Palestinians call for international solidarity against Israel’s annexation plans
Palestinians in the Jordan Valley are facing ongoing harassment by the Israeli occupation authorities. The Israeli state is gearing up towards a full annexation of this fertile area on the West Bank’s eastern flank.
On 12 July, Palestinian grassroots group Jordan Valley Solidarity (JVS) told The Canary:
Today the occupation authority have shut down the electricity on Fasayil and Al Zubeidat villages. No more electricity [from 1-4pm] ’til the people agree to pay the money to the occupation authority for past and future electricity.
Rashed Khudairy from JVS told us:
Two months ago [in May] the Israelis removed the signs mentioning the names of our villages and communities in the north of the Jordan Valley, in the villages of Bardala, Kurdala and Ein Al Beida.
The signs [which had originally been put up by the Israeli occupation] said that the villages were Area B [i.e. designated as temporarily under joint Palestinian / Israeli control according to the Oslo agreements of the 1990s] and it was not allowed for Israeli citizens to enter. Already they removed them, that means that they have already started the annexation of the Jordan Valley.
Massive land grab
Israel is attempting its biggest land grab for decades. In January, US president Donald Trump gave US approval to Israel’s plans to annex the Jordan Valley, part of the occupied West Bank. Israeli leaders have wanted to claim the Valley for Israel since it was illegally occupied by military force in 1967.
The Jordan Valley is home to 65,000 Palestinians. Since the occupation in 1967, almost 50 illegal Israeli colonies have been established across the Valley, housing 13,000 colonists.
The Israeli state also plans to extend Israeli law to, or in other words annex, all of its illegal colonies in the West Bank. Israel’s colonies, known as settlements, are illegal under international law.
Ongoing harassment
The earliest date that annexation could take place was 1 July. However Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is stalling, apparently waiting for further US approval. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Jordan Valley are facing intensified harassment against their communities. During May and June, Israeli forces demolished Palestinian shops and water pipes and confiscated agricultural equipment from farmers, as well as destroying a Palestinian home.
Call for international solidarity
JVS is calling for international solidarity. According to Khudairy:
What we are asking of people internationally is to make more protests and demonstrations to stop this apartheid and to end the occupation. And to make pressure on international parliaments and governments to stop the Israeli government from making these attacks and harassments against our people. Also we ask people internationally to join the BDS movement [the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel].
Featured image via Jordan Valley Solidarity (With Permission)
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I’ve been to the Jordan Valley on 3 occasions, so know the area quite well. Road signs with the names of Palestinian villages and towns are totally missing – as they are throughout the occupied West Bank – although the names of major cities, such as Jericho can be seen. This refusal to recognize the Palestinian communities who have been living in the area for centuries is part of the whole project by Israel to grab the whole of this fertile land for themselves. They have already stolen whole swathes of it, evidenced by the many illegal settlements whose agri-businesses supply our supermarkets with their produce. The precious water sources, seen in locked enclosures along the main roads, are exclusively kept for settlers while most Palestinian villages struggling to survive in the face of constant home demolitions and attempts of displacement by the Israeli army and settlers have to buy tanks of water which are delivered to their villages. Instead of continuing to describe what I have seen – I recommend you go and see for yourselves.
Unfortunately, in UK if you so much acknowledge the existence of the Palestinians as a people, you get called an anti-semite; the best, most decent leader the Labour Party ever had just got hounded out of his job by allegations of anti-semitism in the gutter press just for calling for the Israeli stae to not be so trigger-happy and stop shooting palestinian kids; it seems that calling for anything short of “Kill them all! To the last child!” is enough to get you called an anti-semite and subjected to an unrelenting tirade of abuse in the press. Even the Israeli ambassador to the UK is on record as saying “there is no such thing as a palestinian”!