Ray Dolphin, Barrier Specialist at the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the occupied Palestinian territory  and author of a new report called East Jerusalem: Key Humanitarian Concerns, held a press conference Monday, May 9, highlighting findings of the report that there are many humanitarian factors pushing Palestinians out of Jerusalem.

Click here to see press conference.

Key factors threatening the Palestinian presence include:

• the revocation of residency rights
• home demolitions
• the increase in settlement building
• zoning and planning practices
• the separation barrier
• restrictions on access to education and health care

For each issue raised, there are recommendations, such as: stop settlement building in East Jerusalem; stop home demolitions; stop the revocation of residency rights; increase the number, quality of and access to classrooms.  The 116-page report details the background and current status of each issue as well as provides case studies and stories.

Among these stories:

• Dr. Tawfik Nasser and Augusta Victoria Hospital;
• Rimaz and Ghassan Kasabreh (Ghassan is the organist at Redeemer Lutheran Church) and their struggle to live in Jerusalem when she has been illegal in her own home.  View the video Forbidden Family about the Kasabrehs.
• Infringements on access to religious sites.

For more information on the background and issues about Jerusalem, see the Peace not Walls Jerusalem page.

Israel is in the process of expelling Munther Fahmi, "the bookseller of Jerusalem." Photo from The National website.

Imagine that you were told you were not allowed to live in the city in which you were born or grew up.  That is what has happened to 14,000 East Jerusalem Palestinians since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, and the pace has been accelerating.  In 2008 alone, the last year records are complete, 4,500 residency permits were rescinded.

When Israel began the occupation in 1967, most Palestinians were not made citizens but residents, which came with restrictions.  If you leave Jerusalem for an extended period of time to live elsewhere (including other parts of the West Bank), your residency rights can be rescinded.

Munther Fahmi is known as “the bookseller of Jerusalem” because he runs the bookstore at the exclusive American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem which serves such guests as Tony Blair, Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter, to name a few.  This bookstore is known as an “oasis of dialogue” in a country riddled by conflict, says writer Jonathan Cook, because there are many dialogue events featuring writers on all sides of the conflict.

But despite Munther’s many famous friends who have written letters and the good work his bookstore does, Israeli officials have told him that they will no longer automatically issue him the tourist visas he needs to live there year-round.  His residency rights were already rescinded because he has a US passport and lived away for a number of years before returning in the early 90s after the Oslo Agreement.  Now, he may well have to leave Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory altogether, and possibly be re-admitted for only 3 months a year, if that.

Read more about it in Jonathan Cook’s article, The Jerusalem Expulsions.

Read more about this and other issues related to Jerusalem in the March UN report East Jerusalem:  Key Humanitarian Concerns.

In his article “Bin Laden Killed, Americans Celebrate”…beyond the dispute, Glen Gersmehl discusses some of the questions raised post-Bin Laden. Drawing on his experience working within high crime communities as well as his international peace work he explores the ways in which violent and non-violent responses to conflict achieve their touted goals of achieving peace.

Here is an excerpt:

The retraction of many key details of bin Laden’s killing makes it even more likely – and scary – that we’ll once again be distracted from what we most need to face about the war on terror, our place in the world, and the many and tragic ways our culture misunderstands conflict and violence.

To read more download the full article (pdf). Then comment and let us know what you think.

Glen Gersmehl directs a project assisting volunteers at food programs serving the homeless. He represented the U.S. and Canada at meetings in India to plan the major UN initiative on nonviolence of the past decade. He coordinates Lutheran Peace Fellowship and the Peace & Justice Resource Center. His graduate degree in public policy is from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

As part of our academic careers my husband and I had the privilege twice of living and teaching in the Arab Muslim world and thus have special interest in news reports from the region. While in Syria we experienced the conflict between the Assad regime and its political adversaries that culminated in the 1982 destruction of the historic city of Hama. In Yemen in 1992 we observed campaigning for the first democratic parliamentary elections after the contentious reuniting of the north and south.

While in Damascus, we met Joshua Landis, then a Fulbright graduate student. Now he is a University of Oklahoma professor married to a Syrian and regularly visits the country. He uses this unique perspective for a Syria commentary that combines his own and others’ analyses with translations from Arab news reports at his blog.

An added bonus of our Damascus Fulbright year was visiting relatives in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley and seeing firsthand the damage from sectarian divisions and strife. Years later I got acquainted with Rami G. Khouri, one of Lebanon’s most respected journalists. More precisely than most western commentators, Khouri can place the current uprisings in the context of many decades’ worth of post-colonial citizen-led movements.

Read more: “No surprise: Spring always follows Winter” in the Daily Star (Lebanon), 13 April 2011.

Original post: April 7, 2011. After weeks of mounting tensions and cross-boundary violence, Hamas has worked with all militant groups within Gaza to ensure a cessation of rocket attacks from the coastal territory. See this analysis from the Israeli daily newspaper, Ha’aretz. The ELCA’s Churchwide Strategy for Engagement in Israel and Palestine (available here in PDF format) seeks “An end to terrorism and violence by individuals, groups, and states” (2.B.1.b).

Update: April 8, 2011. Unfortunately, the cease-fire has not held among all parties in Gaza. As Ha’aretz reports today, militants in Gaza fired several mortars into Israeli territory, prompting an IDF military strike. The Ma’an News Agency reports that the status of the ceasefire is unclear, given the refusal of some militant groups to lay their weapons down.

The Forward had an excellent article on Wednesday entitle “Did a Private Meeting Prompt Goldstone To Change His Mind?“. The article gives an analysis of the events leading up Goldstone’s Washington Post op-ed, what the op-ed might actually have been saying and what has happened since than.

If you missed it check out the earlier post on the op-ed “Recants” Goldstone Report”.

Ha’aretz blogger Natasha Mozgovaya has recently published an interesting article on the range of Israeli policy options presented to the annual conference of the Anti-Defamation League. The headline is a bit misleading, I think; the fascinating thing here is the diversity of opinion on what Israel should do in this moment of history. The options range from unilaterally separating from Palestinians to embracing the change sweeping across the region by developing stronger diplomatic relationships. There is no question that the landscape of the Middle East is changing. Because of its broad base of political, military and economic power, many paths are available to the State of Israel. And because of that power, its chosen path will have implications for many.

On Monday, March 28, by a vote of 37 to 11, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed a new Citizenship Law. The new law states that citizens of Israel accused with acts of terrorism against the state or in aiding those who carry out acts of terrorism against the state can have their citizenship revoked by the courts. Supporters of the new law say that it is the right of a democracy to expect its citizens to be loyal if they wish to continue being citizens. Opponents claim that the law is targeted specifically at Arab citizens and will therefore be used unjustly in its implementation.

To learn more read the following articles in the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.

To see a perspective critical of the new law read the following post on If Americans Only Knew.

Reports from the Ground

The situation in Israel and the cccupied Palestinian territory covers a broad set of topics and issues which are continually interacting with each other and creating new situations on the ground. Keeping in mind that covering every aspect of the conflict on a day-by-day basis is beyond the abilities of this campaign, this section contains current analysis and reports from the ground to help give a more complete picture of the current situation. As we strive to present the many views expressed about the situation we must note that the views expressed here are not necessarily representative of the ELCA’s positions.

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