Draft 1

Kevin Appiah-Kubi

4/14/14

Draft

Writing 201

“We Know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.-Nelson Mandela. In its very Long and storied history the two states of Israel and Palestine have been at a standstill with bloody and violent conflicts that have spanned more than several decades. The Jewish states of Israel in its history have had its clashes with the Palestinian people since Israel was established in 1948 which has resulted in three Arab-Israeli wars. The first Arab-Israeli war which had spanned from 1948 to 1949 involved the Arab league (Syria, Egypt Jordan and the Holy War Army) and Israel. The end result was a split between the established state of Israel and Palestine with more than 700,000 Palestinians being displaced from their own land. The six day war in 1967 between the Arabs and Israelis was a fierce war that had involved Syria, Egypt and Jordan that had decided the current borders of today’s Israel and Palestine with Israel benefiting from the war the most and controlling Palestine’s current territory in the Gaza strip. They had also taken control of access to the West Bank which was to be believed to be the holy land that god had promised them in the Holy Bible as well as the holy city of Jerusalem. The Israeli leader at the time Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had tried to settle for a peace treaty between the two countries multiple times during the 90’s but both sides could not come to an agreement between one state and two state solutions. Today the current situation between Israelis and the Palestinians is one of the most heated debate topics across the world with many critics of the Israeli regime and accounts of their human rights violations against the people of Palestine. The history of deaths and abuse have piled up more on the Israeli side with their military killing many Palestinian civilians through air raids and bombing Palestinian villages in the Gaza strip. The Palestinian opposition does not go blameless as well as they have killed a number of Israeli civilians and their current leading party, Hamas, is labeled as a terrorist group by the U.N. because of their attacks on Israeli citizens. The current Prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the leader of Hamas, the ruling political party in Palestine, Khaled Mashal has both tried to go about peace talks both still today have not come about in settling for a one or two state solution.

The Current situation occurring in Palestine is the food crisis there. Palestine’s food crisis is a unique situation because there is enough food for everyone there to eat. Compared to other refugee situations like in Sudan where food packages are airdropped to the villages constantly on account of rebels stealing the food supply or like Syria where the situation is just too dangerous to provide for some refugees and starvation is a huge possibility for them. Many Palestinian farmers have land near the border and grow crops as a source of food for their families but are sometimes warded away by the Israeli military force or shot at. Journalist Eva Bartlett had held an event here at UB showing the atrocities of what Palestinian civilians had to go through where a father was killed trying to tend to his farm near the Israeli border and was sadly shot and killed without a way to provide for his family. She also gave account on how the Israeli military had used military bulldozers to destroy their farms. Without these farms, the price of food available exponentially increases and the average household spends over half of their income on food. The Israeli government has also put bans on fishing which greatly effect Palestinian fishermen and the food crisis there leaving many men, women and children hungry. The Israeli military also performs airstrikes on chicken farms in the Gaza strip and west bank taking away some civilians only source of food. Many civilians in the west bank and Gaza live in very poor to inhumane living conditions.  Many homes are submerged in sewage due to lack of proper piping and no electricity available. Because of the poor sewage systems they are also cut off access to fresh clean water since the sewage contaminates their only water source. The Israeli military has performed horrible acts against humanity on the Palestinian people but has gone on deaf ears in the U.N. and are not held responsible for their actions. Israel has violated 45 United Nations resolutions and yet has had no sanctions or punishments put against them while they encroach the Gaza strip and west bank with their settlements which is also another violation of their U.N. agreement to stay off of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli government is smothering the people

Palestine is unique from other because it’s not food deprived because of their area or because of poverty, they are impoverished and starving because of the Israeli military cutting all access to food and aid and clean water. There are huge disparities between the Israelis and the Palestinians in how they live. On the other side in Israel many people live in luxury and food security and access to free clean water while the Palestinians starve for their lives. Organizations like the PARC, the Palestinian agricultural relief committee try to ease the burden of hunger by providing Palestinian refugees’ fruit and vegetable plants and teaching women how to use land between buildings and rooftops in order to grow their food for their family and providing greater food security for Palestinians. In Gaza, Palestinians have a harder time trying to grow food in their own backyards because they are sharply watched by the Israeli government and are restricted on their movement and access to goods and food so growing is near impossible for some.

Overall the food crisis in Palestine can simply be avoided if the Israeli government simply negotiated with the Palestinians and release the sanctions on the water allowing refugees to fish. Humanitarian aid is not needed to help the Palestinians from an artificial crisis created by the Israeli government. When military bulldozers destroy many of the agriculture of these refugees the money American citizens give to Israel goes to these senseless and cruel acts. The international community has donated about 7.2 billion dollars between 2000 and 2009 in humanitarian aid and it does not make up to permanently resolve this issue through the political process. The United States government gives the most aid to this country with over 1 billion given to Israel every year when the money is being wasted on military bulldozers and weapons that constantly attack the livelihood and the food sources of many Palestinians. Donations still do very little because of the restriction of moving goods through the Gaza strip and west bank. This situation can get better if the government of Israel stop with petty politics and do something that helps these people.