The blockade on Gaza began long before Hamas came to power

The gradual closure of Gaza began in 1991, when Israel canceled the general exit permit that allowed most Palestinians to move freely through Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Since then the closure, which may soon be challenged by the second Freedom Flotilla, has become almost hermetic.

29 June2011, +972blog http://972mag.com (Israel)

By Mya Guarnieri*

Athens, Greece – The second Freedom Flotilla is slated to set sail by the end of the month in an attempt to challenge the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The act will call attention to the closure that the United Nations and human rights organizations have decried as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the collective punishment of civilians.

According to the Israeli government — and most of the mainstream media — the blockade began in 2007, following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. The aim of this “economic warfare” was to weaken Hamas, a group that the Israeli government had once supported. Israel also sought to stop rocket fire and to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in Gaza since 2006.

Four years on, none of these goals have been achieved.

Israel has achieved a minor victory on one front, however. Even critics use 2007 as the start-date of the blockade, unintentionally legitimizing Israel’s cause-and-effect explanation that pegs the closure to political events.

But the blockade did not begin in 2007, following the Hamas takeover of the Strip. Nor did it start in 2006, with Israel’s economic sanctions against Gaza. The hermetic closure of Gaza is the culmination of a process that began twenty years ago.

Punitive closures begin
Sari Bashi is the founder and director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement. She says that the gradual closure of Gaza began in 1991, when Israel canceled the general exit permit that allowed most Palestinians to move freely through Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Non-Jewish residents of Gaza and the West Bank were required to obtain individual permits.

This was during the First Intifada. While the mere mention of the word invokes the image of suicide bombers in the Western imagination, it’s important to bear in mind that the First Intifada was, by and large, a non-violent uprising comprised of civil disobedience, strikes, and boycotts of Israeli goods.

A wave of violence came, however, in 1993. It was then, Bashi explains, that Israel began closing some crossings temporarily, turning away even those who held exit permits. Because a tremendous majority of Palestinians are not and were not suicide bombers, the restrictions on movement constituted collective punishment for the actions of a few — foreshadowing the nature of the blockade to come.

Over the years, there were other suggestions that a hermetic, punitive closure was on the horizon. The beginning of the Second Intifada, in September of 2000, saw Palestinian students “banned from traveling from Gaza to the West Bank,” Bashi says. In general, travel between the Occupied Palestinian Territories came under increasing restrictions, as well.

Exports took a hit in 2003, with the sporadic closures of the Karni crossing. While the 2005 disengagement supposedly signaled the end of the occupation of Gaza, in reality, it brought ever tightening restrictions on the movement of both people and goods. And, in 2006, the few Gazans who were still working in Israel were banned from entering, cutting them off from their jobs at a time when the Strip’s economy was under even more pressure.

Gaza today: the economy has been driven into the ground. The unemployment rate is almost 50 percent and four out of every five Palestinians in Gaza are dependent on humanitarian aid. Hospitals are running out of supplies. The chronically ill cannot always get exit permits, which can lead to access-related deaths. Students are sometimes prevented from reaching their universities. Families have been shattered. Some psychologists say that the intense pressure created by the blockade – which was compounded during Operation Cast Lead – accounts for spikes in domestic violence, divorce and drug abuse.

It doesn’t end at Gaza’s borders
But the consequences of the blockade do not stop at Gaza’s borders. When movement restrictions began in 1991, some Palestinian day laborers were prevented from reaching their jobs inside Israel. And this is about the time that Israel, already hooked on low-cost labor, began issuing work visas to migrants from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

Fast forward to Israel, 2009 — the same state that is imposing a severe, hermetic closure of Gaza announces that it intends to deport 1,200 Israeli-born children of migrant workers, along with their parents. NGOs decry the expulsion as inhumane and a gross violation of human rights.

The standard Israeli line is that these people must be deported because they’re “illegal.” (Never mind that the Israeli Supreme Court has recently struck down the policy that made the mothers lose their legal status, calling it a violation of Israel’s own labor laws). Politicians who are more honest about the issue admit that the expulsion is about minimizing the “demographic threat” to Israel.

The message of both the blockade and deportation is the same — both serve to illustrate that Jewish-Israeli privilege comes at the expense of the human rights of anyone who is deemed an “other.”

The refugee crisis
Of course, if you were to ask a Gazan when the restrictions on freedom of movement began, some might go back even earlier. They might point to a 1984 order that forbade farmers from planting commercial quantities of fruit trees without permission of the Israeli military government. In a definitive piece on the economic de-development of the Gaza Strip, published in 1987, Dr. Sara Roy pointed out that it took some Palestinian farmers five years or more to obtain these permits.

