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    PARC and its partner organizations completed the first phase of the forty year campaign

    July 9 2007

     

The Agricultural Development Association (PARC), the Rural Women’s Development Society (RWDS), the Palestinian Farmer Union (PFU), and the Youth Development Association (YDA) completed the first phase of their campaign against the continuing Israeli occupation of the West Bank including Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.


 

 

 

 

 

The campaign was launched by the aforementioned organizations in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the Israeli military occupation on the fifth of June 1967. It aimed to send three messages to the parties to the conflict:

(1) To the occupation power affirming that coexistence and normalization with occupation is quite impossible.

(2) To the two Palestinian factions which are fighting against each other calling them to stop their bloody fight immediately and make a breakthrough in the frozen  national dialogue by reaching a national unified agenda acceptable to all parties.

(3) To the international community demanding it to lift the political and economic siege off the Palestinian people and to support us in our pursuit to end the Israeli occupation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The campaign was launched on 30 May and closed on 30 June under the motto “Occupation no more”.  It composed of two phases; the first phase was intensive and lasted one month. The second phase will start in July and continue up to May 2008, which marks the Palestinian Naqba (disaster) in 1948.  The campaign comprised a number of events that sought to activate grassroots’ engagement in the peaceful struggle against the occupation.  

In the first phase the following activities were implemented:

  1. Holding a press conference in which representatives of PARC and RWDS launched the campaign and gave a briefing on the agriculture sector throughout the forty years of occupation. The general director of PARC stressed the entwined relation between land and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He indicated that land has been the core of this long standing conflict, and the main source of farmers' living and steadfastness. Therefore, PARC has been implementing a number of developmental interventions, which helped farmers to face the challenges and problems resulted from the Israeli cruel measures and policies against the land and the agriculture sector.  For a quarter century, PARC has provided farmers with extension services, house economy projects, land reclamation and agricultural road opening, employment opportunities, and alternative sources such as water for irrigation. Additionally, PARC has contributed to the enhancement of the grassroots role in resisting the Wall and the Israeli settlements.

  2. Issuing and disseminating a bilingual documentary report on the impacts of the Israeli occupation on the agriculture sector and rural life. The purpose of the report was to highlight the occupation's policies and measures, and their consequences on the ground.  It also aimed to prevent further exacerbation of  the sector's situations and mobilize local and international support for it. The report included a number of significant indicators. It shed light on the various Israeli policies such as the (1) land expropriation, (2) building of settlements, (3) construction of tunnels and road networks, (4) erection of the Wall, (5) fragmentation of the Palestinian territories, and (6) the siege and closure of the outlets. The report exposed the Israeli systematic policy to undermine and subjugate the Palestinian agriculture. Throughout the past forty years, Israel has been the main supplier of agricultural inputs such as seeds and seedlings, as well as pesticides and equipment. Israel tightly controlled the agricultural infrastructure that comprised grading, filling, cooling, storage and market services. The report was concluded with a number of recommendations that targeted the Palestinian stakeholders and concerned international parties.

  3. Sending out an open letter to the G8 at their summit in Germany appealing to them to take a firm position against the policies of property destruction, expulsion, confinement, and deprivation of livelihoods, which Israel continuously implements against the Palestinian people. PARC and its partner organizations held the G8 responsible for Israel's flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the international humanitarian law. They also held them accountable for enabling our people to exercise their right to sustainable development, which was ensured in the millennium declaration issued by the United Nations in  September 2000.

  4. Organizing a massive demonstration in Qalqilya (north of the West Bank) on 10 June 2007 in which more than one thousand farmers, rural women and youths participated. The demonstrators headed to the Wall gate known as the labor gate through which Palestinian workers enter to their places of work in Israel. Upon arrival at the gate, the Israeli soldiers attacked the demonstrators in an attempt to stop them from breaking into the other side of the wall where many of them own land. At that moment, the demonstrators started to chant slogans then they burned down a mimic puppet in a form of an Israeli soldier  On the scene, a number of speeches were delivered by representatives of PARC and the People Party. They saluted the demonstrators who participated in the demonstration despite the checkpoints and the extremely hot weather. They also appealed to the Palestinian leadership and the two dominant factions to stop their internal fighting and to watch over the national project rather than their narrow factional interests. The speakers and demonstrators showed unbending determination to continue the resistance against the Israeli occupation until the evacuation of the last Israeli soldier from the OPT.

  5. Organizing a peaceful demonstration in Um Salamona (south of Bethlehem) on June 8 with the participation of four hundred Palestinians and tens of international supporters and Israeli peace activists participated. Though it was a peaceful vigil against the construction of the Wall and the continuing Israeli occupation, the Israeli army brutally attacked the demonstrators. As a result, three Palestinians were wounded, five internationals and Israelis as well as three Palestinians were arrested and taken to the Kiryat Araba' settlement near Hebron. They were released later on in the same day.

  6. Holding a public meeting in Beit Jala (near Bethlehem) on 5 June. The main speaker was the member of the general secretariat of the Palestinian People Party. He focused on the Palestinian situation and the current developments on the internal and external arenas. He gave a comprehensive outlook of the factors that played a crucial role in the Palestinian national pursuit to liberation including the relationship with the Arabic regimes and the international community.

  7. Holding a televised meeting in Bethlehem on 4 June, in which representatives of PARC and RWDS spoke. They highlighted a number of important issues such as the political developments in the wake of the fortieth anniversary of the Israeli occupation. They also exposed the continued Israeli policy of settlement and wall construction in flagrant violation of the ICJ opinion. They focused on PARC's interventions, which aimed to support farmers and rural families and achieve sustainable rural development. A special emphasis was placed on the contribution of the Palestinian rural women in the national struggle, and their situations under the Israeli occupation and under the Palestinian National Authority.

  8. Organizing a peaceful demonstration in Bethlehem on 5 June headed towards the bypass road 60. Activists from Bethlehem and Hebron participated in the demonstration along with representatives of the Land Defense Committee and the Coordinating Committee of the Political Factions. Furthermore, foreign solidarity groups and Israeli peace activists participated in the demonstration. Heavy troops of Israeli army attacked the demonstration and hand clashes broke out between demonstrators and the soldiers

  9. Organizing a massive demonstration in Ramallah on 5 June, in which hundreds of people participated. Representatives of political parties joined the demonstration besides farmers, rural women and youths. Protestors raised slogans condemning the Israeli occupation and holding it and its allies in the US and UK responsible for the continuing suffering of the Palestinian people. In the end of the demonstration, representatives of PARC, political parties and the PNA delivered speeches at the city centre where a huge crowed of press and media gathered to shoot the event.

  10. Organizing a funeral vigil in Ramallah on 21 June, in which hundreds of   protestors mourned the innocent Palestinians who got killed in the bloody conflict between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza. The protestors held a mimic coffin wrapped with a black flag and raised the Palestinian national flag and some banners with mottos condemning the internal fighting and calling for an immediate halt to the bloodshed. The protestors headed to the Presidential Compound, where a wave of journalists who happened to be on the location, shot the vigil and took tens of interviews. The protestors condemned the military takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas and the declaration of the state of emergency in the West Bank by President Abbas. Further to that, the protestor warned of violation of human rights and public freedoms under the state of emergency.

         

 

It is worth noting that the staff, friends and volunteers of PARC and its partner organizations actively participated in the other events, which were organized by the national movement and the civil society in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the OPT.