Upcoming Disengagement, Ongoing Occupation

With much of the World’s attention focused on the Gaza Strip and the impending Israeli disengagement, slated to begin Monday, Israel is quietly continuing its occupation of the West Bank.

Most of our partners, while not unhappy to see the settlers go, question how “disengaged” Israel can really be when they will continue to control all of their borders, land and sea, and even the airspace around Gaza. Most also fear that the disengagement from Gaza will be at the expense of the West Bank.

While the mainstream media here in the States has focused its coverage on the official Israeli line on disengagement from the Gaza Strip, coverage of Israeli political intrigue and personal interviews with “uprooted” settlers, they’re still missing the story of Israel’s continued confiscation of Palestinian land, uprooting of trees to make way for Israel’s Separation Wall, demolishing of Palestinian homes, and expansion of Jewish-only settlements around Jerusalem, effectively cutting off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

Here are a few links that we hope will help provide a little more of the big picture of this moment in Palestinian and Israeli history.

Many of our Palestinian partner organizations are members of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organization Network (PNGO) which released this statement about the disengagement in late June.

Here are two articles from Palestinemonitor.org:

Israeli Wall Continues to Devastate East Jerusalem Communities

Creative Resistance Against the Wall in Bil’in

Finally, August’s Washington Wednesday Action Alert from the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation:

TAKE ACTION: No Aid for Israel’s Gaza “Disengagement”

Israeli officials announced in July that they will ask the United States to pay $2.2 billion for this disengagement. Contact your Members of Congress and the Administration and tell them to oppose Israel’s aid request.