While the people of Gaza were still able to move in and out of the Strip at the time, their ability to live freely on their own lands was already severely restricted — as was their economy. According to Dr. Roy, the occupation had rendered the Strip hopelessly dependent on Israel and vulnerable to its economic fluctuations and political whims. It had also created a captive market, a convenient dumping ground for Israeli goods.

But, as Dr. Roy points, Gaza’s economic woes didn’t begin with the occupation. They started with the sudden, unexpected influx of Palestinian refugees in 1948. The Gaza Strip was largely agricultural at the time, she explains, and wealth was consolidated into the hands of a few. Simply said, there wasn’t enough for everyone.

While organizers of the flotilla emphasize that they are attempting to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza, unpacking the blockade itself points to urgent questions that must be resolved: the status of Palestinian refugees; the disastrous and unrelenting effects of over 40 years of occupation; and Israel’s utter lack of respect for the human rights of non-Jews. And that’s the discussion the Israeli government doesn’t want any of us to have.

*Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based writer and journalist. She is covering the flotilla for Maan News Agency. Her articles have appeared in Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, Tablet, and many other international outlets. Her short stories have been published in The Kenyon Review Online and Narrative Magazine. She is currently working on a book about migrant workers in Israel.

Follow Mya on Twitter: @myaguarnieri

Caterpillar Board confronted in Little Rock over sale of bulldozers to Israel

8 June 2011, Jewish Voice for Peace http://wedivest.org (USA)

Caterpillar Board confronted in Little Rock over sale of bulldozers to Israel

21% of shareholders ask for review of company’s human rights practices

For immediate release

Contact Sydney Levy (Jewish Voice for Peace) 415-994-4854

(June 8, 2011) At its annual shareholder meeting, the Caterpillar Board of Directors was confronted once again with shareholders and activists upset about the use of Caterpillar bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes.

Since 2004, Jewish Voice for Peace, together with grassroots activists and an interfaith coalition of shareholders, has been attending the Caterpillar shareholder meetings in the Chicago area to hold the company accountable for their bulldozers being used to demolish Palestinian homes. This year, Caterpillar moved its shareholder meeting to Little Rock, AK, in an apparent attempt to make the meeting less accessible to company shareholders and to dampen criticism of the company’s human rights practices. Despite Caterpillar’s efforts, criticism of the company’s policies is on the rise. Over 2,500 people have contacted the Caterpillar Board of Directors within the last 24 hours, asking how many more Palestinians need to be made homeless before Caterpillar reacts.

The United Nations is reporting a two-fold increase in the rate of Palestinian home demolitions by the Israeli authorities this year. These demolitions have razed entire villages again and again. The Bedouin village of Al-Arakib in the Negev has already been destroyed by Caterpillar bulldozers 21 times.

Russ Greenleaf, representing Jewish Voice for Peace and a coalition of interfaith shareholders, presented a shareholder proposal asking Caterpillar to review its human policies. The proposal got 21% of the shareholder votes (provisional results).
“Caterpillar’s sale of D9 bulldozers to Israel is not good for Israel, nor is it good for Caterpillar’s reputation,” said Mr. Greenleaf. “[Caterpillar] management buries its head in the sand when dealing with human rights,” he added. [Read Mr. Greenleaf's speech and the shareholder proposal here.]

Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman confirmed this assertion when he responded to the overwhelming evidence of Caterpillar bulldozers used to commit human right violations against Palestinians by saying, “How our customers use [the bulldozers] is their business. We can’t stop them.”

Yet Caterpillar has the power to stop the sale of these bulldozers today, if they so choose. According to news reports, the deliveries of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel have been suspended during the length of the Corrie trial in Israel. Cindy and Craig Corrie, are bringing a civil suit against the government of Israel in a court in Tel Aviv. Their daughter, Rachel, was a 23-year-old American peace activist killed under under a CAT bulldozer when she tried to protect the home of the Nasrallah family in Gaza from an Israeli army demolition. At the shareholder meeting, Caterpillar’s CEO would “neither confirm nor deny” that any shift in policy or practice has taken place.

ABOUT JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE
Jewish Voice for Peace is America’s largest Jewish grassroots peace group dedicated to reaching a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on the principles of equality and international human rights law.

JVP recently led a campaign to support Israeli artists’ boycott of the Ariel settlement. The campaign secured the signatures of over 200 artists dozens of Broadway and Hollywood’s leading figures including Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Theodore Bikel, Eve Ensler, Julianne Moore, Mandy Patinkin, Miriam Margolyes, Cynthia Nixon, Roseanne Barr, Ethan Hawke, Ed Asner, the architect Frank Gehry and more.

JVP works with activists in Palestine and Israel, and in broad coalition with other Jewish, Arab-American, faith-based, and peace and social justice organizations to support the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians for justice, security and self-determination.

