Some books I read for this project and recommend are:
"Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation" by Eyal Weizman
http://www.amazon.com/Hollow-Land-Israels-Architecture-Occupation/dp/1844678687
"If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of An Anti-Zionist Jew" by Mike Marqusee
http://www.amazon.com/If-Not-For-Myself-Anti-Zionist/dp/1844674355
"Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation" by Saree Makdisi
http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Inside-Out-Everyday-Occupation/dp/0393338444
Organizations that provide reports and useful statistics and background information include
B'tselem (an Israeli human rights organization)
http://www.btselem.org
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
http://icahd.org
Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty.org
Electronic Intifada
http://electronicintifada.net
Breaking the Silence (Israeli soldiers talk about the Occupied Territories)
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il
Friday, April 4, 2014
Plagues and Sources
Death
This statistic does not include deaths from delayed or denied medical care due to Israeli restrictions on movement.
SOURCES:
555 killed by IDF and 7 killed by Israeli civilians from 2009 - 2014
1398 killed by IDF during Operation Cast Lead Dec. 27 2008 - Jan. 18 2009
4,858 killed by IDF and 47 killed by Israeli civilians from 2000-2008
1,376 killed by IDF and 115 killed by Israeli civilians from 1987-2000
Closure
1,216 days of comprehensive closure from 2000-2012. Comprehensive closure means all travel through checkpoints is denied and permits for travel outside of Gaza or the West Bank are revoked.
SOURCES:
Destruction
28,000 Palestinian homes, businesses, and other structures have been destroyed by Israel since 1967.
SOURCES:
Olive Trees Uprooted
465,945 olive trees burned, uprooted, or bulldozed by the Israeli Defense Forces 2000-2005. Olive trees are a traditional source of livelihood for Palestinian farmers.
SOURCES:
“Olive Oil Harvest Season in Palestine” Applied Research Institute, Jerusalem, 18 September, 2006
Family Separation
Over 120,000 permits for family unification pending. Israel has a complex series of laws that prevent Palestinians who are registered as Gaza, West Bank, or Jerusalem residents from moving between these communities for visits, medical care, or to live together as a family. In addition a law prevents Palestinian-Israeli citizens from living in parts of the Occupied Territories with a Palestinian spouse and Palestinian spouses cannot live in Israel with their citizen spouses either.
SOURCES:
Detainment
6,332 Palestinians in prison at the end of January 2014.
SOURCES:
For children detained by Israel (included in the above number)
Checkpoints
355 checkpoints in February 2014. Checkpoints are placed both between Israel and the Occupied Territories and between communities within the Occupied Territories, so that Palestinians traveling between towns must pass through checkpoints even if they are not entering Israel.
SOURCES:
Settlements
237 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with a population of roughly 531,000. This includes outposts.
SOURCES:
Refugees
750,000 Palestinians were made refugees when they fled from Israeli forces in 1948. They were not allowed to return to their homes which were either razed to the ground or resettled with Jewish Israeli immigrants. Today roughly 5 million Palestinians are refugees (descendants of the original 750,000). 1.5 million live in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
SOURCES:
Hunger
80% of Gazans are dependent upon food aid from the U.N. and other organizations for daily survival. This tallies up to around 1.2 million people.
SOURCES:
U.N. Relief and Works Agency
Eser HaMakot / Ten Plagues
Moriah Ella Mason
An installation and duration performance “Eser HaMakot / Ten Plagues” is inspired by a ritual from the Passover Seder. During the ceremonial meal, Jews recount the Ten Plagues God visited upon Egypt in order to turn Pharaoh’s heart and set free the Jewish slaves. As each Plague is named, we use a finger to remove a drop of wine from our cup and place it on the edge of our plate. It’s a way of marking that our joy in freedom is diminished by the suffering of the Egyptians under the Ten Plagues.
Over the past few years I’ve been learning more about the conflict in Israel/Palestine. What I’ve discovered is a story of suffering that was hidden from me - a story that is not often told by the U.S. media and that challenges some comfortable notions I have had about my identity as an American Jew. I have grown up being encouraged to see Israel as my homeland, a homeland that a few generations before me was reclaimed and renewed. But the reclamation of this spiritual homeland was not without consequence. In this installation I seek to understand the ways in which my joy in Israel is necessarily diminished by the suffering of the Palestinian people under what I have identified as the Ten Plagues of the Occupation.
For each Plague identified I have researched a numerical estimate of the destruction. Then I have put a drop of wine on a paper plate for each number. Some of the numbers were too large, they were beyond my reach and I will be unable to complete them during this performance. In front of those Plagues you will see many empty plates waiting to be filled.
I have been asked why I have not included numbers for Israelis killed in the conflict. I decided not to do so because the intention of this project is not to compare suffering to suffering, but rather to recognize through a ritual of prayerful empathy the suffering of a group of people I have been implicitly encouraged to ignore by the absence of reporting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)