Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Corporate Complicity in the Ethnic Cleansing of the Jordan Valley

THEWALLMUSTFALL | 22.04.2006 19:54 | Anti-militarism | Repression | South Coast | World

These emails are from a Brighton based activist spending April in occupied
Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement, a network of
international activists set up to support Palestinian non violent resistance
agaisnst Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. In these emails I will be
writing short accounts of aspects of the occupation and resistance.

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
BLOG AT WWW.BRIGHTONPALESTINE.ORG



Corporate Complicity in the Ethnic Cleansing of the Jordan Valley

I was convinced by a friend to take a trip to the Jordan Valley this week. This is my fourth trip to Palestine but I have never visited the region and have heard relatively little about it. This is symptomatic of the condition of the valley, it is largely forgotten by the international community and is rarely visited. This isolation serves the Israeli state’s aim of annexation and ethnic cleansing of the valley.

I travelled to the Jordan valley from Ramallah. Ramallah’s cosmopolitan atmosphere contrasts starkly to the rural isolation of the valley just 45 minutes away. The valley is impossible for most Palestinians to travel to. Only Palestinians who were born in and live in the valley have ID to travel through the checkpoint. Others must apply for a permit from the army local administration (DCO). One of my Palestinian travelling companions, a worker with a local NGO, was detained at the checkpoint at the entrance to the valley while soldiers checked her permit.

As we drove through the valley toward Al Jiftlik we saw neatly cultivated fields on either side of the road, thousands of Dunums of palm trees and commercial crops like tomatoes, peppers and herbs. Scores of greenhouses stretched along the road past the illegal settlement of Mekhora. Many of the greenhouses were neighbored by packing houses owned by Carmel Agrexco.

Carmel Agrexco (www.agrexco.com) is a 75% Israeli state owned company dealing with 70% of the exports of settler fresh produce from the West Bank. A majority of their goods come from the Jordan Valley. They are able to transport their produce from packing houses in the valley to European markets within 24 hours and have distribution depots in most countries in Europe. They distribute their produce to most major supermarket chains in the UK, but like the Jordan Valley their name is not widely known.

The price of a box of tomatoes bought from the Carmel Agrexco is the suffering of the Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley. From 1967 Israel has sought to establish settlements in the valley and deprive the Palestinians of access to the land. In 2006 6 400 settlers live in 13 illegal settlements in the valley and 52 000 Palestinians. 95% of the land is controlled by the settlers who also control 98% of the water. Palestinians live in 36 villages which are not permitted to expand. In the Israeli controlled areas the building of new structures is not permitted and repairs on existing structures are also forbidden. These building regulations are enforced by demolitions of structures which the IDF deem ‘illegal’.

Agriculture in the valley is being strangled by the expansion of settlements and by the fact that all Palestinian produce grown in the valley must go through Tayasir checkpoint to reach markets in the rest of Palestine. Farmers must pay middlemen to take their produce to the checkpoint, be subjected to humiliating searches by the IDF, transfer the goods to another vehicle on the other side of the checkpoint before driving it to the market. This whole process takes around eight hours or more and drives down profits for farmers making farming barely financially viable. The only other alternative is to work as an uncontracted, casual day labourer on one of the illegal settlements for, on average, 40-50 shekels a day on land stolen from Palestinians.

Carmel Agrexco gave disclosure in a UK court case to the effect that they have packing houses in the illegal Israeli settlements of Mekhora, Mehola, Argaman, Ro’I, Hamra, Gaddid and Bet Ha Arava in the Jordan Valley. These settlement are making a fortune out of the suffering of the local Palestinian population. An international campaign is needed to challenge Carmel Agrexco and show that the international community will not accept the ethnic cleansing of the Valley.

Sport Under Siege

While football teams in the UK are signing sponsorship deals with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism a group called Sport Under Siege (www.jalla03.org) are touring the West Bank and Gaza Strip. We met them this week in Toubas.

The local football stadium in Toubas was heaving with people come to watch the team from Italy playing the Toubas local football team. One of the most important things that internationals can achieve in occupied Palestine is to raise the spirits of the Palestinian people and this group of Italians had certainly done that.

There is currently an international boycott to isolate Apartheid Israel, however we also need to break the siege that the occupation has enforced on the Palestinian people. The chance for the local team in Toubas to play an international tem was a step in the right direction

Boycott Racist Israel


THEWALLMUSTFALL
- e-mail: THEWALLMUSTFALL@HOTMAIL.COM
- Homepage: http://WWW.BRIGHTONPALESTINE.ORG

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech