Palestinians vote for Labor, sort of….

by: Ghassan Khatib

An unprecedented survey of Palestinian public opinion on the two main political parties in Israel revealed that a slight majority of 62.2 percent believe that if the Labor Party won the next Israeli elections, it would be better for the peace process. Only some 6.1 percent of Palestinians think that a Likud win would be better; 17.2 do not know and 7.4 percent see no difference between the two parties with regard to the peace process.

The poll, conducted in July by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre, showed that less than half of the Palestinian people are optimistic that the Labor Party will win the next elections (47.9 percent), which indicates a certain pessimism about the situation in Israel and, consequently, towards the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Interestingly, Palestinian respondents were divided in their opinions about Labor Party leader Ehud Barak; only 55.2 percent knew that Barak is the head of Labor, and less than half (43.1 percent) believe that were Barak to take over as head of the Israeli government, it would lead to progress in the peace process.

In fact, 31.8 percent believe that should Barak come to power, it will have no impact at all on the peace process. It also appears that many Palestinians are not very impressed with the idea of Barak taking charge of the peace process. Less than half (44.3 percent) expressed optimism that should Barak succeed in winning the election, the composition of the new Israeli government would make them more optimistic about the peace process, while 37.5 percent felt that Barak assuming power would not change their levels of optimism or pessimism at all.

Analysis of the poll results shows a relationship between the Palestinian position towards the peace process and popular opinions of the two Israeli political parties. Those who are more optimistic about future Labor Party performance are those who support the peace process “ 53.7 percent of those who support the peace process are also optimistic about possible progress in the negotiations if Ehud Barak and Labor assumes power, as opposed to only 22.7 percent of those opposed to the peace process who are optimistic that there will be progress negotiations if Barak assumes power in Israel.

In general, with regard to Palestinian popular opinion about the peace process, the Oslo Accords and their feelings of optimism or pessimism about the future, there was no marked change in these poll results when compared to the previous poll conducted two months earlier, in May.

To view results go to: JMCC public opinion poll no.27 On Palestinian Attitudes Towards Israeli Parties

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Palestinian filmmaker Subhi Zobaidi, a product of Jalazon Refugee Camp and New York University, is taking off. His personal statement on al-Nakba, “My Very Private Map”, won the 4e PRIX IMA BIENALE for Best Short Documentary in Paris in July, and his latest effort, “Women in the Sun”, touches on some extremely difficult issues concerning women's rights in Palestinian society. The film will be shown at a conference on violence against women in Amman in September and is to be screened in Ramallah in the near future. Palestine Report caught up with him as he was in post-production.

PR: How did you decide to do a film about women?

SZ: The idea for this film started more than a year and half ago. Almost every day in the newspapers, I was reading reports of suicides, and I began thinking that I wanted to do a film on suicide. When I was in Gaza, I found myself filming events and things related to suicide. In June 1997, the Ministry of Information hosted a conference on the problem, and I found it interesting how the issue of suicide became so multi-layered and controversial when it came to women “ the discussion was mostly geared towards women, as if suicide was a “women's problem” and not a societal problem. Women were discussed at this conference almost as scapegoats. Then I did interviews with three women from Gaza, each one of them had attempted suicide. I think their personal stories, their voices and the dark places they speak from made me really just want to focus on women in this film. And maybe I was set up for such a thing from long before “ I always liked my mother and my sisters more than my father. In New York, in my studies, whether it was being Palestinian, being a refugee, I don't know, but I found myself attracted to areas of readings and writings “ feminist studies, gay and lesbian groups, black consciousness “ these groups that still have some subversive elements to them.

This is not a film about Palestinian women “ this is not a representation of Palestinian women, this is a film of perspectives, it sheds light on some areas of the lives of some Palestinian women. How representative they are I don't know. Who can judge, who can tell how much it applies? I don't know. This is a personal film “ because I really wanted to tell my sisters and my mother how much I love them in this film.

PR: Was it easy to get these women in Gaza to talk to you, as a man?

SZ: It was a really long process until these women opened up their hearts, but when they finally spoke you could feel how much they really needed to talk “ one woman says over and over again that her problem was that she didn't find any sympathy, there was no one who would listen to her. For most of these women, what really made them sad and miserable was that they were always treated as a formula of preconceived ideas, they never had the chance to express what they wanted.

