Haaretz reports:
The vehicles were seized in the same area, but police declined to say if the three men were traveling in them. Police also declined to say what the men - aged 26, 29, and 36 - were suspected of doing.
The police said the contents of the three vehicles and five houses in the nearby town of nearby Burnley were being searched as part of the operation.
They declined to disclose the contents of the vehicles.
According to Sky News, the vehicles included an old ambulance that bore an image of the Palestinian flag and signs saying "Stop Killing Children, Free Palestine" and "From Blackburn (U.K.) to Gaza."
Sky News reported that there were medical supplies and clothes on board, and that the men were apparently planning to drive to London and then on to the Gaza Strip.
So, let's see -- there were no weapons, no terrorist leaflets, just nine men who wanted to make the world a better place. But I guess if you try to deliver humanitarian supplies to the needy, you are now considered a terrorist.
Here is information on the convoy:
George Galloway MP, Yvonne Ridley and hundreds of British volunteers are driving an aid convoy of over 100 donated vehicles packed with practical aid to Gaza leaving from outside the Houses of Parliament, London on Saturday the 14th February. This remarkable convoy will be over a mile long and carry a million pounds of aid raised in just four weeks.
Volunteers will drive the donated vehicles from all over Britain to Westminster on Valentine’s Day to form the convoy which will then drive almost 5,000 miles together through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt where they will cross the border at Rafah into Gaza on the 2nd March.
The convoy includes a fire engine, 12 ambulances, a boat and trucks filled with medicines, cash, tools, clothes, blankets, and shoe-boxes filled with gifts for children. All this and more has been by donated by communities across the country.
Stephen Zunes -- Obama visits Caterpillar despite horrific human rights record:
More than 15,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories have been destroyed by Israeli occupation forces, the majority with Caterpillar bulldozers. Most of these have been for clearance operations to make way for Israeli colonists and related occupation infrastructure, not for security reasons. An estimated 50,000 Palestinians have been made homeless by Caterpillar bulldozers.
Meanwhile, more than one million olive trees -- many centuries old and in the hands of a single family for many generations -- have been destroyed, mostly with caterpillar's heavy equipment. UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler, in a letter to Caterpillar ‘s chief executive officer James Owens, argued that the Israeli occupying forces’ destruction of Palestinian agricultural resources "further limit[s] the sustainable means for the Palestinian people to enjoy physical and economic access to food" and constituted a clear violation of international law.
Caterpillar bulldozers and other equipment have been used in the construction of Israel’s separation wall in the occupied West Bank, which has been declared illegal by a near-unanimous decision (with only the U.S. judge objecting) by the International Court of Justice.
Caterpillar has not just been responsible for the destruction of Palestinian property and Israel’s illegal land grabs, however, but also for the deaths of nearly a dozen people, including an 85-year-old man, several children, and American peace activist Rachel Corrie.
Someone asked me recently why no Gandhi has risen. My answer is that when they do try to rise, they all get bulldozed to death. I suggest that for a lot of Palestinian people, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you try to resist nonviolently, you get bulldozed to death. But if you join Hamas, then you get called a terrorist because they fire rockets into Israel. Don't get me wrong -- I would hope we all condemn both Hamas' rocket fire as well as their recent brutal crackdown on dissidents. But I submit that for a lot of Palestinian people, they are caught between a rock and a hard place without any easy answers.
Unusual corroboration between American and Palestinian universities:
It would be hard to find two institutions of higher learning that seem more different than Bard College, an upscale, bucolic college in Dutchess County, N.Y., and Al Quds University, a struggling, sprawling Palestinian institution in and near this disputed capital.
Yet the two schools have decided to join forces in an unusual venture aimed at injecting American educational values and expertise into Palestinian society, in hopes of contributing to a future democratic State of Palestine. Although the effort has been many months in the planning, those involved say the recent war in Gaza and a political turn rightward in Israel make it more important and urgent.
The plan, relying largely on outside financing, includes a liberal arts honors college and a master’s degree program in teaching, both located at Al Quds and granting joint degrees, as well as a model high school to serve as an educational laboratory. The starting date for the first two is September; the high school is to open in 2010.
Nothing like this has ever been tried in Palestinian education, and controversy is expected.
