Northern West Bank and at the same time put Ramallah and Bethlehem into cages and separate Jerusalem entirely from Palestine. That's all for now more later; Nablus is having a terrible time again and is under curfew with many occupied houses. Dave

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