Then, after finishing the section in Gaza, I was really lucky to experience the ideas of the Women's Model Parliament. I think this is one of the moengaging, challenging and interesting intellectual events to happen here in Palestine in a long time. It touched on difficult issues. I found in the Women's Model Parliament an impressive intellectual resonance to those personal narratives I was filming in Gaza. The combination clicked.

PR: Can you describe the film ?

SZ: The film is composed of lots of narratives “ some personal and some fragments of public debates “ which have intellectual, political and cultural significance. I really didn't tell stories in this film, I just shared views about certain issues, all relating to women's rights. What makes up the film are these personal narratives, to which I have given some visual association, an image that is somehow linked to that area from which this woman speaks, a hidden or dark area. With most of the women you don't see their faces “ their identities are concealed. I tried to substitute this identity with visual images. I was lucky that many people I met were really willing to share their experiences, which tells you how much they are alive and willing to engage in society.

There are four or five women whose voices you hear over visuals of the sunrise, the moon, and they speak about personal things “ “what happened to me”. Their narratives are mixed with fragments of public debates about incest, early marriage, suicide, Islamic law and women, tradition. There are these two guys who killed their first cousin because she “dishonored” the family, and they talk from behind prison bars. They are two beautiful young men, and the film shows the confusion, asking them why they felt they had to kill their cousin, how does something like that translate in your body, how does it feel, how does it translate into her body? And they talk about how they felt they couldn't go into this village, they couldn't look in people's eyes, they couldn't be with their wives, until they killed her.

I really do engage Islam in this film, again not in a representational way. I tried to present a spectrum of Islamic ideas. Some of the most brilliant things in the film are said by a Muslim man, and some of the most difficult things are said by a Muslim leader. He crystallizes a great deal of the discourse “ he's religious, patriarchal, he's a constellation of so many things that are at work ideologically in this part of the world “ ideas that are dominant, masterminding what is going on. This local leader arranged to speak to about 400 women, to “teach them” about women's rights and the “truth” of the things that were being spoken about at the Model Parliament. And these women were clapping for him, cheering...

PR: How did you manage to make this film when you are unfunded?

SZ: It is really difficult to make a film, really, to spend a year making a film is a difficult thing. I don't want to be misunderstood with the money thing, but I think that film should be taken more seriously.

I mean that there is a good number of films being made right now, many presenting preconceived ideas. This film has been done on credit, like “My Very Private Map”, but now my credit cards are $30,000 in debt! But maybe for the first time, there is a

film that starts fundraising for itself just after it's completed. The women involved in the Women's Model Parliament, WCLAC, they want to help. And, you know, this is really a film for local audiences. I don't care about foreign audiences, let me say that in capital letters. I wish I could afford to make 50,000 copies and send them out for five shekels each so that this film can reach every Palestinian household.

PR: And what's next?

SZ: Well, what I hope for in presenting these films in the name of reFugee camp productions is to offer a space in which I can let other people in, young people who want to do film. I hope I can really make something called reFugee camp productions “ it's an idea I will work hard to materialize. I feel lucky that I some young people who have a lot to offer and want to work in film.

“Women in the Sun” will be shown at a documentary film festival dedicated to human rights in Rome in October, a film festival in Brussels in November, the Haifa Film Festival, and will be shown in Amman in September at an international symposium entitled “Eliminating Violence Against Women in Muslim Societies”. For more information on “Women in the Sun” or other projects, contact:

reFugee camp productions

PO Box 1908

Ramallah, Palestine

Tel: +972.2.295.5617

Fax: +972.2.2954640

E-mail: subhi@baraka.org

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by: Charmaine Seitz

East Jerusalem “ 'Abed Ammoure, has lived the American dream. At the age of 18, he left his hometown of Shu'fat, near Jerusalem, to go to the United States. There he studied, bought some properties, and made a nice nest egg for himself. Now he has come back to Jerusalem with his wife and three children and the Israeli government is telling him that he can't leave “ or at least not without first giving up the Jerusalem identification card that gives him permission to be here in his birthplace.