From the same article, the case against boycotting Israel from a progressive perspective:
Mr. Nusseibeh, who has run Al Quds for 14 years, has created academic exchange programs with Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., as well as with George Washington University in Washington and universities in Israel, Sweden and Canada. The Bard program will offer the first joint degree.
"The radius of movement of most of our students does not exceed 40 miles," Mr. Nusseibeh said as he sat in his East Jerusalem office one recent morning. "We need to help them see the world through different eyes.
"We do a lot of projects with Israel," he continued. "I get criticism for it because many Palestinians want to boycott Israeli educational institutions. But the West Bank economy is 70 to 90 percent dependent on Israel. At least we should profit from their education. It is the one thing in my view we absolutely should not boycott."
Mr. Nusseibeh is the scion of one of the most distinguished Palestinian families, one filled with judges, scholars and politicians, and whose history in Jerusalem goes back 1,300 years. His relationship with the Israeli authorities is complex. He has been arrested more than once and spent several months in an Israeli prison. A Palestinian nationalist, he speaks Hebrew and enjoys the company of Israelis, and he called Jewish roots in Jerusalem "existential and umbilical." His has been a delicate balancing act, which has only gotten harder since the Gaza war this winter.
Hampshire College students explaining their case for divestment:
Ynet -- Shalit now part of ceasefire deal:
A deal between Hamas and Israel to release kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit is almost complete and will be part of the ceasefire agreement between the two sides, Egyptian sources told the Arab-language, London-based al-Hayat daily on Saturday.
"The deal to release kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit will be complete before Prime Minister Ehud Olmert leaves office and before a new government will be formed in Israel," the sources said.
The sources said that the release of Shalit in exchange for Palestinian prisoners will be part of a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel and, as such, Israel will not agree to the full functioning of crossings into Gaza before his release is secured.
The deal would involve the release of Palestinian prisoners as well.
Israel's ex-UN ambassador runs his mouth over Iran:
In an exclusive interview, Dan Gillerman, Israel's permanent United Nations representative from 2003 until last September, said the time for diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability might already have expired.
"The world cannot afford to live with a nuclear Iran," he said. "I hope diplomacy will work, but I'm not sure we have the time for [it] to work.
"Israel has made it very clear that it will not live with a nuclear Iran, and I believe that Israel has the ability and the capacity to make sure that it will not happen."
Mr Gillerman, who is to visit Australia this month and is one of Israel's most senior diplomatic voices, said two clocks were running with respect to Iran. "There is the technological clock of Iran, and there is the diplomatic clock, and I think the Iranian clock is running much faster.
"Israel has both the responsibility to defend itself and the capacity to defend itself, and I am sure that when the time comes and all other options have been exhausted, Israel will act in the only way it must to protect its people."
Since when did Mr. Gillerman all of a sudden presume to speak for "the world?" That is the nature of war propaganda -- it is always presented as the "only way."
Hillel Schenker -- Road to nowhere:
So where do we go from here? First of all, it's still not clear whether Netanyahu or Livni will be the next prime minister. On election eve we were all treated to the surrealistic spectacle of two victory speeches, since both leaders claimed that they were winners. I listened carefully to Netanyahu's speech, who, despite his Revisionist right-wing views, was modeling himself on Barack Obama's inclusive inaugural speech, trying to speak both for those who elected him and those who did not (despite the protests in his home audience). It's clear that he is very wary of the only glimmer of hope on the Middle Eastern horizon, the election of Obama as the 44th President of the United States, who has resolved to "aggressively pursue" Israeli-Arab peace.
Will there be Israeli and Palestinian leaderships capable of responding to such an American initiative? And if there aren't, will the international community, led by Obama, together with international civil society, be capable of finding realistic ways of facilitating the progress towards peace which is so much in the interest of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples?
Today my tendency is to say: if the Israeli people voted for the right, let Netanyahu and the far-right form the government, and then let's see if their prescriptions can offer realistic answers to the country's political and economic challenges. And meanwhile, let the left recoup, reevaluate, and prepare for the next round. The alternative option was expressed by Yoel Marcus in today's Haaretz (13.2.09), what he calls "a government of national salvation" based upon Kadima, Likud and Labor, leaving Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu Party out in the cold.
US may participate in Durban 2:
Israel is boycotting the conference because a declaration equating Zionism with racism is expected to be made there. In addition, it is expected that the organizers and participants will charge that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, and, like before in Durban, will make anti-Semitic statements.
