Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 16)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 16)
- المحتوى
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Background for the Uprising
20 Years of Dispossession, Exploitation and Brutality
The uprising in occupied Palestine has entered the fourth month with an intensity that causes political
analysts to include it as a major factor in the balance of power in the region. The popular revolt has spread
throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and involved the Palestinians living in the Zionist state itself.
The current uprising has a dual cause:(1) the objective reality of the Zionist occupation with the political,
social and economic repression it entails;(2) the subjective Palestinian factor, i.e., the structural
development of the Palestinian vanguard organizations that are united in the PLO, enabling them to sus-
tain and coordinate an advanced popular uprising. The following article focuses on the objective factor:
the Israeli occupation policy against which the Palestinian people are struggling.
The Zionist occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
dates back to the 1967 war. Over the past 20 years, the occupa-
tion has altered all aspects of life for the Palestinian people
living in these territories. Daily they experience social,
economic and political repression. A whole generation has
grown up under occupation; they also grew up parallel to the
growth of the PLO, as their sole, legitimate representative and
leader of the struggle for an independent Palestinian state.
THE PALESTINIAN POPULATION —
DEMOGRAPHY
Before the 1967 war, there were 981,000 Palestinians living
in the West Bank. Forced emigration resulting from the war
reduced the number to 599,000. Since then, lack of job oppor-
tunities and political repression has caused further emigration,
but this was more than balanced by natural increase. Accor-
ding to a 1986 estimate, there were 835,000 Palestinians in the
West Bank; 542,000 in the Gaza Strip; and 125,000 in East
Jerusalem.
The Palestinian population in the 1976 occupied territories is
a very young one. In the West Bank, 46% are under the age of
14; in the Gaza Strip, the percentage is 48%. This means that
more than half the people in the 1967 occupied territories were
born under occupation. To them, any solution that entails
«returning» the West Bank to Jordan, or Gaza to Egypt, is
totally alien. Population forecasts show that by 1990, there will
be 900,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and 600,000 in the
Gaza Strip. By the year 2000, the combined population of these
areas is expected to be 1,986,000.
LAND CONFISCATION
Confiscating Palestinian land has been the fulcrum of Israeli
policy in the occupied land - the first step in creating set-
tlements. Land confiscation has deformed the natural
development of the Palestinian society, destroying the peasan-
try in order to create a reserve labor force to do degrading
work in the Zionist state at substandard wages. Today ‘Israel’
controls 52% of the land in the West Bank and 40% in the
Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, 2,268,000 dunums have been
confiscated by ‘Israel’ (41%), while another 570,000 dunums
(11%) are controlled by virtue of the restrictions imposed on
their use. Of the Gaza Strip’s 360,500 dunums, 40% have been
designated Israeli state land. Not only has the Gaza Strip’s
16
agricultural sector been undermined by land confiscation, this
has made the Strip one of the most densely populated areas in
the world: 5,440 persons per square mile. In contrast,
something over 2,000 Zionist settlers in 18 settlements have
access to the «state land».
Recently, the pace of land confiscation slowed down. This is
not, however, due to a change in Israeli occupation policy.
Rather, ‘Israel’ has acquired sufficient land for the settlers it is
able to bring to the 1967 occupied territories and for its
military requirements. Only 7% of the confiscated land is
designated for housing, but this can accomodate 800,000 to
one million settlers, based on a gross population density of two
families per dunum.
STEALING WATER
Combined with land confiscation, Israeli robbery of the
water resources of the West Bank is a main factor in the decline
of the Palestinians’ agriculture and standard of living. The
water potential of the West Bank is 600 million cubic meters
per year. ‘Israel’ confiscates 475 million cubic meters, 1.e.,
80% to cover 20% of the state’s annual consumption of 1,900
million cubic meters. Meanwhile, West Bankers consume 115
million cubic meters of water annually. ‘Israel’? overpumps the
water table, exploiting it to the utmost. The Palestinians can
only tap 20 million cubic meters from the water table, with
their remaining consumption coming from wells and springs.
Of this water, 100 million cubic meters goes to irrigation and
the rest to domestic consumption. Thus, the Zionist state ac-
quires its water needs at the expense of the West Bank,
avoiding more costly solutions such as desalinization, while the
Palestinian peasant has a hard time irrigating the land he has
left; any expansion of cultivation is ruled out.
It is expected that by 1990, 30 Israeli agricultural settlements
will have 60 million cubic meters of available water, while 400
Palestinian villages will have 100 million. Annual water con-
sumption by the end of the decade will be 50 cubic meters per
Palestinian city dweller, 25 cubic meters per Palestinian
villager and 90 cubic meters per Jewish settler. (For the pur-
pose of comparison, the annual rate of water consumption in
western Europe is 83 cubic meters per person.) Approximately
one million Palestinians will be consuming 136 million cubic
meters, while 100,000 Jewish settlers will have 100 million
cubic meters at their disposal. - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 28
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