“Any other country would not get away with this,” he says in a long Texan drawl, sitting outside the grocery that he runs with his brother. While the Interior Ministry has yet to tell 'Abed to choose a citizenship, he says he knows that the summons they gave him the last time he flew into Ben Gurion can mean only one thing “ that he will be asked to sign a paper that relinquishes his residency status.

'Abed's brother was given the same summons. Once at the Ministry of Interior in East Jerusalem, his blue identity card was confiscated. When he complained to the American consulate, he was told that the problem was taken care of; his identification was waiting for him. But the Ministry again turned him away. One and a half years later, he is still a de facto visitor to his home, traveling on his American passport.

'Abed knew that he was risking his Jerusalem residency status when he came back last year. An Israeli law puts a seven-year limit on the length of time residents of Jerusalem can stay out of the country; it is Palestinian Jerusalemites rather than Jewish Israelis who are considered merely “residents” of the city, with revocable rights. This law, as well as the recent detemination that residents must prove that their “center of life” is in Jerusalem has allowed the Israeli government to confiscate the identification cards of thousands of Palestinians. “Two to three identification cards are confiscated every day,” says Matt Brubaker of Badil, a human rights center that focuses on residency rights. He says that last year, the rate of the confiscations increased by 600 percent as the Israeli government attempted to decrease the Palestinian population of the city to below 30 percent.

Once a Palestinian has been targeted for ID confiscation, there is little recourse. While Badil represents Palestinians in these cases, there are very few victories. One success is the court ruling allowing Jerusalem women who marry Palestinians in the West Bank to apply for residency status for their husbands. At one time, it was simply assumed that they would move in with their husbands' families.

Yet even though the risks were great, 'Abed took a chance to return to the town where his family traces a 2,000 year-old history . He says that he wanted his children to value their history and culture. “I wanted to teach my children different values “ family ties.” While 'Abed's return to his family may seem like sentiment that right-wing American politicians would agree with, he doesn't take solace in that fact. “[Newt] Gingrich came here and showed his ignorance,” says the 38-year-old. “This is a time bomb. You cannot tell the Arab world and Muslim world that you took Jerusalem.”

Until the political tides change, 'Abed is waiting, unable to leave the country to check on his several properties, and unwilling to stay here. Instead, he runs his two gas stations through a fax machine and hopes for better times.

“Like a great Texan once said,” he quotes, “You never count your money while you're sitting at the table. And we're still sitting at the table.”

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More Settlements

According to an announcement by Peace Now on August 12, Israeli settlers are building 6,000 new housing units in settlements in the occupied West Bank, where 3,000 units are already lying vacant. The organization says that it carried out inspections at 143 settlements and counted 5,892 construction sites, which will ultimately provide an additional 40,000-42,000 housing units. Moshe Raz of Peace Now pointed out that settlements are currently increasing construction by 15 percent, while their natural growth rate is only 3.2 percent annually (al-Quds).

Marriage Fever

According to recent statistics provided by the Islamic Shari'a court, marriages in the Palestinian territories have increased by about 5 percent so far, compared with figures recorded last year. Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, acting director of the court, stated this week that more people are getting married, despite the deterioration in the economy, but he attributed to the increase in part to the number of Palestinians returning from abroad. Another reason for the current marriage epidemic, according to the Sheikh, is that wedding costs and dowries have gone down, as more people are participating in collective wedding ceremonies organized by various Islamic groups. Tamimi says that 5,448 marriage contracts were concluded in the first five months of 1998, compared to 12,599 recorded contracts for all of 1997 (al-Risala).

Allowed Entry

The Israeli government's Coordinator of Activities in the Occupied Territories announced on August 16 that another 3,000 Palestinian businesspeople and merchants from the West Bank and Gaza are to be allowed unrestricted access to Israel. According to the announcement, released on Israel Radio, approximately 21,000 Palestinian business are already able to carry out commercial transactions inside Israel. No confirmation of this figure was available (al-Quds).

Three's a Charm

Thirty-five Israeli and American peace activists showed up on August 15 to help reconstruct the Shawamreh family home in 'Anata yet again. This is the third time the home has been rebuilt; it was first demolished by the Israeli authorities as an “illegal structure” on July 9, 1998. Israeli and foreign volunteers rebuilt it then too; the second house was demolished on August 3, 1998 (al-Ayyam).