The Bush administration agreed with Israel last year that the U.S. would not participate unless it received guarantees that the conference would not become a stage for anti-Semitism and one-sided criticism of Israel, as occured during the first Durban meeting in 2001.
Canada also announced that it was boycotting the conference and the Foreign Ministry has tried in recent months to convince European Union countries to also avoid participating.
The Foreign Ministry received confidential telegraphs from Israel's embassies in Washington, the United Nations and Geneva, about a possible change in the policy of the new U.S. administration regarding "Durban 2."
"Iran and Arab countries will once more take over the conference, and if the U.S. participates in 'Durban 2,' it will be a major blow," a senior Israeli diplomat told Haaretz. "This will pull the rug from under us and will lead to the participation of many more countries in the conference."
US pressuring Israel on Lieberman, settlements:
In Jerusalem the view is that in the absence of any progress in the Annapolis process, the partners to the U.S. in the Quartet - the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - will ask for real steps to be taken against Israel in response to the continued construction in the settlements.
Last week the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, protested officially to the Foreign Ministry over activities in Area E1 [the neighborhood to be built between Ma'aleh Adamim and Jerusalem] and plans to expand the settlement of Adam to take in those evacuated from the settlement of Migron.
Meanwhile the State Department is evaluating the implication of reports that MK Avigdor Lieberman, head of Yisrael Beiteinu, was a member of the extreme right group Kach. It appears on a State Department list of terrorist organizations.
If the Obama administration confirms the report that appeared last week in Haaretz, and which was not denied by Lieberman, the Yisrael Beiteinu leader may not be granted a visa to enter the U.S. The close cooperation between Israel and the U.S. on matters of strategy, defense, economics, commerce, tourism and transportation means that ministers charged with relevant portfolios often visit the United States.
Ouch -- this suggests that a government involving Lieberman might not last six months. Netanyahu is a pragmatist despite his right-wing ideology and has always sought to maintain good relations with the US -- since Labour is reluctant to join a coalition government, it is possible that he could try to form a Likud-Kadima-Shas coalition; that would give him a 66-vote right-center coalition to work with. That would be about the best we could hope for at this point.
Robert Fisk -- everyone equal in suffering during wartime:
I recalled this searing passage this week when I received a letter from a reader, taking me to task for my "constant downplaying of the suffering of the Palestinians on the grounds that their deaths and suffering are minimal when compared with that of the Second World War". Now, I should say at once that this is a bit unfair. I was especially taking exception to a Palestinian blog now going the rounds which shows a queue of Palestinian women at one of Israel’s outrageous roadblocks and a (slightly) cropped picture of the Auschwitz selection ramp, the same platform upon which Leon Greenman was separated from his young wife and child more than 60 years ago. The picture of the Palestinian women is based on a lie; they are not queuing to be exterminated. Racist, inhumane and, sometimes deadly – Palestinian women have died at these infernal checkpoints – but they are not queuing to be murdered.
Yet our reader does have a point. The Second World War, she says, "does put it in a category apart ... but surely if one is caught up in any war and sees one’s loved ones killed or maimed, one’s home destroyed ... then that must be the greatest cataclysm in one’s life. The fact that a hundred others, a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million are suffering likewise is immaterial to the individual’s suffering. The Second World War lasted six years. The Palestinian suffering has lasted over sixty..."
And yes, I’ll go along with this. If it’s an individual being deliberately killed, then this is no less terrible than any other individual, albeit that this second person may be one of six million others. The point, of course, is the centrality of the Holocaust and – Israel’s constant refrain – its exclusivity. Actually, the Armenian Holocaust – as I’ve said on umpteen occasions – is also central to all genocide studies. The same system of death marches, of camps, of primitive asphyxiation, even a few young German officers in Turkey watching the genocide in 1915 and then using the same methods on Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. Numbers matter.
The fact of the matter is that when someone is bulldozed to death or arrested or gunned down by Israeli soldiers, then it doesn't matter to that person what happened 60+ years ago. The only thing that matters is what is happening now. It still matters in the grand scheme of things -- antisemitism is on the rise around the world -- but it doesn't matter to that person. There is nothing exclusive about the Jewish holocaust. The Mongols killed millions of Chinese. Caesar killed millions of Gauls and sent millions more into slavery before he subdued that country. Charlemagne killed tens of thousands of pagans for not converting to Christianity. The Spanish killed millions of Native Americans.