Jewish Voice for Peace calls for:
* A U.S. foreign policy based on promoting peace, democracy, human rights, and respect for international law
* An end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem
* A resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem consistent with international law and equity
* An end to all violence against civilians


SPEECH BY RUSS GREENLEAF AT CATERPILLAR SHAREHOLDER MEETING

8 june 2011, Jewish Voice for Peace http://wedivest.org (USA)
Hi. I’m Russ Greenleaf, a shareholder with Jewish Voice for Peace and a coalition of religious organizations, speaking in favor of Proposal 11.

I am Jewish. I am not anti-Israel. I have friends in Israel, and I want what’s best for them.

Caterpillar’s sale of D9 bulldozers to Israel is not good for Israel or for Caterpillar’s reputation.

Israel’s routine use of those D9’s to destroy the homes of innocent Palestinian’s is making Israel a pariah in the world and destroying any chance for peace.
Amnesty International says, and I quote:

“House demolitions usually are carried out without warning, often at night, and the occupants are given little or no time to leave their homes. Often the only warning they get is the rumbling of the Israeli army’s Caterpillar bulldozers. They barely have time to flee as the bulldozers tear down the walls of their homes.” [Sometimes they are buried alive under the rubble.]

An Israeli newspaper reported that an Israeli army D9 dozer operator said, and I quote:

“I had no mercy for anybody. I would erase anyone with the D9. They were warned by loudspeaker to get out of the house before I came, but I gave no one a chance. I didn’t wait. I didn’t give one blow and wait for them to come out. I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible.”

Ladies and gentlemen these are very serious human rights violations, and they happen again and again — with our knowledge.

The Israeli army says, quote: “The D9 is a strategic weapon here.”

Fellow shareholders, our product has become Israel’s weapon of choice for ethnic cleansing and potentially even war crimes.

Israel knows it, and the world knows it.
Yet our management buries its head in the sand when dealing with human rights. They say, quote:

“It’s not clear what is meant by the Company’s ‘policies related to human rights.’ ”
That is exactly why we need proposal 11 – a call to review Caterpillar’s policies related to human rights and to conform more fully with human rights standards.

Caterpillar makes very little money from selling these military D9’s to Israel, and the cost to Caterpillar’s reputation is enormous and escalating. It’s time to call a halt. Passing proposal 11 is a very modest first step in that direction. It’s long overdue.

I move proposal 11. Please vote for it.

PROPOSAL 11 — Review of Global Corporate Standards

Whereas, Caterpillar, a global corporation, faces increasingly complex problems as the international social and cultural context changes.

Companies are faced with ethical and legal challenges arising from diverse cultures and political and economic contexts. Today, management must address issues that include human rights, workers’ right to organize, non-discrimination in the workplace, protection of environment and sustainable community development. Caterpillar itself does business in countries with human rights challenges including China, Colombia, Myanmar/Burma, Syria and Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

We believe global companies must implement comprehensive codes of conduct, such as those found in “Principles for Global Corporate Responsibility: Bench Marks for Measuring Business Performance,” developed by an international group of religious investors. (www.bench-marks.org) Companies must formulate policies to reduce risk to reputation in the global marketplace. To address this situation, some companies, such as Hewlett-Packard and Coca-Cola, are even extending policies to include franchisees, licensees and agents that market, distribute or sell their products.

In August 2003, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights took historic action by adopting “Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights.”(www1.umn.edu/humanrts/links/NormsApril2003.html)

RESOLVED: shareholders request the Board of Directors to review and amend, where applicable, Caterpillar’s policies related to human rights that guide international and U.S. operations, extending policies to include franchisees, licensees and agents that market, distribute or sell its products, to conform more fully with international human rights and humanitarian standards, and that a summary of this review be posted on Caterpillar’s website by October 2011.

Supporting Statement of Proponent

Caterpillar’s current policy, the Worldwide Code of Conduct, contains no references to existing international human rights codes except for a corporate policy of non-discrimination, and aspirational goals to maintain employee health and safety. It does not apply to company dealers whose activities can carry extensive reputational risks for Caterpillar. We believe company policies should reflect more robust, comprehensive understanding of human rights.

We recommend the review include policies designed to protect human rights-civil, political, social, environmental, cultural and economic-based on internationally recognized human rights standards, i.e., Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Fourth Geneva Convention, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, core labor standards of the International Labor Organization, International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights, and United Nations resolutions and reports of UN special rapporteurs on countries where Caterpillar does business.

This review and report will assure shareholders that Caterpillar policies and practices reflect or conform to human rights conventions and guidelines and international law. We are not recommending specific provisions of the above-named international conventions. We believe significant commercial advantages may accrue to Caterpillar by adopting a comprehensive policy based on UN Human Rights Norms serving to enhance corporate reputation, improve employee recruitment and retention, improve community and stakeholder relations and reduce risk of adverse publicity, consumer boycotts, divestment campaigns and lawsuits.