Payback Time

According to the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahranot, the Israeli authorities have agreed to pay compensation to the family of Naser Hreizat, who died three years ago after being interrogated by the Israeli intelligence unit Shabak. Hreizat, who was arrested in April 1995 on suspicion of being an Islamic activist, was interrogated in the Russian Compound (Moscobiyya) in Jerusalem. Following interrogation, Hreizat was taken to hospital in a coma where he later died; it is thought that his death was due to the severe shaking he was subjected to during interrogation sessions. Hreizat's family filed a lawsuit against the Israeli police and intelligence service, and will now be paid compensation which was not specified but is thought to be in the range of NIS1,370,000 (approximately US$375,340).

Celebrating Steadfastness

A Popular Arts Festival marking the one-year anniversary of the Sumoud Camp is scheduled to take place on August 26 on Nablus Road near the Sheikh Jarrah mosque in East Jerusalem. The fesival will include tours of the camp, art exhibits by the camp children and artists from al-Wasiti Arts Center, the grand opening of the camp's library and a tree-planting ceremony. At 6:pm a march is also scheduled to take place from the campsite towards the Israeli Interior Ministry calling for the halt to ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem (Badil).

Set Aflame

Jewish extremists set fire to three cars in Jerusalem's Musrara Square and near Damascus gate on August 13. One of the cars belonged to the representative of the German Trade and Industry Chamber in the Palestinian territories (al-Quds).

Explosive Situation

Head of the Israeli Central Command has given settlers from Yitzhar and Bracha permission to stay overnight at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus following the killing of two settlers from Yitzhar settlement last week so as to allow them the proper mourning period. Due to the rising tension among Palestinians as a result of this move, which they say in a violation of the status quo, Palestinian policemen have tightened their security checks on visitors to the site. On August 17, the PA halted all settler visits to the tomb after a group of settlers refused to leave the site following the end of the six-day ritual mourning period (Ha'aretz, al-Ayyam).

Green Line Security

The Israeli inner cabinet on security approved a plan on August 16 to put a halt to car thefts across the Green Line. The entire project, expected to cost approximately NIS100 million, entails erecting natural and artificial barriers along the 324 kilometer-long border in places where unrestricted passage is currently possible. Israeli sources have revealed that there will be at least 80 kilometers of barriers, including ditches, walls and fences. The four designated areas for construction are north of Jenin, the Jerusalem Corridor, south west of Hebron and the southern Sharon (Ha'aretz).

Arrested in Cairo

According to a diplomatic source in Beirut, Fateh Revolutionary Council leader Sabri al-Banna (Abu Nidal) was arrested two weeks ago on arrival in Cairo. The source added that Egyptian security arrested Abu Nidal while carrying a forged Tunisian passport, although a spokesman for the Revolutionary Council denies any such report and the Egyptian interior ministry claims it has “no information on the matter.” (Ha'aretz).

Angered Arabs

Palestinians inside Israel are angry and resentful aboutthe official report prepared by the Israeli prime minister's office which says that Arabs should be treated as “a potential strategic threat.” Arab Israeli Knesset members Azmi Bishara and Hashem Mahameed responded to the report by saying that the Netanyahu government policies are the real strategic threat (al-Quds).

Concern Over Jerusalem

According to a report published in the Washington Post, Israel is concerned about the number of Jewish citizens leaving Jerusalem due to high housing costs, traffic jams and the increase of Palestinians in the city (al-Quds).

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While Israeli troops have redeployed to the edge of the Gaza Strip and from all or part of seven West Bank cities, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory is by no means finished. The JMCC seeks to keep a record of acts of Israeli violence (both military and civilian), and collective punishment. The following figures are for 6 - 12 August and were compiled from the Palestinian press and JMCC sources. They should not be considered a complete list of the ongoing Israeli violations of human rights of Palestinians.

DEMOLISHED the Sharabati family home in Anata for the second time and one home in Qattana near Ramallah by Israeli authorities.

ATTACKED forty-year-old shepherd from keesan near Bethlehem by Israeli settlers