The difference between the Jewish Holocaust and other such events is the fact that for the first time, it was extensively recorded and documented. For the first time, we had technology such as photographs and film as well as journals and personal stories. By contrast, we don't know nearly as much about what the Chinese and the Gauls and the pagans and the Native Americans went through -- history is always written by the winners. And since we won World War II and liberated the concentration camps, we were able to write the history of this conflict.
Gershom Gorenburg -- Lieberman compares self to Churchill:
Lieberman says he "identifies very deeply" with Churchill, who "stuck to his position and let nothing move him ... I like people who swim against the current." The same qualities draw him to Peter the Great. "At least 300 times" Lieberman has read Peter the First, a Soviet-era historical novel describing the 7-foot-tall autocrat who dragged Russia into modern Europe and made it a military power, and he believes himself to be a man, like Peter and Churchill, who sees grim truths and whose foresight will yet be rewarded.
Gorenburg also reviews Jimmy Carter's new book:
Jimmy Carter’s advice on answering that question is clear from his title, even if he dashed this book off before the most recent war. In fact, "We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land" is really a short op-ed article disguised as a book. The argument, which might easily have been put in 900 words, is that Obama should follow Carter’s own example, defy political calculations and throw himself into Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
The goal, Carter says, should be reaching a two-state solution, with the borders between Israel and the Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 armistice lines, along with minor territorial exchanges. Obama should get to work at the start of his term, put his own peace proposals on the table and persuade both parties to accept them. Carter implies that Obama must separate support for Israel from support for Israel’s policies. In short, he should do what Carter says he did to bring peace between Israel and Egypt.
Carter is right about supporting Israel but not necessarily supporting the government's policies. The Bush administration barely raised a murmur of protest for much of its time in office. It took the threat of Israel attacking Iran for them to finally act decisively against a possible Israeli strike. And people like Dan Gillerman are still blustering about the need for Israel to act. The real danger is that Bibi might see himself as a hero acting as though the fate of the whole world rests on his shoulders with regards to Iran. This is the sort of apocalyptic rubbish that Bush was guilty of -- he was convinced that he alone was responsible for protecting the country against another 9/11, a mission which, by Cheney's recent admission, failed. It is important for Obama to take a stand when America's and Israel's interests are different -- the main thing that Obama has going for him is that Bibi values Israel's relationship with the US and is pragmatic enough to adapt. By contrast, Bush gave Israel a blank check, nearly resulting in war with Iran at the same time that our military was tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq and putting 100,000+ of our troops in danger.
Olmert's denials comical:
There was something almost comical about outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statement on the negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit.
The announcement, which was released as a clarification in response to speculation, said that "Israel is not negotiating with Hamas and will not reach any understandings with Hamas."
So apparently there's another explanation for the frequent visits by Amos Gilad, the defense establishment's envoy, to Cairo. He just digs the pyramids.
During Olmert's three-year term, his bureau his challenged reality more than once in its announcements, with each defiance appearing to set a small, new record.
After all, Israel has been engaged, though Egyptian mediation, in talks with Hamas for the past several years. It would be extremely difficult to agree on an extended cease-fire in the Gaza Strip without reaching an understanding with Hamas.
Gideon Levy -- Israel, think again about Iran:
In a radio interview in the United States, in which we both participated, NY Times writer Roger Cohen tried to explain that the leadership in Tehran is not mad. Extreme, perhaps, but not mad. Cohen, who is not suspected of being anti-Israel, discovered in Iran a more complex, multifaceted society than is commonly thought in the U.S. or Israel. He also believes that the thought of attacking Iran is foolish.
The U.S. is not the only one on the verge of change - so is Iran. The U.S. is after elections and Iran is before them; from both, new and encouraging voices are being heard. Barack Obama has avoided issuing threats against Iran in recent statements, and Ahmadinejad responded that he proposes "holding talks on the basis of mutual respect." This is excellent news, which is more capable than any bomb of neutralizing danger.
