Israel and Palestine, including the West Bank
Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights.
Driving me from the airport in Tel Aviv to their home in Israel last winter, over rugged but green and life sustaining terrain, my sister-in-law said, "Look at all this unused land." She felt that the Arab society wasn't doing anything with the land; it took the Jewish National Fund's massive tree planting program to tame it. That's a big part of the Zionist Narrative. The popular myth among Israelis, as among Americans and many others in the so-called civilized world, is that open space is wasted space.

During the Winter of 2003/04 I was able to travel to Israel/Palestine for the first time. Besides all of the emotional and personal reasons I had for traveling there, I was curious about the ways in which an ongoing war was affecting the environmental and natural resource base of a society.

I entered into the situation having adopted the prevailing assumption that in this time of crisis, efforts at sustainable development in the cities and villages had to be put on hold as all else was subordinated to the immediate needs of "security." While I believe that this is often an excuse given by government and corporations for social control rather than a real underlying reason for policies, I considered it useful to start from this point and only reform my opinion when there was clear evidence to the contrary.

I want to add at this point that the preoccupation with security concerns to the exclusion of long-term social well-being applies equally to Israeli and Palestinian society. Both are in crisis, both currently seem to exhibit insufficient awareness of the impacts of their industrial and urban activities on environmental indicators, and environmental justice considerations are only slowly gaining acceptance.

But mostly I wanted to know about what the Occupation meant for the occupied, which is a society that is still more or less agriculturally based, and how that translated into new economic realities for the people who produced and consumed from the land. Though during the course of the seven weeks I spent there I learned something about Israeli environmental awareness and policy and prospects I was specifically interested in the Palestinian and especially the Palestinian farmer. It is hard to understand the changes happening to or in a landscape, urban or 'natural,' when you don't know what that landscape is like, so I started with that.

All of the descriptions and examples in this article come from or are supported by my own direct and multiple observations.

MY INTRODUCTION TO THE WEST BANK

Once at home in the U.S., my friend said to me with all the incredulity you'd ever heard from someone, "There are cities in the West Bank?" Another friend innocently asked, "Isn't it all a desert?" Every now and then someone will have a bit of inspiration and say, "The West Bank of what?"

The River Jordan runs north to south as the eastern border of what is therefore called the West Bank, separating the land from Jordan. Eight or nine cities populate the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as numerous villages and towns. Not unlike a place like Vermont, in most areas you are never a very far walk from the next village. Marketplaces in all types of population centers are vital to both the rural and urban economies.

The West Bank that I saw, and parts of Israel that I saw, are fertile and verdant. As a Californian with a familiarity Mediterranean climate, I was forethoughtful enough to travel there during the North American Winter, not during the dormant season in the middle of summer as Mark Twain famously had done (Innocents Abroad, 1869). It is this book that is often quoted to "prove" that it was an inhospitable landscape until the Jews returned en masse in this century. While the West Bank is similar in size to the State of Delaware or my own San Francisco Bay Area, it boasts an impressive topographical and climactic variation.

While admittedly much of the land appears harsh and inhospitable, people have made a home here since before written records were kept. Traditionally, 25% of the Palestinian population of 2.5 million derives their living from agriculture. While we think of olive groves, or citrus groves as the principal agricultural products, Palestinian potatoes, tomatoes, herbs, cabbages, plantains, nuts, stone fruits, and many other crops are grown extensively, and some still manage to make their way to European Union markets. Animal husbandry is well adapted to the region and extensively practiced.

Some landholders have thousands of olive, apricot, or almond trees. Palestine apparently marks the southern extent of apple production. The agriculture industry ranges in scope from market gardens in the towns to small shared lands adjacent to towns to large-scale landholdings, especially in the flatter Jordan Valley. Animal traction and tractors seem equally common and greenhouses and shade houses (to keep plants from being scorched in the hot, dry summer) are frequent sights.

THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE OCCUPATION [News, research, and commentary on pre- and post-1967 relations between Israel and the West Bank are available from print and on-line sources. The Occupation began after the 1967 War, in which Israel took control of, but did not annex, the West Bank out to the River Jordan. The first Intifada took place during the late 1980s and early 1990s and ended with the Oslo Peace process, which later broke down; the second Intifada has been happening since September 2000, over 3-1/2 years ago. It is this period I am most familiar with.]

