he tragedy of the Palestinians has hung like a black cloud over the Arab world for almost 65 years. It is inconceivable that a people should be corralled like animals in their own country by a dominant, nuclear-armed neighbor, backed, through thick and thin, by a superpower. Yet that is what Israelis have done to the Palestinians. Moreover, there has been systematic theft of Arab land in the Occupied Territories, as a way of imprisoning the luckless Palestinians still further.

A report just issued by Oxfam details the enormity of what the Israelis are doing. Oxfam’s findings show that illegal Israel settlement activity is emasculating the Palestinian economy. It states that restrictions on the use of land, water and movements are effectively depriving the Palestinians of some $ 1.5 billion a year.

Some half million Jews now live in over 100 different settlements built in contravention of international law on the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The continued expansion of settlement activity, says Oxfam, coupled with the tough restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, is destroying the viability of a future Palestinian state.

There have been systematic demolitions of Palestinian property and the taking over of farmland and water, all designed to favor the Israeli settlers while pauperizing the people whose rightful land this is. Illegal settlers now control 86 percent of the West Bank farmland.

The fortress like settlements and the infamous barrier that separates Palestinians from their own land have all been imposed in the name of greater security — to stop the Palestinians from fighting back for their own country. However the real agenda has long been perfectly clear, not least to its victims. By purloining water and the best land and by making normal business and social life impossible, the Israelis are laying waste to any hopes of a vibrant and self-sustaining Palestine.
Having already imprisoned the people within their own country, the Israelis are ensuring that any Palestine that eventually emerges as an independent state will, in fact, be anything but a state. It will rather be entirely dependent upon Israel for its economic survival. And whatever benefits the Israelis graciously deign to give with one hand, they can swiftly take away with the other.

In short, the Israeli plan is forever to hold the Palestinians hostage in their own country.

For those outside Palestine, the sheer enormity of this scheme is breathtaking. For the long-suffering Palestinians, it is a source of ice-cold anger, which never leaves them. Every once in a while their fury boils over. Thus this week there have been demonstrations in Ramallah, protesting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's plan to meet Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, followed by a further protest at police violence at the first demonstration. Abbas promised a full investigation into this saying his government would not permit any type of violation of freedom of expression and the right to free assembly, nor any physical abuse by officials.

This may have caused wry smiles among his audience, because these very same rights are what the Israelis are denying all Palestinians, as their parasitic settlements suck the economic lifeblood out of the country they have occupied. There was also a third demonstration, by public sector workers protesting that they had not been paid. The government replied that it simply did not have the money, but promised the wages would be paid as soon as possible. This brings the story full circle, back to the calculated economic impoverishment of their hostages by the Israelis.

Oxfam concludes its report by pointing out that the European Union is both Israel’s largest trading partner and also the biggest donor to the Palestinians. It therefore calls on Brussels to insist that Israel stop illegal settlements and ceases its destruction of what is left of the Palestinian economy. It also calls on international aid bodies to undertake development projects in the Jordan Valley in particular, for the benefit of the Palestinians, even if these have not been approved by the Israelis.
The Israeli reaction to Oxfam’s conclusions has been as predictable as it is sickening. Israel has accused the charity of putting “political above humanitarian” considerations. It also has the gall to warn that any attempt by aid agencies to act directly with the Palestinians will be “irresponsible and inflammatory” and would undermine a negotiated settlement to the conflict.