It is now necessary to grant a genuine chance to the new winds blowing between Washington and Tehran, and avoid inflaming the situation with bellicose declarations. Israel's war drums should promptly be put away. Netanyahu and Lieberman need to forget their inflammatory rhetoric before they stir the justified ire of Washington. Perhaps diplomatic exchanges will succeed in stopping Iran from going nuclear, but even if they don't, it would be best for Israel to get used to the idea that Iran may join the club of which, according to foreign reports, Israel, India and Pakistan, among others, are members. What is even more important is for Israel to finally wean itself of the ideology that force is a solution to everything, and that it is the policeman (aka thug) of the Middle East. Hamas isn't being nice? We'll bring it down by force. Iran and Syria have reactors? We'll bomb them. Imad Mughniyeh is dangerous? We'll assassinate him.
Once in a while this can work, but it can also end in disaster - and certainly will against Iran. When one of the supporters of an Israeli military operation against Iran was asked what would happen when Tehran rebuilt its arsenal, he answered: We'll bomb them again. A bombing every four or five years? This is a dangerous policy for a country whose time has come to try and be part of its environment rather than live by its sword, its occupation and its threats. Israel does not like everything taking place in the Middle East, which does hold dangers for this country, but it can change nothing through its army. Threats must be neutralized, but not always through force. Even Iran, satanic in our eyes, would have been much less dangerous were the sting of its threat checked by peace with Syria and the Palestinians. This would ensure more security, also with Tehran, than another bombing.
Cohen, by the way, is in Iran right now. What is important is that we talk to our enemies. We conclude peace treaties with enemies, not with friends. We all condemn Iran's inflammatory rhetoric towards Israel and its antisemitism. However, we have dealt with dictators much worse -- we talked with Stalin, for instance, during World War II. And we never stopped talking with the Russians even at the height of the Cold War. And it was Nixon who helped create a new era by going to China. That move helped create contacts between the two countries that helped raise the standard of living throughout Asia one generation later. Should Obama pull this off with Iran, we could see Iran as the next place to be and the entire region, including Israel, as the world's next economic powerhouse.
And if peace and friendship is developed between the US and Iran, that could lead to Iran stopping support for Hamas and Hezbollah. That would force Hamas and Hezbollah to the negotiating table instead of the war room so that the parties could sit directly across the table.
Niin residents protest wall construction; clash with soldiers:
The demonstration started around 12.30 after a prayer at the medical clinic. At the clinic, an exhibition displayed Ni’lin’s solidarity with Gaza. The demonstrators marched towards the olive groves chanting slogans against the illegal Apartheid Wall and for Palestinian unity. The Israeli army responded to the non-violent demonstration by firing tear gas canisters at the protesters. Demonstrators scattered after the army began to use a large amount of the new ‘Saruch’ teargas , a high velocity long range black canister that cannot be seen in the air and causes serious injury upon impact. The ‘Saruch’ canister is far heavier than the regular canister and getting hit in a sensitive area such as the head can result in death.
The demonstration moved near and inside the village, where Israeli forces shot teargas and sound bombs as they repeatedly made incursions from the olive field into the village by foot. The army set up sniper positions to fire the 0.22 calibre live ammunition down the street and then attempted to arrest an international solidarity activist. A Spanish solidarity activist was hit with a teargas canister and required medical treatment. There were 18 injuries, 5 from rubber coated steel bullets and 13 from serious teargas inhalation.
Gaza population up 40% since 2007:
The survey, taken before Israel's recent offensive, showed the territory has a population of 1.4 million people.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the annual growth rate at 3.3% and said the population would double in 21 years at that rate.
The UN estimates the world's current average population growth at 1.17%.
In a statement, the West Bank-based bureau said: "Assuming a stable growth during the coming years, the Gaza Strip population will multiply [double] in 21 years."
Israel not happy with Egypt's defenses against smuggling:
After the briefing of the situation in Gaza, Minister Dichter said that "when Hamas talks about rebuilding Gaza, it talks about rebuilding its rocket alignment directed at Israel and restoring its civil infrastructure. The smuggling of weapons, including rockets, into Gaza is Gaza's Achilles heel after the IDF's successful operation.
According to Dichter, "The Egyptians' activities are too little and too low, and the proof is that rockets continue to be infiltrated from Egypt to Gaza. The government must define an appropriate, harsh and tough policy to the IDF in order to create deterrence against Hamas once and for all."
Security sources say that in spite of the rockets fired by Hamas in recent days, the organization is acting cautiously and is not expanding its activity, so as to prevent a significant Israeli response.