An occupation requires control mechanisms by the occupying power. Whether we call it Colonial or Post-Colonial or Imperialist, what struck me most in the West Bank was the physical changes that have had to happen to the land, roads, and villages, as direct and indirect results of this control, and how they build on each other to continually hamper the efforts at environmental preservation and sustainable utilization of resources.

The physical changes manifested since then are tragically impressive, as are their effects on the environmental and social fabric. These changes include bypass roads; checkpoints; road destruction; destruction of marketplaces; toxic applications of sewage to the land; denuding of the land of trees; cistern and well destruction; water distribution pipe destruction; incomplete access to sanitary waste disposal methods; burning waste piles; settlement construction; resource intensive swimming pools; construction of the Wall/Fence; siting of industrial factories.

Settlements

The 145-200 Israeli Settlements in the West Bank function like suburbs of the Israeli urban economy. Goods are brought in from Israel proper and many Settlement residents commute back to Israel for their employment. They consist of an additional 250,000 residents of the West Bank, not counting settlers in East Jerusalem, or an additional 10% of the population. Unfortunately, urban planning for the Settlements is wanting. For example, proper sewage treatment and disposal are not universal. Wastes are not transported back to Israel nor left in the Settlements, meaning they end up in Palestinian land. In many instances raw sewage is literally dumped from hilltop Settlements onto Palestinian lands below. Untreated effluent from military installations is also visible, as coming from the Salem installation into the Palestinian town of Zebuba in the north.

Roads

Road blockages range from bulldozed gullies created in the roads, physical barriers such as immovable iron gates or giant cement blocks, and Military checkpoints. One estimate puts the number of Checkpoints at 734. Some of the larger, permanent checkpoints are particularly impacted by poor air quality and buildup of trash. These often cause Palestinians to seek alternate routes between towns and between the towns and cities. Besides adding considerably to drive times, some drivers pass through groves and over cultivated land. In addition, hundreds of miles of Israeli-only bypass roads have been created from Palestinian land.


Roadblocks can be immovable cement block or gates like this
Water

Agriculture and sanitation require water. Several large underground aquifers actually provide most of the water used for drinking and sanitation, accessed via hundreds of wells. Rainwater cisterns, a low-tech, appropriate adaptation to seasonal water scarcity, provide another common source of water. Seventy-five percent of the Jordan River is diverted before it reaches the West Bank (causing considerable worry about and research into the health of the Dead Sea). Additionally, the Palestinian Hydrology Group estimates that 85% of total West Bank and Gaza Strip groundwater is diverted to Israelis, and that an Israeli Settler uses five (5) times as much water as a Palestinian for domestic purposes.

During the course of the Occupation, access to wells, cisterns, and the associated water delivery infrastructure have been reduced through confiscation and destruction. Palestinians who have lost wells to demolitions or the wall are not given permits to drill new ones. In fact, no Palestinian is given permits to tap new water sources, only Settlers. This while the Palestinian territory sits over major parts of three of the four major aquifers of the region. 200,000 Palestinians currently remain unconnected to a water network, while the illegal Israeli Settlements have green lawns and swimming pools. Lawns are probably not what the founders of the modern State of Israel meant by the Zionist directive to "green the desert".

The Wall The Wall, or Fence, is the newest feature of the Occupation. Construction began in June of 2002. It is a physical barrier between the West Bank and Israel proper, but lies in the West Bank, east of the Green Line. Israelis call the Wall The Security Fence because, currently at the end of the first Phase of construction at around 100 miles, the majority of it is a chain link fence rather than a solid concrete barrier. Palestinians and their supporters tend to refer to it as the Wall because this describes better the function of the barrier as they see it. The concrete portions are mostly in parts of East Jerusalem and the Qalqilia region. The city of Qalqilia is completely encircled by the Wall. The Wall is proposed to run some 300 miles and encircle the most of the West Bank.

Construction of any part of the Wall involves direct and uncompensated land confiscation. Palestinian legal landholders have no real recourse, as they live under martial law while Jews and Arabs in Israel and Israeli Settlers live under Israeli Civil Law. Additionally, construction of the Wall involves destruction of homes, greenhouses, and wells. The Wall affects 22% of the area of the West Bank, and over 500,000 people.