Max Brenner targeted for boycotts:
Palestine solidarity activists in Sydney have launched a campaign targeting Max Brenner Chocolates, a 100% Israeli-owned company belonging to the Strauss Group, as part of the growing international boycott Israel movement.
The Strauss Group is the second-largest Israeli food and beverage company.
On the "corporate responsibility" section of its website, the Strauss Group emphasises the support it gives to the Israeli killing machine. Highlighting that it wants to "sweeten their special moment" the Strauss Group touts that, for more than 30 years, it has supported the Golani reconnaissance platoon, renowned for its murderous assaults on Palestinian civilians.
During Israel’s recent massacre in Gaza, a Ha’aretz article reported that the Golani platoon operated "in the sector in which the [Israel Defence Force] has seen the toughest battles with Hamas, the eastern part of Gaza City".
According to the website of Adalah-NY, the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, Golani has also been involved in previous military operations in Gaza, in the massacres in the Jenin and Tul Karm refugee camps and the siege on Yasser Arafat’s Muqata compound in Ramallah.
Likud supporters to Livni -- Be reasonable and join a unity government:
Benjamin Netanyahu will be the State of Israel’s next prime minister. If he has no choice, he will have to form a rightist national government, and a year from now, when things relax, he will have to start evacuating outposts, thereby removing the most rightist parties from his government and replacing them with rightist elements from Kadima, which will crumble in the opposition.
Of course, it would be better to form a national unity government at this time already, yet Livni, which knows how to explain how much this nation needs and wants unity, is unwilling to act in a noble manner and admit that this national unity government is good even if she doesn’t head it.
Livni wants unity, but not that much. For her, the national interest is less important than her own interest.
Not a good way to get Kadima to join a coalition government. It could be that Bibi will form a right-wing coalition. It seems that whether he forms a unity government or a right-wing government, whatever coalition he puts together will not last long. The fact that their attacks on Kadima are now starting to get personal suggests that personality conflicts will dominate what will be a mere semblance of a coalition government should that coalition somehow come about.
More possibility that a short-lived right-wing government will form:
In the meantime, it appears that most Kadima faction members support Livni's stance that the party should not be part of a coalition led by Netanyahu.
What the potential truce deal looks like:
According to security sources, at the first stage the agreement will include the reopening of the crossings and the release of Palestinian prisoners out of a list including 350 names, which has yet to be approved by a ministerial committee dealing with the issue. The committee's discussions are expected to be sped up this week.
The National Security Cabinet will make the final decision on the issue.
At the second stage, Shalit will be transferred to Egypt, and some 550 terrorists of "medium" rank would be released as a gesture to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
At the third stage, after Shalit is returned to Israel, the crossings from Israel to Gaza will be fully opened and some 400 "light" prisoners will be freed – most of them women, elderly people and youths. In total, 1,200 to 1,400 Palestinian prisoners will be released as part of the deal.
In the midst of despair, a sign of hope in Gaza:
In southeastern Gaza’s Al Faraheen village a few residents took positive steps to counter the immoral siege on Gaza and improve life in their community.
Drawing on the knowledge of a 70 year old craftsman from nearby Khan Younis, Mohammed Abu Dagga had constructed an earthen oven operating on conventional diesel, stores of which had been br rather than the unavailable cooking gas. The mud oven, lined with the few available sturdy bricks, took one week to construct; the technique of mixing and packing a sand, straw and earth mixture meant that Israel’s ban on construction materials did not hamper this one project. Thousands of destroyed houses throughout Gaza remain rubble, reliant on Israel’s benevolence to open borders to concrete and building materials (a benevolence which has yet to materialize), items long-since on the banned list.
On the day we visited, Al Faraheen’s new communal oven had queues past the entrance. These were not the dismal lines of hopeful Gazans waiting for hours to find the last of the bread had been sold. The mood in Faraheen was jovial, an air of relief, if but for one small reason to be thankful. For the many villagers who can’t afford, or can’t find, cooking gas and who are exhausting firewood supplies (although the Israeli military’s bulldozing and tank-ravaging of olive and fruit trees provides a depressing new source of wood), one shekel can bake 10 rounds of bread. Given that Abu Dagga’s investment in the oven was $2,000 (roughly 8,000 shekels), the price is fair, and more within the reach of a largely agriculture-based community than the nearly 400 shekels a canister of cooking gas goes for.
With much of the wheat locally-ground, the bread tends to be a heartier, delectable whole wheat loaf.