Thirty to forty thousand acres are within what is called the Seam Zone, meaning that if you live East of the Wall and your land or water supply is West of the Wall between it and the Green Line, you have lost access to your property and livelihood except by permission of the military. Over half of the land in the Seam Zone has some agricultural purpose, and is some of the most fertile land in the region. One of the most documented impacts of the Wall is the degree to which Palestinians are cut off from markets, from water, and from land.

One of the less documented impacts is the direct impact on land from the construction of the Wall. There is some academic debate as to whether the concrete portion or the chain link portion is more devastating to the Palestinians, and most often the horror of the concrete portion is stressed because of how monolithic, permanent, and entrapping it seems. But on the other hand, the concrete portion seems more reversible, as the strip of land to build it is much narrower and one can see how the heavy equipment used to place the concrete slabs could be used to remove them.


The Fence, however, is constructed entirely differently. Commonly, the zone of the Fence consists, starting at the outside and moving to the center, a triple barrier of razor wire, then a deep ditch, then a compacted and leveled sand path, then a width of open land, and then the razor wire topped fence. This is repeated on the other side with the addition of a new paved military/construction road. The total width of the Fence is commonly 100 meters. Many tens of thousands of trees have been uprooted for this zone. This 100-meter swath has been completely transformed, even if the conflict were resolved.
The Factories

Several Israeli factories have moved their operation to just over the Green Line in to Palestinian Territory in the last 15 years. One of these I observed is noted to be a chemical factory, and through its effluent and air emissions, has impacted the row crops and trees adjacent to it, and consequently the incomes of the families whose land was confiscated for the construction of the factory. Another next to this one is a Materials Recovery Facility. I don't know to what extent these factories are regulated or inspected as they would be in Israel proper, but it is well-known that the Palestinians in the villages that have received them have had no say in the permitting process or in assuring health safeguards. It is reminiscent of the Maquilidora process on the U.S. Mexico border and in other areas where an economic powerhouse takes advantage of an adjacent economy with cheap available labor and fewer regulations.

IMPACT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND POLICIES ON AGRICULTURE

In the first three years of the Second Intifada, the share of Palestinian GDP derived from the agricultural sector dropped from approximately 33% to 9%, according to several studies. Real per capita income has dropped 30% in the last three years, primarily due to closures that prevent people from getting to work within Israel or Palestine. Unemployment in the West Bank is estimated to be at 78%.

Losses of $185 Million in the Agricultural Sector in 2002 were demonstrated due to destruction of land an uprooting of trees alone. Another $400+ million in losses was demonstrated due to decreasing prices of agricultural products, increased prices of fodder, and loss of exports to Israel, Jordan, and other countries. That's in 2002 alone, before the major construction of the Wall.

According to researchers and activists I spoke with, the biggest constraints on agriculture in the West Bank come concurrently from some common and from some unusual sources. On the one hand, cited as leading factors are familiar aspects such as dependence on the Green Revolution model of Development, and a subordination of the role of women.

On the other hand, newer constraints, not largely shared with other cultures confronted by Western encroachment, have more to do with the series of Infrastructure and Policy apparatus of the Occupation, and have been greatly exacerbated in the last few years.

Clearly, Palestinian farmers, vendors, and consumers are suffering under the apparatus of the Occupation. I was able to visit several villages and cities to witness the difficulties of maintaining the agrarian economy under these circumstances.

When water resources have been confiscated or destroyed, water trucks are not necessarily an option due to roadblocks. Cultivated land that is merely in the proximity of a Settlement, such as has been documented in the Hebron area, can be unavailable only due to the threat of violence from Settlers, who can claim that a Palestinian working the land that has been in their family for hundreds of years is a potential terrorist.

In the Village of Jayyous, farmers have to have permits issued by the military command in order to cross through a gate in the fence to go to their land. Permits are not always given, and can be revoked without cause or due process. The Gate is opened at the whim of the Military, not at the needs of the farmers. Recently, a whole flock of sheep has been dying in the town of Jayyous because the shepherd has not been allowed to take them out to fields to graze. Some families simply camp on their land instead of returning to their homes if they need to work past when the gate is opened for them.

In the town of Tulkarm, I spent several days with a farmer whose fields had been partially confiscated to build the Wall on the West, and Israeli factories on the East. Many greenhouses in this area have been damaged or fallen into disuse. And because of this man's outspokenness, he has been shot at from the Wall while he and his family have worked their already contaminated land.

Other impacts have been noted in the social fabric of agricultural communities, as individuals who used to work full time in agriculture have had to take work in other sectors when they can find it, and their children are not learning the trade that has passed from generation to generation. Continuous soil improvement, a common practice in agricultural economies, has also been interrupted including by a loss of imports of amendments. Destruction of olive groves leads to land erosion in some terrains. Formerly thriving markets where Palestinian and Israeli Arabs engaged in trade are closed due to disuse rather than outright destruction by the Israeli Military, leading to further isolation of the Palestinian communities and dependence on foreign aid.


Farmers protest separation from their own land.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS

In the absence of strong governmental leadership, several Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations, of the hundreds of important NGOs operating in Palestine, work to improve the condition of the Palestinian farmer and environment directly.

The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) works in rural development and environment protection, with an emphasis on the enhancement of women's role and status. They provide extension courses and support activities and services for farmers and those who depend on the land and resources for their livelihoods.

The Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG) is composed primarily of hydrology engineers who work to protect, conserve, and develop the precious water resources of the West Bank for all sectors. Water recycling and conservation is in some ways more developed in Palestine than it is in California.

The Ma'an Development Center places its emphasis more on human development and capacity building. They produce some of the best pamphlets in Arabic on topics such as food contamination, sustainable agricultural models, and occupational hazards of chemical agriculture. Training programs for specific sectors are a primary tool to achieve their goals. Interestingly, Ma'an emphasizes Permaculture techniques and design processes in their agricultural trainings, and at one point had the only Permaculture demonstration site in the West Bank. In 2001, the Israeli Military destroyed Ma'an's Permaculture Demonstration site at Marda for alleged security reasons, directly below one of the largest Israeli Settlements of Ariel. With it went the largest seed bank in the West Bank. They continue to promote sustainable agriculture despite these setbacks.

One example is illustrative. Roadblocks can ruin perishable crops. Crops with a short shelf life may be lost if a delivery truck is forced to return to its point of origin on its way to a market. One emerging trend is for farmers and the NGOs that support them to consider crop substitution and Value Added Products and food preservation as survival strategies.

Various developments are designed to ease the hardship on the Palestinian population. In February of 2004, for example, the United Nations World Food Program purchased $1.3 million of olive oil from poor farmers unable to get their oil to markets due to the Wall or closures. The oil is to be delivered in part to residents in the southern part of the West Bank who have reduced access to olive oil for the same reasons. In other words, the U.N. is taking the oil 40 miles away because the Palestinians are not permitted to get it there through market mechanisms.

But above all, I was privileged to meet with members of the Palestinian Society for Recycling and Environmental Development, a new volunteer organization of professionals and activists interested in keeping discussions of sustainable development alive even in this time of crisis. They were working on a paper recycling program for areas of the West Bank, at possibly the worst time one could imagine trying to do such a thing. They have a proposal. They want Palestinians, who they see as stuck in victim mentality, to continue to think about their future as a society and not keep putting off creating their own destiny. They are hopeful.

Additionally, on the Israeli side of the Green Line, I met many energetic activists who reject the state sponsored notion that all else must be subordinated to security concerns. These individuals and groups concern themselves with countering the conventional wisdom of the benefits of globalization and are working to demonstrate alternatives to common wasteful practices in the fields of energy generation, solid waste management, and water usage. All of this while fighting the Occupation

IN CONCLUSION

All of the infrastructure and policy aspects of the Occupation - checkpoints, roadblocks, closures, demolitions, and intimidation - affect the access of farmers to their land and agricultural products to markets, be they internal or within Gaza, or to Israel, Jordan, and even Europe. . For example, trade with Israeli Arabs over the Green Line has virtually ceased. Food Security in Gaza also is threatened due to restricted access from West Bank farmers.

Behind all of these threats to the agricultural sector and natural resource base, is the looming threat of the effects of globalization on the Palestinian economy and society. Regardless of the political outcome to the conflict, the West Bank will be at the whim of its economic powerhouse neighbor. As many advocates and activists are learning, you have to help farmers stay on their lands, and residents in their cities, by providing not just financial help, but services, political work, and hope. And that hope sometimes comes from articulating a clear vision of not only a just world, but an ecologically sensible one.

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Resources:

On the Web:

Palestinian Hydrology Group
Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees
Ma'an Devemopment Center
The Palestine Monitor
GreenAction
PENGON, the Palestinian Environmental Network